#This is just like a meme drawing and I’ve got no clue what else to tag is as…

[albino-parakeet]

Thought the difference was funny so here’s that meme with the closest thing to a “face reveal” I’ll do.

Granted I was dressed up to run errands and such when I was watching lol. Yes that’s a Jurassic Park button up. I own three different ones.

[quibbs126]

For the fan kid thingy, can I get a velvetgatto? (Affogato x red velvet)

Finally…after an eternity (about 6 months, which Jesus that’s a long time), he is finished. Zuccotto Cookie

So his name. Zuccotto is basically like an ice cream cake, so a combination of Red Velvet’s cake and Affogato’s ice cream. Also, it’s Italian, like affogato. I vaguely recall the name giving me trouble at first, until I realized cake and ice cream was a valid combination and got this

Zuccotto:

So I had his design sketched out like a month ago, and I think I recall telling you all that I couldn’t figure out how to make his design work. I had left the design I made and just went and did something else, and then today I was looking for something to draw and I said “yeah the design looks fine, don’t know why I didn’t like it” and just drew that

But also this means that I don’t remember all the reasons for his design details, most notably the staff

I mean, I know I based it off the staffs some of the Cake Monsters have, specifically the Pomegranate shamans or whatever they were called. I also know originally I was trying to make it a spork, but I couldn’t get it to look good, so I switched to the other staff. But I admit, it looks a bit out of place. I mean, I changed some of the colors at the end to match it, but I think it still looks off. But I’m not going through the effort of making a new one, I remember that staff being a pain

Anyways, so I think I was trying to give Zuccotto a style more befitting a shaman, but also with a more modern twist to emulate Red Velvet. I think I did it well

But one thing that was a real struggle was the colors, because I had no clue what to do for them. In my mind he had a black and red color scheme, and that’s how I had it at first, but I was having difficulty with putting the reds next to each other, and I changed some of the colors at the end to match the staff, and I think it worked out fine in the end

I feel like he looks too similar to Affogato, at least without colors (I felt that when I was drawing the sketch). But maybe I just need to take some time away from him and come back to really know. He probably doesn’t look as similar as I think

Also I’m just realizing that considering he’s not made of a food that contains coffee, he probably shouldn’t have dilated pupils, but like, both Red Velvet and Affogato have some form of them, so shhh

Anyways, so let’s move on to him

So Zuccotto is part of the Cookies of Darkness (assuming they stay for a long time and/or there’s a new group), and he’s some sort of Cake Shaman, summoning Cake Monsters to do his bidding. Though he has a great respect for Cakes and see them as equals. He’s not necessarily a bad guy, but he’s very loyal to the Cookies of Darkness and has no inclination to leave, feeling that normal Cookies have no respect for Cakes

I can imagine him playing cards or chess with the Cake Monsters, or at least the ones with hands

Now one of the other main things I have for him is his relationship with Licorice Cream, a darklico fankid I did some time ago, and whom you can see in the sketch (it’s supposed to be a recreation of that Toy Story meme). Basically my idea is that they’re both part of the CoD and they’re this duo within the group. Zuccotto is the straight man that gets dragged along into Licorice Cream’s antics and tries to stay the voice of reason. I said in my head that they have a dynamic similar to Mule and Sonia from Berserk, but also it’s been a while since I’ve read the chapters with them, and my mind may have branched off from that initial dynamic. But basically it’s “weird girl and normal dude who has no clue what she’s on about”. Actually that’s probably not accurate, I just don’t know how to describe Sonia, so sorry to those who haven’t read Berserk and don’t know what I’m talking about

Zuccotto’s also generally the more mature of the two, despite Licorice Cream being older (Zuccotto’s like a teenager while LC is an adult)

I feel like I should have more, but really those are the only two bits I have on him, I don’t think he’s that complicated. But I might have more to say about him when I redo Licorice Cream, since I have a better idea of what to do with her now, and they are rather close

But yeah, that’s Zuccotto Cookie, hope you like him and that maybe he was worth the wait!

[staticl0ve]

my LOVE. i'm here to bother you with ASK MEME QUESTIONS. hit me with a sweet sweet 2, 5, 8, and 14✨

SWEETHEART. COME HERE AND LEMME KISS YOU.

2. What is your favorite fic of yours?

This is cheating but, probably The Boy Next Door since it covers all the RKs (I swear I’ll make one for Markus someday). I say it feels like cheating cause it’s not based on canon, everything about it has nothing to do with androids and one could say it’s a fic that uses the actor’s faces and has nothing to do with DBH.

It’s my favorite series cause I got to explore so much with characters that in canon: have no…childhood. I really wanted to embrace a human AU where it’s just the characters you know and love but a “what if” they existed as kids in the 90s/early 2000s. It felt like an ode to fanon and not canon which was really fun to do.

5. Do you like one shots or multi-chapters?

I love the no pressure that comes from one-shots. There’s no need to worry about “how does the plot work out?” But I find that I tend to want to end chapters pretty soon, usually 4k words in and I much prefer 2 shots.

That said! I love building multi chapter fics cause it gives me room to do world building but they haunt me LMAO. I gotta write them as fast as I can or else they drag out (like Eden did, I swear I’ll finish the epilogue). I’m almost done with The Pig and the Fox but I can feel the desire to write waning. 💀

8. Do you take inspiration from real life? If so how do you incorporate it into your fics?

Cackling. Uhm. A lot comes from romcom tropes or inspired by other shows/movies I’ve watched but there are scenarios that I based on reality or use them as a seed to a bigger idea. I’m a little ADHD myself so it was insanely easy writing a human AU Sixty.

When writing more passionate scenes between two characters and their physical chemistry, I try to draw from personal experiences. From scenes as simple as a cuddle or a heated kiss. Write what you know as they say!

14. What is something you wrote in a fic that you are hoping readers picked up on but you don't know if they did? And/or, what is something that you were excited that readers did pick up on?

The most noticeable one I can think of are all the clues I’ve laid out in Dollhouse that allude to the ending. 😏😏😏 I wrote it in the hopes that people might be interested in rereading it to see if they’ve missed anything.

Chaos is normally the master of surprise so most of my stories don’t have a ton of suspense !

Sometimes I include really obscure references in my writing. Like there’s a line in the Pig fic: “Dreaming before your cybernetics were installed was…well, the same as it ever was.” I thought it’d be funny to reference Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime there. There’s a bunch stuff like that scattered across all my writing cause it makes me giggle when I edit.

[hivequest]

Taking a Risk » Mallek Adalov/Reader

Wordcount: 2.3k words

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, stressed out reader, chillboy Mallek. TYping quirk only used when texting cause I could not be bothered lmao Originally posted on AO3

A/N: One of my favorite things that I’ve written, ever. I love Mallek and he’s for sure one of my favorite Friendsim characters. When I wrote this I was really feeling those Quarantine Woes

You didn't know what you were doing here. You felt out of place in the worst possible ways. It was a weird, squidgy feeling like stepping on wet grass. But not like the fun kind where you were running around in a sprinkler on a hot-as-balls summer day. No, this was the bad kind of wet grass that you stepped on without knowing it was wet. Why weren't you wearing shoes?

This analogy is stupid. The point is, you're feeling bummed out.

And what better way to not have to deal with that than hang out with someone you knew wouldn't push you into talking about all the ways crashing on this planet sucked! The point is, you're on your way to see Mallek. Mallek is absolutely the kind of friend who can tell when you just need to sit down and veg out. You had been so caught up in everyone else's bullshit that you weren't looking after your own damn self. So now you were doing that.

All it took was a quick text, asking Mallek if he had any company. He texted back only a moment later with a no, obviously not. You asked him if he wanted any. Not really. You ask him if you can come over anyway. Obviously.

You smiled at the palmhusk in your, well, palm. You could already feel the chill vibes of your hacker friend. Friend? Was that the right word for it? You didn't know anymore. When you first met there were definitely some sparks there. You could still feel them now and it made weird butterflies flutter around in your stomach. When you slapped his phone out of his hand and he sent you ass over applecart into the slimy depths of sewer water and he saved you, tits out and all.

You shook off the weird wistful feeling of maybe possibly crossing the friendship barrier and told him you'd walk to his hive. You'd been moping in some bookhive, not your usual hang-out spot with Tagora or Tyzias. This was some upper caste bookhive with purple bloods and some indigos and definitely not where you were welcome if the looks you were getting were any indication. They ranged from snooty to downright murderous. Yeesh.

Your phone -palmhusk, stupid troll names- beeped again. You got another text from him and those cheery fucking butterflies were back. God, you had it bad.

yeah were not doing that lmao;

im not going to let my robobuddy walk out in the sun

do you even know what time of day it =

just stay put ive already got your location ill pick you up;

And like a good little friendsimp. You park your ass on a chair and wait. You hadn't released your moping had taken up most of the night. But with the quick look around, yeah, no, this place was nearly empty by now. Just some older bluebloods trying to cram before their Ordeals and get shipped off-planet. Again: Yeesh.

You kept your ears open for the telltale sound of Mallek's limo. It was a sound you were getting used to these days. He always seemed ready to drop whatever coding shit he was working on to come to see you. You tried not to think too hard on what that might mean. No need to get your hopes up now. It's probably just your bad mood making you imagine some context where there's nothing. Yeah.

Damn, that shit hurted.

Just as you were about to add that to the reasons you were considering just screaming your lungs out who cares whose listening? you heard the wonderfully familiar sound of an approaching elongated scuttlebuggy. If that wasn't enough of a clue as to who the ride was for the quiet of the bookhive was very abruptly disturbed by a series of rhythmic beeps.

Holy shit was that the Tetris theme?

You shoved your palmhusk into your hoodie pocket and yanked the hood over your head. Even if the sun was only out a little bit you didn't want it anywhere near your freshly healed skin. You had no kind cowgirl to nurse you back to health right now if you got your asscheeks baked by the flaming death orb. You peeked your head out and even with the blinding light of Alternia's suns you could Mallek had opened the door and was waiting for you.

Aw. No, shit. You're in a bad mood don't get all heart eyes at him. Don't make it weird.

You took a few steps back into the bookhive, ready to make a run for it. You turn to a sitting indigoblood, who is just staring at you disdainfully for keeping the door open. You give her a two-fingered salute. Godspeed young cosmonaut. She gives you a one-fingered salute. Close the door you insufferable bulgebiter. Fair.

Taking a running start, you book it out into the heat of the Alternian sun and dive for the open car door. It's then that you realize he's halfway parked on the sidewalk to lessen the amount of time you'd have to spend in the sun. Aw. That also means that you came barreling like a cannonball at something that was like two feet out of the door. FUck.

Your face meets carpet and you can already feel the rugburn starting to set in. You hear a startled wheezy laugh from above you, a sound you know better than anyone else on this planet. You smile. It's not like you had any dignity to begin with.

You say hello to him as you peel yourself off of the floor of his car.

"Hey, there robobuddy. You stuck the landing this time," He smiles down at you as he reaches over you to shut the door, closing the space out from natural light and leaving you both lit by his colorful LEDs. You shrug and tell him you've been getting a lot of practice landing on your face these days. The look he gives you is still smiling but there's some level of disbelief at the dumbassery that is your whole existence.

"I know you can get yourself into it. Nothing too bad this time, though, right? No drones or broken bones?" He sounds concerned which is nice but he doesn't drown you with his concern. He leans back on the bench of his limo, keeping an eye on you as the vehicle begins to move on its own. You've been staying out of big messes but the little messes are starting to mess with you. He makes a sound of understanding the sounds as it comes from deep in his chest. Whoa. "Believe me, I've been there. Glad you're not cracking under it though."

He smiles and you can see his little fang and you can feel your heart melt a little. And also you're getting a bit teary-eyed and now Mallek looks alarmed. Shit. You try to quickly explain that you're fine, just, alien allergies am I right? He must be using some new air freshener to mask the musty smell of his limo. Since doesn't use it enough. Ha ha?

He isn't buying it.

With a rare show of cerulean prowess, he lifts you up off of the shitty car rug and sets you on the seat beside him. He feels uncomfortable and you can tell. Ah, goddammit you made it weird. You didn't mean to. Fuck. Fuck now you're feeling even worse. You thought you were starting to balance out. You're with Mallek now, shouldn't everything start to quiet down like it always does? Fuck. He doesn't say anything at first, just leans back against the seat and stretches his arms across it, letting you lean on him if you choose to.

...You choose to.

Your head finds itself somewhere between his shoulder and his collarbone, and you just. Shove your face there. Then scream.

To his credit, Mallek doesn't even flinch. He doesn't wince or shy away from you as you let out every bit of anger, sadness, and frustration out against his sweater. He just sits quietly, staring straight at the blacked-out windshield. You get the feeling he's needed to do this more than once.

Screw this planet. Screw everything about it that makes all of your friends suffer. Why can't you just get them away from all this bullshit?! Why do you have to deal with everyone's bullshit! You love them, you do but holy fuck they're looking to you like you can undo all the damage this place has done to them when you've got literally no god damn idea what's happening at any point ever!

And then, just like that, it fades into the background. Your throat hurts. Your head hurts and you think you might be crying. But it feels lighter. Better now that you've gotten some of that aggression out. You aren't like the trolls on Alternia. You can't kill people when you experience an Emotion™. But that doesn't mean you don't get pent up with rage.

Mallek realizes that now. He lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding and his left hand slowly moves down from the back of the seat the rest against your back. His thumb brushes against your back, the claw drawing little patterns against the fabric of your sweater. His sweater. He tries not to think his sign your chest. This isn't the time.

"Feeling any better?" He asks and you don't know how to answer. You kinda don't want to. But you nod anyways, and you feel some tension leave his body. You knew he was worried about you. You apologize for making him witness your meltdown but he just makes another deep-chested hum. "Nothing to apologize for. I got the feeling you weren't feeling great. I could tell from the texts, you didn't use nearly enough ugly emojis."

You scoff and smack a hand against his chest and once again you hear that wonderful laugh from him. Hey! Your purrbeast emojis are adorable, thank you very much! And you'll not hear another word of it or else you'll send him pictures of rocks and rocks exclusively. No more memes.

"Jokes on you I'm into that shit." You laugh and thump your head against his collarbone. You thank him for being with you when were needed it. And picking you up to make sure you didn't deal with it alone. You don't want to make it weird but...yeah.

He doesn't respond this time, just letting you both enjoy the silence and the comforting sound of the engine. You should almost be at Mallek's apartment by now. It's as you're settling in for the last bit of the drive that you notice that the limo isn't moving. And hasn't been for a while. Your head pops up in confusion and the little GPS display on the back of one of the seats says... yep.

You're already at Mallek's.

But then why is the engine still on? That can't be good for the environment. Do these things even run on gas or is it bugs? Bug gas? Gross.

You notice then that the rumbling is coming from behind you. Like. From where Mallek is sitting. He doesn't look away when you turn to him, just kind of tilting his head to the side with a little bit of a cerulean hue to his cheeks. Oh. Oh, the sound is coming from him. He's purring. That's.

That's adorable.

You feel yourself soften even more when he lifts his arms, silently offering a hug if you want it. Is this platonic? Is this more? You've never had too much trouble identifying what people wanted from you. (Debatable.) If was overtly flushed you could shut it down or divert it to something very much friends only. (Like your every exchange with Zebruh.) But did you even want to do that to your hackerman? You could feel yourself screaming, no, absolutely not. But at the same time, you didn't want things to change. You didn't want to make his issues any worse than they already were. He didn't have too much longer on the planet and you knew it would tear him apart.

But then he turned those blue eyes to you. He looked just as unsure as you were but he was willing to take the risk. He shoved himself so far out of his comfort zone for you and was asking you to be selfish. To want something for yourself and do something for yourself. Not put him or anyone else's wants first. Just your own. And so you did.

You crawled up into his lap, pressed yourself as close to him as you could and clung to him. His arms didn't hesitate to wrap around you and you could feel a shuddering breath from above you.

"We don't have to put a label on this... not yet. Or ever. Either way is chill with me. I just... yeah." He gave up with a little shrug of his shoulders but you knew what he meant. Unless you could find a way to fight fate he was going to go off-world. He was going to leave you and you doubted you'd be able to go with him. You'd probably get gored by a drone for even trying.

But even if it was just for now, just for a moment, you were going to take it. You were going to let yourself have something, have someone who would care for you no matter how long or short your time was. You'd take it. You had stomached some of the most horrible things on this planet but Mallek had always been a constant. And you got the feeling he thought the same way about you.

So, you'd take it. Whatever comes next, you'd take it. You listened to the sound of his purring, in no hurry to move to get inside the apartment. Mallek felt the same.

You exhaled.

You would be okay.

[070897sims]

I’m happy I was tagged and I’m going to do this (on my phone cause I’m stubborn and don’t want to get out of bed lol) thank you for the tag @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy

~Rules~

Show us a rendition of yourself in your own art! Can be anything! Sims render? Random stick figure? Picrew? Go nuts! (Just be sure to tag the artist if you use someone else's picrew!!!!) Tag the blogs you want to know, and don't be a dick that's it! Also, feel free to answer as vague or in-depth as you want. And if you don't want to answer a question for any reason just don't vibe with it! Skip it if you wanna!

Uh I have nothing of myself on my phone O.o I have my fluffy hair selfie when I woke up from 10 hours sleep? (Don’t care about sharing my face, most of my friends see me in discord lol)

Do you prefer to be referred to by your name or blog name?

Honestly my blog name. Bolo 😅

Where are you from?

Canada 🇨🇦

Do you have pets? 👀

My sweet bby Bologna 🥰

Tell us about your “dream”.

O.o is this serious or not? Either way I have no heckin clue lol

Aside from art, what are your hobbies?

I read a lot of manga, watch a lot of YouTube, been listening to a lot of Kpop (Stray kids at the moment) and I love to paint irl

Does anyone irl know about your blog?

I’ve talked about it but no one around me is into sims ;-;

Do you know anyone from your blog irl?

Nah~

What are some fun facts about you?

Uh O.o; I have a deathhawk, was a major weeb, I had a nail tech license, uumm and I have major back issues? xD

What’s your day job?

Stocking shelves at a grocery store~

Do you have a celebrity look alike?

no? I was told when I was 14 that I looked like the icarly girl lol

What’s your aesthetic?

dark

What kind of artist are you?

Hmm not sure. I don’t really think of myself in that way I guess??

How did you get into your form of art?

For photography: took a lot of depressy walks around my lil town in the country. A friend and I used to walk around taking pictures during our high school breaks too.

For painting/drawing: was always into it tbh. Would draw or find any reason to pick up a thing that can leave a mark and just doodle. Got into painting a lil later in middle school.

Nail art: teeny canvas and it made my man hands look pretty every now and then lol

What do you watch/listen/read/anything else you create?

Hmmm sometimes complete silence tbh. Especially when I paint. I can’t be jamming to songs or I muck up and cry xD mmm but if it’s for simbs or photography I have music 24/7. YouTube videos sometimes if I’m editing something.

What is your favourite of your own creations so far?

Omg uh I don’t think I have a favourite? I love a lot of things I do. My main passion is photography, so I’d probably show off all the photos I’ve taken xD now that I think of it, it’d probably be the pics from a train track bridge at my favourite depressy spot. The amount of pictures of train tracks with the sun setting I have is ridiculous pft.

How would you describe your art style?

dark

What is more satisfying to you, colouring or outlining?

… the sketch hehe

What meme would you describe use to describe yourself?

What character from any media form do you most identify with?

uh

If you were on the run, what would you change your name to?

Peter.

Have you ever or do you want to change blog names?

mmmm probably not. I thought I was pretty cool thinking of Lonely_Bologna for discord xD making a blog wasn’t for posting my stuff it was mainly to find friends with the same interest.

God forbid tumblr decides to pull a MySpace and let’s us have page songs, what song would you choose?

I thought you can do it? I’d just link it to my current playlist on Spotify. My “favourite song” changes once a week lol

Oh yeah, I’m still on the MySpace train and I’m starting discourse! Who’s your top 8?

O.o

Did you understand those references or did you have to look them up? (I’m fully aware I’m ancient, but are you?)

I was sort of there for the MySpace days. So I have no clue pft

One last question; why are you like that?

It’s called “being awkward”, I need help xD

Dag dag?

Dag dag~

Now tag tag!!!

Oh lord, who and what and uh I guess anybody who sees this >.>

[remys-lucky-franc]

I’m Bringing Sexy Back (To Regency England) - Immortal Heart Society

So this happened because I referred to new series IHS’s baddie Lord Montague as ‘Lord Timberlake’ due to the coiffuring similarities and it made @aquagirl1978 LOL and she made me this:

See how alike they look though?! I’m not crazy.

Literally no one in the world wants this fic, and it’s just stupid, but I had a giggle writing it, so 😆 Also, I genuinely know nothing about JT, if any of you are superfans and I’m way off, it’s just a bit of fun, no ill intent or offence meant 💕

Also it’s just in time for all the good old memes... (At the end if anyone needs a ref point)

Word Count ~3500 (yeah, I’ve gone off)

[MORE] [[MORE]]

In the grandiose but soulless marble bathroom of the Boston penthouse, Justin squeezed his eyes tight-shut, splashing his face with frigid water. He inhaled sharply as the moisture hit his skin, opening his eyes and staring intently at the reflection mirrored back at him. It had been quite a night so far. He’d been courted by ‘The Society’ for a couple of months now and on receiving their latest invite, he had finally acquiesced. Over the course of the evening he’d exchanged pleasantries and mingled with a fusion of intriguing individuals - all very different, very separate people, but all who clearly had gotten the memo: convince him to join. Justin suspected before he arrived, from the exclusive address on the invite alone, the sort of members The Society would have on its roster and he wasn’t surprised - even if most of them were no more than masked silhouettes. Initially when he had exited the elevator and caught sight of all those shaded faces, Justin’s heart stuttered: had he inadvertently accepted an invite to some sort of sexy party? How would he explain this one? ‘Hey Honey - funny story...’ But it didn’t take long to deduce that the disguises were all part of the prestige and served as identity protection rather than a conduit to anyone having any real sort of fun.

The mixer itself had been entertaining enough, but the hushed secrets shared in the drawing room were what had piqued his interested and saw him hiding in the restroom searching his own soul for answers. He’d been trading anecdotes with a handful of members before he was interrupter by a well dressed blonde and ushered through a side door, where he was greeted with a firm handshake by one of the top men within the society (apparently), Richard - Something. Initially Justin had smiled but internally rolled his eyes as he considered how these shady types only ever give out their first names - and how that felt particularly unfair when everyone here knew fine well what his surname was... Richard was perfectly charming and charismatic - in the same faux-caring, calculating way politicians are as they try to snare floating voters. His smile was bright and his words were warm, but his eyes were a stark contrast. The Society’s hoi-polloi were obviously deemed to have played their part in warming him up and now Richard was here to give him the hard-sell: and sell he did.

And at first, it sounded relatively normal. At first. Until Richard started with tall tales of how society members held all of the power in the world through power stones. Initially Justin got to his feet and scoffed - weren’t crystals just for spa days and hippies? This had to be a set up. He scanned the room looking for any clue of a hidden camera, Ashton Kutcher’s sneakers showing from behind a curtain perhaps - but nothing. It all sounded truly ridiculous, but as Richard stood, laying a firm hand on Justin’s shoulder, directing him towards a plush chair, pouring him two fingers of whisky, something held him; fascinated him. Stopped him from barging straight out of the room. Justin observed in silence as Richard thumbed through various documents, showing him photographs, pulling up search data online... Explaining. Convincing. Persuading. Justin didn’t trust the suave smarmy suit as far as he could throw him, but the more Richard divulged of the spiderweb of societal involvement in major global events and current affairs, the more sense it made... And in spite of himself, Justin started to succumb to this strange reality. Every word out of Clever Dick’s mouth was revelational, peeling away one layer after another, after another, until Justin’s mind was blown; his brain hurt the same way it did the first time he watched Inception. He couldn’t bend his mind around why Richard was telling him all this, or why a collective more powerful than The Walt Disney Company would want a musician to join their ranks? Richard shrugged coolly as he continued to play for Justin’s buy in, simply smiling and saying that, as a big pop star, it would be quid pro quo - a very mutually beneficial arrangement. The society had access to the best labels, the best A&R departments, they could get Justin as much airplay, fame and publicity as he wanted.

Justin couldn’t deny it sounded appealing - but what did they want in return? So far it was all ‘quid’ and no ‘quo’. He had to ask. Even the easy, practiced grin on Richard’s face couldn’t offset the glint of ice in his dark eyes and menace in his voice that chilled Justin’s blood.

“Justin, come! Everyone knows that music is what shapes the youth of today! The influence wielded by artists, the loyalty inspired by them, their marketability, it’s simply insurmountable! Think about it, dear boy? If The Society control the music, they control the populace.”

Justin cleared his throat as he sized himself up, readjusting his skinny black tie and squaring his shoulders. Richard must be insane. The Society’s logic was fatally flawed: they couldn’t seriously think that it was possible control the entire world’s population through having a singer in their ranks? It was infeasible. Impossible. But what they were offering him in exchange? Now, that was a very attractive proposition indeed. If he agreed to join, and got all of that out of it, it would be worth it? The Society would surely realise at some point that they couldn’t rule the world through the power of song? Yes, the power of a one-line harmony had already been proven by McDonald’s to sell a shit-tonne of burgers - and while it was a pretty convincing argument, selling fast-food to hungry people was one thing - but full-scale global domination?? That was something else entirely. But if he could ride along on their coat-tails and reap all the benefits until they realised just how crazy that idea had been in the first place...

—- two years later —-

Cash carded his hand through his dark hair, exasperated as he listened to Alana’s latest report, “You all understand that Timberlake is completely out of control, yes?”

Emilio grunted flatly as his head fell into his crossed arms on the table like a five year old ready to play heads-down-thumbs-up, “Yeeeeees.”

Cash bristled further as he looked to Rafe and Kiran for their input, both simply nodding back at him as though to say, ‘yes, we know.’

Alana looked down at her phone, worrying her full bottom lip between her teeth, “It’s worse than you think though, Cash.”

He was instantly on his feet staring at her, Rafe and Kiran leaned forward and Emilio raised one weary brow from his slumped pose, concern evident on all their faces.

Kiran was first to speak, “Alana how can it be worse? Richard’s vanished off the face of the earth. Justin’s last billboard count had him go multi-platinum - again, and his lyrics are becoming...”

Rafe offered flatly, “Odd.” He stood, cracked his neck from side to side and headed towards the small stove, absentmindedly filling a saucepan with water and a packet of instant noodles.

Cash shook his head at Rafe then turned back to glower at the rest of the Inner Circle, “Thank you all for the recap. It’s bleak, we know. Alana?”

Green eyes fixed the room as Alana cleared her throat and mouthed, “One hundred and ninety-four.”

Dumbfounded silence filled the room; jaws hung slack. Until Kiran broke the spell, a spluttering cough turning into an uncomfortable laugh, “One hundred and ninety-four what? Because I know you definitely can’t mean stones. We know the exactly location of over fifty percent of them? They’re safe?”

Rafe, back at the table with his ramen by now, paled as Alana shook her head at a loss for words, red curls bouncing around her shoulders, “How is that possible?”

Alana threw her hands in the air, confessing “I honestly don’t know. But he has ones that we knew the location of, and more besides.”

Cash paced the room, clearly agitated as he cursed and barked,

“That’s every stone in existence, except ours and one other.”

Alana puffed out her cheeks before huffing out the breath sharply, “Correct. He has the lot, excepts ours - and the Garnet.”

Emilio’s hand slid under his shirt, a double-check to be sure his Alexandrite remained firmly on the chain hidden beneath the dark fabric, fiddling with it like a child with a comfort blanket as he spoke, “I- I just don’t understand. How? How did he get so many without us knowing?”

Rafe shrugged as he shovelled a spoonful of noodles into his mouth and chewed thoroughly before answering, “Richard’s protege. His pet project. Nothing surprises me when he’s involved. Everything he touches gets tarnished.”

Alana sighed sadly, “Justin seemed like such a sweet guy when he first joined. I really liked him. I thought he could have been part of our Inner Circle someday.”

Rafe shot her a rueful smile before looking down into the noodles, “Same. He changed. Fast.” Coiling his fork in a thick helping, he swung them into his mouth without ceremony.

Cash pinched the bridge of his nose, stopping pacing for long enough to stare and snap at Rafe,

“What is it with you and those blasted ramen noodles??”

Rafe shook his head silently as though to say, ‘I don’t know’: he wasn’t entirely sure why, but every time someone mentioned Timberlake, he couldn’t stop himself from carb-loading. All he wanted a big bowl of ramen in his belly and he couldn’t think about anything else until he was full of noodley-goodness. He’d eaten more instant ramen in the past couple of years than he did during college, and that was saying something.

Kiran cut through the atmosphere between the two men, venturing, “So how are we going to shut him down?”

—-

Richard had been missing for months, and although all trails had gone cold and no one was one hundred percent clear on what had happened to him, there was very strong suspicion within the group of five that Justin had something to do with it. How else had he managed to acquire almost every power stone in existence? He must have dispensed of Richard and taken them for himself - there really didn’t seem, to be any other explanation. The Inner Circle had been aware that Richard was hoarding stones, but his haul had escalated significantly and quickly with Justin by his side - at the Circle’s last count maybe six to eight months ago, Richard only had sixty-five stones in his custody. The dirty duo had been busy.

Emilio shuddered solemnly as he thought about what must have happened to the rightful owners of those stones. He was at the tower with the Inner Circle, minus Cash. Cash would arrive soon, bringing Justin to the table with him. Creating a rouse of support, and then double-crossing him to recover the power stones had been deemed the only feasible plan. Emilio watched the rest of the group: Rafe stirring at a saucepan at the small kitchen set up, Kiran flipping aimlessly though a fashion magazine and Alana tapping at her cellphone. They were all feeling nervous about this, the stakes had never been so high. He scrubbed his brow as he ran through the various scenarios of what could possibly happen with Cash and Justin arrived.

He didn’t have long to wait as the door opened and laughter reverberated around the room. Cash was manoeuvring Timberlake expertly, and Justin seemed to be lapping up everything he said. A round of smiles and handshakes later everyone sat around the table, eyes expectantly on Cash.

“Justin, firstly, thank you for joining the group here today. As you know, with Richard... Let’s say, elsewhere. I’ve been standing in as the ‘interim leader’. And I’ll be frank, Justin, I always thought it would be for me, but it’s not. And it takes a lot for me to admit that. I can do the decision-making, the negotiations, but what I cannot abide is dealing with attitudes and egos all day long.”

Rafe chortled, “He thinks he should be the only one allowed an attitude and an ego!”

Justin grinned and visibly relaxed within the larger group.

Clearing his throat irately, Cash gestured towards Rafe, “Exactly what I’m talking about. Justin, my calling doesn’t lie in leading The Society. I am more interested in having a less ’public facing position’ shall we say, where I can really put my true talents to use. And that’s why I invited you to sit with us today, Justin.’

Timberlake nodded enthusiastically, “ I see.”

Cash stood, wearing a trail in the carpet as he walked back and forth,

“What are your goals, Justin? We understand you must be distraught about Richard’s disappearance, you two seemed close. Do you have aspirations for The Society’s Leadership? We’ve been observing you for some time, and feel that we could all benefit each other within this little group, everyone here wants to progress and wants ‘more’. And we feel like you may have some ideas that could help us all to achieve just that.”

Justin leaned back in his chair observing the group sat around the table. Of course he knew what his goals were. He’d never really considered leadership of The Society until recently - his mind had been consumed with his plan for ultimate pop domination over the past two years. And he’d progressed so far that it was within his grasp - and that was when he and Richard had begun to clash. Badly. Richard’s vision was so- So limited. He couldn’t see Justin’s potential past being a Society tool used to control the public. Justin knew his worth, he was more than a tool for Richard to implement as he saw fit. He felt the anger bubble inside him as he recalled the final fight with Richard. They could have controlled the entire world together: why couldn’t Richard have seen that? Why couldn’t he have got on board with Justin’s plans? As he sized up the twelve eyes watching him, he thought about the dozens of power stones locked securely in the safe in his apartment: these people could see his strength. His power. His star ascending. He leaned forward, his decision made,

“I have acquired many power stones and my plan is, to use our time-travelling abilities to go back in time and wipe other pop stars from existence, so that I am the single biggest pop star in the world today. Then with my influence, The Society will control everything. We, friends, will control the world.”

Alana and Kiran eyeballed each other as the men nodded at Justin.

Kiran interjected,

“There’s no doubt that The Society would benefit from that sort of influence, but what about all of the damage that would be done to culture and humanity without artists?”

Justin looked confused as he stared at her, “But they’d still have me?”

Kiran chewed the statement over before asking, “And who are you going after? Are we talking about Elvis? The Beatles? Frank Sinatra?”

Justin waved a hand as though he’d practiced this very conversation in the mirror a hundred times, “No, no. Only today’s artists. I can’t disrupt anyone who directly or indirectly influenced my career. Butterfly Effect and all.”

The Inner Circle nodded sagely as Justin continued, “And when my plan is complete, who, I ask you, will be the biggest pop star in the world??”

Alana glanced up grimacing, “I don’t know Justin, I mean Lady Gaga is pretty huge? Iconic, even.”

Emilio shook his head, “Right now, Ariana Grande’s the biggest artist in the world, I read it somewhere.”

Justin fixed them both with an affronted stare, “But think about it, if none of them ever existed... Then who would be the biggest pop star in the world?”

Alana and Emilio exchanged a world-weary glance as Justin cackled, “Guess what? It’s gonna be me.”

Rafe scrunched his nose, confused, speaking through a mouthful of ramen, “May? What? Are the Emmy’s not always in September?”

Cash shotshim a withering glance before grinning at Justin, “You’ve thought a lot about his haven’t you?”

Justin, visibly flattered, shrugged off Cash’s praise, “Just a little.”

Cash leaned towards Justin conspiratorially, “So tell us, what more do you need to make your dreams a reality, and how could we, as a group, facilitate that?”

—-

Over the next few weeks the Inner Circle had planned for two consecutive missions. One intricate scheme with Justin, that involved him travelling back over two hundred years to Regency England to secure the Garnet power stone from a Lady Foxworthy. And their own private secondary mission that involved luring Justin back to Regency England where there was no power stone to be found.

When the day to venture back in time arrived, Justin paraded around the tower preening in the mirror at his era-appropriate garb. Kiran had stitched it to perfection, a beautifully embroidered waistcoat over his cravat, fitted cream pants and a midnight blue, velvet long-tailed coat that really made his eyes pop. Rafe let out a low whistle, winking at Justin’s reflection in the mirror, “Looking sharp! Nice work Kiran.” This look was a definitely a step up from double denim!

Kiran moved around Justin turning him, dusting down his shoulders, “Oh hold up, you have a thread. Let me just get that for you. Can’t have you looking less than perfect!” She reached for her scissors and touched the back of his jacket whilst swiftly clipping a tuft of hair from the back of his head.

The corners of Cash’s mouth quirked upwards at her almost imperceptibly as he spoke, “Very elegant, good Sir. You look quite the part.”

Justin gave Cash a delighted twirl to show off his new threads before performing a low, sweeping bow - completely unaware of his missing locks - speaking in a haughty-sounding English accent, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Tarkhan, I am Lord Timberlake.”

Alana had to swig at a cup of water to stop herself from bursting into peals of laughter, it was like the only English person he’d ever heard speak before was Queen Elizabeth herself! Cash raised an eyebrow in her direction before addressing Justin, “You’re definitely comfortable travelling back alone, because it would only take Alana here a few minutes to change into something suitable and accompany you?”

Justin waved a hand dismissing the suggestion, quite honestly he didn’t want anyone cramping his style. It wasn’t Justin’s first time in Regency England - when he and Richard had travelled there previously he’d had a ball. He had exactly eight hours to get there, get the Garnet, have some fun in a previous era and get back - and then. Then a whole new era would begin. His era... Leader of the most powerful Society in the world and the biggest pop star in history. Justin grinned as he stepped forward, placing his hands around the ornate pocket watch and beginning the arcane chant to begin his voyage through time. The rest of the Inner Circle joined the chant, turning back the clocks within the tower as Justin’s world started to blur at the edges, drifting backwards through two hundred years of history.

After Justin was gone, a series of stealthy grins were exchanged around the group. Emilio breathed a sigh of relief, “We did it.”

Kiran tossed the little velvet bag with Justin’s hair inside to Cash - their insurance policy, should he need to be dealt with ‘more permanently’ at a later date. Today’s plan didn’t involve the singer being turned into a surprised-looking statue, just giving him an extended stay in Regency England instead... The garnet wasn’t there - in fact, there were no stones left there. It was common knowledge within the Inner Circle where the garnet was: firmly on the finger of Richard’s blissfully unaware and estranged daughter - passed down by his long-missing wife. A point that Timberlake was sadly remiss of: they all had banked on Richard never disclosing a topic so sore as his failure as a father out of pure pride and vanity - and they’d been correct...

Now there was nothing more to do than wind all the clocks back to the correct time, then sit and wait until Justin would try to get back.

—-

Seven and three-quarter hours later, the group within the tower saw a blurry portal loom in the corner of the room. Suddenly alert, they listened intently as Justin’s voice crackled through,

“Rafe, Cash, guys! Are you there? Help me! I can’t... I can’t get back! Alana?? The ritual, it’s not working, I’m not fading back through??”

Cash drawled as he examined his fingernails, looking thoroughly bored,

“Ah, so our little ritual worked then. Good to know.”

The passage through time became narrower and narrow as a sickening realisation suckerpunched Justin, panic rising like bile in his throat, “You... You did this on purpose!! You screwed me over!! You bastards!!!!”

As the portal flickered and shrunk to no more than a pinhole, echoes of the roars of their names reverberated around the room, until the gap sealed itself trapping Lord Timberlake in Regency England for ever more. Silence settled over the tower for a few moments, until Rafe glanced up at the rest of the group thorough his sweeping fringe, a smirk slowly stretching from ear to ear as he shrugs,

“Cry me a river...”

[neutral-emerald]

SILVER THE COSMIC TIME-JANITOR (or: dude, what's with all the alternate futures)

silver the hedgehog has a very simple backstory. he's a kindhearted, sorta-naive but altogether very driven psychic hedgehog here to save the world by time-traveling to the past (also known as present-day) to prevent the apocalyptic future he was born into from coming to pass!

[ID: A screenshot of Silver from Sonic 06. He’s glowing with cyan energy as he flies over a dark, post-apocalyptic city.]

...wait, if he's time traveling 200 years into the past to completely change the shape of the timeline, how do the stars manage to align such that he manages to be born at the exact same point in the new timeline with the exact same genetics? how are his parents born? does silver have parents?? and how does he do this no less than THREE SEPARATE TIMES??!

hey everyone, i'm tumblr user neutral-emerald here to make good on the idea i vaguely gestured at yesterday and point out silver's wildly inconsistent backstory(s) and then explain to you how this isn't just sega playing hopscotch with the concept of time travel, but actually TOTALLY EXPLAINABLE if you don't mind a whole lot of conjecture and "fuck dude i just think it'd be cool."

LET'S GO.

before i get started, a few things to establish.

first, this is about… half serious, tops. it’s less of a theory and more of an observation of something that’s weird and then throwing some possible explanations at it because i am a massive sucker for time-based nonsense. if you wanna take my observations and build your own conclusions, go for it. i’m not your boss.

second, i'm basing my conclusions off of both the games and the idw comics. the conclusions i draw are applicable to either continuity, but the logic does rest a decent amount on the comics, so just a heads-up in case you were expecting pure game canon from this.

and third, i'm working off like half a brain and very intermittent checks of the wiki and cutscene compilations, so there's probably many things i'm missing! if you notice something i said was wildly off-base, go ahead and correct me in the replies and i'll either edit the post or explain to you just how that detail doesn't actually matter, depending on whether it. y'know. matters.

with that out of the way, let's get into the first topic of discussion!

part 1: the future is inconsistent, y'all

now, i'm not sure if you've heard, but in the year 2006 sonic team released this little indie game creatively entitled Sonic the Hedgehog. it was a smash hit, won countless awards, and for some reason went down in history as a messy, incomplete bugfest. but that's not what matters. what matters is that it introduced Silver the Hedgehog.

silver hails from 200 years in the future. the world is a bleak, fiery place, and has been since the monster iblis was unleashed after princess elise's death. silver was born into this world, which we know since it's literally the first thing he says in his story.

[ID: A cropped line from Silver's story in Sonic 06. "This world was devastated before I was born."]

i'm not going to drag you through a beat-by-beat summary of the entire plot of sonic 06, you should know it already. silver meets mephiles, gets lied to about who caused the apocalypse, mephiles yeets him and blaze into the past, he tries to murder Sonic the Hedgehog™, and so on. eventually he helps kill god, and then sonic and elise travel further back in time to kill god even deader so that none of the game ever happened, and the bad future into which silver was born never happened, thus thoroughly scrubbing silver's existence from the timeline!

...until.

sonic rivals.

i'm not going to speak much on sonic rivals, mostly because i'm not super familiar with it. but what matters is that silver is back! he's still from the future, he's still here to change the past, and most importantly he wasn't deleted from existence by the destruction of solaris, unlike everything else from sonic 06 including everyone's memories of it. and obviously, whatever state his future is in, it's not the same as it was in sonic 06.

now, i don't have a single clue what is going on in rivals 2, so do inform me if there's some big information i'm missing from that one. all i know is he's fixing yet another possible apocalyptic future, like always. correct me if i’m wrong, i don’t have the patience to trawl through it myself.

then we've got sonic colors, in which silver is again from the future. notably, he’s definitely not from an apocalypse!

[ID: Some screenshots from the DS version of Sonic Colors, again cropped to just the text. Tails and Silver are talking to each other.

Tails: What's the future you came from like, Silver? Silver: A lot brighter than this. Silver: The sky is blue, and everybody's got a smile.]

sonic generations doesn't add much. again, correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think we learn anything about what kind of future silver is from, and he's definitely not here to fix it this time. that's sonic's job! he's just hanging out like everyone else.

now, up until this point the future has been reasonably consistent, setting aside my somewhat abstract understanding of the rivals games. there's nothing to say that silver's not coming back in time from the same point in a single timeline, which is the one and only version of the future ever since the destruction of sonic 06.

UNTIL.

[ID: Two panels from the comic Sonic Forces: Stress Test. In the first panel, Silver looks worried as he lands in front of Knuckles, who looks skeptical.

Silver: We've got big trouble! Eggman— Knuckles: How can you be here? I thought you returned to the future?

In the second panel, Knuckles looks away with a self-assured grin, while Silver looks more panicked.

Knuckles: Oh wait— I must be dreaming! Silver: What? No! I've come back with a dire warning from the future!]

i have a lot of issues with sonic forces, especially with how its story is written. something i do NOT take issue with is the supplemental comics, mainly because they are WONDERFUL evidence for my crackpot time travel theory.

like i said, up until this point we don't really know whether silver has been experiencing separate instances of the future, or simply traveling back in time to prevent an also-time-traveling eggman nega from messing things up in the past. but here, we get some very juicy information:

[ID: Knuckles and Silver again. Knuckles has his arms crossed and is looking at Silver, who has a nervous look on his face as he slams a fist on the palm of his other hand.

Knuckles: Come again? Silver: Something happens that brings the world to ruin! But the historical records are sparse or make no sense. I came back to hopefully head off whatever's about to happen and save the future.]

silver travels back in time to prevent a terrible apocalypse. this is not the beautiful future silver came from in sonic colors— but this is the same silver. everyone recognizes him. he recognizes everyone. and yet, the future he came from is different.

part 2: silver is a walking paradox

allow me to remind you of what i pointed out when i was talking about sonic 06. silver was born into the iblis-apocalypse. considering no elaborate timeline nonsense happened to him before the events of the game (by his reckoning) i think we can safely assume he was born like a regular person with parents.

in the first post-06 timeline, silver was probably also born. let's be charitable, acknowledge that sonic team doesn't overthink the butterfly effect like i do, and say that silver was born to the same parents, because the universe likes to keep things nice and simple and contrive itself to make this particular character exist in this time period.

so, it's entirely fair that silver comes to exist in a post-06 timeline at the equivalent point in time, aka 200 years in the future. it's also fair that he travels back in time to prevent some kind of apocalypse, because that's his narrative role! it's what he does. when it's time for him to exist in the story, that's what he's there to do.

what isn't fair is the fact that it keeps happening.

[ID: A panel from the IDW comics. Sonic is stretching his legs while looking faintly exasperated at Silver, who is nervously holding his arm.

Silver: Er… No. I came back because defeating Eggman didn't save the future. Sonic: Couldn't even play along. Had to bring the mood down. Sonic: *sigh* Okay, what happened this time?]

[ID: The following panel, cropped to just Silver's text bubbles narrating over a starry sky.

Silver: When I left, my time had been conquered by the Eggman Empire. Everyone lived in fear, choking on polluted air. Silver: When I went back, the Eggman Empire was gone— but so was everyone else. Silver: There was nothing left. No people, no animals, no machinery. Only water and sparse, metallic plant life.]

allow me to summarize my understanding of all this: silver is from the future. normally, the future is good. sometimes it isn't. when it isn't good, he goes back in time and fixes things, then returns to the future to check if that fixed things.

the least conjecture-y interpretation i can come up with is that sometimes silver will go into the past, then go back to the future but end up in a Bad Timeline and thus go into the past again to fix things. there's no weird warping directly between bad timelines, he only gets there by way of the past.

but that's boring, so here's my PREFERRED interpretation.

silver hails from a good future, but sometimes it just changes. he's unstuck from time— if something weird happens in the past, he's the only one to know that the passage of fate was changed, because he went to bed in one timeline and woke up somewhere categorically worse, and the only way he can fix it is by figuring out just what caused this and going back in time to fix it.

or, to say it in a meme:

[ID: A picture of someone lying in a hospital bed with a nurse standing next to them, edited so that Silver is in the bed.

nurse: sir… you've been asleep for 2 hours silver: oh boy i can't wait to wake up in the same timeline i went to sleep in]

part 3: how did this happen?

it's one thing to point out that silver doesn't experience time like a normal hedgehog, and another thing to explain how and why this happens.

fyi, this is the part where i go wildly off the rails and start saying whatever i want. there's a ton of explanations one could come up with, most probably stemming back to sonic 06. i'm just going to go with my own, and probably not come up with a whole lot of concrete evidence because i'm just spitballing. this is me having a fun time. going "heeheehoohoo time traveling hedgehog go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

so. something i haven't touched upon is that in all games after sonic 06, silver can time travel. we never see him do it, it's never explained how he does it. all we know is that he's doing it under his own power.

which is kinda odd, don't you think? should he be able to do that?

in sonic 06, we see three mechanisms for time travel. first is the chaos emeralds. if two people perform Chaos Control with a chaos emerald apiece, they open up a swirling rift in the air which can send them to different points in time and space. silver can't be doing that, for obvious reasons— he's only one hedgehog, and he's not exactly running around with a chaos emerald at all times. that can't be how he does it.

second is a time machine eggman built. that obviously can't be it; the machine doesn't exist at all after the timeline gets wiped, and again, silver is doing this on his own. he's actively antagonistic towards eggman, even. absolutely not this one.

third and finally is mephiles, who can make big purple orbs to take himself and passengers to different points in time. this obviously can't be it either, for similar reasons to number 2, right? after all, mephiles is one half of solaris, who was destroyed before he could be split off. he doesn't exist to be silver's time-traveling uber driver.

...right?

well, obviously. i'm not going to try and tell you that mephiles is secretly alive and shepherding silver back and forth between timelines for no reason. that's ridiculous. no, i'm going to try and tell you that silver is mephiles.

or rather, he's solaris. or RATHER, he's the new solaris, sorta-ascended to the role of Time God after the old one got blown out like a birthday candle.

like i said, i'm going wildly off the rails and as such don't have any concrete evidence to explain why it's this instead of something else, but hear me out. after elise blew out the flame of hope, the universe was left in an interesting situation. someone needs to be in charge of the flow of time, but the previous time-god was just unceremoniously destroyed. but all the power and energy of a time-god has to go somewhere, in some form, in some time.

with nothing else to go off of, the role of time-god starts flipping through every notable being it had interacted with. they're all solidly accounted for in the timeline, except for one. silver the hedgehog was born into a timeline that cannot exist. silver the hedgehog does not, and cannot exist. silver the hedgehog interacted quite a bit with both sides of solaris— he spent a substantial amount of time fighting back iblis, and associated with mephiles, even being one of the few people to directly experience his time travel abilities. silver the hedgehog tried and failed to absorb iblis into himself.

here's my theory: after sonic 06, the universe reasserted itself such that silver was the new Solaris. silver is not consciously aware that this is what he is, but he knows that he can time travel. sometimes the timeline will rearrange itself around silver. he is unaffected by this because he is a higher being unaffected by such petty trifles as "an origin" or "paradoxes".

silver the hedgehog probably doesn't have parents. he sprang into existence one day and everyone just kind of went with it, himself included.

oh also something i thought was neat but couldn't think of where to put:

[ID: More cropped dialogue, this time from Team Sonic Racing.

Silver: I'm fine. It's just, something bad is gonna happen. I can't explain it. I just feel it. Blaze: Have your travels through time given you precognition? Silver: I don't know. Maybe they have. Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.]

silver might be becoming psychic in a future-vision kinda way. that, or he’s riddled with anxiety. possibly both.

TL;DR

silver hails from no less than three separate timelines, his existence is a tangled web of who-knows-how-many grandfather paradoxes, and i choose to believe that he's god.

if anyone who cares more about evidence wants to gather up like, little one-off clues that support or conflict with my conclusions, go right ahead. or just throw your own arbitrary headcanons for what's going on with this at me. or incorporate these ideas into an au or something! i just want more people thinking about what the Fuck is up with silver post-06, because by god there is a WHOLE lot of potential packed in there

anyway thanks for reading make sure to like comment and subscribe—

[avlillustrations]

Last but not least here's my redesign of Yandere-Chan herself! (quick note: Maybe It's just the way the character artist draws faces but doesn't Ayano and Taro look like they could be siblings?) So anyway, For now I tried not to stray too far away from the store bought model because let's face it, her character model is no longer just a placeholder and Yandere-dev is most likely going to continue using it throughout production of this game even though it's not an original design and he really should at least let the character artist make an original design for her. Sigh. Anyway for the redesign, besides changing the uniform to the one I designed, I've altered her ponytail slightly and added a ribbon into her hair. I also changed her eye color from that boring black color (also probably one of the reasons she looks like she could be related to Taro) to a reddish brown color. I thought it would be a fun little detail if the more the player eliminated rivals via violent means that her eyes would become more and more red as the game goes on.

But like Taro, the problems with Ayano isn't really her design but her personality. Or lack thereof. But unlike Senpai whose lack of personality comes from minimal character development. Ayano's not really given a chance to shine because another character is the one driving the narrative: Info-chan. Think about it. While we as players may play as Ayano throughout the game it's Info-chan who moves the plot forward. In fact the game wouldn't even happen if Info-chan hadn't of set it in motion. Which doesn't make sense to me? I thought Ayano was the main character not  Info-chan. Of course, part of this is that Yandere-dev keeps taking game-play features and idea's from that Hitman game instead of trying to be creative and original. I don't think Info-chan belongs in this game. She's a detriment to gameplay(meaning she's too op) and to Ayano's character in general. You probably could make her work in the narrative if she was more like an actual student and not some omnipresent figure. Like, what if she was Ayano's childhood friend? No, seriously I have an idea for this. It's not what I'm actually gonna go for in a rewrite of the game I'm currently working on but I really want to get this idea out of my head.

So Ayano is hollow and emotionless and she's probably been taught from an early age to hide all this. She's been explicitly told the importance of "fitting in" with society and to make herself seem as normal as possible. So when she first goes to school her mother encourages making friends because that's what "normal" kids do. She's not very good at it at first, but luckily the other kids haven't really built up their own social skills and don't notice. Except for one: Info-chan(and I'm tired of calling her that. I'll be calling her Ai from now on.) Ai sees right through Ayano but still befriends her. Ai doesn't really care that Ayano isn't "normal" and so Ayano has someone she can be herself around and still blend in well enough. Their friendship carries all the way to high school when Ayano meets Taro for the first time and finally starts to feel something. She literally can't stop talking about him and Ai listens to her as she gushes and raves about a boy she really doesn't know too well. But Ai is just happy her friend is happy. And this could be how Ayano finds out about Osana. Like, maybe during weekends and school vacations Ayano and Ai meet up at say, a local café or something. Maybe Ai is the who insists on this as it's what "normal" friends do. Anyway the girls are sitting at their favorite table drinking their tea, or coffee, or whatever. Ayano's gushing about Senpai that she had been stalking all day and Ai just blurts out, "I heard that Osana girls got a crush on him too. Rumor has it she's gonna ask him out on a Friday. You know like that stupid rumor."

That's it. No ulterior motives, she doesn't care about Osana, or have some vendetta against her. Just a blunt statement of a rumor she heard. Ai had no idea of how Ayano would take that statement. No clue of what she's now caused to happen. Ayano insists she help her put a stop to Osana's confession and Ai just goes Ok (like in the Saitama meme). When it comes to gameplay Ai is just a normal student. Neutral school reputation, goes to all her classes, most likely has the top grades in school, is probably harassed by the smart kid clubs that are trying to get her to join but she's not interested at all. But she does like helping Ayano. She'll do things like copy the answer sheet so Ayano can frame Osana for cheating, and hacking the school system, and editing footage. No more of that panty-shot crap or bugging the school, no schemes or item drops. Just a friend helping Ayano because she cares about her. Maybe has a bit of a crush? Maybe she really loves Ayano but as long as she's happy Ai is willing to do whatever it takes even if it means giving Ayano to someone else. Sorry this devolved into making Info-chan a better character than Ayano. But I really do believe Ayano could be a much better Character if she's the one to set things in motion herself and not just because someone else told her to. Which is kinda what Info-chan does in this game. Anyway tell me what you think and a I guess keep a lookout for the rewrite I'm working on?

[ratsoh-writes]

My curiosity got me, so here is my submission for a match up.  Sorry it’s so long!  I look forward to seeing your reasoning.

PERSONALITY TRAITS:

MOM FRIEND:  I’m the friend that is almost over prepared for any situation and is protective, usually keeping others out of too much trouble or danger, but not stopping them from doing that stupid thing.  Some people will only learn from doing it and so long as it won’t seriously injure or kill them, go for it.  And I mean I am seriously prepared for most situations:  I have fluffy throw blankets and pillows in my car for those who get cold, extra towels just in case we somehow get wet, umbrellas/ponchos for those who need one, snacks/water just in case someone gets hungry/thirsty, first aid kit for small injuries, etc. Ironically, I am the only one without a kid so far.  

Extension of this would be my habit to act as the friend “nurse.”  Willing to spend hours taking care of a friend who isn’t feeling well and give platonic cuddles if needed.

Another extension of this is my need to feed anyone who comes over.  I think my love language is acts of service after typing all this. 

I’M LISTENING:  Always willing to offer an ear, even if I don’t believe I can council you.  Plus, for some reason, people just end up splurging life stories or something that is bothering them to me.  My life is mostly spent as that Naruto meme: “I have no clue what is going on, but I’ll pretend that I do.”  But I’m responsible about it, I won’t offer advice I’m not sure about and will usually refer you to someone else I feel is up to the task.

PATIENT:  Earned after years in customer service dealing with toddlers disguised as customers and also with friends who far exceed my energy levels.  It takes a good bit to anger me or very specific things to set me off, such as when I have asked you to please stop bringing up that stressful memory of mine again and again. 

I am told I am terrifying when I’m actually pissed.  Most times I don’t remember much when I actually snap, just that it happened, but details are fuzzy.  

CHILL:  My counselor once told me if I “Was any more laid back, I’d be on her floor.” And to a point, she is correct.  My house was on fire and my reaction wasn’t panic at the time, it was this odd calm that even when I reported the fire to my sister and authorities, they didn’t believe me until I showed them said fire.  I am reserved with those I don’t know well or are not comfortable around.  Once I trust you or you get me on a topic I love, I’m surprisingly passionate and animated.  

I feel this fits under here, but I also tend to do things at my own pace.  And not much can change that pace, but I will get what I set out to do done.

WHY ME?:  Too many people tell me I’m a natural leader, even got awards for it, but I never volunteer or want to be the leader in anything.  Usually, I just end up in that role somehow, some way.  Most times because I hate disorganized messes and those times the people I am with have trouble making concrete decisions and need some guidance to work out what they really want to do or the pressure to actually make a decision.  I may be an unwilling leader, but I will step up if needed.

WHIMSICAL:  Sarcasm, dry and sometimes cheesy humour, and an attitude to boot, but it’s rarely to be mean.  Most times it is me being playful and if I’m teasing you, that usually is a sign I like you and enjoy your company.  Plus, sometimes people need a little laugh or a spark of different emotion to get them out of a funk.  

INTEGRITY:  I could absolutely despise someone, but like hell I’m going watch them suffer.  In the same sense, if I take a job, I will do it right and not half ass it.  And far too many times I’ve had to step in and explain certain concepts in order to disperse negativity or help others see from another perspective to avoid adversity.  

CUDDLE BUG:  With people I am comfortable with, I am a cuddly person and do not mind a lot of skinship.  I am used to friends hanging all over me.  Plus, sometimes I just want to curl up someone as well.  

  STRENGTHS:  

Observant

Good communication skills & honest

Responsible & reliable

Full Size Human Heater.  I am ridiculously warm and always putting off heat.  Friends and coworkers alike use me as a portable heater.

Surprisingly good at being sly and collecting information if needed, like getting a shoe or ring size without tipping the person off it’s for a gift.  If they manage to call it, I always fess up and playfully make a fuss they ruined the surprise.

  WEAKNESSES:  

Terrible at lying, so I tend to simply keep my mouth shut instead

Willfully oblivious to flirting and absolute flustered mess once I am forced to recognize said flirting

Vast open waters terrify me

Tendency to keep my troubles to myself and try to solve problems on my own (don’t want to be a burden)

Can become despondent if I feel useless at times

  HOBBIES:

ART:  I’ve dabbled in several different medias, but my favorite is just a pencil or pen and any paper I can get my hands on.  I love drawing figures in dynamic poses.  Second favorite is sculptures built from wire.

COSTUMES:  I love Halloween, since it is the perfect excuse to make and wear my homemade costumes.  It also lets me challenge myself by making more complicated pieces like hooves, horns, and even chain mail.

BAKING/COOKING/CANDY MAKING:  I’m the cook in the house and I love it.  Seeing people enjoy my food is my favorite part.  Just don’t ask me for a recipe, I literally don’t have any and I won’t remember what I did.  

ORGANIZING/CLEANING:  I love puzzle games like Tetris and Catherine, and I love a challenge.  Combine the two by having me organize and rearrange a space to make it work and I am in heaven.

STORYTELLING:  When a story needs to be told, I am the one asked to tell it. Specifically I have such an entertaining way of telling it according to others.  Animated and colorful language, plus a few pit stops along the way with some side stories.  

  PET PEEVES:

CONTRARY:  Do not tell me to do something while I am doing it.  That will kill any motivation I had to do it.

BACKHANDED COMPLIMENTS:  It is possible to compliment someone without insulting them or others at the same time.  It just makes the compliment feel empty and negative.  And I tend to just hum and not reward that behaviour.  

TOO MUCH ATTENTION:  I don’t mind attention… from people I trust and are comfortable with.  Feel free to cuddle and coddle away.  But vast amounts of attention from those I feel are strangers or acquaintances will unnerve me (I have literally left functions immediately  where I walked in and was bombarded with shouts and attention aimed at me-sensory overload I guess).

  ODD HABITS:

NESTING:  No, I don’t think I have enough blankets and pillows.  Yes, the giant stuffed animal is needed and his name is Snuffie.  

CRUSH ME:  I’m serious, some days I need one of my friends or my bf to just lay all their dead weight on top of me.  It’s just oddly therapeutic.

NO, I’M NOT PREGNANT:  Just cause I ate that jar of olives in one sitting or suddenly was craving jalapeno juice and crushed ramen noodles.  There are never enough pickles and yes, I am determined to try every kind–I may have a vinegar addiction.

IRONY:  I bake some of the tastiest, sweetest desserts and make pralines and caramels, YET I myself do not favor sweet things. 

HANDS:  One thing I tended to do with nearly every boyfriend and guy friend I had was play with their hands and put their hands on my face/head.  I lived for being pet and having people play with my hair.    

NONVERBAL MOMENTS:  Sometimes words are just too much, so I instead make sounds.  Can be anywhere from a growl to a cat like noise, or the reliable “Nyeh.”

NO NOs:

I think I listed a few as I went through everything else, but ignoring boundaries is the main one.  If I tell you I’m not comfortable with something, do not make me repeat myself.  And usually that something is given a pass the first few times it is done before I say something and explain why I’m not comfortable with it.   

Example:  I have thick, curly hair, a product of my mixed heritage.  Well, sometimes I like to straighten it and I did just that one day.  Well, a coworker decided to make a backhanded compliment, stating I should stick to what works: straight hair over my natural hair.  I had gotten on him about it, but I decided to vent to a friend about what happened as well.  She proceeded to constantly repeat those hurtful words and while I knew she meant it playfully during those times, I had to stop her and sit her down, explain I don’t find it funny cause the words are linked to a hurtful, possibly racist memory that I didn’t want brought up again and again.   Thankfully she understood and stopped.  So, I don’t snap immediately and I understand sometimes a sit down needs to be done.

Ok first of all I gotta say that I absolutely loved reading your matchup!!! It’s so well organized, detailed, and the descriptions are pretty creative!!! Do you do any writing yourself, because you should!!! alright, geek out moment over.

i’ve got three guys you’re perfect for, but let’s go for the obvious one. HONEY!! 

You’ve checked off everything on honey’s list: caring, organized, laid back, and good for cuddling. Now here’s what he has to offer to the table: he will cuddle you back. This guy is the ultimate cuddle slut. You’ll never feel unloved with him. Honey is also a very thoughtful and appreciative guy. He likes caring for his partners. You may be the mom friend, but he’ll do his best to return that love as well.

Honey is a little awkward, but he’s also sensitive and empathetic to how others feel. If he puts his foot in his mouth, just tell him and he’ll never bring it up again. Plus this guy is just so honest and genuine that backhanded compliments aren't really a thing with him. 

Also you like costumes!!! He’s always wanted to try cosplay or theatre. You just might be the person to give him the courage to finally stick to one. 

dating honey includes:

cuddles upon heaps of soft things. He has his own collections of ridiculously soft blankets and pillows that he’ll happily add to your collection. Honey is also a master at pillow forts. 

honey is a good listener. He’ll be happy to just sit back and enjoy the stories you tell. There is start though, who is also the storyteller of the underswap home. Any funny story you give about your time together will be rewarded by star with a funny story from his and honey’s childhood, much to honey’s embarrassment

if you don't really like sweet things but love baking them, then honey and star will happily finish them for you. People are usually surprised about how just how much skeleton monsters can pack away. 

he’s a picky eater and will give you the wtf face when you fufil your weird cravings though lol 

Oh! Also if you’re wondering, the other two would’ve been either oak or coffee

[dmsden]

Dispelled Magic – What to do if your new campaign is falling flat

Hullo, Gentle Readers. We have an interesting question this week, submitted anonymously. Our reader asks, “I got a problem, and I'm asking anonymously to avoid discovery. 2 years ago I finished running a stellar campaign for my group of friends. We especially fell in love with the player characters. We talk about them, draw memes about them, still 2 years after the game has ended. My problem is that the next campaign I ran with didn't do any of that. We played and had fun, sure, but the ~magic~ was missing. Any advice to help me recapture that magic for our next campaign?”

I wish I had a magic formula for you, my friend. I truly do. Sometimes it just “clicks” – everything drops into place, and you run a campaign you’ll be talking about for years to come. Other times, you’ll run a game, and everyone will enjoy themselves, but it won’t be the same. And sometimes, the game will just fall apart without any real good feeling of resolution.

I’ve had this happen to me as both a DM and a player. It may sound like I run nothing but killer campaigns full of amazing stories that become legends, but this is far from the truth. I’ve had plenty of games run for a while, and then just kind of drift apart, usually to be replaced by something else that may or may not be better or worse than what we already did.

In a situation like this, it could be that you were a bit more inspired when you worked on the previous campaign. Maybe you had some great plot twist that you sat on for ages and then pulled it out, surprising everyone. Maybe the players made characters they liked a little bit better than the characters they made in the later campaign. Maybe you’re all just a little burnt out, even if no one’s exactly feeling that yet.

One thing you could do would be to sit down with your players and ask them this very question. After all, I could tell you about things that I felt went right or wrong in my own campaigns, or in campaigns that I’ve played. Your players might be the best source for what made the game so magical to them. Maybe they can give you some clues of elements that would make the next game that much better for them.

You might also try either going far away from the previous campaign, or else embracing the familiar. It might be that you should try a total palette cleanser. Either play a totally different RPG, or run a campaign that is NOTHING like the previous game. As much as I dislike them, maybe an evil campaign would be something your players would enjoy? Or, if your campaign was a lot of epic adventure and dungeon delving, try something very small scale and city-based. Try to really turn away from what you’ve done before. Try a group of all rogues, or all fighters, or all clerics. Do a series of one-shots, or run a published adventure to give you a little break.

Alternately, embrace the familiar and make a campaign that harkens back to the old campaign. Maybe the new characters are the children of the old ones, or the old ones reincarnated (but played by different players). Maybe they awaken as faulty clones of their old characters at level 1, trying to rise up against a threat that was able to defeat their old selves! Or maybe they’re raised from the dead at level 1 a thousand years later, as part of a prophecy of renewal to save the world.

One last thought – instead of seeking to recapture the magic, you might try to inspire something totally new and different. It took me a while to get used to listening to season 2 of Critical Role after having listened to all of campaign 1, but I’m now just as heavily invested in the characters as I was with the original group. It’s a very different kind of group and a different kind of campaign, but I am along for the ride.

I can’t guarantee these ideas will help, my Anonymous friend, but I hope they do. Good luck in all your gaming.

[quibbs126]

So I decided I needed a break from that beach picture I’m working on (yes I’m still working on it, right now I’m making two versions because I thought the lineart and background didn’t match), so I just decided to make this

Yes it is based on the Toy Story meme

Anyways, I did this for two reasons. One, because I realized that Reno and Ceres are basically the instigators of the game’s plot; Reno the first half and Ceres the second half. It’s also different in that Reno was unintentional; he just wanted the power of the Forest Guardian, and accidentally made the Magilith activate, causing Kuro and Fina to time travel and the story to happen. And then later when they get back to the present he’s the person they’re trying to stop from unleashing the Great Disaster. Ceres meanwhile very intentionally instigated the second half of the plot as she was the one to inform the group about the existence of the Magi Key and what it could do, as well as where to find the pieces

Second reason is just that I really want them to interact, because I think it would be really interesting, especially since likely, Ceres knows of their connection, while Reno doesn’t

I have also come up with this alternate plot where the story starts because Ceres approaches Reno and his group and has them start the time travel, which our heroes then get wrapped up in. And in doing so, we see their dynamic, which is basically that Ceres tries to interact with Reno and deep down wants to be close to him, even if she knows she’s just using him for her goals, but meanwhile Reno, whom she does not tell about their relationship (because he absolutely wouldn’t believe her and it’d probably ruin her credibility), sees her as more of a work partner, and while he goes along with her plans he isn’t fully trusting of her. And at the very end where he comes to his senses and turns on her, it does hurt her in a way he wasn’t expecting (he fully believes that Ceres doesn’t care and has no clue why she does), but she ultimately gets him out of the way because her mission is more important than her feelings, and she may or may not reveal to him their true connection

And that whole scenario is kind of one of the other reasons I wanted to draw them together. I’ve just been thinking a lot about the two of them interacting and wanting to draw that

I think I got carried away, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, drawing I made. Well might as well pivot over to the drawing process itself now

So I’m using a different brush here. I was looking for a brush for my big beach drawing, and someone suggested the Syrup brush on Procreate, and I actually had fun with it (and it is the reason I’m making two versions now), so I wanted to use it again here, and I think it turned out pretty well

I will say though, I had no clue what I was doing on the sketch with the bodies. I don’t think it’s super noticeable in the final product, but it was a mess in the sketch. I really need to figure out how I’m drawing anatomy, I swear. I can’t just keep doing guesswork

…You know actually, I don’t think I have much else to say, so I guess we’ll end here. It was a bit of a haphazard description, but I’m scatterbrained, what you gonna do?

I do want to draw more of the two interacting, I just don’t have ideas yet. Maybe in the future though

[allbeendonebefore]

I was kind of under the impression that this is just a widespread thing in Alberta, especially because of the Angus Reid fractured federation survey (I cant include the link here, but you can Google it, its from January 24th 2019). When got back into Hetalia, I imagined the dynamics kinda changed to this, which would be pretty bad tbh. I hope its not that aggressive in Alberta, I will never be able to go check tho, too expensive :( I loved the bad french btw

i see you guys sending these asks super late at night and i wonder whether any of you sleep - idk where you’re writing from and i may be on the west coast but are you guys ok wherever you are? I just woke up but I have my tea and if I’m not caffeinated now I surely will be as I answer this.

I’m sure I’ve seen the survey you’re speaking of before and before I address it in any specific detail I just want to back up and re frame Why I’m Being Like This in regards to recent events and my orientation towards answering these questions in terms of Hetalia the way I do, because I think it’s the heart of how I answer.

the tldr of it is:

1. I have an opportunity to make interpretations of reality in unexpected and challenging ways, therefore widespread opinions don’t govern anything but my stupid gag comics in the simple sense that if everyone was represented by widespread opinion alone all the time, nothing would change and

2. if i can answer dozens of asks about ralph and oliver hanging out there’s absolutely no reason I can’t answer asks about ralph and jean hanging out, lol.

3. If you’d like a shorter, more concise “vision statement”, I have one on @battle-of-alberta here. (although now I notice the links don’t work on mobile so you’ll have to be on desktop for that one)

I’m assuming this will be long so cut time

(and yes, alas, the bad french is my legacy and I’m afraid it has not improved much although i swear i was an A student when i was actually taking it) (and no please don’t visit now, purely for pandemic reasons, it would be really expensive And you’d have a bad time) (and talking to me is free lmao) (I do not mean to say that you need to have feet on the ground to understand a place at all, i mean, at the moment I don’t lol)

headings because I say a lot

what even is hetalia

At the most basic level, Hetalia is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be for memorization, current politics at a glance or historical relationships in different settings. I use it for all of these things, of course, I certainly use it a lot in comics that take place in the much more distant past in @athensandspartaadventures. When I was writing that, I was in undergrad and AaSA was a tool to help me pass my exams, I didn’t think of how it might be read or interpreted by people who have lived in or experienced those places these days, or what kind of political and cultural tensions it might reveal. (Not to say that it has gotten me into sticky situations, exactly, but I am more aware of where things like that would arise now).

These days I look back on a lot of my experiences - both in IAMP/Hetalia and just as a person, and I think that if Hetalia is a tool it should be used with some awareness of intention and responsibility. Things in the fandom have changed as it became more mainstream and more well known and I think there’s a definite worry about screwing up or not representing Everything or not pleasing Everybody or not doing it Right. I have a simple, insufferably academic principle.

(That said, yes, you can still do it very wrong if you write a methodology.)

Still, it’s a comfort to me that I’m just doing the things the way I say I’m going to do them, and that is the underpinning of Inspired But Not Constrained By Hetalia. I don’t do things Himaruya’s way, I can’t do things the way IAMP would do them if it were running today because it’s not and things have changed, all I can do is do them how I would do them.

I have hurt people in the past because they sometimes couldn’t tell whether I was writing From an Albertan Perspective or not, and I’ve evoked some preeetty spicy comments over the last decade, and I realized that tone and perspective are something that really shapes how people understand and interact with my work and I’m trying to use that understanding in a conscientious way)

what even is alberta

So when you’re me and you’ve grown up in a province that is the Angriest in the country and the most Misunderstood in the country and the most Entitled in the country and nobody outside of maybe Saskatchewan has a good thing to say about you half the time and maybe you’re tired of that... you get kind of depressed thinking about how every year some kiddo comes on the internet ready to be excited about making or celebrating characters that represent themselves and No Matter Where They Go running into everyone else’s negative impressions first and foremost.

We joke about how everyone hates Toronto, though I’ve always understood it in a teasing way because I’ve never ACTUALLY met someone (outside of our current legislative assembly) who REALLY hates Toronto, but it does feel like I’ve encountered (directly or indirectly) people who do Genuinely hate Alberta and hoo boy is That a strange feeling. I mean, there’s an understanding that BC also ‘hates’ Alberta but half the people in BC are originally from Alberta so it’s a, uh, different feeling.

The story of Alberta from everywhere else is always the story of that Angus Reid article and the memes and comments and listicles that spin out around mainstream media. Alberta is giving too much. Alberta is getting too little. Alberta is too stupid to understand that equalization payments are a good thing actually, and Alberta is too dumb to understand you don’t really need EI if you make enough money in six months to own a house and multiple vehicles Just Because you own a house and multiple vehicles. Alberta is destroying the environment for everybody. Alberta has a huge concentration of white supremacists. Alberta is the Texas of Canada* and has the conservative streak and bible belt to match. Alberta should get annexed by the US. Oh, but Banff! We like Banff, though.

And like I said, politicians use these widespread feelings to stir up the sentiments of people who can’t afford to travel, people who are naturally suspicious of mainstream news, people who have barely even left their hometowns let alone the province and have no other means of validating what they hear, but people who’s emotions are genuinely tied to real feelings of alienation that really exist and HAVE existed for generations. And when the so-called “laurentian elites” in ontario and quebec make fun of them for being uneducated red necks, well, you hit a wasps nest and expected what, exactly?

what even am i doing

And like I’m faced with this question every day I decide to pick up my stylus and badger you all with unsolicited comics: do I want this to continue? Do I want to wear the mask that fits? Do I want to stand aside and say #notallalbertans #notlikeotheralbertans and stand over here on the island** patting myself on the back for not? being? there? Do I say yes, you’re right, and stand aside and watch loud mouth white supremacists co-opt wexiters and let them lead the perception of the province I grew up in just because that is what’s currently happening? Do I acknowledge the widespread sentiment and then pick apart every other province to say Well Actually You’re Equally Problematic Hypocrites, So There?

Obviously I’ve been saying no for a while. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge the reality and when I draw stupid gag comics like this or this you can tell (hopefully) from my style that it’s tongue and cheek. When I draw less stupid not-gag comics like this or this I am trying to explore the Real Sentiments in a way that doesn’t completely polarize the issue and spin it out of control. I’m more of the opinion that even though Current Sentiments do get in the way that as personifications they 1. have some perspective and as people they 2. have some interest in not throwing out a friendship that was a struggle to build up every time the polls change or some new radical party seizes power. I do a lot of research and I want that to be reflected in my understanding of each characters deep seated beliefs and motivations, but I don’t want to let either the history or the current realities dictate the future if I am going to try to do that myself. 

why even am i doing it for

So like really the heart of the matter is: I am writing what I write for my thirteen year old self. She was the me who moved back to Canada from the United States, who’s first introduction to living there was a hellish surge of nationalism after September 11th. Who’s defense against that was to hide behind a shield of Canada is Better, Actually and who returned to Alberta during the boom years to realize that, oh wait, the rest of the country thinks we’re assholes just like they think the United States is. Who spent her teenage years learning that, boom or bust, the widespread sentiment in and out of the province is just as narrow, shortsighted, self interested, and stubborn as her own fiction of What Canada Was Supposed to be Like. Who learned that propping up that image at the expense of her friendships was not worth it, that propping up that image at the expense of people who are suffering and dying under that image is not worth it. Who found herself rehashing the same sort of gut reaction defensiveness online because the Guilt and Apologizing on behalf of her province compared to others felt Really Heavy for a kid who didn’t have any clue what to do about it and was just there to have fun and learn some stuff.

So I’m writing for anyone else who finds themselves exhausted and saddened by coming online and seeing that the only way that people can imagine Alberta is as an antagonist. I’d like to challenge everyone to start to imagine it better. It’s my little “escape” from reality, and for me it’s much easier to talk to people here where the stakes aren’t as high and the grievances a little less personal.

I’m also writing (in a more secondary way) for everyone who’s ever looked at alberta from afar and wondered What is going On inside your Head and is it always This

(no comment at this time)

as always, I’m here to explain At The Very Least what goes on in My head because at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. And though there are some things that make me angry and emotional, I’m happy to explain why. Happy to answer asks or chat on discord or whatever, any time I have the time. :)

footnotes

*This is just a footnote to say something I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my comments, but this is an annoyance that me and my Texas Tomodachi share lol

**You’ll notice angry Albertans online have a favourite tactic, and that’s pointing out hypocrisy. They can justify A N y T h I n G by calling another province a hypocrite “so there” (i.e. BC can’t claim to be environmentally conscious because of Victoria’s sewage problem or Site C) - and while I am interested in shattering the image of Alberta vs. the Perfect Rest of Canada a little bit, I feel like it’s a very lazy argument that is used to deflect and not to help. I think it is more useful to unpack the sentiment of Why Alberta Still Feels Taken Advantage of rather than mudslinging, and when the mud starts flying no one seems interested in addressing problems anymore.

[antpelts]

POV for the writing asks? Your choice what for

no excuses writing meme

POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

this is delightful yet horrible how could i ever choose! for the sake of relevancy ill go with something from im the rocks. shameless plug. shower scene from chapter 18 - from jareds pov. actually its just.. i basically just rewrote most of ch 18 from jareds pov maybe ill edit this for ao3 later 

“Rich gone?” 

Jared lifted his head, tearing his eyes off his phone to see Evan in his doorway. He was always so careful about taking his shoes off, about not making a mess. It was equal parts annoying and endearing. He practically lived in Jared and Rich’s room at this point and he was still treating it like a fancy hotel.

“Yup.” He locked his phone, watching as Evan shut the door behind him and paused in the middle of the room, looking like he didn’t know where to go. “Probably making out with his boyfriend.”

“Isn’t Jer with them?” Evan’s voice was still soft and he was still just standing there like a lost puppy. So he had to do everything himself. With a slight roll of his eyes he set his phone down among the blankets while shifting over to offer up some room to Evan. That was all it seemed to take because now he was crossing the room and gently hopping up onto the bed, slotting his body perfectly next to Jared’s own.

“Dude, I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on with that,” Jared couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter - Rich had been prattling on about that situation for weeks and as of late he had no clue who was actually dating who in that mess. With a sigh he just turned his head to bury his face in Evan’s shoulder, he really didn’t care to think about it for the time being.

“Your hair’s greasy.” Jared scoffed a little at that, taking note of how Evan tipped his head back instead of burying his face in his hair like normal. Normal. Well, this whole thing wasn’t very normal of them. Whatever it was.

“You can only be rude if it’s not to me, asshole,” he tried to keep his tone gruff but a breathy laugh slipped out at the end. He knew full well he was the only person who Evan felt comfortable being anything but painfully polite to. “Showering is hard. I didn’t wanna deal with it.”

“Have you.. not showered since you got the cast? That’s like..” Jared could practically hear the gears turning in Evan’s head until he opened his mouth to complete the thought, “two weeks.”

“Fuck dude, I’m not an animal!” Shifting a bit Jared weakly hit Evan’s chest, rolling his eyes to himself. “I kinda just.. wash my hair in the sink. And then like.. half shower. With, like, a wash cloth.”

“You know you can.. wrap your cast right?” 

Jared tried not to laugh in his face at that one.

“I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.” When Evan finally laughed and let his shoulders relax he couldn’t help a triumphant grin. After a second he felt a nose against his hair and it was his turn to practically melt, sinking back against Evan. “Yeah. But then I’d have to like.. balance on my leg and carry all my shit.”

“I can help you.”

Jared couldn’t help but short circuit at that. It was disgustingly intimate and Jared wanted to fucking choke because now his face was red from the thought of Evan gently touching his hair. Years of fleeting dreams about making out with Evan (and maybe a little more) did nothing to prepare him for soft intimacy. But he also felt Evan tensing up under him and they didn’t need to be both thrown into a state of utter uselessness. It came out as nearly a whisper, “alright.”

But Evan didn’t seem to hear, breathing uneven as he stuttered out messy apologies.

“Evan. Fucking hell, earth to Ev.” With a quiet grunt Jared pushed himself up, bracing a hand on Evan’s chest. Sitting up he was able to look down at Evan, drawing his brows together as he looked over his face. He seemed sincere about the offer, if his panicked expression and continued whirlwind of mumbled apologies was anything to go off of.

“I’m so sorry that.. Sorry. Sorry. That was weird and gross I don’t-”

“Dude. I said alright. I mean, like,” Jared directed his gaze anywhere but Evan, feeling his own cheeks warm up a little as he tried to play it off, “like you can carry my shit. And like stand by the shower in case I need you to hand me something.”

“Oh.”

The bathrooms were big enough that he felt like he could play it off and Evan could hide in the corner while offering minimal assistance. Sure, maybe he’d prefer to have Evan with him, to lean back into him. Or.. to kiss his face while they washed each other’s hair. Fuck. Since when had he gotten so fucking soft? This was the shit he roasted Rich for.

“Wanna help me wrap my cast?”

There was no time like the present. Besides, if Evan was going to complain about how greasy his hair was then he’d make him eat those words. Or whatever.

Not to mention he was also a little worried that he wouldn’t be able to work up the nerve later, this conversation already had momentum he didn’t want to stop.

“N..Now?”

Jared just huffed out a sigh as he awkwardly clambered over Evan to slide off the bed, straining to grab his crutches once he made it to the floor.

“You don’t have to do this.” Jared looked up at him, raising an eyebrow as he looked over him. His face was still flushed and he was fidgeting with his hands. Heaving a sigh Jared just leaned to grab his phone and tuck it into his pocket before hobbling away from the bed. “I’ve managed so far.”

“But.. you want to uh..” Jared heard some rustling as Evan practically fell off the bed, stumbling to catch himself. He bit back a fond smile at the absurdity of it all and just dropped down onto the futon as gracefully as he could manage. “I wanna help.”

When Jared looked up Evan was already collecting the few plastic bags they had off the ground and that time he couldn’t help but smile a bit.

“Alright,” he said it like a leading question, waiting expectantly as Evan shifted his weight between his feet. He shifted so he could stretch his leg out for easier access and when he saw Evan practically waiting for a command he sighed, “tape is in the top desk drawer.”

Evan grabbed the duct tape and sat on the floor in front of Jared, wrapping up the cast with a sort of practiced ease. Jared’s cast was bigger than what he’d been used to before and he watched Evan scramble, digging around Rich’s side of the room for two extra bags to fully cover it. Once he was done he sat back on his heels, Jared could practically feel the nervousness radiating off of him. “But.. if someone sees us both go into a bathroom they’re gonna think..”

Right. The redness on Evan’s face was almost contagious. Just almost. Because now he was thinking about it too, well sort of, he didn’t care if anyone saw them, he barely knew anyone on the floor but.. The thought of sneaking away to the bathrooms with Evan for something else - that was enough to make him feel a little warm.

“Just wait like.. a minute and then follow me. Dude. No one cares, people do worse shit in those bathrooms. You’ll live.” His words seemed to be convincing enough and Evan was nodding now.

“Okay.. yeah. Alright.” Evan smoothed his palms over his pants before getting to his feet. Jared couldn’t help but feel a little amused by the shakiness in his knees - he’d caused that. Well, maybe. Maybe it was anxiety, knowing Evan. “I’ll just.. I can bring your clothes and shower stuff.. and everything. Yeah. You.. you can go now and I’ll.. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Text me if you change your mind.” Jared was pulling himself back up to his feet, wobbling on his crutches a bit before heading towards the door. Of course he’d give him an out, Evan looked on the verge of passing out and Jared really didn’t want to push whatever it was that they had. He liked kissing Evan. He liked laying with him. He.. liked him. When he managed to get the door open he gave a mock salute before heading into the hall, letting his shoulders slump as soon as he was out of sight.

The whole thing was a spur of the moment mess and in the moment the yearning for that tenderness had fogged everything. Now that he was alone and hobbling into the bathrooms he looked back on it, as he often did. There were so many times over their lives where Jared had jut pushed too far and now he was worried this was another. Huffing out a sigh he ducked into one of the open bathrooms, leaving the door unlocked behind him as he leaned on the wall to send a text.

Jared (6:22 pm): last one on the left  Duck (Ev) (6:23 pm): ok coming

That was promising at least. So maybe he wouldn’t get his tender fantasy of washing each other’s hair and feeling soft skin to skin contact - but at least he was getting a proper shower. And Evan wasn’t disgusted with him. Or something like that. Wow, he really was starting to sound like him. They were spending a lot of time together. He shook his head and moved to carefully balance his phone on the sink.

With nothing better to do he ran the water. Hot but not too hot. Evan would probably fret over him cooking himself if he showered with his normal water temperature. His heart stuttered at the thought of Evan fussing over him - he used to find it annoying, he used to call him overbearing, comparing him to his mother. It felt different this time.

Only a few minutes has passed before Evan was practically throwing himself into the bathroom and locking the door behind him. Outrageous. It brought a wide grin to Jared’s face as he shook his head fondly. 

“W..What?” Evan seemed to shrink in on himself a bit as he hung up the towel, using the second towel hook to hang Jared’s towel bag. His hands were practically shaking. 

“Shh,” Jared barely stifled a laugh as he whispered, “don’t want someone to hear.”

Evan was nodding frantically enough that just watching him could give Jared a headache. Instead he just stifled a laugh, shoulders shaking as he kept his cackling at bay, face scrunching up with pure amusement. Deciding not to waste any more time he just turned around, hiding his expression as it softened into something more fond. There was something oddly cathartic about being able to let some of that softness seep through instead of forcing it under lock and key. Well it wasn’t oddly cathartic. Probably just normal cathartic. The point was that he was just happy he didn’t have to hide.

Tucking his glasses into his shower bag he just leaned his crutches on the wall, awkwardly balancing as he tugged his clothes off. He’d gotten better at the whole process over the last two weeks. Especially considering he’d been alone for Thanksgiving break. He had a slight handle on it all. Enough, at least, to haul himself into the shower and finally get under the spray, blindly reaching for a bottle on shampoo while he let his hair get wet. 

Yeah. He needed this.

It only took a minute for Jared to encounter a problem. He didn’t have particularly good balance and with one hand propped up against the wall and one clutching onto his shampoo bottle.. he didn’t really have a way of going about this process. Which left one option. They’d made it this far, he might as well drive it home. Clearing his throat quietly he gave as loud of a whisper as he could manage, “hey.. Ev?”

“Uh.. yeah?” He’d heard Evan’s shoes on the tiles and based on his (blurry) shadow he was on the other side of the curtain.

“Okay, you’ve got me. I’ll admit defeat just this once.” Jared didn’t often make a habit of asking for help, but Evan was the single exception if there ever was one, “could you help me wash my hair? Balancing and opening bottles and blurry vision aren’t my favorite combination.”

“Oh but I..” The words set off some primal fear reaction in Jared, he sort of froze up. The silence was only broken by the sound of water. It was almost deafening. “I don’t.. wanna get my clothes wet.”

Jared swore he could fucking strangle him. 

“Well, the great thing about that is that you can take your clothes off to shower.” He managed a quiet laugh because if he didn’t laugh he was probably going to lose it in one way or another. Besides, if that was Evan’s mental block he could try and put that at ease because, “I’ve seen you without clothes before.”

“That.. that was..” Jared squinted a bit, watching as Evan’s shadow fidgeted on the other side of the shower curtain. He held back another laugh, it was probably cruel enough to bring that back up. Losing your swim trunks at the pool definitely wasn’t a pleasant experience.

“I’m already in here and I can’t really do this,” he went with a softer tone this time. The silence stretched on long enough to make Jared second guess everything. Maybe it was an utterly horrible idea. “Ev, it’s fine. I.. you don’t gotta, it’s cool.”

“I.. okay, hold on. Gimme.. a s..sec. I’m fine.”

For once Evan wasn’t pausing, he sounded.. well, as sure of himself as he possibly could. Considering his general aura it was pretty impressive. He heard clothes hitting the ground in a pile and it was suddenly very real and very intimate. 

“I.. okay. I’m coming in.”

When the curtain was pulled open Jared was met with the sight of Evan, eyes squeezed shut tightly. He had to laugh. And.. he was wearing boxers? So what, maybe he couldn’t help but spare a glance! It was sort of endearing actually.

“Jesus, are you serious?” Jared moved the smallest bit to the side so Evan could join him. The red in his face was from more than the warm water. Jared breathed out another laugh. “If you slip and die I’ll kill you.”

“That.. that doesn’t,” he was whispering harshly and no one would never know what he was going to say exactly because his voice faltered when Jared settled a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh my god. If you’re not going to open your eyes at least let me help,” his tone was light and airy - stupidly, he kind of felt like he was floating. Slowly, he helped direct Evan to move until he was standing behind him. “Here.”

After some fumbling he was pressing the bottle of shampoo into Evan’s hand, face scrunching up in amusement as he heard Evan struggle to get it open. Once he got the hang of it he was passing the bottle back and Jared gladly took it, head tipping back a bit instinctually. 

Nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of Evan washing his hair. It was different than when he jut played with it while they laid it bed - it made him feel something that was just intense and he couldn’t quite place it or put it into words. It was painfully tender and it made his knees weak. His eyes burned with the threat of tears.. or maybe there was shampoo in his eyes. That was probably it.

Being taken care of was.. nice. Maybe he’d let it happen a little more often.

[powerfultulips]

weird asks?

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

coffee mugs

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

chocolate bars!

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

both?

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

probably something along the lines of “weird, but brilliant. also really small and tiny”

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

plastic cups

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

ideally, grunge

7. earbuds or headphones?

headphones all the way babey

8. movies or tv shows?

not really a big fan of either

9. favorite smell in the summer?

um, like campfires and stuff

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

didn’t really have p.e. in school, but i always liked kickball and dodgeball

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

just a spoonful of peanut butter, along with my meds

12. name of your favorite playlist?

either “h” or “oliver!”

13. lanyard or key ring?

key ring i guess

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

smarties?

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

hamlet, probably. if you’re looking for a novel, a prayer for owen meany.

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

the comfy one

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

i have these shitty dad shoes (air monarchs) that i wear a lot. mostly because i keep them tied, and i often don’t feel like tying another pair of shoes when i go out. so they’re basically slip-ons

18. ideal weather?

70 degrees, mostly cloudy, maybe a light rain, or a soft breeze

19. sleeping position?

i usually sleep on my right side, but sometimes i roll over to my left

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

depends what i’m writing, but i like notebooks and my laptop

21. obsession from childhood?

quite a few. gas stations, legos, baseball, phineas and ferb

22. role model?

not sure i have one, i look up to all of my friends in different ways

23. strange habits?

i chew on my knuckles a lot, it’s a nervous stim i’ve had since i was young. dunno if i have any others

24. favorite crystal?

um.... the pretty ones

25. first song you remember hearing?

i have no fuckin idea my guy. maybe 99 luftballons

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

exist in an air-conditioned room

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

put a hoodie on and go for a walk

28. five songs to describe you?

“your heart is a muscle the size of your fist” by ramshackle glory; “after you” by good morning; “dip you in honey” by the wombats; “i’m against the government” by defiance, ohio; “new loved ones” by toro y moi

29. best way to bond with you?

probably helping me out when i’m in a bad situation

30. places that you find sacred?

dunno that there are any, really

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

karkat t-shirt, black jeans (that unfortunately don’t fit me anymore), probably some cute socks

32. top five favorite vines?

hang on i have a list. mychael with a B, this bitch empty YEET, the AA-AAA-AAAA battery one, bbq sauce on my titties, and “is that allowed?”

33. most used phrase in your phone?

i. what does that mean

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

none, fuck capitalism

35. average time you fall asleep?

probably like 2am

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

i. have no idea

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

suited case

38. lemonade or tea?

tea

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

pieeee

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

one time a teacher set a dollar bill on fire, i think. i wasn’t there. also a bat got into the bathroom once or twice

41. last person you texted?

my sweet, precious baby boy @literally-an-envelope

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

p a n t

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

hoodie!!!!

44. favorite scent for soap?

vaniwwa

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

sci-fi perhaps?

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

i usually sleep in a tshirt and pj pants

47. favorite type of cheese?

pepperjack probably. i had a dream about gouda last night, though

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

a blackberry. idk

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

“All people are good for something. The important thing is finding what.” (Tom, MLB Power Pros 2008)

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

fuck if i know dude

51. current stresses?

is “everything” an answer

52. favorite font?

helvetica

53. what is the current state of your hands?

slightly sweaty

54. what did you learn from your first job?

sprite with grenadine.... tasty

55. favorite fairy tale?

idk bro

56. favorite tradition?

my family usually goes to chuck e cheese on new years eve. its fun

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

bold of you to assume i’ve overcome anything

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

writing, singing, pitching (baseball), and punting (football)

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

y’know, like nya?

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

slice-of-life, or a sports anime

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

shrugs

62. seven characters you relate to?

are these all gonna be homestuck characters? probably. karkat, tavros, kanaya, dave, john/june, jade, and kankri. ok those are just my favourites but fuck you

63. five songs that would play in your club?

i’d probably have a really chill “club” that just played like, indie music from bands i like

64. favorite website from your childhood?

poptropica

65. any permanent scars?

yeah i have a few, although they’re fading and healing, idk if they will be on my skin forever.

66. favorite flower(s)?

i like tulips

67. good luck charms?

stuffed animals

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

black liquorice

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

fun fact! why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food

70. left or right handed?

right, but i swing left

71. least favorite pattern?

idk

72. worst subject?

like in school? physics

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

shrugs aggressively

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

like 5

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

i have no clue

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

probably fries

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

shrug

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

neither?

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

school id, i think

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

jewel tones

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

ain’t those the same thing

82. pc or console?

i guess i prefer console, but most of my games are on my laptop

83. writing or drawing?

writing

84. podcasts or talk radio?

podcasts, i guess?

84. barbie or polly pocket?

shrugs

85. fairy tales or mythology?

mythology?

86. cookies or cupcakes?

cookies !

87. your greatest fear?

losing my loved ones

88. your greatest wish?

am i allowed to say “to be dead”

89. who would you put before everyone else?

my fiancé, for sure

90. luckiest mistake?

i.... don’t know

91. boxes or bags?

🅱️oxen

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

sunlight!!

93. nicknames?

yeah

94. favorite season?

spring

95. favorite app on your phone?

tumblr, or discord

96. desktop background?

something from homestuck. it’s terezi

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

four (mine, dad, mom, fiancé)

98. favorite historical era?

i don’t know that i have one

[devinsfm]

joe keery. cis male. he/him.  ／  jack devin just pulled up blasting video killed the radio star by the buggles — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - four year old radio show host, i’ve heard they’re really impulsive, but that they make up for it by being so captivating. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say obscure vintage horror comics, blurry photographs of mysterious figures in the woods, and vivid descriptions of spine - chilling tales  . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( sam, 23, est, she/her )

hey there, demons ! *ba tum tss* i’m sam and i never do this, but i really felt like it was time for a change, so i drew lots of inspiration from some of my favorite ocs and i love what i’ve come up with ! character info is under the cut and please feel free to message me if you would like to plot !

i. stats

𝔣𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢: jackson willard devin

𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔰: jack, spooky guy, the night watchman 

𝔥𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔬𝔴𝔫: salem, massachusetts

𝔡𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔟𝔦𝔯𝔱𝔥: ocotber 31st, 1995

𝔷𝔬𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔠: scorpio

𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫: demisexual

𝔬𝔠𝔠𝔲𝔭𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫: host of the graveyard shift, a radio program airing every weeknight from 12am to 5am

𝔭𝔬𝔰. 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔰: captivating, witty, resolute. 

𝔫𝔢𝔤. 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔰: impulsive, gauche, naive.

ii. history

jackson willard “jack” devin was born on halloween day ( yes, really ) in salem massachusetts ( yes, really ). his mother stayed home with him as he was growing up while his father is a boston cop turned sheriff of the county and he’s an only child.

outside of the popular tourist spots, his hometown has a very close - knit, stuck in the 80s vibe. it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone for their entire lives because no one ever leaves and no one new ever moves in. phone and internet signals are nearly impossible to come by, so the local arcade and the video store still have quite a booming business in the year 2020. jack grew up in a not - so - typical small town suburban gothic environment, his dad’s income being just enough for them to get by every month.

he was an energetic kid who cycled through all sorts of interests, trying out everything from little league ( disaster ) to music lessons ( not as much of a disaster, but he wound up getting bored of it ). nothing seemed to really stick until he got his first horror comic : a vintage issue of tales from the crypt with tattered, yellowing pages. he was five years old and paid five cents for it at an elderly neighbor’s yard sale and from that moment on he was hooked. it started with the comics, but he quickly expanded his horizons to movies, books, and television in the genre of horror.

he got intro drawing and that was the only thing besides his newfound interest in horror that he could sit still for. at first he would just try to re - draw the panels in his comic books, but soon he was drawing anything and everything that caught his interest and he was getting good. he was being homeschooled by his mother at the time, but once friends and family and, well, everyone took notice of his skill, they were encouraging his parents to nurture his talent.

his parents fought about it. his dad didn’t see the value in his skill and wanted him to instead focus on academics, aspiring towards his son one day becoming a lawyer or a businessman or even following in his footsteps. jack never wanted that for himself. he was homeschooled by his mom up until then and she believed in him. it was with her blessing that he would go to a real school for the first time at the age of fourteen, starting off his freshman year at a high school that was a thirty minute train ride away in boston and catered exclusively to youth who demonstrated an exceptional talent in some area of the fine arts.

jack did well in school, but his grades probably would have been a lot better still if he didn’t start purposely acting out as his relationship with his dad got worse and worse. he started skipping classes, getting caught trespassing in cemeteries at 2am, and smoking a lot of weed. 

when it came time for college, jack planned to attend art school. he swears he did. he looked a few schools on the west coast to get away from his dad for a few years yikes and planned to apply, but on the deadline date he got so high that he forgot to submit his portfolios. yes, really.

he loaded up his van ( a turquiose monstrosity he painted to look like the mystery machine ) and headed out to california anyway after telling his parents that he would be attending UCLA. of course, they quickly found it that it was a lie and his dad was furious. the two got into a huge fight over the phone and things were said. the result is that jack and his father haven’t spoken to each other ever since. 

he did lots of odd jobs while he was on the road and basically lived in his van, which didn’t change right away when he decided to settle in LA, but he eventually got a job fetching coffee for the late night employees at a local radio station.

it was the typical, cliché story : the regular late night host called out of work at the last minute, there was no one else around and they were going to be on air in ten seconds. jack was thrown in front of the microphone and told to think fast !

he did, and the listeners loved him for it. whether it was his ramblings about horror movies or his thick boston accent or his reckless use of swear words on live radio, he turned out to be a massive hit. the successful night earned him a gig as an occasional substitute deejay, and with each broadcast he grew more and more popular, and about two years ago he was finally given his own program.

the graveyard shift is a radio program that airs every weeknight from 12am - 5am in the los angeles area and on apps such as iheartradio. jack hosts the show as his ( thinly veiled ) alter ego the night watchmen and discusses topics such as the paranormal, conspiracy theories, and all things horror. it’s one of the most popular programs of the time slot in the country.

it’s something that he never expected or picturing himself doing, but now he can’t imagine doing anything else. he’s become really passionate about revitalizing the field and bringing radio into the 21st century. he signed a HUGE contract with the studio when his show first started and now he’s a quite well known radio personality in the area and across the country.

iii. extras

huge stoner. high as fuck 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time he’s probably still high, just not as fuck. 

well known for his on air antics. he’ll light a joint in the middle of his radio show, he’ll prank call a friend and broadcast it to the entire city, he’ll curse in every single sentence and skate by on the after hours excuse when he’s reprimanded for it. he’s so outlandish and bizarre and like nothing that’s ever been heard on the radio before, and it just draws people in.

he often seems shy in person, but it’s more like he’s just a little socially awkward, something which also shines through in occasional non - malicious but blunt remarks and general lack of regard for what people think of him. he really just...doesn’t care.

genuinely seems to believe it’s either halloween day and / or the year 1986 at any given moment as that’s about as recent as his pop culture references get. he’s never heard of the k*rdashians, he doesn’t know what the mcu is, and the phrase yeet means absolutely nothing to him. mention any of it to him and he’ll just stare blankly bc he honestly doesn’t have a clue.

HOWEVER, he did start the area 51 meme from last summer.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

still draws. especially if he has to still for a stretch of time, then he’ll take out his latest sketchbook ( he goes through a lot of them ) and start doodling. he’s still quite good, mostly in his favored comic - esque style.

BIG CHAOTIC ENERGY and ZERO IMPULSE CONTROL

a chatterbox with friends but don’t be fooled...he’s been giving his own dad the silent treatment for almost seven ( 7 ) years now. it’s his preferred method of expressing anger towards someone because he isn’t really a fan of confrontation, but he’s maybe a liiiittle bit stubborn.

most of the time he’s a really easygoing person, a good friend and very loyal to the people he cares about. well - meaning, not the best at advice but he’s more likely to try and cheer a person up anyway. 

he has a pet pied ball python named the crypt keeper ( tkc for short ) who he sometimes just carries with him because he likes to just chill wrapped around jack’s hand and arm. 

iv. wanted connections

maternal or paternal cousins ( their grandparents probably live in boston or new england but otherwise anything goes for this )

close friends

friends

guests on his radio show 

fans / haters of his radio show

people who don’t like him / find him annoying

exes ( 1 - 2, can be on good or bad terms )

“casually dating” but it might get real complicated soon - allie james

( these are just ideas and i’m trash at coming up with stuff, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here. )

[trackinghallownest]

-slides into your dms- tell me about your vessel ocs!!!! Whose your favorite. Everyone has a favorite even if they don't like to admit it! And is it ok if I draw them interacting with my vessel ocs?

HHfngfh gh i’m,,, thank you for this ask i’m dying,, i will absolutely go off if you dont mind me taking this chance!! ft doodles!! because i can!! and you absolutely can draw them with yours i will probably cry and definitely draw interactions back udfkfhvdf;;

some of this i may have mentioned in other posts but i cant for the life of me keep track of what ive put here compared to the discord so! i’m just going to fact dump! and put under a cut so i don’t completely fill peoples’ dashes shkfd

first is gonna be spindle since. i love them. theyre probably my favourite. and also the first i made. theyre just babie

they really are just babey,,

kind of accidentally an endless source of lifeblood which is a long story but its not.. very fun. to be constantly covered in plants. by adulthood most of their torso and one of their limbs is almost completely replaced/encased in plant matter

they take this pretty well actually. even if it gets a lot harder to move

for a vessel they grew up to full size much quicker than others of their kind, likely due to the lifeblood’s properties, but really nobody has much of a clue. didnt have time to get used to their size and still has VERY bad spatial awareness

broke their horn tip by smacking it on a low ceiling hkfdnfbdmvdf

plants bursting out of their shell and eye have pretty badly damaged it, and they can’t see out of the broken eye

theyre trying their hardest!! always!! they can’t move around very well and sometimes get lonely sitting at home in dirtmouth but they’re friendly to just about anybody and have so much love to give

seriously they dont even eat but they like to make sure they have food and drink at home in case anyone drops in and needs it

they’ve never been able to fight, and shy away from violence or combat in all forms

very scared of the dark and carries a lantern with them at all times, usually around their neck

discharges excess lifeblood into soil and grows a garden from it - keeps it from overtaking their body any further, and it’s something to do

not the best at communicating since a wood arm makes signing stiff and tricky, but they’re not much of a talker (signer?) anyway

then we have scratch n thimble who are kinda twins but not really. yeah those are matching scarves they are Bros (sibs??)

scratch FIGHTS THINGS and USES A REAL BIG NAIL

the biggest of all my vessel ocs, just in general. a big and strong friend

made it to the palace but got tossed for starting to care too much and takin a blow for another sibling. saved thimble from dying down there too and they were absolutely inseparable since

really just the embodiment of the ‘you befriended x! x would now die for you’ meme not gonna lie

has almost literally died for Multiple siblings n friends before but they wouldn’t let them. which is, a good thing

too reckless for their own good especially in their younger years but thankfully mellows out quite a bit by adulthood

tries to keep up a strong stoic front but also doesnt hesitate to abandon it if needed. theyre big soft really (they wont admit it tho)

has The Biggest soft spot for kids do not let them tell you otherwise

fought for the sake of it in the colosseum for many years before Stuff And Things involving yet another vessel happened and they kinda trashed the place and never went back

their nail is about as big and heavy as their entire body and they’re surprisingly good at using it for something so unwieldy. could probably crush most bugs just by virtue of it being So Damn Big

spends a lot of time when grown at the howling cliffs keeping an eye on those travelling into the kingdom, and deterring those with malicious intent

they got that eye wound from their sibling… it was technically an accident. they still don’t talk about it though

contrary to their twin thimble is the smallest vessel (as a babby at least - they do end up standing taller than spin and ruth when fully grown)

they have the very unfortunate problem of their shade having fused with void tendrils from the abyss sea as a babby

as such their shade is very violent and kinda has a habit of literally bursting out their shell and lashing out at anything around them under stress

eventually they get a handle on it and learn to control the literally overflowing void inside them but until then their entire life is pretty much a big clusterfuck of trying not to kill people, which they hate

they’re very timid and shy and cling to familiar figures (especially scratch) probably too much, but strike out on their own much more growing up 

theyre very strong and capable, moreso than most magic users, but you wouldn’t guess it. the only time they’d even consider showing it is in another’s defense

uses void tendrils like extra limbs. very functional! can hold many things (or offer many hugs) at once. may be slightly slimy though.

their cloak is very long and would probably benefit from being trimmed shorter but they absolutely refuse to let anyone touch it. its kinda grimy at this point and they trip a lot but don’t do anything about it

friends with a bunch of mossflies they picked up in the gardens! they all have names

can communicate with other void-creatures by sharing some of their own void! this was discovered entirely by accident but very useful, if awkward to explain

sure they’re kinda timid and like being on their lonesome, but they’re also very level-headed and friendly, and get along very well with low-energy quieter sorts of people especially

ruth is a small vessel rn/as far as i’ve worked out a timeline for! i know what they look like big but as far as the content on this blog currently goes theyre just .. smal

actual infant. hadnt actually been wandering out of the abyss that long before being dragged up to the colosseum to fight for sport

really doesnt have much of a clue how to act at first, other than ‘stab things before they stab you’

their name comes from ‘ruthless’, a nickname they got in the colosseum because they literally did not (appear to) give two shits whether they lived or died in battle. they’d just come back, anyway

scratch was the one that found them flinging a nail around and immediately went ‘oh thats a baby. this is bad, actually’

for the first short while of freedom scratch is the only one they’ll let even get close to them, and pretty much clings to them relentlessly. not a moments rest

they were actually pretty badly infected by the time they were broken out but theyre better now (another long story)

doesn’t have a natural cloak - it was ripped out and never grew back in. they make do though! their ‘new’ one was made from part of scratch’s that they ripped off and fixed together. they love it more than anything

once they actually figured out not everyone was out to kill them they stopped fighting back, and became a lot more curious and lively in general

still has a very warped and guarded sense of trust, however

kinda iffy around weapons and reacts badly to confrontation but does eventually learn to fight again (just.. in a better way)

pretty short even when grown, and going by height alone is the shortest when they’re all big

likes picking up pretty trinkets and things and carrying them around. has a few tied to their horns (as well as many pockets)

i have just now decided that spite counts as well! they dont actually survive to adulthood in any timeline i have currently (sorry spite) so big spite is entirely a theoretical but theyre fun to draw so

now spite? spite wins the babiest baby award

has one single braincell that bounces around their shell like a windows screensaver

their name indicates they are capable of feeling any negative emotion or hatred which is entirely untrue. by the time this was figured out they already wouldn’t answer to anything else

absolutely no sense of self-preservation or common sense. they are, in most regards, a very cute and very stupid dog

got lost on their way out of the abyss the first time around, ended up in the lighthouse and met friend mori!! was almost caught but eventually smuggled out and away

spent a lot of the time on the run in city of tears with said friend who was pretty much presumed dead by then. got taken in by a family, enjoyed themselves for a while

…but were eventually caught and thrown right back into the abyss along with mori killing them both for real this time. unfortunately.

cut to MANY years later and oops! their shade fused with the corpse and for some ungodly reason theyre both alive. time for the worst buddy comedy ever ft. literal pile of goop and body parts

spite does not seem to know nor care that theyre dead however

mostly happy to sit up there on mori’s shell and nap for hours at a time or fiddle with literally anything in reach. give them a cool rock and they’ll be entertained for hours. they are but a simple creacher

they do actually eventually learn to use a nail but who’s idea was it to give a child a sword. seriously i just wanna talk