#but after i hit 4 digits i was like oh that’s cool!

[userastarion]

i am extremely grateful for my lil tumblr community (those i follow and those who follow me) and i love them all and tbh it seems really stressful to have a larger following bc the more people you have, the freer they feel to say whatever they want to you, and i am incredibly grateful to (i hope) have fostered an environment of kindness

[pedrisbanana]

Period comfort, either Pedri or Gavi.

I choose Gavi for this one, thank you for the request💕

Enjoy 🍌

Comfort

You were turning in the bed, trying not to wake your boyfriend. The cramps held you from finding sleep.    

If you had known you would start your period tonight, you wouldn't have slept over. A sudden realization hit you, so you slowly got up, but it was too late. Tearing up, you hurried to the kitchen to get some paper towels. 

"Princesa ?" 

Oh no. If he woke up and turned the light on he most definitely saw the stain on his bedsheets. How embarrassing. 

Gavi found you in the kitchen, seeing you trying to wet some paper towels, but you held onto the counter as another cramp hit you. He embraced you in a hug, stroking your hair and holding you close to his strong chest.

"I'm sorry." you sobbed. "Normally it's always punctual, let me change-" Another cramp.

Gavi looked at you worried, taking the towels from you. "Why don't you go change, do you have pads ? If not, I think Aurora might left some or I can go-" His voice was rushed, obviously startled by the situation. 

You smiled at his attempt. He cared and wasn't disgusted or didn't show if he was. You bit your lip. "It's okay, I have some in my bag. Thank you." 

Rushing to the bathroom with your handbag, you started to clean up. You were glad about Gavi's reaction. Not every 18 year old would be so lovingly, being only fresh in the relationship as well. 

A soft knock on the door, interrupted your thoughts. Gavi's hands sneaked through the small gap with a pair of his sweatpants and a pair of his boxers. He was sure to close the door quickly, not wanting to make you uncomfortable.

"Umm... I thought maybe these would be more comfortable." his voice was unsure, but he cleared his throat. "Put your laundry in the machine when you're ready. I'll wash it with the bedsheet." 

"You're too sweet. Thank you." 

Picking up the clothes, you couldn't help but grin. You couldn't believe your luck. You really had the sweetest boyfriend in the world. 

After putting your clothes in the washing machine, you left the bathroom and saw Gavi fold the duvet over the freshly made bed. You couldn't wait to crawl back into it. Tiredness overcoming you and the cramps making it hard to stand upright.

"I could've helped you Pablo" you said and he took your hand, leading you to get into bed. 

"Nah, bonita." he gave you a peck. "Do you need anything else ? I've put water on the stove. Maybe a tea or a hot water bottle? Pain medication? I have some in my training bag."

You cuddled into the pillow. It smelled like Gavi. 

"All three maybe ? The cramps are killing me." you sighed, another cramp making you wrinkle the duvet in your hand.

Gavi gave you a compassionate look, but left to get the required items. You looked at the small digital clock on the nightstand. 4:00 am. Luckily it was Sunday, so you didn't need to get up to work later. 

After a while Gavi came back with the tea, hot water bottle, pain killers and another blanket. He watched as you took the medication, tea already cooled a bit. Gavi draped you into the blanket, after you positioned the hot water bottle on your lower stomach. 

He yawned. "Can I do something else for you amor ?" 

You could see he was close to falling asleep, so you asked him to join you in bed. Gavi cuddled you into his arms, legs intertwining. The quiet sound of the washing machine mixing with your steady breaths. He kissed your neck softly. 

Leaning into his touch, Gavi kissed you to sleep.

A/N: I think this is the first non smutty fic I wrote in 7 years lol

Stay lovely and enjoy your Sunday 💕

[captain-mj]

Angels of Digitalism Part 4

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

The rock star au I promised!!

Soap hadn’t felt this nervous since… highschool? Maybe? Roach had such a bright and sweet smile. After a bit of back and forth, Soap decided to let Roach drive him to the restaurant since he had no clue where it was. He didn’t speed nearly as much as he anticipated

Because Roach was trying to not scare Soap away. He was worried if he sped too much it might spook him. Roach waved at the radio and Soap got the message, immediately playing with the channels until he found a soft rock channel that he liked. 

Then, Soap started talking. 

Maybe Roach was just used to Ghost, where even if he was mute, he was still the more talkative. His other friends, Alex, Rudy and Alé, were cool and he loved talking to them, but they never rambled to him either. They politely waited for him to respond and always took his input in to consideration. He loved that about them. 

But something about Soap’s way of talking was just soothing. Roach had never thought he was one for accents, but something about Soap’s voice was so nice. He loved it. 

So he noticed the moment Soap stopped talking. Roach glanced over to see that Soap had turned red. 

“Just hit me you can’t exactly respond… With your hands on the wheel and all… Sorry for rambling.” 

Roach made a face that Soap clearly took as a scolding. He withered even more under his gaze. 

Who hurt this guy? For fuck’s sake.

Roach grabbed Soap’s hand and kissed his knuckles gently. It was really chaste, more of a way of making Soap understand it was fine. He then motioned for him to continue talking. 

Soap slowly started to talk again, glancing over at Roach to see if he suddenly would look uncomfortable or change his mind. When it was clear he wouldn’t, he stopped checking. 

Roach parked the car and opened the door, immediately shivering. Before he could grab one of the extra jackets he kept in the back seat, Soap had put his jacket around him. He went to explain but felt himself trail off. 

Soap had a muscle tee on. A proper, guns out muscle t-shirt. He had a few tattoos and he was so fit. 

Roach’s mouth watered. He loved a muscular man. 

Soap followed him, apparently immune to the cold. His jacket smelled like the cologne and body wash that he wore. It smelled really, really nice. They walked in together and Roach sat at his usual table. 

The place was… honestly a big dinghy. Nothing special. Only a step up from an applebees on the fact that it wasn’t a chain. Dim lighting that was perfect for Ghost when he took his mask off. 

Roach dug his nails into his thighs and tried to not think of his super hot friend that he had serious tension with and instead focus on the super hot coworker he could have some serious tension with. 

Soap was gorgeous. Soft around the edges in all the right places. And he was so nice. 

Roach listened to Soap as he talked about the progress he made with the art. He showed Roach the plans and explained how he wanted to approach it next. 

After a few minutes, Roach gently reached up and covered his mouth. He then typed out “no more work talk on our date, yeah?” and sent it to Soap. 

Soap choked on his drink. “This is a date??”

Roach paused and shrank down immediately. Oh no… Oh this was bad… 

“I’m on a date with you.” Soap repeated, blushing so bright. He smiled again. “Okay! That’s… yeah!” He sounded so excited that Roach relaxed a bit. “Sorry, I misunderstood but I definitely, definitely want to be on a date with you.” 

Roach smiled at him, though he still felt anxious. 

Soap hummed. “What do you want?”

Roach pointed to the items on the menu and when the waitress came, before he could even prep himself to go through the ordeal of ordering, Soap ordered for both of them. Yes, his friends always ordered for him when they were out, but he wasn’t expecting Soap to do so without him even asking. 

It felt nice. Soap smiled at him and Roach kept his phone out so they could talk more. 

“What got you into music?”

Roach started to type out the same answer he gave everyone before pausing, hesitating. The answer was that he always felt a passion for music and when he met Ghost, they seemed to fall into a band together. That Roach had always been the singer and he always had his voice. The story was cute, had merit, no way to be proven wrong and was so untrue it no longer felt funny. 

In reality, Roach never really cared about music. He listened to it, sure, but it was never an interest. And then he joined the band to be close to Simon and Tommy. Tommy left. Then everything happened. 

Roach lost his voice and had to make a vocaloid.

Ghost started wearing a mask everywhere. 

Suddenly they were successful. People loved them. It was odd after so long of having twenty consistent listeners on spotify.

“You don’t have to answer.”

Roach looked at him and shook his head before typing out something a little closer to the truth. “Simon did. He was the guitarist and I was the drummer.”

Soap smiled at him. “Cool. I’m guessing you guys have been playing for a long time yeah?”

“Years. Since high school.”

Soap got a mischievous look on his face. “Oh? How embarrassing are they?”

Roach laughed, softening a little. “Pretty bad. I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”

“Can do.” Soap smiled. “I’ll get them for you. I’m sure I even have some of my old sketches.”

Roach latched on to that. “Anything embarrassing there?”

“Couple of horribly pretentious drawings but that’s about it. Been doing art a long time.” 

“Looks so effortless when you do it. Must’ve taken you forever to get that skill.”

Soap laughed. “Oh yeah. Way too long in my opinion.”

The food came and Roach observed Soap. He ate like he was starving, finishing his food in about half the time it took Roach to finish his. Roach kept sliding bits of his own food over but Soap kept refusing, even though he looked like he’d pounce on it like a hungry cat. 

Roach imagined Soap’s eyes expanding like a cats until it covered his iris and it made him giggle a little. Just the absurdity of it. Maybe some cat ears. 

Why is that attractive? 

Bad train of thoughts. 

Roach did eventually push the rest of his plate over. “I’m done. Don’t want to deal with a to-go box.” He watched Soap wolf down the rest of the food, somehow still finding time in between bites to speak. Roach could appreciate his tenacity. 

Soap hummed and got out his card to pay. He quickly pushed Soap’s hand to his chest and shook his head, taking out the card. 

“You guys have this giant running bit that you guys are poor?? I’m not going to make you pay for my food if you’re broke.” 

Roach shook his head. While it was true they had the reputation, it’s because they spent the majority of what they made on their shows. Also, they weren’t always popular. RIght now, he definitely had money to spend and he wanted to spend it on Soap. 

“On me.” He slid the card to the table and grabbed Soap’s hands, pretending to trace the lines on his palm when really he was just making sure the cheeky asshole wasn’t going to try to put his card there. 

Soap watched him, tensing a little. He looked weirdly excited. 

Roach grabbed his hand and put it to his cheek, leaning in.

With any luck, he’d be over Ghost and under Soap in no time.

[emmebearpaw]

Ok you know. This Olive fic was shorter than I hoped it was going to be but I've gotten to a point where I would do a big 'ol time skip and a lot of my thoughts about this version of Olive are more... disjointed scenes. I also kind of want to go play video games instead of doing more writing so uh, posting time! Consider this a nice intro to drop some exposition and try to ease you into the world i'm thinking about right now I suppose. I'll definitely write more for Olive here soon.

Word Count: ~1075

The Web was full of very strange rules. Strange being the operative word. Because Olive did not understand the explanations behind them. You could only send 280 letters in a call on Birdcall. Cats are the funniest animals and must have funny memes made about them. There was acronyms for everything. And most notably in this situation,

"There isn't actually a rule that says a vtuber has to play video games. Besides. Sudoku can be a video game if I play it on my Webporter." She laughed, scrolling back up her busier than average (a whole 7 people watching!) chat to see the commenter's name. "Yup, definitely don't recognize that username, welcome to the Labyrinth, punkstrife. Since your new here, allow me to explain, it's hard to get a Webporter down into my labyrinth so the one I'm using is uh... a teensy bit old!" Olive hit one of her hotkeys and watched the expression on her model change in the stream preview. Her carefully crafted png-tuber persona being her best edit of the Minotaur's skull placed upon an anime girl body, with a posted note slapped onto the skull so she toggle the expression to one of the many emoticons she had learned over the last several months. Certainly it wasn't as cool as the moving models of other streamers she had watched but, her posted note could go :p, or any other infinite amount of emotions, which was good enough for her. "Luckily the Web is full of many fun things to do!!" ^-^ "Like reading Wikipedia! Anyways don't mind any birds you can hear, I keep birds and they've been a bit noisy recently!"

Her chat scrolled by a bit as she got a drink of water. One of the rules of streaming was that you are supposed to read chat. And besides, having people to talk to is the reason she was streaming, so... >Asterius is a nerd lol >fresh blood fresh blood >still want to know what birds they are?? >do Byers national park next

Placing the cup down she continued, "Speaking of, let's get back into it. Today's theme is national parks and other nature preserves from around the world, so give suggestions and we can go digitally visit it! We're reading about Acadia National Park right now, but if you want me to learn about one you like  then list it out. We'll all learn about them together!"

---

After another hour she went on break. Frankly she didn't even need to use the bathroom yet. She more so needed to stretch in ways she couldn't do quietly. After all there was no way to get up from the stool without the light scratching of its quills against the kitchen cabinet. She sighed, it probably wouldn't be long before she would have to paint the cabinet to cover up all the scratches it had put in it... and the bathroom door.. and the hole in the mattress from that one time it-- She broke out of the list of things she had to repair again as she reached her destination after 4 whole seconds. The other side of the desk/dining table/kitchen counter. The kitchen of course being the section of the house with the most floor space. Well, besides the bed, but she hadn't washed her feet from when she went out to tend to the birds, and she wasn't going to get the bed dirty just to stretch and she didn't feel like washing them or washing an extra pair of socks later. If only her master could find it some shoes that actually fit its feet. Oh well, that was the rule!

There were, of course, many rules she had to follow to be able to keep living here. Those ones she understood far better than the internet rules, because unlike those ones, her master had been there to explain them. She ran her fingers through her wiry hair as she gently pushed her head down, imagining her master's fingers instead as she explained the oh so important rules that would keep the two of them safe.

The first was the most serious one, her master cooed, "Nobody can know what you look like unless I say that they are safe" she nodded as she changed stretches, because of course "being a familiar can get us both in a lot of trouble if any of the gods ever find out". It chirred in shock, why should the fact it had claws and fur and a big tail and little tiny ears the perfect size for scratch mean it was in trouble? It hadn't even done anything... would it get  in trouble with master  "No no, you've been a very good girl. You aren't in trouble with me at all" She scratched behind its ear.  "Unfortunately, before you were born I did... a few things that made some of the gods very angry at me. And one of those things was making you, because the gods don't like it when humans do magic."

"Meanies" she managed to respond before sticking out her tongue in a childish act of defiance.

She shook her head loose from the memory before moving on to touch her paws. It was that silly silly "no magic" rule of the gods that was the source of all the rules her master had to drill into her. No telling anyone about her, because people definitely shouldn't know that she was a familiar. No mention of the birds her master had stolen from The Garden (at least she could mention there were birds. It was hard to ignore their very loud calls when they thought it was spring). No mention of where they lived because it turns out pocket dimensions were also magic and therefore also illegal.

At least the Web existed. With its strange rules that didn't make sense and infinite things to do and even people to talk to that weren't her master! Not that she didn't love her master, but she had to go and make money so that they could both eat even in the off season. So. She could be a Minotaur. As a treat. After all, as long as she followed all the rules her master told her again and again, nothing would go wrong!

She should probably get back to her stream, shouldn't she?

[brionysea]

This is random but I was thinking: Mike and Nancy haven’t been close since 4 years before the show. Isn’t Holly 3 in season 1? I think all the older Wheeler’s kinda just. Started ignoring/treating Mike shitty the second Holly was born/even when Karen was pregnant.

ouch... classic middle child syndrome

i think it was probably nancy specifically tbh. getting a new baby sister reminded her that she's Not A Baby anymore (like eleven lmao) so she's like "oh shit i've gotta start being cool and detached now, bye."

idk maybe i'm biased by my hatred but i can't imagine the parents being decent with mike at any point. if they were and then stopped because he wasn't the baby anymore then i would have justifiable cause to punt them into the sun, because what kind of nuclear conditional love show are they running here

that said, losing interest the second their youngest child is old enough to stop being cute is exactly what they would do. holly's gonna be emotionally abandoned the second she hits double digits. which means i have justifiable cause to punt karen and ted wheeler into the sun after all!

[lost-in-azalea-forest]

hello bro!!!! giving you cereal, notes and walk for Asmo, Jiro and Asra!! feel free to change the f/o if you feel like writing about someone else! im just here wanting to read more stuff about you and Jiro hehe sending the best vibes your way!<3

oh, long post incoming

cereal - how different are your breakfasts? have you ever prepared breakfast for the other? is there something you would never accept for breakfast, even if it came from them?

Asmo: My S/I isn't actually the exchange student but they almost live with the demon brothers so we have often breakfast together, he definitely cares more about looks of food to make aesthetic photos, while i just want my coffee

Jiro: I'm a bit of a mess in the kitchen but I still feel like a biiiit of a big bro for Jiro so he is always welcome to crash my home for breakfast, whatever he asks for I will try and fail miserably to do

Asra: He makes such a great tea for REAL!! The best way to begin a day, and his cooking is great so I'm coming to visit you two quite often. It's also nice to make a card reading for the day in group :>

notes - whose writing is harder to read? who writes more by hand than digitally? do any of you rely on making lists or using post-its on a daily basis?

Asmo: he writes so much digitaly but whenever he writes by hand, his handwriting is beautiful, i feel like we would leave eachother some small notes to make each other's day

Jiro: he has an awful writing and as non native i have such a hard time reading it, i learn with time though; i was said my writing is very neat though

Asra: i like his handwriting, after all you can see it in the game! and we keep sending eachother postcards from any place we visit, i think it's cute

walk - what do you usually do when you spend time together? is there any place you especially like to hang out at? maybe somewhere that holds a deep meaning for both of you for some reason?

Asmo: shopping malls are such a cool place, we get to have fun trying out some clothes and choosing outfits for eachother as well as chill in cafés while exchanging some gossip and having meaningful convos, but tbh, having a spa day at his room is also a favorite of mine, depends on my energy levels

Jiro: i feel like if the day isnt going right for any of us it's high time we go hit arcade and playing together to our hearts' content, if i end up being really good i would let him win ksjskjs i think it would also be fun to play some basketball or soccer although im really physicaly weak xd im complaining about my old age to him while being 4 years older, yea (i think. math is ironically not my strongest suite)

Asra: to be honest, travel is the best 'place' for us to spend time together. i just love seeing new places and i'm sure he would make it extremly fun, besides i like to help him find gifts from travel for you ;3

[ixcaliber]

Games of the month - June 2023

This month my hyperfocus went towards watching as many movies as possible, so it’s a pretty breezy games of the month

1. Haiku, The Robot

Neat little metroidvania about a little robot. It’s cute it’s pretty fun. My two big complaints would be

1) it felt pretty linear. i don’t doubt that there were probably other ways to get to locations than the ways that i took but the experience of playing it it really felt like each upgrade allowed me access to one new path which would lead me to the next upgrade and so on and so on.

2) i like boss fights better when each enemy has a little name pop up. the designs were cool and did some interesting stuff sometimes. i just wish i didn’t have to think of them in terms of like ‘the car battery one’, ‘the tv one’ etc. It makes them feel less memorable.

Otherwise perfectly fine metroidvania.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Chronologically this is when I finished Tears of the Kingdom but I’m not ready to tear into that just yet so lets move on to

3. Life After Magic

This is a free game available through steam or through itch.io. It’s a visual novel where you control Akiko, a former magical girl who has somewhat drifted through life after the big bad that she and her magical girl team fought against has been defeated. With y2k approaching something is wrong and it’s up to you to bring your girls back together and face one more threat.

Hey. I love this game. There’s a good chance this is pretty high up my games of the year list, if not at the very top. I love the girls. I love the trans and nonbinary inclusion. I love the homages to sailor moon, yu-gi-oh and probably some other stuff that I didn’t even get. I love the way the game plays with nostalgia and the way this narrative reaches a head. If you’re like one of the two or three people reading this I absolutely recommend you get and play this one.

4. Monuments To Guilt

This is a digital museum dedicated to hostile design as featured in the Jacob Gellar video Games That Aren’t Games. Throughout you can see a number of benches designed to be uncomfortable, off-putting or otherwise just inaccessible to homeless people and disabled people. It’s a short experience and it is interesting to see this insidious aspect of design presented in the prestigious format of a museum and to see it talked about openly. It’s an interesting little experience.

5. Down In Bermuda

Fun and simple puzzle game. It’s the kind of think that would be approachable for kids, simple puzzle concepts like pipe dreams kind of puzzles, hidden object puzzles, no towers of hanoi to speak of but lots of puzzles that feel like they’re in the public domain so to speak. Nothing too difficult and taxing.

6. Lone Fungus

Another metroidvania from the recent humble metroidvania bundle. This game is okay. I like the cute little aesthetic and the basic movement is fun. The big big Big criticism I have of this game is that so much of the side content is like these nether gates or these ladybird rooms. The first time you go in these you get a little popup or something to tell you just how completely optional they are and they would have to be. The difficulty of platforming going from the actual game to these challenges is a fucking sheer cliff wall both in terms of reaction speed needed and in terms of the sheer length of time you need to platform perfectly.

At one point in the game I got a new skill ability and accessed a little tutorial move about how to use it and it started talking about using it to propel yourself quickly by doing this one kind of dash into it and for the life of me I could not get it to activate properly. I felt like I was attempting to perform some complex speedrun tech and the inputs I had to do were like spread across four different buttons which all needed to be hit so quickly in succession. Impossible. This was about the time I gave up on exploration altogether.

And like... it’s a metroidvania. For me at least that exploration is the point of the video game. If you’ve put me off of doing it I don’t really know what I’m getting out of the experience any more.

Also frustrating is that the final (fourth of four) sword upgrades is locked behind completing every single one of the ladybird rooms. And like, if you’re good enough to manage that you’re not going to need the piddling 2 extra damage that the upgrade can offer. Overall it really felt like so much of the stuff you can find that’s optional is not worth it.

There’s like a relic system (like charms in hollow knight) but the way it costs out the various relics you can only really wear three at a time, probably only two if you want to use any of the useful ones.

And just as a minor nitpick on top of everything else, all the bosses are bigger versions of regular enemies that you fight in the area leading up to the boss. It’s not inherently negative when you do something like this in a game but when it’s every boss fight then it makes them less memorable and less interesting.

Also there’s like two ways to end the game, some npcs tell you to do things the proper way while there’s a couple who indicate this secret back route and imply that everyone else is lying to you. The thing is that like I finished the game and I would still have no idea how I’m supposed to escape through the backroute exit. The way the npcs frame it is like a skipping out on your responsibility to complete the tasks set to you for the rest of the game, but like if it’s weirdly more difficult than those tasks then something isn’t adding up.

I had a lot of complaints about this one. It’s fine if you put yourself into the right mindset, as I said up top the basic movement is pretty fun and the designs are cute. Difficult to recommend it if you like to experience this kind of game in the way that I prefer to though.

7. Growing Up

This is a weird one to describe. It’s a game, as the name implies, about growing up. The game’s like broken up into different aspects. During each turn you get the opportunity to learn new skills; you start as a baby and have to learn skills such as talking and walking but soon you’re in school and your skills become more academic focused. At the end of a turn you schedule these tasks, completing each one a specific number of times can master it which will give you bonuses to your attributes and knowledge points to help facilitate learning new skills.

It’s a very mechanically focused game. Maybe I’m being a little too in depth with my explanation. Okay lets try again.

Each turn has like three major components. Learning skills. Scheduling tasks and exploring the brain map. The brain map is like a little minigame where you move along a randomly generated kind of sphere grid sort of upgrade tree, trying to optimize the attribute gains and bonuses with the limited amount of brain points you have. Since you do it once a turn each turn it’s like ‘okay what do I want to focus on this turn’ and you might always try to grab the thing that upgrades the amount of brain points you can have at any given time, but also skew towards knowledge points if you want to learn something new. It does encourage you to be thinking ahead towards your goals and as you play through the game new kinds of tile are unlocked which add dramatically to the complexity of this minigame and how you play it.

I think this game is very good mechanically. I really enjoyed the loop of learning skills, mastering skills, playing the brain map to try to optimize my ability to learn new skills.

The weakness in the game is the way the narrative is delivered. Which isn’t to say the narrative is bad. In my playthrough I got to befriend some good girls and then date and eventually in the epilogue marry my best friend Alicia.

(Also something of a sidenote but should mention that I got this from the humble pride bundle. It’s great that it does allow for gay and lesbian romances but it doesn’t seem to facilitate playing a transgender or nonbinary character. I’d love to see something added to facilitate that in a patch or free dlc.

(At the birth of your character you’re given the option to pick gender or to let fate decide. If you choose to pick you get to pick male or female. I wouldn’t want non-binary or transgender options added here, but like when you get to an age where you’re going to school to have some pop up or prompt that asks you if you feel comfortable in your gender or something like that and that sets you off along a path of transition. Or to have it opt in, an object you can unlock that allows you to schedule ‘self reflection’ or something that can lead you to a path to transition.

I understand that that might be a lot of work though, as there are a lot of characters in the game and making custom conversations for each of them to acknowledge your transition might be quite time consuming)

The other thing I wanted to point out in regard to it being on the humble pride bundle is at the beginning you can pick your parents. I picked to have two moms. The game allows this and is fine with it. There is however an unintended consequence.

Very early on, when you’re still a baby, I learned how to speak and got this cutscene where one of my mom was encouraging me to say ‘Mommy’ as my first word. And so I did and then my other mom was disappointed that I hadn’t said her name first. Maybe this is a one off oversight, because later in the game when I started dating my girlfriend she did acknowledge that we were both girls, but here at least they’ve not disallowed you to have gay parents but they haven’t made any specific accommodations for it.)

So the way that the narrative works is that the game is sort of presented in a semi-roguelike kind of fashion. It tells you up front that every life is unique and I think what it means is that at each stage of your life it will introduce one new character from like a stock set of characters. I met Jake at like primary school, Alicia at high school and Felicity at like college or something. All the schools were using american terms for the school levels so idk.

You get choices in each of these relationships that can branch them into slightly different directions (i think) but like your control over that interaction is minimal. If I’d been given the option I would never have spoken to Jake again. Not because he did anything wrong but just because I would prefer to be talking to girls. But the way the game is set up these events just sort of happen intermittently as you play and aren’t really informed by any of your decisions in the actual game you’re playing.

And your relationship with your parents is limited to occasionally they’ll give you a goal that you can complete to get a special currency you can turn in for some rewards. They don’t really have characters or expectations or preferences for you. Neither of my moms had like a desire to see me do really well at sports for example.

The other weirdest part is how okay at some point in the game you get two bars to manage. Happiness is your own enjoyment. Get it high enough and you’re relaxed and can schedule extra activities, get it too low and you’re stressed and you can’t learn new skills. And there is parental proudness or something. Get that high enough and you can get perks from them and I don’t know what happens when it gets toward the lower end.

Each activity you can do has some effect on both these meters. Studying will decrease happiness but increase parental proudness. Playing games will do the inverse. In addition to your main academic skills you have stuff like sports that you can gradually gain access to. And they reduce happiness but increase parental proudness. I learned how to start along a creative writing course and that reduces happiness but increases parental proudness. Hell I fucking learned magic (partially because I really liked the magician NPC Daz) and that does the same; decreases happiness but increases parental proudness.

I guess I can see it from a balance point of view but it feels so weird to be playing as a character with no passion. Nothing that they try to do makes them happy. I really feel like you should be allowed to find, or develop an interest. Like when your character is unhappy because they’ve been practicing their magic tricks for too long clearly something is wrong, right?

The overall vibe I get from this game is... you know those posts that circulate on here sometimes where it’s like “If you’re hacking the rules of dnd to do what you want then something is wrong. The mechanics are supposed to lead to the storytelling and if they don’t then you should be playing a different ttrpg where the mechanics do support the kind of narrative you want to tell/experience.”

The mechanics are good, the narrative is sometimes fairly interesting. They are essentially entirely seperate from one another and that’s a shame.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

(some brief spoilers i suppose)

i don’t fucking know man.

its good. its undeniably a good game. better in some ways than breath of the wild, maybe a little too padded out. i never felt a great compulsion to fully explore the depths. It was neat that they were there but they felt so empty. Just large open stretches dotted with huge monsters I don’t want to fight and sometimes I’ll follow a treasure map down there and it’ll lead me to a colliseum full of lynels and I’ll be kerbstomped so hard that it drains my will to continue playing.

That’s how I felt towards the end. The game does the same thing as breath of the wild where the longer you play the more silver enemies it spawns in and though its more managable with the introduction of sages I never found myself wanting to engage in combat.

I genuinely do feel like the silver enemies ruin my experience of the game. I feel like I’m making progress, getting stronger, feeling more capable of dealing with threats. Now that I have my sages with me sometimes I’ll actively seek out a combat encounter and not hate it. There’s this sweet spot where that’s all true for a little bit, and then silver monsters start showing up and my enthusiasm ebbs dramatically. I never killed a single lynel in this game. By the time I felt that maybe I was good enough to start fighting them they’d started spawning in silver versions. 

All that said ascend is such a good ability that it sort of changed how my brain worked a little bit. Playing games immediately afterwards I would just keep thinking ‘oh i can just ascend up there’ and having to remind myself that no most video games do not allow this.

I think I had so much to say about Zelda. About how it feels like too much, about how sometimes you’ll just find yourself caught in a thing of not really accomplishing anything and come off feeling miserable, about the one afternoon where I spent literally hours in a pirate cave trying to solve a puzzle that didn’t exist. I think I’ve just exhausted all that in my brain and all my brain has left to offer is ‘just give me a fucking accessibility menu, let me turn down the damage and the health and turn what is a very good game that I sort of resent into an experience I’d actually like to play’.

[maxwellendowed]

15 Questions and 15 Mutuals

tagged by @pixlerelish Thaaaaaaanks mama.

1) Are you named after anyone? Uhm, not anyone specifically? I guess my real name comes from a stupid country song, but everyone sings "Mandy" to me so I guess that's a win too.

2) When is the last time you cried? oh. uhm....well people know I'm not good with my emotions so I guess it was probably back in November when @pixlerelish and I got to go to the NSP concert. NO I DID NOT CRY DURING ORGY FOR ONE SHUTUP.

3) Do you have kids? Hmmm...that is an interesting question....should I add my bf and roommate? Yeah probably...so sure.

4) Do you use sarcasm a lot? I do, yes. It's my second language.

5) What’s the first thing you notice about people? oh man something I don't even think about...hmmm...probably hair.

6) What’s your eye colour? Hazel!

7) Scary movie or happy ending? SCARY MOVIE!!! I gotta be in the mood for anything else lol

8) Any special talents? Ugh I guess I'll just go to my top two things. Ican make it sound like I have a frog in my throat and I can't bend my right thumb. Weeeee.

9) Where were you born? *turn location on* ugh gross...I don't wanna live here anymore...

10) Do you have any hobbies? Yeah I guess. Never have time for them anymore, so, i love video editing, watching stuff with friends, chilling with friends and having deep conversations, playing d&d, playing video games....uhhh yeah.

11) Do you have any pets? lmao again, can I say my roommate and bf? I clean up after them enough...

12) What sports are/have you played? played Softball up til high school, played Basketball up til middle school, and I think that's it... wanted to do Tennis in high school but my school wasn't cool enough.

13) How tall are you? 5′7" I think?

14) What’s your favourite subject in school? I think any kind of class that sparked my creativity was my favorite. In middle school it was Art and in High School I loved Digital Communications, and I kept art going in high school too.

15) Dream job? Sooooo behind, but I want to edit for the big movies. I've shown off my talents locally and a little bit in internships, but I need to hit the big leagues SOON, or idk.

tag 15 peeps!

uhm how about like 3 or 4...

@nerdyvocals @addcolortomysky @look-at-those-niceass-rocks

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2009): Plutonia 2

I lived… but at what cost?

G10: Plutonia 2

Main author(s): Various

Release date: December 31st, 2008

Version(s) played: ???

Required port compatibility: Vanilla

Levels: 33 (standard roster + bonus MAP33)

Hey, guys! Remember Plutonia!? Not enough Hoovies and skeletons in your life?! Well, you just hit a jackpot, because there is an answer for your problems ==> Plutonia 2.

cheering children

18+ only. No refunds.

But seriously, folks. We are going to end 2009 and the 2000s overall (at least when it comes to Cacowards winners) with the unofficial sequel to the Plutonia Experiment. That actually requires the original Plutonia WAD to properly play (I forgot to mention that).

From what I’ve gathered, the project started around 2000/2001; led by Sam Woodman, who we already met in many other WADs like Nimrod and Hell Revealed II. It was canceled around 2004, then uncanceled in 2007 to finally be released at the very end of 2008.

After the events of the first Plutonia, the UAC has been dismantled and (more or less) remade into UAAF, with Doomguy marked as one of the main founders. Later, he was forced to resign from his position (he didn't mind), and even after proposing a legitimate plan to cool down the tension between UAAF and the colonies they supervise, he gets slandered even more by his haters with some science study bullshit claiming that using health items will turn you into the inmate of R/Batmanarkham. Then the same idiots start fighting each other instead of focusing on the demons that came back (what a surprise; although, they sometimes fight with them).

I’m starting to thing that only Doomguy (and other individuals) is the only one in his timeline that has triple digits IQ.

Oh, well. Let’s get into the WAD.

For a vanilla WAD, and despite focusing on its predecessor’s shenanigans, Plutonia 2 looks great most of the time. The best-looking maps I can think of are Black Ice and Plutopia. The former because it changes the scenery from the typical brown and green shit trying to resemble a tropical jungle to some icy background, and the latter for being full of funny details and fleshy stuff, courtesy of Thomas van der Velden.

Musically is also great. This is some of the earlier works of Stewboy and Jimmy Paddock (two out of three main composers), and their tracks even then felt like fire, especially Jimmy’s (take one good listen at Astral Dreadnought and Slime Dweller and see what I mean). There is also stuff made by Jamie Robertson; these ones are also good. I think I saw people mostly talking about End is Nigh, and while I consider this track to be good, I believe there are better ones in this WAD.

Not all of the tracks are new, though, but at least the stocks are from Doom I.

Most of the time, Plutonia the Second wasn’t that convoluted to play through. Sure, there are maps that might as well be described as mangled to the arse (usually from Adolf Vojta from what I can remember), wasting your time even when you somewhat know where to go next, but I think around half of these maps aren’t confusing as shit.

While many maps tend to be more or less a fresh idea, there are maps that reference the ones from the original experiment, ranging from one location to the entire map. Although, many times, it also comes with cons that plagued the original maps. Take a look at Ticket to Eternity for instance – it’s like the same mess of a demonic city as Odyssey of Noises except feeling more like a mangled mosh pit than before.

There is some cool stuff that happens in this WAD from time to time. The best one I think is in Cosmodrome, with a spaceship getting ready to take off.

Cybernation and Go 4 It are basically Cyberden and Go 2 It on steroids; with Eternal making you fight two siege cows instead of one after pressing the main switch on the former map, while the latter map is made out of DWANGO1 and E1M1 instead of the original Entryway (plus the music track feels like a mix between Nobody Told Me About ID and one of the tracks from RotT (I can’t remember the name of it)). It even ends on a really dope-looking logo… that defaults down into another icon of shit.

Speaking of icon of shit, the Gatewatcher is what you can expect from another, below-average MAP30 with a boss. For a supposed elder brother of both icon of sin and gate keeper, he’s basically more annoying shit we saw already… At least he looks great.

If you take one look at the WAD’s name, you already know what to expect from it. Prepare to have your balls ripped off by an armada of spooky skeletons and then turned into Swiss cheese by hoovies.

Now, to be perfectly honest, despite at least 13 maps feeling like a speedrunner’s delight of masochistic tendencies (courtesy of Adolf Vojta, partial or complete), I felt numb to the WAD’s difficulty for around the first half of it. I believe there are WADs (like Scythe 2 and Deus Vult II for instance) released before Plutonia 2 that would make this WAD pale in comparison to what those had to offer.

Also, going back to Gusta of Czechia, something in me makes me feel like he was a weak link to this WAD. I don’t want to slander him, nor his work for this project, but usually, when I played the map not made by him, solo or with someone, the enjoyment of playing the maps went up twice at least (not to mention even bigger respect for maps who end up hard with a small number of enemies). In the case of Gusta’s maps, I felt like, while good-looking, they mostly relied on throwing random shit at you from every direction, with next to no cover that wasn’t the previous area. That, and almost all of the maps starting with you surrounded by enemies… Fair fun for everyone… sigh

There were a few bugs that I saw, but those were mostly visual stuff, like holes to the void, or awkwardly placed items.

And, uh… that’s basically all I have to say for this WAD. I can honestly recommend Plutonia 2 to people who enjoyed the original Plutonia WAD, and/or are into really hard WADs. Other than that, you can freely skip it.

And we are almost done with 2009, not to mention 2000s of Doom WADs. The only things left are Revenant Awards, and a couple of other WADs not mentioned in Cacowards, nor other award stuff from Doomworld.

See you next time.

[leakysponge]

Dusting this account off.

Jesus, I looked a my Tumblr page after something like 4 years and got hit by a memory. Anyway, I'm rebranding this. The original title of this page was "Honey Bear and Peter Greatness: went fishing!" but now I have grown as a person and will change it to something else that's really cool and mature. I'll be posting cool art and stuff now probably.

(Oh yeah ignore my Digital Circus obsession I'm sure it's just a phase.)

[anosci]

(347-362 albums etc that I’ve listened to this year, copied from twitter) (now with art. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25])

names and thoughts below cut

347/ (all music compos at Deadline 2023) the bangers are in the tracked music compo "lost_in_brutalism" prolly my fav but also! i do like the feel that "mind control" manages to add to dnb

---

348/ anosci - visions from dsp 23 (2023) ive decided to put my own releases in here too :) i made drums. i rapidly alternate between loving and hating this but i am infatuated with the results from these techniques

---

349/ Dario Zenker - Reflection (2023) dubby??? beats??? this is pretty much the ideal soundtrack for driving at night listen to "Jah True" and try to NOT see the streetlights passing by. also "Round Ritmo" hits some kinda nostalgic bone, the way it mangles that housish texture.

---

350/ VA - Funk it UP (2017) this is kinda funny because "funk" is a very broad umbrella term and the entries here touch every corner. what is "Luxurious"? idk. still slaps tho. most funky funk: "funky boy"? "Quicksand Telescope"? "Bep Bop" has a very tito trackery feel

---

351/ easyFun - ACOUSTIC (2023) not as much my tea as ELECTRIC. definitely feels like it'd appear on a radio wait a second… "Damaged III" goes hard in a non-accoustic way! ive been lied to! this rules but yea, fav tune actually "They’re So Smart" i think. fun one.

---

352/ VA - The Sound of SceneSat Volume 7 (2023) huge bag etc naming a few hilights: Infamous kicking ass here esp with "Chaos Theory"! "Strolling in Okinawa" what in tarnation! this rules! "Bright Velvet" :O!!!! loving the hifi rendition of "Good Thing"! "2050 Or 2051" hits hard

----

353/ ZULI - Numbers (2017) delightfully mangled. "What You Do" highlight maybe? massive.

---

354/ Appo Sound Project – Digital Trip Dirty Pair Synthesizer Fantasy (1985) lol why is this "Lovely Mugi" arrange 20000x better than the ost version "Silent Inspiration" too but not by as much it kinda tapers after that, to my taste. glad to have given this a spin on a whim tho

---

355/ greenhouse - arc,regn (2023) ok this may sound silly but: in the 90s, necros (among others) were making some rad tracker music with a very very specific synth sound and overall vibe that i simply havent heard since. this hits that for me. it's sleek and clean and beautiful

---

356/ The Black Dog - My Brutal Life (2023) some of these pass me by entirely. some of these grab me: "Hey Serry", "It's Not Enough"

----

357/ Howler - Initio (2023) this one just doesnt quite hit me. it's clean but. idk. "Fagin It" kinda vibes tho that and the wobbling filters of "Oh Yeah" became the only tracks i kept

----

358/ VA - Winter Chip XII (2017) all over the place ofc standouts / thoughts: "ILLOGIC" The Good Stuff :D possibly fav? "Beneath The Ice" is a worthy winner tho. v banger "Sega Channel" is a hell of a bop "SMStep" idk how "old" this gets, i love the wob. on old systems too!

----

359/ Patricia Taxxon - TECHDOG 1 (2023) the wild textures of ae threeJay etc, but with beautiful tones. feels like a fresh fun take on "chaotic beats over a sine synth" oldschool idm. it hits good!! t7 feels like a clean tigerbeat6 thing :O favs? t3, 5, 2, 8… lots to digest.

----

360/ Sinjin Hawke & Zora Jones - Vicious Circles (2018) lots of rly cool textures in here, grounded by trap(?) beats. the title track esp. i think "Lurk 101" is my fav of the bunch tho

----

361/ Patricia Taxxon - TECHDOG 2 (2023) t2 goin off tho t4 maybe [representative] highlight? t6 oh holy shit, what a texture. tigerbeat6 TWO t10 wild mix of textures. md flashback very funny to end a highly harmonic album with the abstracted beats of t11

----

next page

[flutter2deceive]

Rambling below the cut omg what is this livejournal in 2009 lmao

I just spent the last like 3 hours going down memory lane via a mix of fb stalking and digging up my old classmates dot com account so i could page through a digitally scanned yearbook from my graduating year but of the school i moved away from in 2nd grade

Because i am rewatching all of project runway and am on pr junior and there's this designer who reminds me of one of my childhood best friends. So i looked up her name on fb and the first girl that came up with her not common name totally looked like the 30-years-older version of the girl i was friends with. Same hair color and a similar style, same eyes. And this girl was married to a lady so i thought "wow this will be the third childhood best friend who has turned out gay too!" But then i did some more digging on linkedin and it turns out this girl graduated high school 7 years after me so i guess it's not her lol. But how weird that i managed to stumble upon some random lesbian with the same name as my friend?

Anyway, looking thru that yearbook (which my friend was not in, so i still have no idea where she eventually graduated from or where she is now), I also saw this guy that used to live across the street from me that i have a pic of us at like 7 years old posing with a baby doll in our easter best, and this other guy from church that i had a "crush" on in jr high (cuz "you have to have a crush on someone right??" lol.) According to fb, they both now have between 4-5 children each

Briefly stopped by the fb page of a girl i had a crush on in high school, who died 10 years ago this year, and had a good cry. We didn't even know each other that well, but i remember her saying she loved the movie "gia" when we were in 10th grade health class and thinking that was so cool. She used to bartend at this bar my work friends always used to go to after 2nd shift and we caught up a couple years before she passed, but still weren't really close. Anyway, a couple of her friends post on her page every year and it's really sweet and sad

So anyway now it's 3am and i am feeling nostalgic and also unproductive lol, and just wanted to type this out somewhere. Really does feel like an old school lj post. Here I'll end it with this

Mood: nostalgic and unproductive

(I used to have a sara sidle mood theme on lj lmao. Also that pic is like 100x80 but gets blown up huge once you hit post so it's messing with the vibe oh well lol)

[s-o-n-de-r]

Bad Luck.

04.30.22 | The Nile Underground | Mesa, AZ Written and photographed by Brian Andersen

Bad Luck. performed at the Nile Underground in Mesa, AZ on April 30th, just over a week into their marathon of a Spring tour with Dollar Signs and Taking Meds that kicked off in Cleveland, OH. Stopping at most places in the US and extending through Canada on their 39-day tour, there’s plenty of opportunity to catch these incredibly passionate musicians live. This is their first full country tour since the pandemic and since releasing Summer of Pain, a 12-song homage to New York, the Northeast, and those moments of love, victory, trials and tribulations in life that we’re all familiar with. We had the opportunity to interview singer Dominick Fox prior to the show. You can check that out here for context.

Unfortunately, Bad Luck. is more than just a name. It also describes the string of mishaps that tend to happen on the road. Dominick shared a story about poor booking management with the venue in Santa Ana, CA. Co-Headliner, Dollar Signs missed some dates due to issues with the virus-which-shall-not-be-named. They returned to the tour just after the Mesa stop. Tour mates, Taking Meds had their van break down in Wyoming, missed a few tour dates and ended up having to shell out for a new van. They have started a gofundme, of which the goal has already been met. I had a chat with Skylar of Taking Meds between bands and I do know that the gofundme did not cover the full expense, they just did not expect to ask for that much from their fans. Merch is another way to support your favorite bands. Buying merch at the show is most beneficial for the band and buying directly from their website would be the next best thing. Always avoid buying merch from amazon or other non-affiliated websites if your intention is to support the artists because those are often stolen design and the person getting paid has nothing to do with the band. Bad Luck. also announced some brand new merch and a tour exclusive vinyl variant.

The show kicked off with local artists, Practically People and Bethany Home. Practically people was first to play. They’re a cool young band sporting some cool looking guitars. They have a pleasant, laid back rock sound and are poised for a great career. Bethany Home followed up with some fun twinkly math rock/midwest emo sounds. These guys were reminiscent of bands like Modern Baseball, American Football, and the Front Bottoms and were also not lacking visually striking guitars. Both bands had a great time and it showed. Taking Meds took over just before the headliners. Their sound can be described as 90’s alternative rock tinged with a hint of math rock technicality. Their energetic punk rock sound is well interjected by really cool contrasting groovy moments. For taste of Taking Meds, check out Lifesaver from their 2021 LP, Terrible News from Wonderful Men. They’ll have you tapping your toes in blissful new nostalgia.

Finally, Bad Luck. took the stage. For music fans who grew up on bands like Bayside, Taking Back Sunday, and Saves the Day, the 4 piece out of Brooklyn, NY will be a welcomed addition to your musical repertoire. The band has a skillfully raw sound that is beautifully accented by the intentional composition, Dominick’s uniquely gritty yet controlled vocal timbre, and melodies and lyrics that will burrow their way deep in the recesses of whatever the “catchy song” part of your brain is. They put an equal amount of care into their live performances. An added benefit of their philosophy on analog vs digital tools in music is apparent live. Some bands are barely recognizable live verses their album tracks. Not Bad Luck. Seeing them live is like The energy that each member exhibited individually reverberated louder as a whole. Despite all the splatter these guys were wearing from the shit repeatedly hitting the fan, you’d never be able to tell. The mark of a fantastic performing musician is how much they leave on stage despite the obstacles. Something tells me this is the type of band that would play the same show to a crowd of 20 as they would for a packed ballroom. Don’t let this be one of those shows you wish you didn’t miss.

You can buy tickets here and check out remaining dates below.

United States:

05.09 // CROWBAR - FYF // Tampa, FL

05.10 // 1904 Music Hall // Jacksonville, FL

05.12 // Purgatory at The Masquerade // Atlanta, GA

05.13 // New Bookland Tavern // West Columbia, SC

05.14 // Riffhouse // Chesapeake, VA

05.15 // Comet Ping Pong // Washington, DC

05.18 // Mohawk // Buffalo, NY

05.19 // Debonair Music Hall // Teaneck, NJ

05.20 // Knitting Factory // Brooklyn, NY

05.21 // Kung Fu Necktie // Philadelphia, PA

Canada: *05.24 // Rum Runner // London, ON

*05.26 // The Starlight Room at The El Mocambo // Downtown Toronto, ON

*05.27 // Galerie SAW Gallery // Ottawa, ON

*05.28 // La Source de la Martinière // Québec, QC

*05.29 // Alchemy // Providence, RI

*no Taking Meds

---

Like this? Sonder is an independent music, travel and photography publication at sonderlife.com. Give us a follow here or at our Twitter, Instagram or Facebook if you like this!

[allhailhu4l]

J3t x Charlie Short Fan Fic

"Words Hurt" a Hollywood Undead short fanfiction.

(Side note: I know Deuce is a bit of a bad guy in the story. I do not hate Deuce I actually love him.)

Contains Mature Language! Ship: J3TxCharlie

Charlie

It’s been two hours since the argument between Johnny and I had ended. I decided that I was going to be the bigger person and walk away. I lay lazily on the couch because I refuse to sleep in the same bed as Johnny. He’s in the wrong and he knows it, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I hear him admit that he is wrong. The argument ended when he knocked me on my ass and said: 

“Somedays I wish Deuce would come back, if he ever did, I would kick your stupid ass out of this band in a motherfucking heartbeat.”

Usually his insults and threats don’t phase me, but that one sentence on its own was enough to silence me. After that I chose to walk out before I said something back or god forbid throw a punch back at him. I was not in the mood to poke the bear, hell, I’d probably end up in the emergency room. 

When I had returned from a walk and cooled down I saw my blanket and pillow were thrown on the couch. Of course he had to take the bed. Jerk. The clock on the wall read: 1:25am. It’s really late and I know we have rehearsals in 9 hours, I guess it’s time to call it a night. Just as I got settled down I had a wave of song inspiration hit me like a truck. Admittedly I was kind of excited because I hadn’t got a wave of inspiration for quite a while. 

The left side table drawer is where Johnny usually kept the band’s song writing notebook for such occasions. I guess you really never know when inspirations and ideas will come to you. I grab the notebook flipping past previous songs and Funny’s doodles. I found a clean page and began to write out whatever lyrics were pouring out of my brain. 

After what felt like hours of writing I decided to officially call it a night. I dropped the notebook onto the coffee table, I didn’t really bother to put the notebook away in the rare case I got inspiration again. I lay back and let my body drift off to sleep.

Johnny

I open my eyes only to see pitch darkness. The digital clock sitting on the dresser illuminates the time: 4:45 AM. 

…Why am I awake…?

Out of habit I reached over and let my arm drop to the side expecting to feel a warm lump sleeping beside me but all I felt was a cold empty space.

“Oh yeah…” 

I momentarily felt absolutely stupid for forgetting we had an argument last night. 

I remember it clearly now: I was very angry because he got a message from one of his family members who kept giving him shit about how they weren’t informed about the relationship that we are both trying so hard to hide. He didn’t admit it but I think he ran his mouth but then he started defending said family member. 

When we became a thing I told him that we needed to keep this relationship a secret for the sake of the band as well as the fans. He kept arguing with me, telling me that he was gonna confirm everything regardless of the consequences. 

I tried with all my might to convince him to stay quiet because when he was dating Deuce, the bastard nearly tore him apart. He told everyone and their mother about the “abusive relationship”, making Charlie look like an asshole. I see why he wants to make it public but I was not going to let his reputation that we worked so hard for years to rebuild go down the shitter again. 

Our screaming match went on for an hour complete with beer bottles being thrown and pictures being broken. I told him that if Deuce came back I’d let him back in and kick his ass to the curb. I lost my shit when he called me toxic. My anger had taken control and I swung. I felt my fist connecting with his face. I must’ve hit him pretty hard as it made him fall back. When I saw the hurt and tears in his eyes I stomped upstairs to the bedroom. 

I can hear my own hurtful words repeat in my head. I said it to him out of anger in the heat of the moment with no real meaning behind it, I think it hurt Charlie though. I know he likes to act and look like a tough guy but I am the only one who knows that deep inside he’s a very insecure and self conscious person who’s been hurt one too many times. 

I remember Deuce used to take his insecurity and use it to his advantage. He was constantly harassed and hurt. I made a promise to Charlie when we got together that I wouldn’t do the same. Then again… here we are.

I absolutely hate to admit when I’m wrong but my guy doesn’t deserve this or need to deal with my bullshit. This one is on me.

I decide to get out of bed and walk to the living room, turning the lights on in a dim setting just enough for me to see the room. On the couch curled up in a ball fast asleep is Charlie, his eyes and nose are red and puffy assuming he had been crying.

The band's song notebook laying open on the coffee table caught my attention and it looks like he wrote a verse: 

I broke it all and I put it to test, put your hand to mine and feel this emptiness. There's no beat in my chest cause there's nothing left, no it ain't goodbye, it's a last caress. What's another dream? You can hardly sleep. Can you believe bad things only happen to me? God knows one day you will finally see that scars will heal but were meant to bleed. Did you realize I would lie for you? Please, have my last breath, I would die for you

I know I'm no good, but my heart beats true. You know I'm gonna fight, though I might be scared to lose…

I felt tears well up in my drowsy eyes as I read the last sentence. I know I fucked up and I don’t think anything I will say to Charlie from this point on will fix this. I know he’s not gonna let his guard down for a while and I understand. 

I set the notebook down on the table and kneel next to the couch. I reached over and gently brushed his brown hair with my fingers, making him stir a bit but he didn’t wake up. The second time I grazed his cheek wiping a still tear away with my thumb. He slowly opened his eyes. 

“Good Morning…” I quietly greeted him.

As expected without saying a word he scowled at me and flipped to his side. I know he’s pissed off at me but I couldn't help but smirk. He is adorable when he’s mad. 

“Can you move a bit?” I ask nicely as I stand to my feet and squeeze myself in the narrow space between him and the outside of the couch, then wrapping my arm around his waist.

“Get off me…” He groggily whines. 

Ignoring his protest I cuddle his back resting my head on his and chuckle when I earn his annoyed groan. He tries to wiggle himself free from my hug but loses. He gives up his struggle and allows me to wrap both arms around him.

“I’m sorry…” I whisper in his ear before giving him a few kisses on the nape of his neck and his face. 

He groans again. I see tears starting to drip from his eyes and run down his nose.

“You can apologize all you want. I’m still mad at you, you fucking bitch…”

I laugh giving him a tight squeeze. He knows my method of making up is hugging until he forgives me. 

“That’s fine by me but neither one of us are getting off this couch until you forgive me. Whenever you’re ready.”

He sighs.

“Fine I forgive you, now stop squeezing me before I turn blue.”

I smile and latch onto his shoulder giving him a surprise love bite. He taps my face with his hand.

“Ow.. now I have to hide that you dick…”

I laugh and readjust myself so we are both lying comfortably on the couch in a big cuddle. He rests his head on my chest and pulls the blanket to his chin. 

“I’m sorry too. I’ll keep my fucking mouth shut about us. I need to consider your feelings too.”

I brush his hair with my fingers.

“I forgive you. I was just looking out for you because of what happened with Deuce. I’ll make a deal with you: if you want we can tell the guys but in public we need to keep it low key. Deal?”

He nods as he slowly starts to doze off. I wish I could pause time for just a few minutes so I can really enjoy this moment. If someone told me months ago that I would end up dating Mr. Charles P. Scene, I’d say that they’re tripping balls. Here we are and I am still mad in love like I was when I first confessed my feelings to this guy. He’s my bandmate, best friend, and the love of my life. 

The sound of Charlie’s muffled snoring was bliss to my ears. Just like a lullaby the sound of his snores and quiet breaths eased my mind and I dozed off. 

Danny

It’s 9:30 am. J-Dog, Funny, and I are in the studio with a massive box of breakfast burritos waiting for Johnny and Charlie. We all tried calling their phones multiple times with no success. I groan when I hear Johnny’s voice mail I decide I was going to leave a message:

“Dude where the hell are you and Charlie? You two were supposed to be here at 9AM and it’s 30 minutes to 10. Rehearsals are at 10:30! If you don’t get here soon our manager will be having a coronary.”

I had a thought come to me as I hung up. Charlie texted me last night and said that he and Johnny had a heated argument last night. My mind automatically assumed that Johnny went ape shit and might’ve severely hurt him. I immediately grab my keys. 

“Come on guys, let's go see what’s going on.”

J-Dog eagerly follows me. Funny grabs the burritos and tags behind. We drive to Johnny’s house and see both of their cars in the driveway. I had been fearing that I’d find Charlie in such a bad condition that my hands were shaking and I could barely maintain my grip. 

I finally got the door unlocked and it swung open. Funny and J-Dog push past me to search for the two bandmates. I observe the broken beer bottles and picture frames in the entry hallway, proving that Charlie was right about saying the argument had gotten heated. 

“Charlie? Johnny?” I call out looking for any sign that they are nearby. J-Dog waves to me from the living room doorway.

“Danny. They are here. Look at this.”

I cautiously stepped in and took a deep sigh of relief. They are perfectly fine. They both were cuddled on the couch fast asleep. Johnny has Charlie in a hug and it looks like he has a small smile on his face.

No surprise that Funny stood to the side taking pictures of the two with his phone.

“Oh this is so going on Instagram.”

J-Dog and I just stand in the room awkwardly looking at them then at each other. 

“So… should we wake them up or…?” He whispers rubbing his neck with his hand. 

“Danny? Did you know they were a thing?”

I shook my head. I was just as confused as he was. I haven’t got a single clue that these two were dating, more power to them for keeping this under wraps for however long they were dating. I had mixed emotions about finding out like this. I was happy assuming that they’re happy together and Johnny didn’t commit murder. However I was a bit mad that they kept this a secret. All jokes aside, they should know that the rest of us will be happy for them and support them. It’s what friends do. 

I sigh.

“No, let them sleep. I’ll call our manager and tell her to reschedule rehearsals.”

J-Dog nods and drags Funny with him as they go out to the car. I know that later today we will need to have a long awkward discussion since the cat is out of the bag, but for now the two love birds can sleep peacefully. I wouldn’t want to take this moment away from them. 

[fandomvariousness]

Caught

Pairing: Eren x reader

Warnings: swearing, angst, violence, smut: fingering, slight dubcon, power play, choking

Summary: Eren fu*ks you through the bars of his cell. YEP. That’s it.

Word count: 2k

A/N: We love deranged Eren supremacy, don’t we ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡•)

It always takes just a slightest moment of distraction.

You couldn’t take your eyes of the Attack titan, who has also happened to be your lover, tearing everything apart. You were standing in a stupor on the edge of some building, aware that you’re having an unforgivable meltdown, yet you couldn’t move a limb. How has it come to this?

Just as you were regaining your common sense, a giant hand swatted you away like you were nothing but a pesky fly. You managed to see the Jaw titan scurrying away as your back hit the hard brick wall of another building before you plummeted down, what, 3, 4 stories?

The pain was excruciating: your head was pulsating unbearably, vision fuzzy, taste of blood in your mouth.

“Fuck,” you muttered as you tried to get yourself together and ignoring the severe injuries stood up.

Yet you only managed to get on all fours before feeling your consciousness slip away.

~

Your eyes fluttered open as you felt your consciousness tap back into you. You groaned in slight pain and started to get up, but was pushed back down by a soft hand.

“Please, don’t move.” It was Mikasa.

“Mikasa,” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes. “What’s going on?”

She remained silent as you forced your eyes to open properly and immediately regretted it. You’ve never seen Mikasa with such grim an expression that she wore now.

“Mikasa…” you repeated, afraid to ask what’s wrong.

She gulped. “Sasha’s dead. She’s been shot after two Marleyan kids snuck into the airship.”

You felt the shock run down your throat, dispersing all over your body.

“Shit,” you mumbled, trying to control the shaking. “Shit…”

“She’s already buried. You’ve been unconscious for some time.”

You were wiping your tears away that couldn’t stop streaming. After a while, you mustered up the strength to ask about him.

“And Eren? Where is he?”

Mikasa let her head hang even lower.

~

You sauntered over to the deep basement, where Eren was being held. You told no one you were coming, especially not Hange or Levi. All of the events were too much for you, and you just needed to lay eyes on him to know whether what they say is true.

You don’t want to believe any of it, but you saw with your own eyes how the Attack Titan destroyed the city. No remorse, no hesitation – just destruction.

Dimly lit stone hallways gave off eerie atmosphere, the flames dancing with the shadows in every crack and crevice. You knew no one was here except for you and Eren in his cell further away, but you felt like you were being watched. Watched by the dark.

As you approached his cell, still slightly limping, you heard him muttering something.

“Fight… Fight…”

You gulped and finally stepped into the light, taking in the sight of Eren at the same time: his damp hair was gathered in a bun, his lean yet muscular frame leaning to the sink with his hands, staring dead in the eyes of his own reflection.

You forced yourself to stop staring at his bare, toned torso before you diverted your gaze to his face, trying to catch his eyes, yet he wasn’t interested, he didn’t even acknowledge your presence.

“Eren?” you croaked out, slightly wavering on your intentions. Maybe you shouldn’t’ve come here, especially how he acted with Hange not so long ago.

He sighed silently and let his head hang a little lower, with his eyes closed – obviously annoyed. “I thought the visiting hours were over.”

Oh, so he’s being cheeky? After all of you risked your lives for his selfish intentions, after Sasha died, after you almost died, after each of you abandoned your morals and did what Eren wanted you to do.

You felt yourself burn with odium – you realized you’ve never been this angry on him before.

“Look at me, you, jackass,” you spat angrily, striding over to the bars and rattling them with both of your hands. “All of this so funny to you, huh??”

His knuckles whitened as he was clearly restraining himself from acting out against you.

“Y/N…” he growled alarmingly, few orange sparks jolting around his frame.

Your heart stuck in your throat, yet you forbid yourself to show him how terrified you were.

You chuckled. “Ooh, go ahead, just blow this whole building away, because you don’t even care about us, right??”

You heard the sink creak before he threw himself towards the bars, rattling them in rage a single time, as if to shake you off. Naturally, you drew back a bit, but didn’t let go of the bars.

Both of you were breathing heavily, staring each other dead in the eyes.

“Eren, I swear, I would slap you so hard if –”

If not for these damn bars, you were going to say, but the airflow was cut off when his calloused hand wrapped around your neck and drew you flush against the bars, metal squeezing against your sore skin.

You didn’t lose your cool as your eyes were still having a battle of their own, Eren’s fingers squeezing into your skin to the point of teasing.

“Go ahead and try.”

You slightly bit your lower lip as you stretched out your hand between the bars, squeezing your own dainty palm against his thick neck. That did almost nothing, of course, but you were showing him that you won’t cower before him like he expects you to.

He noted that as the corner of his lips twitched ever so slightly. “You’re feisty today.”

You cursed yourself mentally as you felt blush creep up your cheeks – not in a million years you’d want to give in to him in this situation, but your body was acting on its own.

You curtly pushed him away with the hand you were holding his neck as he released his own grip, yet the look didn’t break.

You were genuinely pissed on Eren – you wanted to have a nice, calm talk with him and find out what’s really going on, but he’s being even more stubborn than usual.

You sighed. “Sorry to disturb your… slumber.” you noted snarkily and turned around to walk away, yet Eren’s hand wrapped around your throat from behind in one swift motion and dragged you back.

Your body hit the bars painfully, making you wince.

“You wound me up, and now you’re going away?” he muttered smokily against the back of your ear, lips as close as the bars allowed.

You grunted as you tried to pry his fingers off of your skin when his other hand snaked around your waist, barring your escape completely.

“Am I your hostage now?” you breathed out, feeling your stomach flutter as Eren’s breath tickled your skin.

The hand around your waist snuck under your white long-sleeve shirt, leaving a scalding-hot trail in its wake. “Kind of.”

You managed to suppress a moan, but your eyelids fluttered down on their own.

“Didn’t you miss me?” he whispered, his hand kneading your breast as the other tightened around your neck.

Heat was continuously pooling in your lower stomach as you hummed in agreement.

“Didn’t catch that,” he jerked your body against the bars, rattling them. “What was it again?”

You winced and gripped the bars above your head with both of your hands. “I missed you.” you wailed louder than intended.

You didn’t see it, but you sure as hell felt him smirk.

His tongue brushed against the nape of your neck, coaxing out a quick moan out of you, making Eren release a breathy laugh. “I missed your cute sounds.”

You blushed even harder as you flailed your hand in air for a second, searching for Eren’s head before you found it and burrowed your fingers in his dark hair, messing up his bun.

“Eren,” you breathed out and he knew exactly what to do – he always did.

Normally, he would tease and edge the shit out of you, but having being apart longer than ever, he himself was eager to touch and feel you.

His hand left your neck and snuck under the waistline of your leggings and panties, gliding his fingers through your slick core.

You shivered as he breathed out. “All that rage got you so wet for me.”

“Yes,” you whined squirming against the bars, feeling his own hardness against your behind.

He circled your clit, his own pants feeling tighter and tighter. You felt like your skin was glowing from all the heat and for a moment you wished so hard these damn bars would melt from that same heat, leaving no barrier between the two of you.

Eren’s expert hands were making you moan louder and louder before you felt an intrusion in your mouth as he slipped two digits inside. “You don’t want Hange to interrupt our quality time, do you?”

You yelped as he pushed a finger inside your core – it was just one finger, but you were already on the brink of overstimulation.

“E-Eren,” you croaked after a few moments. “Need your cock, please,”

The battle between your mind and your body was long non-existent as you admitted you’re such a mess for him, like always. You always got caught in his web, and this time is no exception.

You lowered your hand to stroke the obvious tent in his pants, making him groan oh-so-sexily.

He didn’t hesitate as he hooked his fingers under the hem of your pants and underwear as he pulled them down to your knees, a waft of air hitting your wet center. You didn’t even mind the bars painfully pushing against your skin and bones anymore.

You gripped the metal above your head again as Eren aligned himself with your entrance, his fingers digging into your hips as he pushed inside, the sweet stretching ache turning into blazing pleasure almost immediately.

You let out a prolonged moan at the cacophony of these sensations as Eren started to move.

“So tight, always so tight,” Eren mumbled, losing himself in you too.

His tip hit your G-spot, what wasn’t surprising since he knew every inch of you and was always marking your responses to his ministrations. He knew exactly how to make you lose your mind.

The bars were rattling real loud as he pounded into you as if the barrier was non-existent, both of you ignoring the pain from constantly hitting the hard metal.

“Missed my dick, didn’t you?” it was more like a statement than a question, what made you feel dirty and was a final point of tipping you towards you release.

“Eren!” you yelped. “I’m gonna cum,” you were a hot mess, tongue lolling out of your mouth slightly.

He felt your cunt clench around him, indicating that you’re indeed so close, as he pounded into you hard a few times more, one hand cupping your breast and the other on your stomach. You released a short, high-pitched moan when you finally fell, seemingly straight into his embrace.

He pumped into you chasing his own release as you were coming back to your senses, holding on to the bars for dear life as you finally felt his seed spill inside you, your bodies becoming one despite the obvious division.

He held you against the bars with his arms snaked around your waist for a few moments more as you both tried to steady your breathing.

“Really missed you,” Eren muttered quietly, his breath tickling your neck sweetly.

You pulled up your leggings as he did the same with his own pants and turned around to face him, cupping his face with your hand, gently this time.

“I’m so glad you’re back.” was all you could say as you got emotional all of a sudden, seeing his face snuggle into your palm, resembling a small, stray puppy, so desperate for comfort.

He smiled slowly. “You’re not angry on me anymore, are you?”

You released a breathy laugh. “I won’t be if you watch that filthy mouth of yours from time to time.”

“But you like it filthy, don’t you?”

You bit your lower lip. “I do.”

[anothersievefistedfind]

Fugazi, Flex, Vienna, Austria 9/26/1999 (FLS #0933)

(Words below submitted by Antti Väärälä)

“Another show from one of my favorite runs on FLS finds the band for the fourth and final time in Vienna, Austria. This is the only time the band played the Flex nightclub, the earlier gigs took place at Vienna Arena. The recording's intro cuts straight to Ian's last few words from his opening remarks and then we're promptly taken to the music.

Usually the recordings from this era sound at least very good, but this tape right here is one of the excellent ones for sure. The very first moment is a bit of an aural thriller for me as the mix takes a few seconds to settle, but wow, when it does, it's one of the best I've heard so far. Very detailed, rich and the whole stereo field is fully utilized. The drums sound massive here, as the guitars are evenly laid out on the sides and Joe's bass is balanced in the middle.

The band marches in with the aforementioned, steadily growing Ex-Spectator instrumental, and onwards with the End Hits duo of Break and Place Position. A good flow is clearly taking place, but then something unnecessary happens during Birthday Pony. A stage diver basically ruins the really cool performance, and the show stops completely for a few moments. The band continue but the mood of the show is somehow different. Luckily some of the energy is back with great performances of Latin Roots and Merchandise.

A local desperately tries to address the crowd before an atmospheric Promises. I guess the rowdy behaviour continued despite the band's efforts. Concentrating on Brendan's drumming is highly rewarding here as he really goes to town with his tricks and there's some nice coloring added from the soundboard.

Unfortunately the recording starts to suffer from some occasional yet annoying digital snapping. On a stereo it's not so bad but with headphones it got to me. This is worst during softer songs, ie. Argument, Floating Boy, Closed Captioned etc. It's a pity since the performances flow really well, and the mix is fine throughout.

Target has a funny remark from Ian addressing the people not clapping, and what ensues is a great and energetic performance of the song. The following Reclamation is equally strong. The band is on a nice streak here as one song flows into the next in a classic fashion.

Apparently the problems with some attendees are over as the band continue on to play a massively long set with two encores. The digital snapping/crackling is momentarily gone after they come back for the encore, and this makes the really tender performance of Long Division such a delight to listen to. Unfortunately the audio starts to occasionally suffer again from KYEO onwards. Like I said, it's not so bad that I would rate the recording less than excellent but can get on one's nerves with repeated listening, depending on the equipment.

I recommend this show for the overall great sound, long setlist and many cool performances. Perk up your ears, and you can listen how the band handle the unfortunate events during Birthday Pony. There is a 47 minute video of the show up on Youtube, where you can watch how Ian tries to perform the song while derailing a stage dive, and the ensuing aftermath.”

The set list:

1. Intro 2. Ex-Spectator 3. Break 4. Place Position 5. Interlude 1 6. Birthday Pony 7. Latin Roots 8. Merchandise 9. Turnover 10. Interlude 2 11. Promises 12. Rend It 13. Argument 14. Burning 15. Interlude 3 16. Waiting Room 17. Target 18. Reclamation 19. Floating Boy 20. Recap Modotti 21. Closed Captioned 22. Number 5 23. Public Witness Program 24. Five Corporations 25. Encore 1 26. Last Chance for a Slow Dance 27. Long Division 28. FD 29. Facet Squared 30. Do You Like Me 31. KYEO 32. Arpeggiator 33. Encore 2 34. Oh 35. Bed For The Scraping 36. Blueprint