#The game was originally going to be updated but I'm no longer friends with the coder and writer. I figured I'd share some small snippets of

[helltrskelter]

Art and character designs I made for a now discontinued 48 hour game jam visual novel last year.

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[barnesafterglow]

the art of missing someone

summary: bucky barnes was a lot, but he would always be yours

pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k

warnings: brief college then modern au, little bit of angst, don't ask if this is based off personal experience i will cry, smut (MINORS DNI!) [unprotected sex, oral (f receiving)], confessions, idk man i'm just here

a/n: first fic of 2025!! this was a bitch and i still lowkey hate it but it is what it is

main masterlist - i no longer have a taglist but you can follow @theafterglowlibrary for updates!

The thing about Bucky Barnes was, well, he’s kind of an asshole.

In a funny way, really, but an asshole through and through and, for some reason, that did it for you.

It did it for you so much, in fact, that you had been going in circles with him for years now. You met him originally at a party in college; you didn’t know anyone except for your roommate, Natasha, and she introduced you. You immediately gravitated towards him, with his quick wit and sharp opinions, you felt like you could talk to him about anything. He kept close to you the entire night, getting more touchy as the evening dragged on, until the tipping point came.

You were finishing up a game of beer pong where you and Bucky absolutely dominated, and as you sank the last cup, he picked you up, swinging you around before setting you back on your feet. The thing is, he didn’t really let you go. You stood there, in the middle of a crowded party, with his arms around you and it was like everyone else disappeared.

Searching your eyes for permission, he bent his head down and his lips met yours and that was really the beginning of it all. It was unlike any kiss you had ever had, sweet but a little desperate and you craved more.

It became a thing, after that. You would see Bucky at a party, make nice for a few hours, then end up in a closet or empty bedroom making out until someone came to find you.

But more than that, Bucky became your friend. He was who you talked to in your darkest moments, who you sent stupid videos to, everything, and you liked it like that.

That is, until everything got turned on its head.

It happened right after graduation. You had just moved into your own apartment and were waiting for Bucky to come over for movie night. You hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, the communication very much lacking, but you figured it was just a busy time for both of you and once you got settled, everything would be fine.

That is, until you got a phone call as you closed the microwave door and started the popcorn. Immediately seeing Bucky’s name, you wiped your hands and answered.

“Hey, you almost here?”

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then a sigh.

“I- I don’t know how to say this,” Bucky started, and you found yourself growing nervous. There was nothing you and Bucky couldn’t talk about. Well, almost nothing. “Me and Dot, well, we’ve been talking and…”

His voice trailed off, the line going quiet again. But you were going to make him say it.

“We’re getting back together. She really wants to make it work this time.”

And there it was. Dot was Bucky’s on again-off again for the last several years, stretching back to before you even knew him, and it was a sore spot in your friendship. They had mostly been “off” in the time you’d known him, save for a few memorable occasions where she wormed her way back into his life for a couple weeks just to break his heart all over again. It was safe to say she was not your favorite person, and you certainly weren’t hers.

“Bucky…” you started, but he cut you off.

“No, I know what you’re thinking.” He actually probably had no clue how evil the thoughts you had were, but you weren’t going to enlighten him. “But it’s serious this time, we’ve been talking since graduation and we’re both ready to give this a real shot, without all the bullshit.”

He sounded so sincere, and he was your best friend, so you took a deep breath and sighed, accepting the fact that if you wanted Bucky in your life, this was just something you would have to deal with.

You could hear his relieved laugh on the other end, and you felt your stomach give an odd lurch, like someone had pulled a carpet out from under you.

“I knew you would understand, thank you.”

“Of course, Buck. Now, what about movie night?”

Another beat of silence, then, just like you knew it would happen:

“I can’t, Dot is coming over.”

You wanted to argue, to scream, to make him feel bad about choosing her over you, but hadn’t he already? So instead, you mumbled a quiet agreement and hung up, not wanting to talk to him any longer. Already, it felt like the beginning of the end.

And you weren’t sure you were ready for that.

-

It didn’t even happen slowly, is the worst part. You didn’t see Bucky that night, or any night for the weeks that followed. It wasn’t until you saw him at the coffee shop by your apartment that you were able to talk to him.

You sat down at his table, no longer interested in placid excuses and apologies, and asked him point blank what was going on.

“I’m just trying to keep Dot happy.”

“By staying away from me?” You were frustrated, sure, but under that really you were just hurt. “Listen, you know I don’t like her, but I would never ask you to choose between us. That’s not fair and if she cared about you like she said she does, then she wouldn’t either.”

“It’s not like that!” His voice was raising, just a little, so you knew he was just being defensive. He must have heard it too because he cleared his throat, voicing going back to normal. “I just don’t want to cause any problems.”

You nodded, grabbing your coffee as you stood up, and headed for the door. If he was willing to let your friendship go, then you weren’t going to fight him on it. So you left, face heated with embarrassment and tears threatening to spill over.

As you passed the threshold to the coffee shop back onto the sidewalk, you pulled your headphones on, ignoring the bustle of the city and Bucky still watching you leave through the window.

-

Adjusting to a life without Bucky was weird, you had to admit, but you did it anyway. The first few weeks were the hardest, when he was the first person you wanted to text during any occasion, but eventually that muscle memory faded until you were reaching out to the people who actually valued you in their life. 

Almost a year passed, and you moved on in all the ways you could. You heard Bucky moved back across the river to Brooklyn and that was about all you knew; your friends avoided the mention of even his name if they could help it, even though you knew at the very least Steve and Natasha still talked to him.

You just hoped he was happy, no matter what he was doing.

It was a cold January night when the notification came through. Wanda had recently convinced you to get on a dating app, even though you were perfectly content being single, thank you, but you had to admit the attention didn’t hurt.

You weren’t expecting much when your phone chimed and you unlocked it without even looking at the notification. Which is how you came face to face with Bucky’s Hinge profile, and a message attached to a picture of you that you knew he had taken saying: hey, you look familiar.

Was that really how he was going to make amends, on a dating app?

You supposed it was kind of funny, in that asshole way of his, and you stared at the message for another moment before responding.

oh, i know you?

if you want to

And, well, that was the thing. You did want to. No matter what he did, no matter how much he hurt you, he was still your best friend. Your Bucky.

Instead of answering, you pulled up a contact you hadn’t opened in months and pressed call. It rang one time before a familiar voice flooded the other end.

“Hey, stranger.”

“Hey, Buck.”

It was a healthy conversation, if you were being honest. Bucky apologized, told you he and Dot were done for good this time and, against your better judgment, you accepted it. You talked for hours after that, catching up on life and reminiscing on old memories, until you checked the time.

“Shit, it’s late,” you said as you put the phone back to your ear. “Almost midnight.”

And then, the words you dreaded but wanted desperately.

“Come over.”

“To Brooklyn? Buck I can’t take the subway this late.”

“I’ll pay for your Uber. Just come over.” You could hear the words he wanted to say, the ones on the tip of his tongue that he just wouldn’t force out.

“Well, I did miss you.” You tried to press it, to make him say it, but he only hummed on the other end.

“So is that a yes?”

You looked down at yourself, cozied up in sweatpants and a hoodie that you were almost entirely sure was Bucky’s, and sighed.

“Yes.”

“Perfect, your Uber will be there in 8 minutes.”

You didn’t have time to wonder how he got your new address - probably one of your mutual friends, maybe he had been keeping more tabs on you than you had on him - and shot up from the couch. With no time to change, you headed to the bathroom and brushed your teeth before taming your hair in the best way you could. As you were stuffing some clothes in an overnight bag - just in case, you told yourself - your phone chimed with a text from Bucky that your Uber had arrived. 

In a whirlwind, you rushed to the car where the driver seemed very put off at having to wait a whole 90 seconds for you to walk four flights of stairs, and slid in.

The whole ride there you were nervous. The thing with Bucky was, despite many drunken hookups, you’d never actually had sex. You weren’t really sure why, just that it had never happened and you had been grateful for it in the long run. You weren’t even sure if it would happen tonight, if he still wanted you like that. Even with all your talking and catching up, you hadn’t been brave enough to ask what this meant.

At nearly 1am, your Uber pulled up outside a beautiful Brooklyn brownstone and, there on the front porch, stood Bucky.

He wrapped you in his arms as he stood in front of you, and it all felt so heartbreakingly familiar you gave in immediately, all the tension leaking from your body at the feeling Bucky gave you. 

“Hey,” he said softly into your hair. “Come on in.”

Bucky’s house was so far from his old college apartment it was frightening, yet it couldn’t have felt more like Bucky. More like home. 

You took in your surroundings, shelves of books and vintage furniture and warm tones, it was almost like stepping back into your own place, the aesthetics were so similar. That was the funny feeling in your chest, you were sure.

Eventually, you ended up on Bucky’s couch with some superhero movie on, not really watching it but still grateful for its background noise to fill the room with each lull in the conversation. Not that there were many, one thing that came easy with Bucky had always been talking - although neither of you did much of that when it really mattered; you figured you could put that out of your mind for now. 

Over the course of the movie, you and Bucky shifted closer together until your thighs were pressed flush and you could feel the air from each of his exaggerated hand movements. It wasn’t until a wayward wave nearly grazed your nose that you truly realized how close you had become, and the sight of Bucky’s eyes shifting subtly to your lips has your self restraint at an all time low.

Fuck it, you thought. You had wanted this for so long, but you also knew you could live without Bucky if everything went tits up. It was a sad thought, that, but you couldn’t let this opportunity go. With every bit of courage you had, you let your hand float up to cup Bucky’s cheek, eyes searching for any sort of hesitation. When you found none, you leaned forward to close the admittedly small gap between your lips.

It was electric. Never had a kiss from someone else ever lit a fire inside you the way one from Bucky did. It started off slow, searching, a chance to reacquaint yourselves. But the second Bucky’s hand reached to tangle in your hair, everything shifted. 

Suddenly you were pulled in Bucky’s lap, legs straddling his, lips desperate for a taste of what you’d missed for so long. It was everything you hadn’t let yourself wish for, and you had a feeling you weren’t going to be missing it again anytime soon.

It wasn’t until your shirts were on the floor and Bucky was making quick work of your clasped bra that you thought maybe it would be smart to just slow down. Just for a second, just to get your bearings. 

An honest to god whine fell from his lips as you pulled back, stopping his hands from undressing you any further. 

“Buck,” you whispered, forehead pressed to his, hands cupping his face as if he was something precious. Though you supposed he was, to you at least. “What’s going on?”

“I just…” His voice trailed off, obviously unsure of himself even though this at least was familiar territory. What was to come next, however, was not. “I can’t go another day without making you mine.”

Your core tightened at the words, vivid memories of what Bucky’s hands and mouth could do; fantasies of what else he could do invaded as well as suddenly talking didn’t seem like a priority anymore. 

“Take me to bed.” And that was all he needed. 

Bucky scooped you up bridal style, carrying you across the threshold of his bedroom and laying you gently on his bed. Your eyes darted around, wanting more of snippets of the life Bucky had built here, but you were quickly distracted by his body covering yours, the weight of him pressed between your thighs was comforting and intoxicating. 

Bucky’s touch proved even more distracting as he shed you of your bra, mouth immediately latching to one nipple, the little nips and sucks enough to drive you crazy on their own, while his hands pinched at the other. He continued his assault until you were dizzy with want, then he trailed down your body with his mouth, not leaving an inch of skin undiscovered until he reached the waistband of your sweatpants.

He pulled them down just an inch, then his eyes shot up to meet yours at the discovery. 

“No underwear?” His voice was deep, husky, almost fucked out if you really thought about it. It was a thrill that your hold on him was so tight that just the thought of you without underwear was enough to leave him reeling just a little bit. 

You batted your eyes innocently. “Someone didn’t give me much warning about my Uber, I apologize.”

The giggle in your voice suggested the insincerity of your apology, but it didn’t deter Bucky as he pulled your pants from your body, mouth and hands still exploring. 

His fingers traced unknown patterns along your inner thighs, gently pushing them apart until you were fully exposed to him. You felt nervous all of a sudden, like you had never been in this position before. You had, of course, but never sober, and never with Bucky looking at you so attentively - like he was going to eat you alive. 

It was intense, having Bucky’s eyes bore into you as he lowered his mouth to your core, starting with gentle kitten licks until your hips were bucking, searching for more friction. One of his hands pinned your hips to the bed, while the other slipped through your folds, spreading spit and slick, before he slipped one inside of you. Then two, then three, until you were begging for release.

All it took was a soft whisper of come on, baby and a crook of Bucky’s fingers and you were falling apart, the intensity of your orgasm whipping through you, and as you floated back down to your senses, Bucky was still going. 

It was feverish, like he couldn’t get enough of your pleasure, and each twitch and moan encouraged him until your hands tangled in his hair, pulling him away from your spent body.

He let out a protest, but you silenced it by pressing your lips to his, moaning at the taste of yourself as his tongue pressed into your mouth. You were lost in the sensation, letting yourself be manhandled until you were once again in Bucky’s lap. Sometime while you had been transported to another planet, his pants had been shed and you were oh so close to getting everything you ever wanted. 

With your mouth still pressed to his, you rolled your hips, feeling the weight of him sliding along you. You kept at it, teasing and grinding until he thrust his hips and there it was; one slight adjustment and the feeling of Bucky stretching you out to was more overwhelming than you could have imagined.

Your hips stilled, as did Bucky’s, letting you adjust to him until you pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, your way of telling him that you were okay, that he could move.

His thrusts started slowly, letting you feel every inch of him until you were begging for more. When his hands stopped roaming to grip your hips tightly, you knew you were done for.

Bucky held you in place, his hips snapping up to fuck into you and all you could do was hold on for the ride. 

You were so overwhelmed you almost missed Bucky’s words, mixed in with his moans, but once you caught them, they were as clear as day:

I missed you.

Over and over, Bucky was repeating the words, interspersed with groans and heavy panting, but your heart restricted regardless 

He missed you. Bucky missed you.

With your thoughts such a jumbled mess, reveling in the fact that this was really happening, your orgasm snuck up on you. One second you were floating on the high of Bucky and the next you were crashing, falling, and he was right there to catch you as you came down.

His hips slowed, stuttering as he spilled into you with one final thrust.

For a moment, the world around you didn’t exist. All there was was this moment, with Bucky’s arms around you and your head buried in his shoulder. Everything came back at once: your harsh breaths, the noise of the TV far away in the living room, and Bucky’s hushed whispers as he held you.

“I missed you so much.” You didn’t respond for a moment, but you lifted your head to meet Bucky’s eyes. In them lay the sincerity of his words, vulnerable now that they weren’t being said in the heat of the moment.

“I missed you too, Buck.”

[yvesdot]

How To Get Roughly 50 Notes On An Original Writing Post And Possibly Net A Single Reader

I had someone ask today how I get people to click through and read my writing, and I'm realizing that I've never actually made a post all in one place of everything I do to get a new piece of short fiction off the ground... so here you go! How to get (some) eyes on your work, even if it is not published anywhere of interest and you don't have a marketing team behind you.

The #1 thing is presentation. You want to get people's attention, and once you have it, convince them to keep paying attention. Fortunately, people tend to be both reasonable and predictable, which means all you have to do is follow The Formula.

(original post link)

Here's the formula from the above post broken down:

[giant horizontal title card, preferably animated to catch the eye] OR [a few tasteful parallels, if you're good at parallel posts]

TITLE (linked to where you can read the piece) / wordcount

a quote that is representative of the tone, themes, prose style, and/or the "promise of the premise"

A longer pitch, featuring the overall subject of the piece (transsexual reality TV drama), any comp titles (Detransition, Baby), the main draw (in this case, watching trans people be awful to clueless cis people), major themes (performance), and any other promises you'd like to make (food romance and tigers). You can see that the quote I chose delivers on the promise of trans people intellectually outperforming cis people-- if I were a reader, I would be more likely to trust that the rest of the pitch was accurate based on that assurance.

If you have any positive reviews on your piece, say so. If it has won any awards or contests, say so. If your work has made people cry, Doja Cat - Say So. Always. Generally speaking, more personal and more detailed is better, but keep it to one or two people-- e.g. "when I gave this to my S/O to read he shot milk out of his nose so far I had to go clean under the couch" or "my favorite review of this piece is the reader who said they read it chapter-by-chapter under their covers because they wanted it all to themself." This should be one sentence.

Depending on where the story is published, what you usually promote, etc., it may be worthwhile saying the story is free. Use your judgment on whether the reader can tell.

I also like putting my links at the bottom so someone seeing this on a friend's dash can easily track me around the 'Net. They make me look more professional (I now include a link to my website) and they visually balance the post, in my opinion. This post also happened to have some additional links for bonus content.

This is not as high stakes as it seems. I'm not 100% happy with the pitch here, and I'm not 100% happy with the graphics I've used in other cases. These are some bones that help to sell the piece even when the details aren't as sharp.

REBLOGGING

When is the last time you read something the first time you saw it on your dash? I schedule reblogs of all important posts at least twice over the next 2-3 days, often three times so I can get the morning/afternoon/evening reblog. If your followers tend to be more active at certain times, go ahead and use those. In the past I've intentionally scheduled posts for times I knew more popular mutuals were active, and it has paid off!

I also schedule a reblog for a week and a month and sometimes even a full calendar year out, because I know there is going to be that person who tags the piece '#to read' and instantly forgets about it, only to get excited when they see it weeks later. I am very often that reader. The goal is to catch people when they're ready to read immediately, and this is a game of chance.

Every so often, I go through my entire #writing or #important writing updates or even just #popular tag(s) and queue two dozen posts before shuffling my queue to redistribute matters. This keeps my older work circulating, ensuring new readers get a chance to see older pieces and giving those older pieces another shot at dashboard space. (More on #popular later.) This sounds like a lot, which is why you have to space everything pretty far apart. Fortunately, this is the world's best site for cool things to reblog. I guarantee you that you can find something new you love to post in the meanwhile.

COPING WITH FAME

The post above is what I, a published author, consider "doing well" for a post about my writing on Tumblr. As of October 10th, 2024, over two years after its initial posting and over five years into my posting doggedly about my original fiction, it has 77 notes. More than half (43) are likes. Around half of the reblogs are me promoting my own work or the same very sweet person dutifully reblogging me every time I do so. Glancing through the reblogs now, I know of four people whom I can confirm have read it. Presumably, there are more who are completely silent and have never interacted with the post whatsoever. Genuinely: wahoo!! I am so grateful and happy for the attention and reception of my work.

This is the number one thing I suggest: focus on what you have, and not what you lack. Imagine your post from the perspective of an outsider: even one reblog means you convinced that one person to spread your art! How cool is that! This is also good advice because moping is simply not helpful; it will not get you more reads. (And no, neither will guilting others. Kill that vent post in your head!)

GETTING FOLLOWERS

I don't have that many followers. Of the followers I do have, people are very unpredictably active. When I hear about other people's follower counts I am consistently surprised, because people with half of mine will have fans and haters the likes of which I could not possibly dream of. I follow 500-follower folk who post "I ate a strawberry today" and get 6 asks ranging from "Wow I respect you so much for eating that strawberry" to "I'm going to come to your address at [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED] and shove bananas down your throat for hating on my favorite fruit."

I point this out to establish three important things. 1) Be grateful for what you have (in my case, 0 anonymous hate asks about fruitpinions), 2) followers have far less impact on interaction than one might think, and 3) followers don't engage with the things you might like them to.

Think about yourself. Are you more likely to reblog a photo of a cat in a pumpkin (alright, here) or something advertising fifteen minutes' worth of writing, which could be, for all you know, bad? Or, for that matter, by a person you should not like to support? Reblogs on generically interesting things are 'safer' (unfortunately) than reblogs on art, and it makes perfect sense that people are skittish around the latter. People don't often reblog things they haven't read, and nobody can reblog every artpost on their dash. Having someone else put it there, however, is incredibly powerful—someone's vetted this post as Worth a Reblog, after all. Having more followers allows for much more of this.

(Followers don't guarantee any one sort of interaction, but having more of them is rarely bad. Rarely.)

Across my most popular posts, one theme becomes very obvious: people like things that apply to them or their blog. I try to post writing advice/opinions/memes every so often, because I know I have a loyal base of writerfolk who like to see that from me, and it's "easier" to reblog than my writing. This is simply the nature of the universe. I used to pretty frequently go into the #writeblr tag and check out what was recently popular so I could figure out how to serve the same base, and from time to time it worked.

You're welcome to examine the list of #writing posts that made it to 100 notes, because each tends to have a notable reason behind its success: a reblog with an exceptionally good review, a contest win, a wordcount that lends itself to pasting the whole thing in one go.

(Posts about my book's release are a notable exception, in part due to Blaze and in part due to my absolutely relentless flogging of their reblog buttons during the ~year of promotion. Also in large part to a dedicated circle of friends who passed the post around nonstop! Thank you so much!!)

A lot of people will tell you to attempt covert reciprocal promotion. You know—reblog a lot of stuff, in the hopes that people will reblog yours. If I could change one thing on Tumblr, it would be this: the culture that quietly encourages disingenously interacting with other people with a secret True Goal in mind. (On the autism website.)

Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not do this. If you comment on other people's work, do it because you're happy to do so. When I released Paper Tigress, I went through everybody else who responded to the same prompt and read their work, because I had the day off and I was curious. This has led to Paper Tigress having more comments on Reedsy than one of my contest winners, and even outranking the shortlisted story in the same prompt category. However, this would have been a waste of my time if I did not genuinely enjoy reading the other stories. I read 80+ stories, taking several hours, and gained 30 comments from the venture (half my comments are my responses).

Crucially, I do not promote other writers' work on Tumblr in the hopes of them reading or boosting mine. This is the #1 tip I see thrown around that I viscerally disagree with. While, again, I am grateful for engagement with my work regardless of the context, I do not want people suffering through my work in the hopes that I will promote them. I work a full-time job, and my reading calendar is perpetually overbooked, including with work by my absolute best of friends. Even if it wasn't, I think it would be quite insulting if I were posting works in the hopes that someone would choke it down like medicine. I post what I think is good so that people can read and enjoy it. If you are not enjoying it, I do not want you to feel as though you have to read it. My aim is to give to others what my favorite authors have given me, which is most certainly not A Bad Time Spent Being Dishonest In The Hopes Of Getting Something Back. You have better things to do with your time. Please be honest.

CONCLUSION

Realistically, the readers I have, I gained through being a published author for five years promoting my behind off on Tumblr, the least forgiving social media for promotion. People like it when you have a book they can buy, especially if it has Goodreads reviews that make it look like you have been vetted for them. Many people who follow me have read only Something's Not Right and nothing else. (Many people who follow me have read everything but Something's Not Right.) I have posted dozens of pieces on Tumblr and Wattpad (and AO3). I gained a small number of readers writing and posting fanfiction for the Locked Tomb Tri(?)logy, even though I marketed it absolutely terribly.

Just keep writing. Keep writing, keep posting, and keep making sure everyone who follows you knows you write. And keep writing because you want to. There's no better advice than that.

[arcadia-of-pluto]

Twist of Fate; Chapter One

Pairings; Rafayel x reader, Xavier x reader, Zayne x reader, Sylus x reader (Love and Deepspace)

Word count; 4,495 (sorry it's so short, I'll try to post three chapters today)

Themes; isekai, eventual smut

Rated; 18+ for swearing and some mature themes

Notes; To make things easier to read, I'm going to use emojis for who is texting.

Y/n 🩷

Rafayel 💜

Zayne 💙

Xavier 💛

Sylus ❤️

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting to tumblr so please be gentle with me! If you like this, then let me know! It would be greatly appreciated. My upload schedule will be every weekend (so either fri, sat, or sun!) Also, if the story seems similar, it's going to be verbatim with the story, just with my own embellishments to it. Without further adieu, I hope you enjoy this first chapter.

Prev || Next

Masterlist

A bright light shines within the dark room. There you lay in bed, playing a game on your phone late at night before bed. The soft background music coming from your speaker as the game loads up. You press ‘enter game’ as images of three men make their way across your screen, each one holding a special place in your heart.

Who says you need a real man? Fictional men are where it's at. They can't cheat on you, can't leave you, can't lie to you. It's a lot better than having to stress over a real person and worry if they'll leave you the next day or not. You know from experience, having two boyfriends in the past and neither lasting longer than six months- both breaking off the relationship before an anniversary. Screw men– well, besides the three on your screen right now. They were fine. Oh, and the fourth one being added a month from now.

The game loads in and you get a greeting from one of the men on screen. They take turns showing up in the Destiny Café, each able to say hello every time you log in. It was always sweet to see what they'd say, how they'd react, or any new text messages you'd get from them. You could even change their phone nicknames! You had Xavier, the sweet tired and aloof silvery blonde haired man, saved as Princess since you thought it would be cute. He'd definitely be embarrassed if you called him that. Zayne, the seemingly cold childhood friend and doctor, was saved under Snow Angel; you honestly didn't know what to have his name as that but it would just be amusing to see his reaction to it. Then there's Rafayel, the purple haired sassy and charming painter, who was saved as Nemo- again, very original. But Nemo works nonetheless. As you smile and send your daily stickers to each man to see their reaction, you get a new notification at the top of your screen.

“A new message?” You murmur, noticing that it's contact is unknown. The message was coming from the game. “It must be some new event. Weird…I wonder why there wasn't an update for it?” You back out of your message with Rafayel and click on the new message from the unknown sender.

:’Will you enter the game?’

“That's it?” Your brows furrow and you sit up in your bed, your phone lying in your lap as you scratch your head. “Wait..” You click on the message to reply and your keyboard pops up. “That's…” Usually, to reply in game, you get a choice between a few predetermined answers but for this…You just get to answer how you want to?

’What do you mean?’ You text back before reaching over to put your glasses on. Maybe you should've gone to bed earlier, it kind of feels like you're hallucinating.

You hear the chime of another message rolling in, and you look back down at your phone.

:’Yes or no? Hurry and pick one.’

This time the keyboard doesn't pop up, you only get three options.

ロ Yes

ロ No

And…

ロ Why?

You don't even think twice before pressing why, and the answer comes back quicker than you expect.

:’Please take care of them for me.’

You let out a scoff before running a hand through your hair. This must be some sort of elaborate prank. There's no way this is a part of the game, and even if it were there'd be no explanation for it. Is this the dev's way of getting back at you for sending so many support requests? Before you can think much about it, suddenly you feel more sleepy than before. Your eyes tiredly blink as you try to grab your phone to at least plug it up and get off of the game before you fall asleep, but instead you're lulled to sleep by the soft, melodic tune of Love and Deepspace.

Then a light so bright that it burns your eyes even though they're closed appears. It's hard to even force your eyes open, but when you do, you notice it's a big, deep crimson eye. Similar to the one you'd see in game. Your blood runs cold as you try to look around this unfamiliar area, but all you see is darkness. A dream? Yeah..this must be a dream. Although you've never been able to actively move in a dream before, there's a first for everything!

Right when you finally calm yourself down, you hear it. A loud explosion, the feeling of embers licking at your skin. Your ears are ringing, and you feel a sharp pain on the right side of your face. The darkness fades, and you're left with the blinding light of the sun against your back and your body lying on a pavement. Just lifting your head up to look at your surroundings feels like an extreme workout, everything about your body feels heavy. Sluggish. Though your left eye widens as you realize you're laying in front of a burning building. Something shining in the sunlight catches your eye, and once you grab the object, you find it harder to breathe. It was a dog tag with a charm on it. An apple charm with a star design in the center, and in the center of that was a ruby gemstone. The words ‘When U come back’ were written in cursive on the dog tag.

“No way..” you manage to croak out, the necklace clutched in your hand as you try to push yourself up, but the pounding in your head and the pain coming from your eye are no match, and you end up laying face down on the pavement in front of the burning home until you pass out from the pain.

Being passed out had its perks. You finally had a chance to think and put together a few puzzle pieces before you woke up. So if memory serves, what just happened was your- no, the main character's childhood home just blew up right after her best friend and basically brother Caleb stepped inside and her grandma, who adopted them both, was inside as well. They both died, and supposedly a mafia-like group called Onychinus was behind it because they were tying up loose ends as Grandma was a former researcher and scientist, experimenting on children and modifying them with aether cores. But the main character wasn't badly injured after the explosion, which never made sense honestly. You're that close to a building exploding, and you only get off with trauma and minor scrapes? That doesn't seem right…and honestly, the pain made it feel all the more real. If you were in a dream, that pain most likely would've woken you up.

So coming to terms that you're inside of the game was a bit easier that way. Though the bigger problem lies with your evol. You wouldn't even know the first step to using it, let alone resonating with another person. And firearm training. You've never shot a gun before, but you did take self defense and fighting lessons a few years back, but you can't exactly punch a wanderer. They're durable monsters that can shoot ice or anything at you and, some even have blades for arms…

“Great, it seems like she's waking up now.” You hear the deep, yet cold voice of a man. Then, you hear the higher pitched voice of a woman, “Finally! It's been three days, I just hope she doesn't insist on going back to work..” “She won't, doctor's orders.” The male voice says before you hear a door close.

Your eye slowly opens before you have to squint to adjust it to the bright white lights. A hospital? You try to sit up and the woman next to you rushes to help you. You have to turn your head to look at her since she's on your right side. Your right eye was also bandaged since all you can see is darkness out of it. The first thing you notice is her short bob cut. “Tara?” You say, your voice sounding a bit raspy and you tilt your head to the side. “Thank goodness, Y/n! We thought you'd never wake up.” She seems excited, bubbly and sweet…just like her character in game.

“That's..” Before you can finish your sentence, you start coughing. “Here, let me get you some water!” She hands you a plastic cup and you take a sip before continuing, “I…can't remember much.” You squeeze your hand in a fist, the sound of metal clinking together has you looking down at your hand. “You never let go of that. You've been holding it since..” Tara trails off and you're caught off guard by a sudden surge of emotions. You take a shaky breath as to not start crying, since that would definitely hurt your right eye before you look up at the ceiling. “I don't recall how to use my evol, how to shoot a gun…Can I still even call myself a hunter?”

“Y/n…” Tara sighs before taking your free hand, “Things can always be retaught, we're all just glad you survived. You should be glad to still have both eyes being that close to the explosion!” She smiled at you before handing you your phone. “I can't stay here long, but your phone has been blowing up for the past three days so make sure you check it out.” She pats your hand and stands up. “I'll visit later with a coffee or something for you.”

“The patient is advised to not have anything caffeinated until after being discharged.” A voice comes from the door before he steps inside.

Black hair, glasses, hazel green eyes, tall…

“Doctor Zayne,” I greet him with a small smile, suddenly more nervous and I turn to look at Tara. “I'll see you tomorrow, Tara?”

“Sure! That is, if I don't get a call about a wanderer..Metaflux readings have been crazy as of late, so we've all been pretty busy- but that's not to push you into coming in or anything! Your health matters more to us at UNICORNS so only come back when you're ready.” She says before leaving the room.

“How are you feeling?” Zayne asks as he comes closer, taking a seat where Tara once was. His eyes scan your whole body to make sure you're okay before landing on your face. He leans forward to take the bandage off of your right eye and you wince at how bright the light is for your non-adjusted eye. “It'll probably scar..” he murmurs, presumably to himself.

“I'm..” You trail off, sighing before you decide it's best to tell the doctor the truth. “I'm fine, but I can't remember-”

“Can't remember what?” He cuts you off, almost seeming more worried about just what you can't remember, which makes you laugh a bit. “Calm down, I was getting to that. I can't remember how to use my evol, use my gun, or anything to do with wanderers.” “Hmm..are you sure it won't come back with time?” Zayne seems to have calmed back down as he's now writing everything down on a clipboard. “I'm sure of that.” You clear your throat, looking back down at the necklace in your hand before running your thumb across it.

“I don't mind relearning everything but I won't be as good as I was before, that's for sure.” You lean your head back and Zayne quickly corrects you, gently tilting your chin back down. “If your wound reopens, we'll have to use stitches so be careful.”

“You'll get better at it in no time. Don't forget that I'll help you out.” Zayne says before standing up. You take a glance at the clipboard and it seems like he added ‘post traumatic stress disorder?’ as a note. You guess he assumes your forgetfulness might be caused by that, but you knew otherwise. “I'll leave you so you can check up on your phone.”

With that, the doctor leaves the room and you can finally let out a sigh of relief. It seems he didn't notice anything was off with you. He was honestly the hardest hurdle since he's known the main character for a long time, but you've noticed you tend to act like her to begin with so maybe it wouldn't be as hard as you thought.

You finally decide to put the necklace down on the table next to you, your hand aching from having held it so tightly and grab your phone. There was no code on it so you easy got into it, might as well put a code on it now..and now you go to check your messages. 45 missed calls from Nemo…Nemo? Your brows furrow and you flinch because, of course, that hurts the wound on your face so you quickly straighten your face out. The nicknames are the same as they were in your game. 11 missed calls from Princess, 55 missed messages from Nemo, and 5 missed messages from Princess. Zayne didn't leave any since he works at the hospital… though on the day of the incident, he did leave two missed calls and a reminder of a doctor's appointment.

You decide to check up with Rafayel first since he's a certified drama queen. You don't scroll too far up but the most recent text messages are just him being pouty that his ‘miss bodyguard’ is ignoring him.

🩷 :’Been in the hospital for three days, sorry!’

You decide that's sufficient of an answer before nearly jumping out of your skin as he immediately calls. You laugh before answering the call, being bombarded with questions the moment you press the green button.

“Which hospital, Miss bodyguard? What happened? Are you okay?”

“One question at a time.” You laugh before you start coughing and have to take another sip of water from the plastic cup. Your throat was a bit achy from not being used for three days.

“Which hospital?” Rafayel sticks with his first question, his voice void of his usual playful banter. “Uhm..” you look around for a moment, not exactly remembering the name of the hospital in game before spotting its name on the whiteboard in front of you. “Akso Hospital, room 205.”

“Got it.” Then silence. “Uh…Rafayel?” You say, taking the phone away from your face to notice he had already hung up. You shrug it off before going to your messages with Xavier. Most of the messages were just asking if you wanted to go hunting with him, sending locations, and the most recent one was from a few hours ago with him asking if you were okay.

🩷 :’At the hospital right now, been out for three days! Sorry about that. I might need some help soon though.’

Xavier doesn't immediately call like Rafayel did, instead just exchanges a few texts with you.

💛 :’what happened? are U alright? is it’

🩷 :’Is it what? I'm fine, a bit sore though. I got caught up in an explosion three days ago and have been out since then.’

💛 :’..nevermind that how can U be okay if u were passed out for 3 days? what's the extent of your injuries?’

🩷 :’Just a few bruises, scrapes, a sprained ankle, and…’

💛 :’and what?’

🩷 :’I might have a cool new scar over my eye!’

💛 :’thats not funny..what hospital, i'm coming now.’

You pause your messages, knowing he definitely can't come now if Rafayel is. None of the love interests have ever interacted in the game before, so you're not sure of the consequences just yet.

🩷 :’I'm probably about to sleep again! You can visit tomorrow, the doc gave me some pain medicine that's making me a bit tired and I wanted to talk to you.’

💛 :’alright as long as ur okay. i can wait as long as you need.’

You pout, trying your best not to gush over how sweet Xavier is, and drop your phone as your room door suddenly opens to reveal an exhausted looking, purple haired man. His shirt was haphazardly buttoned, his hair tousled as if he just got out of bed, and panic written all over his face.

“You didn't think to describe the details of your injuries to me?” Are the first words out of his mouth before he shuts the door behind him, walking deeper in the room to grab your plastic cup to drink some water. “You've been out for three days, you shouldn't even be sitting up right now!” He sits down on the chair next to the bed and you reach toward him to try and fix his shirt buttons. The tips of his ears turn red and he pushes backward on the rolling chair. “What're you doing- you're a patient.”

“Your shirt..” You drop your hands into your lap with a small smile.

“Oh-” Rafayel clears his throat, turning the chair to fix his shirt before he rolls the chair back up next to you. With his hand gently cupping the right side of your face, he murmurs, “How did this happen?”

You assume he's probably in shock since you were never scarred like this in any of the past lives you shared with him.

“An explosion from my..” You trail off, lips pressing together in a thin line as you find it hard to say what happened, even though you know they're not your actual family. “..my childhood home. Two casualties.” You finally finish your sentence, not meeting Rafayel's bluish pink eyes as he still cups your cheek.

The silence is almost deafening before Rafayel sighs and drops his hand. “I'm sorry for your loss.” He finally says. “Do you need a hug?”

You quickly shake your head. “If I hug you, I'll cry and I really don't need to..irritate my…” You can't seem to get your words out as your eyes water and no matter how hard you try to stop it, your cheek stings as salty tears run down your still healing wound. Rafayel moves to sit on the side of the bed, guiding your forehead to rest against his shoulder as his arms wrap around you. “We can always get your doctor to fix it, huh? It won't do you any good if you keep your feelings all bottled up now, will it?”

You can't seem to stop crying, even as your breath stutters in your chest and you find it harder to breathe. Sure, you cried when they died while playing but for it to affect you like this? Maybe it's because someone offered to be a shoulder you could lean on.

“Focus on my breathing. Don't hyperventilate on me now, miss bodyguard.” Rafayel murmurs, hand still patting your back as your tears eventually fade and you fall asleep.

Rafayel pulls you back from his shoulder, moving you so you're laid flat on the bed before he grabs a soft tissue to wipe your face, wiping the trail of blood coming from your wound since the salt from your tears irritated it. He then leans forward to kiss your forehead. “I'll see you soon.”

The next time you wake up, your eyes are puffy and your nose is stopped up.

“I see you cried yourself to sleep.” Zayne comments, tilting your head by your chin so he can examine your wound. “You irritated it.” He sighs. “If you don't cry anymore, it'll probably be healed up in two weeks..then you can cry all you want.”

“Well, I'm sorry, I had to cry.” You say with a pout, knowing it's not his fault. “When can I be discharged?”

“After today, your ankle should be better to walk on so tomorrow? But if you want to start work again, I'd say another few weeks.” Zayne finishes writing something down before standing up. “I also did a routine checkup on your heart in case that was the reason you can't use your evol and I don't think that's the case. I believe your evol revolves around your emotions so if you're not confident in it, it won't work.”

“Thank you, Zayne.” You say before taking a sip of the iced coffee that Tara left for you thirty minutes ago. Then you finally shoot Xavier a text to say he's free to come to the hospital whenever he wants, that you'll be discharged tomorrow.

Not even a minute after you sent your message, there was a knock on your door. You look toward the noise before smiling behind your hand. “Come in.”

A silvery blond head pops in from the now opened door before he comes in and shuts the door behind him. “How are you feeling today?” He asks, his soft tired voice sounding a bit more emotional than usual. “Mmh, pretty good. I'd probably feel better if you came a bit closer.” You say, leaning over to pat the chair next to your bed. He quickly comes to sit down, almost as if waiting for the invitation.

“Your eyes are swollen. Did you have a rough sleep last night?”

“No, I..” it's probably best to keep telling the truth for now. “I just cried myself to sleep.” You shrug, trying to play it off as nothing but Xavier isn't falling for it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“If I cry myself to sleep again, will you hold me?” You ask, raising your left brow before laughing to yourself. “Just thinking about what happened, not being able to save anyone, getting hurt like this…” You feel a hand on top of your own and turn to look at Xavier. “It's not your fault.” He finally says after a moment of silence. A small smile tugging at his lips before he changes the subject, “What is it you wanted to ask me?”

“Oh right!” You sit up before turning your body to face him. “I need you to teach me how to use my gun…and how to fight….aannnd how to use my evol.” You name off each one and tap on your fingers to count them off.

“You..forgot all of that?” His head tilts to the side before he nods his head. “Alright, I can do that. Is there anything else you need?”

“Uh…can you pick me up tomorrow? I don't know where our apartments are…or how to drive my bike either.” You rub the back of your neck and smile sheepishly.

“What else did you forget?” He lets out a small laugh.

“All of Linkon?” You say before adding, “I mean, I remember names but I don't remember where anything is..like Azure Square, UNICORNS HQ, Twinkle Toys, Meow's Café..”

“Don't worry, I'll help with anything I can.” Xavier smiles, his thumb rubbing across the back of your hand.

“Thank you, that means a lot to me.” You smile before looking down at your phone as it buzzes. Rafayel. He's- on his way?

“Actually, could you get me a friend for tomorrow?” You ask, a smile tugging at your lips. “A..friend?” His head tilts to the side until you say, “Can you get me a fox plushie and bring it to me when I'm discharged tomorrow?”

“I-” Xavier laughs before nodding, “Of course I will.” He stands up, looking toward the door. “I'll leave now though, since you seem a bit restless, but I'll make sure you get all the plushies you want.”

Not even five minutes after Xavier leaves, Rafayel is in the room. Almost as if he felt a disturbance in the force that someone was with his lady right now. “Was someone just here?” He asks, trying to act nonchalant as he sits down in the chair.

“No?” You phrase it as a question before you nod your head. “Yeah, the doctor just left. He was upset that I irritated my wound but, at least, I'll be discharged tomorrow! I can't go back to work for another two weeks though.”

“So does that mean my bodyguard is still out of commission?” Rafayel pouts, a hand on his hip. “Well, that's a shame. I had an art expo to go to in a few days and I was wondering if you'd join me.” “Ah…about that,” you clear your throat before telling him all about the troubles with your evol and even not recalling how to use a gun. “Why don't you try resonating now?” He asks, placing his hand on top of yours. “But what do I even do?” You murmur, closing your eyes.

“Do you feel all of that energy coursing through your chest? Try to direct that through your body to your fingers.” Rafayel whispers. “Think of it like paint. If you pour paint on a flat canvas, it spreads all out like crazy. You have to take a paintbrush and direct the paint to where you want it to go. So your evol is the paint and you are the paintbrush.”

That…helps but doesn't help at the same time.

You take a deep breath, trying to silence your mind to be able to focus but it's difficult to have dead silent thoughts. Instead you try to imagine the energy moving from your chest all the way to your hands, which were clasped between Rafayel's much bigger ones. Then, you finally felt it. You were resonati-

You flinch as you’re bombarded with a few blurry memories of your past life with Rafayel; Well, if you didn't know, you would've just been confused but since you played the game, you knew they were of your past lives with him. Though they were blurry, so you didn't catch anything besides a soft ‘my bride’ at the end.

My eyes blink open and you take one hand away from Rafayel to rub your temples. “I think it worked but..” you look at Rafayel, who was uncharacteristically silent. Maybe he saw the same images too?

“Hey, did you see it too?” You ask, which finally gets his attention. “Huh, see what?” He tries to brush it off but you don't let him. “It was kind of blurry but I remember seeing you…in a purple outfit? Oh and you said something at the end.” You tap your bottom lip with your index finger, pretending to try and recall what you saw when, in reality, you only saw a blurry Rafayel. You never saw specific details like that. “You said my bri-”

Rafayel covers your mouth with a hand. “That's enough of that.” His ears were red and he wasn't looking you in the eyes. Then he clears his throat. “Anyway, I'll contact you soon about the expo since you seem to resonate just fine and then maybe I can show you around Linkon City to try and jog your memory.”

He leaves as quickly as he showed up, clearly embarrassed by what you were going to say.

“Cute..” you say to yourself, laughing into your hand before wincing and touching the right side of your face.

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

That's it for the first chapter! Since I wrote this on goggle docs, I wasn't sure just how short the chapters were but they'll get longer as we go on! I have a few chapters piled up so even if I don't write for a few weeks, I'll still be able to post. I'd love any feedback or even any explanations of the features on here to make the reading experience a bit better. I've never posted to Tumblr before so I've been just copying what I see from the tags and word count so I think I've done pretty well for my first time. I would love to learn how to do a masterlist though and also a next button, I guess I just have to link the next chapter on it? I'll have to test it out so please bear with me and I hope you enjoyed- and stick around for the chapters to come! 🩷

[olomaya]

Oops! All Updates (and Fixes)!

I've got a bunch of fixes and updates to some of my older mods and I decided to release them all in a batch. Please read below for the details to see what has been changed and then links to the files to redownload and replace in your game.

If this is your first time downloading, obviously you'll need to download everything and you should read the original post for more information.

As always, let me know if any issues and enjoy!

Voidcritters Mod

Fixed Read Card Stats animation

Added a new interaction to allow your sims to talk about and compare their cards. Sims will build relationship, gain skill and train their critters a little as well (the cards will vibrate as the critters train up)

Giving a rare or limited edition card to another Sim will yield a higher relationship boost.

Previously there was no way to get all 22 cards in the game as you only get one of the two Limited Edition cards. I've fixed that by adding the chance to also get Limited Edition cards by reading a Voidcritters comic book. There's a 25% chance if you have less than level 8 skill and 45% if 8 or higher.

Now that Sims can collect all cards, I've added a new skill opportunity. Sims that collect all the cards will get the Critter Collector reward and going forward their cards will be worth more.

Download MAIN file here and updated card file here

Student Council Mod

The Collect Signatures interaction now has a more appropriate animation of a sim collecting signatures

Increased the chances that more inactive council members will autonomously raise funds and collect signatures

The campaign tracker will no longer show blank information after you've closed out and restarted the game

All campaign icons will now show up in the notifications

Fixed an issue where the Sim would reset when submitting signatures for the Teacher Pay school campaign

Reduced the skilling level for council roles while at the afterschool activity

Download updated MAIN here

Hang Out Mod

Children and teens can now hang out in groups. Simply click on one of the two Sims hanging out and select “Hang Out with X and his/her friends” (you need to have LTR 30 or higher)

A child or a teen hanging out can also invite another friend to join them

I think you can have up to 8 Sims given that I have 7 in the photo and there's still room.

Added liking VFX and speech bubbles when hanging out

Download here (all ages version here)

Washer+Dryer Combo

I created a new mesh for the washer/dryer so it slots under the counter like dishwashers and trash compactors.

Added a stacked washer/dryer tower. This still uses the same script as the single appliance so you can’t run the washer and the dryer at the same time. 

Changed out the pod and detergent box meshes

Important: If you have the old version, you need to replace with this or remove it. You can't have both the old version and this one in your game or it will CTD. Also, the script is in the Combo file so you still need to download both if you only want the stacked tower version.

Download here (stacked version here)

Private Clinic (BASE)

The clinic controller will now push Sims that have certain traits as well, such as Neurotic, Commitment Issues, Insane, Hotheaded, etc.

Once pushed to the clinic, Sims will find a chair to sit in and then wait for an hour to be seen by a doctor. After an hour, they will stop waiting with an annoyed message (you can still see them though).

Waiting patients now identified with a custom headline effect

Prenatal vitamins no longer have a weight loss effect (as I'm putting a similar feature in the breastfeeding aspect of the obgym module, it's not needed here)

Updated the Buy and Sell Pills animations

Updated the comically large horsepill mesh to make it smaller and more realistic. The animation has been updated as well

Updated the write prescription animation

Updated the apply ointment animation

Download updated MAIN here

Private Clinic - Psychiatry

Updated the therapist session animations – therapist will now take more notes to jot down how crazy you are

Updated the patient records layout to avoid text overflow

Sims can now do their coping mechanisms (breathing exercises and mindfulness) while sitting

Important: You need to download the updated Private Clinic MAIN file above as well if you download this

Download updated MAIN here

Disclaimer: My CAS cc for this world was not loaded. I am not responsible for any of these Sims' outfit choices.

[jaxrants]

So uhhh, little update on how things are going..

TW: slight vent, m*th mention, drug use, bad mom, bad guardians, age regression, jealousy, I think that's it, please let me know if not

So for those that don't know, I'm living with my grandparents on my stepdads side now because my mom had m*th in her system (again) when we went to court, I'm going to school now, but I sit in a computer room all day, so there really is no sense in me going when I can just do the work at home. My anxiety shit is getting a little better, then immediatly getting worse. My case worker has to give me a full psychological exam, sign me up for therapy, and just it's a whole lot of shit and the damn trauma assessment person is the one that's demanding all of this, so apparently I'm a whole lot more traumatized that I had originally thought.

Onto some things about me and Val:

I am getting more and more attached to her. I can't sleep unless we're otp, and most of the time, unless she hums to me I can't fall asleep. I might be a bit more of an age regressor than I had originally thought. I fully regressed to just baby talk a couple nights ago after a really rough anxiety attack. I'm so fucking happy she loves me. If she didn't, I don't know what I'd do. I'm so fucking happy with her (when my anxiety isn't being a bitch and causing questioning and shit) and I couldn't imagine my life without her. She graduates soon, and she's planning on finding work so that hopefully soon she'll be able to buy us a place and get me out of here. I plan on trying to help as soon as I possibly can. I have also realized just how jealous both me and Val can get too. She doesn't like any of my friends, and I don't like how she talks to one of them. Kassandra is someone who's been super nice to me, but I don't like her and Val talking. I worry Val will end up preferring her over me, as her and Kassandra are close, if not the exact same age, and I'm younger than both of them.

The whole sich with my dad:

He's still trying to get partial custody of me. He and my stepmom send me lots of gifts and stuff. He got me a computer and gave me 50 bucks for my birthday and miss sam just keeps buying me things. She just recently got me a whole lot of nail polish, a Cirkul thermos, and some other stuff. They're really cool.

Living with my grandparents:

It's honestly not all that fun. They constantly force me to go to school when I don't feel well (my voice was completely changed because of some sort of sickness and the still forced me to go), and I had a really bad panic attack at school, they still forced me to go back the next day. When we first got here, grandma had a TV from my uncle mike (from before he passed) and she stuck it in my sisters room at first, then gave it to me. Well, she took it last night because I don't leave my room often and because I don't let my sisters in here to watch it often. Like damn, I'm not being stengy, I'm just having a rough time and want to be alone. So I can no longer watch tv or listen to music when I'm playing like roblox and yandere sim on my computer (it makes the games laggy if I play it from my computer, and I use my phone to text Val, so I can't use it to listen to the music) and it essentially fucked up my entire system of listening to music/watching TV on it, playing/doing school work on my computer, and texting Val using my phone (or using my computer to text Val if I'm playing something on my phone)

School:

So far, I've made around about 10/15 "friends" (I don't know them all that well but say "Hi" if I see them) and lost 1 close friend that I made. (He was really creepy and touchy when I was going though that panic attack at school. At first, I thought that was just how he was with his friends, but it was later determined by his other friends that he was being really weird as he usually doesn't like being touched. He was like rubbing up and down my spine and my side but going just a little too far down. And he grabbed my face [in a way I'd only be comfortable with Val holding my face] and glanced down to my lips one time. I was honestly terrified he was going to try to kiss me. Both me and Val found it weird, and she no longer wanted me talking to him, so I don't).

I'm quite sure that's about everything. OH!! And I'm supposed to be being taken to get my hair cut and dyed here soon. We're doing black with like lilac or lavender, I haven't decided how I want the colors split yet, so if y'all have an idea or something, please lmk.

@purpleeggyboi @salem-the-puppet @blooming-skeleton @luciluck2046 @beecha @caretaleandotherstuff @evry1h8s-me

[feedme2thedogs]

Just a very emotional post, rant, vent, and slight speculation about what might be behind the game's sudden end.

I used to listen to the soundtrack to cheer myself up and stuff when I couldn't play the game, and the game has been the only thing helping out with my mental health since release lol the hyperfixation is not going away any time soon either so it's even harder to cope with this...

Being vulnerable on main it's just like anytime I do anything with this fran at all now it just brings me sadness and at the same time it's my cope it's a massively double edged blade right now and I really don't know how to cheer myself up other than trying to gaslight myself about the game lol

Old screenies... Edits, fanart... The game itself. The movies. It all makes me ache with empty sadness now.

I know some people in the fandom could say it's not that deep and call me pathetic rn but I feel like I've lost something so important to me (I have) and that everything that came out of it has gone too. The friends I made who used to play with me all the time who moved on before this happened, our memories no lifing out together and laughing at it. It feels like everything has instantly just become a bittersweet hazy nostalgia trip and nothing feels real.

This game held my hand through the darkest things in life I've had to face yet since it was released, and my life has always been full of terrifying events, so that's me saying a lot right there. I'm not ready to let go, but it's leaving me and I still need it to be my crutch for so much longer. It's killing me. I've seriously fallen into a massive depression since the announcement. My appetite has completely left me and all I can do is cry and try to relate to the very few people who feel as deeply about things as I do, and got as attached to the characters and story they were creative as I have.

I feel pathetic asf I've literally lost sleep over this because I just stay up so late staring at the game because once I play long enough it's like it's not even going anywhere, like this isn't happening. And once I stop the games and realise it's so late and I'm not coping, that I force myself to try and sleep, I just lose. I've always had this sentimentality with things my whole life, because you never know when something is just going to be taken from you like this. I told myself it wasn't going to happen, people were just praying on its downfall... Tried to tell myself because while so many were upfront cold and nasty and resentful through the entire games life, there were still the folks who didn't say anything foul, still held hope, still said thanks team for giving us this. And we've all been slapped across the face without guilt shame or remorse.

I went to bed around 6am not even realising it was that late, but I was dead tired. Then I woke up at 9, my brain waking me up to cry with the reminder I'm losing something that is such a heavy part of me.

People and friends keep trying to say out there and tell me "oh it's not going away it's still going to be playable its just not getting updates or content" which means... Near imminent death, even if it'll still be up ... Still "playable" still for purchase... They now act like content isn't that important, because it'll still be around. Yes. Until the players dwindle out. Until everyone leaves and it'll just be me trying to enjoy what I have left of it when it actually comes to that.

Like I said before, on my other post that wasn't so personal and vulnerable, it's left me with existential dread. Because I constantly live with that, and it's obvious how it's left me feeling that way with what I've already expressed.

The last dlc pack wasn't even a month ago. They only made the announcement 2 days before this final patch... Like it's really no time at all they gave us to process it, or cope, or grieve the game and what it could have been. What it should have been, lmao.

I originally said it was bittersweet... But it's not sweet at all. What I'm now left with is bittersweet. I loved the design, the feeling they put into this game, the environment, the characters, everything. And what a unique experience they gave, just to take it away in such a sudden, unforgivable way.

All I can speculate is what someone else has assumed, that gun and the devs had a spat. Which may be evident by this screenie I took earlier this morning while coping out on every outlet source possible for fan content or others posting their sadness for the game.

I didn't get the part where Gun basically chided with the players and dissed their dev team so blatantly. Obviously the devs suck, if they knew that for so long though...

But even besides this, we've always known how petty the devs with been with leaks... And recently the black out mode for rush week had been leaked. Along with voice lines regarding the was-to-be characters... At least from Bones, from what I know. Presumably from Damian's post, he voiced some incredible new lines that was supposed to show us some other side of Johnny. Whatever that is, guess we will never know now.

I have nothing but endless words and my heartbreak and sadness is just as much. I joined everyone in the comments on Instagram because Twitter is so not my thing, only to see at least people for a while we're getting some kind of responses, not much for answers. Obviously, we may never get answers. I could only hope for a dev stream... Or something of the sort.

Anyways, I forever fear for the last day I'll be able to admire these characters in game and not just through memory or old clips and screenshots. This thing takes up my whole heart right now, and no matter how hard I could look for something else to make up for it, nothing will really take its place. I've always wanted a game like this. The 70s is my favourite era, since I was a young teen. The Texas chain saw massacre has been my favourite film since I was finally able to watch horror movies again without having a panic attack lol nothing can beat it's originality from movie to what we were originally presented with for this game. I was so happy to see how accurate it was for the era, and remember getting frustrated at the lack of fun, vividly coloured and tacky outfit packs we were getting. It is bittersweet that I got the 70s tacky core pack lol of my dreams before they decide to bite me in the ass. What a hell of a goodbye.

When I saw the family pack coming out... I thought we were heading for clear horizons and things were just looking up finally.

God, how hard I've fallen with this immense disappointment. Crashed and burned. I really don't know how to make myself feel better other than just to go with my ups and downs and distracting myself so hard that I forget about all this happening for a small window of time until I'm fucked up over it all over again.

Raaaaaah...

[axolator]

Welcome to my blog!

This is where I post about Blood on the Clocktower! Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

I run a series called Script-A-Day here, where I highlight custom BotC scripts I think are novel and interesting! You can find the introduction post Script-A-Day #0 here, and a collection of all the scripts I've highlighted that are in the BotC Scripts database here. It used to update daily, but you run out of good scripts quickly that way. It updates weekly on Fridays!

I'm pretty new to the whole tumblr thing, all things considered, so this is also something of an experiment. My inbox is open: if you've got a question or request, please go ahead and shoot me a message! I haven't seen a lot of dedicated Clocktower posts here on tumblr, so I'm doing my part to interface with a community of people who enjoy the greatest social deduction game ever.

Other bio information:

Call me Axolator! Any (reasonable) shortening of my name's also fine. Just don't take the piss.

I use she/her/hers pronouns.

My profile picture was drawn by Sunquill, and I'd highly encourage you to check out her website and commision her if you're interested. She's incredibly skilled; you won't regret it!

I've been in the BotC community since April of 2023 after getting introduced by a friend who brought the game back with him from college over spring break. I've been hooked since then!

Online, I mainly haunt the Unofficial BotC Discord Server, where I've attained the status of Community-Endorsed Storyteller for both live voice and asynchronous text games.

In-person, I'm involved with running a couple of IRL groups of friends that I helped introduce to Clocktower. We get up to shenanigans: if I ever mention the Philo-Steward incident, that's where it originated.

I play a lot of non-Clocktower games, too, and might post/rb posts about them:

Board games: Spirit Island and Power Grid are among my favorites, but I generally enjoy strategy games!

Video games: The Binding of Isaac (duh), Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling, and Baba Is You are all up there. I really just enjoy anything with a good soundtrack. Well, and Pokémon Showdown.

Tag guide:

#blood on the clocktower: Posts about BotC

#scriptaday: Posts in my Script-A-Day series!

#axowall of text: Longer text posts that aren't Script-A-Day, like my character analyses

#scriptbuilding: Posts about building custom scripts

#storytelling: Posts about STing Clocktower: both mechanical posts (like running discretionary characters well) but also thoughts about running Clocktower across various different mediums (IRL, live voice, livetext, async text) and making sure everyone has fun

#askbox: Posts responding to, well, my askbox!

#silly: Memes and other non-serious posts

#nonbotc: Posts not about BotC (I'll usually tag what they are about)

If I come up with more tags, I'll update this post with them!

I don't actually know what else tends to go on people's pinned posts. Uhh, thanks for reading all the way, I guess?? I'll see you around!

[cavydude]

Hey everyone guess what's back?

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the remaster, we (the fine folks over at the Baten Kaitos fan Discord) are bringing back Spiriter Week! And now it's bigger than ever: we're going multi-platform!

So mark you calendars for September 15th-21st!!!

Wait, what's this now? Back in ye olde golden age of Tumblr, we used to have an annual thing we called Spiriter Week, a week-long celebration of our favorite card-game RPGs.

What do you mean, "multiplatform"? Due to fandom no longer being fully (or even mostly) within the confines of one website, we figured it'd be a good idea to have folks participate wherever they want to. Tumblr, Twitter, Discord, or wherever. Still have a Pillowfort? Go crazy there too.

Ok, how do I participate? It's super easy- just post something Baten Kaitos related every day. Could be a fic, art, videos, whatever. Wherever you're posting it, use the tag #Spiriter Week I am not blessed with creative prowess Neither am I we're all just bullshitting Doesn't have to be anything skillful like art or writing. Could be fan theories, a personal anecdote, ranking your favorite xyz or even a haiku. Like this example I stole borrowed from No's original post:

Holoholo bird All my apples are rotten Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

This sounds great but I'm super busy there's no way I can post every day. Again, same here friend. No worries, even just one or two during the week is fine. Let's face it, we've all aged a number of years since these were last a thing and life has a way of stockpiling responsibilities.

On what authority are you organizing this? Alright ya got me I'm just some rando with a Gibari pfp. But come on, why not have some fun and build some hype around these games we love?

That's a nice banner where'd you get it? Damn right! Credit goes to No, who still had the old banner and managed to change some digits :D

How can we follow for updates? Here on Tumblr, I (and of course anyone else who wants to say something on the topic) will be posting in the #Spiriter Week tag. Some major updates might also be posted in the baten kaitos tag but I don't wanna spam it too much.

But yeah, that should cover most of the major stuff, feel free to reach out with any questions!

[the-wip-project]

Planning for January and 2025

Hello, writerly friends!

It's the end of a year, we're looking at the the next year coming, and naturally this is a time of reflection and prediction. I'm actually not a big fan of new year's resolutions, but I want to keep up the monthly planning. 

Last month I planned nothing and I did nothing! Yay! Total win on my side! It's not quite true. I wrote 3.5k words, which is more than nothing but not much.

As we go into a new year, some planners and goal setters advice to take a look back and reflect on the year 2024 before going into 2025. I kind of hate that because I never achieve as much as I wanted. I wanted to have a book published in 2024, damnit! 

But maybe it's good to see what I actually did, before the yelling brain keeps calling me a failure. I wrote 115k words last year. That's not bad! My AO3 statistics are a bit difficult to read because I updated a few fics from like 2021 and 2022 and then that wordcount gets counted for 2024. But hey! I finished a fic! Updated others! I also published 20 ficlets over the year. Some are just over 500 words, others are longer and according to my writing file I wrote 24325 words for these ficlets (It may look like I'm oh so well organised with all these numbers and I want to make sure that you understand, I am not like that! I'm just lucky that these programs give me numbers). So, take that, yelling brain. Well done me. 

I had a paragraph here about fuck all that looking back, let's go forward. I mean, this last year did its very best to stay as a messy shitshow in our memory, at least if you're the kind of person who wishes for a just, peaceful, and sustainable world. But after writing that paragraph up there, I think you should also look back. Even if you didn't achieve everything you wanted to, look at the small victories too and celebrate them. It's good for you.

My look into the future: Finishing and publishing is my forever goal and that's what I'll keep doing, be it fanfic or original fiction. I have several half finished things going on and way too many ideas for more books. (Sticking to one genre? Wouldn't know her.)

As always, finding and scheduling the time to write is the crucial task and I'm still trying to figure out how to combine life, work, reading, gaming, TV watching, and writing into the day. How do people do this? Somehow sleeping has to factor into this too, right? I guess it's back to a daily hour of writing, either in the morning, or in the afternoon. A fixed point in the schedule.  

Here at the-wip-project, I already hinted at a new project for the beginning of the year. I'm calling it "Getting to know your story (through writing it)". I'll make a separate post for it.

What are your plans for the coming month?

Have a good start into the new year!

~barbex

[sometipsygnostalgic]

I preordered switch 2 for a couple of reasons.

1. I use the Switch for local multiplayer. Not every day or even every month, but if i'm meeting with friends I will bring the switch. I don't meet with my friends much anymore but it is still great for those occasions.

2. I have a large collection of Switch games that will benefit from the upgrade, though I am sad nothing has been announced for Xenoblade Chronicles X, which I've held off on completing since Switch 2 was announced. Guess I will have to see if it runs better or worse, the resolution will be unchanged though. XC2 can only go up performance wise even without an update. And i really hope Mario and Luigi Brothership runs faster, please god run faster.

3. I am concerned the price will go up, not down. If you look in CEX the second hand Switch Oled now costs... as much as a brand new one. Why. I could have waited and handed in my Oled to get a second hand Switch 2, but id probably have to hand over two thirds of the cost of a new console and lose my Oled in the process. If i like the 2 i will give the Oled to my sister (idk what to do with my original switch in that instance).

Being an Xbox 360 and Xbox One player in the past, i recently packed up my Xbone to give away, but I am still holding onto my 360. Bewilderingly, the 360 runs faster, despite being out of use longer and being put through the ringer much more. Goes to show what Microsoft did to Xbone.

I bring this up because I got the Xbone for the same reasons - multiplayer, backwards compatibility, being a long time fan - but by the end of tje generaiton the console was wholly abandoned and everyone was a Playstation, Switch, or PC gamer.

Nintendo are making a lot of the same mistakes that Microsoft made back then. In particular they are killing the physical collector base that has been their super-users for so long. I do hope that Nintendo have some good software on the way. I have been disappointed with everything I've seen from them since last year, so many games that failed to reach their potential.

I would recommend you all wait and see what the reaction is to this launch. If you really want the console you can get a second hand one from Ebay for much cheaper once they announce the inevitable upgraded oled version.

[bromcommie]

WIPs word search

the lovely @dharmasharks tagged me to do this one—thank you, friend! I was hoping to do something like this, and it was pretty fun<3

Most of these are bits and pieces that were originally meant for the canon-divergent post-CATWS fic that I started posting in February but have since woefully neglected to update as I lost some steam and tried to restructure it, so this is equal parts a game and an attempt to get myself to finally post a new chapter. Fingers crossed!

Heat:

“How is it,” and he’s laughing, first time in a long time Steve’s seen him like this, laughing loud and unafraid and with his whole body, “Tell me, Rogers – how is it you’re all juiced up on Uncle Sam’s finest steroids, lifting tanks and all, but you still burn like a sheet of paper anytime you’re out in the sun for longer than five minutes?” “It’s a tan,” Steve grumbles half-heartedly, feeling the sorry back of his neck flame up as he rolls his head over to squint at him through the blinding sunlight. “I’m tanning. It’s handsome, I hear.” That sends Bucky off again. “No. No it ain’t.” He gestures vaguely to his own self, to where he’s bronzed out around the edges from the incessant heat beating down on them. “I tan. Morita tans. Even fucking Dugan tans, and he’s as Irish pale as you. You are one step away from sparking up like a tinderbox. Look at that.” He swipes at the bridge of Steve’s nose where he’s gone red and freckled and already peeling a little bit, and he hisses at the burn, swatting his hand away. “Cut it out.” Bucky leans back and just looks at him for a long second, blinking the unfortunate mix of sweat and dust out of his eyes. His face splits back into a grin like he can't help himself and something in Steve’s chest flips, unhindered by the annoyance. “What?”  “You look like a tomato. It's unbelievable.” “Shut up.” It’s stupid, barely even passes for a joke. He finds himself laughing along anyway, caught in the contagious energy rolling off Bucky in waves, the relaxed slouch of his body in the warm red dirt. “Shut the hell up. God almighty, you’re un-fucking-bearable.”

Drink:

“You’d be doing a better job if you were paying as much attention to our man as to gossip Yelena overheard.” “Gossip is our business. And he’s still trying to impress her.” “Is it working?” Natalia casts a glance to the pair at the bar, watches the dull glint of the woman's gaudy necklace where she twists it in an idle loop around a finger over and over, the scatter of light dancing across the polished marbletop. “She just yawned into her drink. Are you, really?” “Am I what really?” “American.” The static of the line crackles in the hollow pause and she gets that feeling again, the invigorating fear of having pushed too far over the clearly drawn line. “What would it matter, anyway?” “People change sides all the time.” That, of all things, finally gets a reaction, trips a miracle: the Soldier laughs. It's not a particularly nice sound. "Sweetheart, I'm not people."

Look:

I remember getting angry every time he told that story. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the point of it. I’d sit there after, while you were going off about adventuring and the hero’s sacrifice and if I think Katherine McMahon from class looks like what Niamh is supposed to look like, thinking to myself about how Oisín deserved the horrible fate he got, dying all old and weak and alone. Thinking, what kind of schmuck leaves the love of his life behind just like that? Turns out I got my answer. Life’s funny like that, and by funny I mean a vindictive old bastard. Anyway, I don’t think it’s all so horrible, anymore. Oisín got to go home, after all. Everyone back there was gone, sure, but at least he got to see it with his own two eyes again, this place he used to love and the way it had changed, instead of spending the rest of eternity not knowing and homesick without realizing what for. At least he got to help some folks before he died. He got to grow old, even for a moment – I remember when we were kids we’d talk about what we’d do if we could be like the fairies and heroes living forever in the stories, about all the exciting things we’d live to see, about what the future would look like. Now I think maybe he knew it was his time, Oisín – maybe he leaped off the horse before he even got to fall, let his feet hit the ground of Ireland one last time. Maybe he knew better than we did back then that the future ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Dance:

They fall back into a drowsy silence as Steve rolls down the window and settles into the rush of cool air. Some crooning melody floats off the speakers and Bucky hums along absently to the unfamiliar tones, taking them off the highway. In his peripheral he can feel Steve’s eyes on him, still soft and loose from sleep, warm in the last of the golden afternoon glow. “Quit looking at me like that,” he grumbles after a minute. “I ain’t looking at you like anything,” counters Steve immediately. “You keep it up, your face will freeze that way.” “You vain son of a bitch,” Steve throws back, smile blooming easy and unbearably familiar. “How d’you even know it’s you I’m looking at? Maybe I’m just admiring the scenery.” “Perfectly good window right next to you, Rogers.” “Sure.” He yawns again, then breaks out into a grin. “View’s not as pretty, though.” Bucky, to his utter bewilderment, feels his face flush hot. “Oh, I’m pretty now, is that it?” he settles on after a moment. “Yeah, Buck,” Steve says, grin widening impishly. This motherfucker. “Prettiest dame in the whole dance hall.” Bucky snorts. “Unbelievable. You stop trying to kill a guy for two minutes…” “Got the hair for it, now, too.” “Asshole,” Bucky mutters, but the laughter’s escaping despite his best judgement. “Tell you one thing: I definitely don’t remember you being this much of a pain in my neck.” “Good thing I don't mind reminding you, then,” Steve says in a breezy tone, grabbing the phone between them and hitching his knees up onto the dashboard.

No idea who all’s done this so far, but I'm gonna go ahead and lightly poke @emjee @snowangeldotmp3 @painted-doe @burberrycanary @vostok3-ka @gyokujyn @buckrogers as well as open tag anyone else who would like to do this. (yes, I really mean that, and please tag me if you do!) Contestants, your words are space, sharp, sweet and home. Go nuts!

[morningstar-warriors]

It's Been Awhile

So I haven't been posting here much, admittedly I've been keeping my paws of social media for awhile to save my sanity. Not to mention tumblr no longer works on my phone, just endlessly crashes. Alas! No tumblr on my phone??? What should I do??? Pick up a healthy habit? ACK!

Either way, I told my followers and discord members I'd start posting little update blogs and since tumblr was where I'd originally done so, I'll keep it up.

What Has Danny Been Up To..?

Well mostly writing, editing, writing, work, editing, hiding from life, writing writing writing... A bit of drawing too but right now I feel like my art is just a tool for my writing. You get the picture.

Book Updates & Inner Turmoil:

I've been updating the Playbooks, refining them a tad more to feel more like my day dreamy visions while also tightening up wording and mechanics. I'm not sure how tight they'll be considering I love me a floaty soft rule, but I want the common cat to read it and get it. I think I'm having fun with it again, which is good.

Admittedly I hardcore procrastinated on working on the Kittypet and Rogue Playbooks. I felt a hard wall of... Burn out? Terror? Stagnation? Not sure, but I remember feeling like writing was not where I wanted to put my energy. Got this bad thing where, if I don't want to, I WONT.

I think what was stopping me was the social media attention. I felt stressed but amazed by all the eyes it was getting. Its good, so many people are inspired. But with people comes critique, envy, odd treatment, and other funny emotional things.

Man. How do you handle all that? Especially with the prospect it may only grow? Well in my case, feel embarrassed and guilty for not being grateful. Then sit in a bathtub till the water grows cold looking at messy notes about a cat using their cuteness to blow up the bad guy, followed with "Or smth idk." Great! Good notes.

But those days have waned and now I'm back on the horse, smile on my face and keyboard loudly clacking.

I think I just finally told myself "This is a hobby you do for fun, so if you're not having fun you can take a break." gave myself permission. If you need to hear that too, then hear it. Anyways though--

Ritualists are getting the biggest revamp so far, if you were curious. Though its nothing supremely crazy.

Croweye

New Moon:

New Moon has ended its filming! The game for me, is officially over. It was the first game I ever completed as a GM. If you take a look through this blog you will see just how LONG it lasted. Not to mention my poor players went through every mechanic change under the sun.

Looking back at those old posts were what made me want to go back and write the occasional update blog. I'm honestly proud of my friends and I, and how far we've all come. I really couldn't have done it without a group of goof balls making the ugliest gingerbread cookies ever.

New Moon's final episode will be released to the public either late April or the beginning of May. I plan to slow my videos to once a month ideally after the last episode is posted, because I'm working on another project already and I want it to be good.

Buttermoss & the Torch

The New Project:

I can't say much, but it's the next campaign to be recorded. Its what is presently eating up my note books, sketch books, media intake, and I have only told two people about it. Truly about it. Its driving me nuts because I have such a clear vision, the things I have so far are AWESOME. The things I have planned are ambitious, but they make me smile. I want to challenge myself a little. I probably shouldn't say much else though.

I promised myself I wouldn't let it slip. So you're just gonna have to wait.

I do plan on leaving clues when it gets time to release the project. But I am going to pre-record several episodes and edit them before they ever see the light of day. So you'll all have to wait for awhile lol.

Next Time

I do want to go more in-depth about why I made certain changes to the playbooks, but I've gotten pretty good at just being tight lipped so, next time. Thanks for your patience and interest.

Morningstar

[xarrixii]

i am a tad bit upset

if you have read any episode of flash/burn ever and were wondering where your chapter update was yesterday, i'm sorry. really very sorry. but i just can't.

i'm going to be putting flash/burn on an indefinite hiatus. after talking with friend @goodluckclove on some of the finer details of my story, i realized i am not ready to be sharing any of this with the world. and honestly, i have far better ideas for urban's character.

i'm not sure how many people even know/remember this fact, but flash/burn is the derivative child of an old story i wrote with some friends ~june 2021. it was called Archive, as the original idea (to my memory, anyway) was to take a band of criminals on a spin through cop lane to avoid detectives and in general getting caught.

this is when one friend came up with what ended up being the actual plot of what remained as Archive: the criminal organization Cinder takes the band in.

i'm not going into huge detail here but i was writing out of whimsy and jumping the gun, so i ended up writing Urban Reichler (as he was called pretty much 100% of the 35 document story with maybe one or two exceptions) as a character who through violent and maybe slightly unsettling means ends up as an omnikinetic.

for obvious reasons i chose not to make this the direction of flash/burn. however, i have a new idea based on this omnikinetic origin. and i have the synopsis ready for what i currently plan to call Transgressor.

/ / / / / | ---

Urban Reichler is kineticless and generally quite comfortable in life until a Defier, Sinner, Transgressor—whatever you want to call those who defy fate and get out of it alive and with kinetic powers—comes along and upends it all in a monumental loss of self control. It’s not long before the Kinetics Defiance Control Unit (KDCU) arrives and puts a stop to the wild kinetic rampage, but not before Urban defies his own fate trying to stay alive. Urban is unable to forget the flash of what operates the world behind the scenes that came with that Transgressor’s Hydrokinesis—and later the flashes of unreality that come with pyrokinesis, aerokinesis, telekinesis, electrokinesis, geokinesis, and telepathy. To become a master of kinetics, an omnikinetic, Urban is forced to become He Who Fate No Longer Commands—to become an otherworldly horror in mortal skin, to see it all. And live.

/ / / / / | ---

if you haven't guessed by now, i am doing a bit. a little april first haha if you will. and if you fell for my wording, i assure you now that by "indefinite hiatus" i mean "whenever i can get this canon comic book series to form a sensible enough video game franchise to rewrite chapter 35"

and oh the implications i love them so much. Alph calling Harlow "Urban, master of kinetics," god i love it. i love it so much.

anyway that's what i've been up to. enjoy your teaser

tagging for silly: @madeoforgansandtissues, @fins0up, @kadjakat, @afyerarchive

[noneedforflowers]

✿ No Need for Flowers 12/15/24 ✿

Progress update!

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted, and I'd like to share how development is going!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steam page progress

My original plan was to make this update after publishing the Steam page, but it's taken longer than expected. As it turns out, registering an LLC, opening a new bank account, and researching how to make a professional-looking Steam page takes time, lol. It's almost done, though! All that's left is to finish the capsule art.

I was going to publish the store page with rushed placeholder art, just to get it out there. Before I went through with it, I asked some of my friends what they thought, and I got the impression it was probably not the best idea. This is what I showed them:

I mashed a bunch of assets together and color shifted everything to be brighter...

It seems like the best decision would be to make an original piece now instead. Making good art will take much more time than just mashing assets together, but I think it'll be worth it. Here are some of the rough thumbnails I came up with:

Trying to go for a cool and dynamic composition

I'll post the final whenever it's completed, so look forward to that!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How far is development?

Very far. Like, I'm currently working on the final boss far.

Honestly, I somewhat regret waiting this long to start making NNFF public (2 years!!), but also working with zero pressure and zero need to think about social media for so long helped me get a lot of work done. So I actually somewhat don't regret it.

Here's a rough idea of the major tasks left:

Final level + final boss

Some cutscenes

Most CGs/big art pieces

Some fluff features, such as a sound test

Polishing the story draft and dialogue

Getting feedback and testing

Music and SFX

There are a few more things, but those are the least spoiler-y and most time-consuming ones.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I'm currently working on

I've been hopping between working on the final boss, finalizing the story and writing, and random bug fixes.

One specific thing that took a lot of my time recently was finalizing a monologue that's told in the background of one of the end-game stages. I still have to run it by some friends to see if it sucks, but here's a snippet of it:

I'm trying to make NNFF as unique of an experience that I can, so I added quite a few experimental things like this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading this far. I hope to have more things to share with you soon!