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lonelywhalien22 · 1 year

Text

constant

pairing: sangyeon x reader

rating/genre: fluff + comfort <3

summary: after a long week of work, you and sangyeon barely have anything left in you to give, but what you do have you give to each other. selflessly.

warnings: none, just people choosing to love each other even when they’re exhausted <3

word count: 2.2k

song(s) to listen to while reading: good for you by eric nam, constant by jesse barrera ft. jeremy passion <3

note: back at it again with another comfort fic that i polished up from my old drafts. probably tmi but a while back i was listening to an episode of a podcast that was all about long-term partnership and this one idea of each partner rating their current level of capacity in a given moment was just fascinating to me. and then i wrote this wishing i had someone in my life like that. if that barely makes sense just read and you’ll get what im describing hopefully hehe. i'm in love with this type of relationship so i hope you enjoy <3

————

Sangyeon stepped through the door of your shared apartment that Friday evening to find that you were sitting comfortably in the living room with the television on, the sun having already set and the noise of commuters driving home having finally died down outside. It was quiet and peaceful, and his shoulders instantly relaxed as he finally shook off some of his work worries and thought ahead to the weekend - to finally getting to wind down with you and sleep in for the first time in too long.

“Hey babe,” you heard him say softly as you finally turned to look at him from your spot on the couch. You could see the tiredness radiating from his body, a large hand raking through his hair to push it out of his face as he gave you a little smile before hanging his jacket on one of the hooks you’d put up by the door.

You wished you could smile back but you’d had a rough day yourself - tired from work and getting stuck in traffic as you’d worried about a million little things on the way home.

He groaned as he noticed your expression, finally making his way over to you as he rubbed a hand over the back of your hair softly and gave you a peck on the forehead before plopping down on the couch. You couldn’t help but soften your expression when you felt his calming touches. That was Sangyeon – he was nothing if not instantly calming.

“Tell me where you’re at right now,” he asked of you softly, voice low as if he didn’t want to disturb your quiet. You turned to look at him, your eyes completely drained, and you could see the instant concern that radiated from him as you responded, even through his own tired eyes.

“I’m at like a 3 right now.”

Sometime after the two of you started dating you came up with a system to rate your emotional capacity at any given moment on a scale of 1 to 10. It seemed weird but it was really just a way for you both to quickly gauge how the other was feeling and know whether one of you was able to carry more of the load on any given day. The higher the number, the higher your capacity.

“I’m at a 4,” Sangyeon said immediately, and you gave him a pout.

It seemed like recently whenever you both happened to have bad days he always tried to be just a little higher than you so he could be the one to take care of things – take care of you. He didn’t like for you to worry about him even though you knew he needed to be taken care of too sometimes, just like anyone else. You made a mental note that from now on, you’d say your numbers at the same time.

“Sangyeon. Be honest with me.”

“I’ve had worse days,” he brushed your concerns away, easing around the subject.

You noticed how he didn’t try to insist he was telling you the truth about how he was feeling. Sangyeon always took his words seriously, treating them with a carefulness that almost rivaled how he treated you. He never was one to outright lie, and so after one too many times of buried feelings in the past, you’d learned how to read between the lines of his words. Sure, he may have had worse days, but that didn’t mean today wasn’t a particularly bad one.

You rubbed his arm a few times before shifting closer to him on the couch and resting your head against his chest. He wrapped an arm across your waist and pulled you in even closer, giving you another kiss in your hair as the two of you held each other. His movements comforted you, but you also knew that this was what he did to comfort himself after a long day. Doting on you was how he released his frustration sometimes.

He smelled like the laundry you two did together last weekend mixed with the day’s efforts and a hint of something that you could only describe as uniquely him, and if you were being honest you probably could have fallen asleep right there in his arms. But instead you kept rubbing your hand against his back in that way you knew he liked, hoping he’d relax some more and finally let go of whatever it was he’d been carrying all day like you wanted him to.

Eventually he released a deep sigh at your ministrations, and you felt his muscles relax underneath your palm. You hid the tiny smile that appeared on your lips, burying your head closer into his chest as he finally spoke up.

“Work was just a lot. Has been all week, but especially today.”

You hummed at his words gently.

“Did rehearsal go into overtime again?” And in response you felt him nod against your skin, the crook of his head now pressed into your neck.

“There was this one part we just really struggled to get in sync. And I kept worrying that I was messing up everyone else.” Sangyeon sighed again and you tried to hold onto him even tighter at those words. You knew how much he hated feeling like he wasn’t being a good leader to his group. How much he tended to carry that weight on his shoulders without a single complaint.

“I’m sorry babe. I can tell you’ve had a long day. You must be tired.”

“I’m sure you’re just as tired as me,” he said then, refusing to let you dismiss your own worries in your attempts to comfort him. Your mind drifted back to all the stuff you’d dealt with today.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he mumbled into your neck, breaking you out of your train of thought as he kissed the spot gently. You couldn’t help but smile a little at that despite your stress, combing your fingers through the strands at the back of his head as you thought about it for moment before finally responding.

“Not yet,” you answered. “What I really need right now is you. Holding me. Just like this. I missed you so much today.”

Sangyeon didn’t stress it, simply giving you what you asked for. After years of being together, he knew this was just how you were – you kept the complexities of your mind to yourself until you could really articulate what it was you wanted to say. And he was always there when you were finally ready to lay it all on him, even at the most random of times. He was always waiting for you with open arms, and you loved him for that.

“I missed you too. Did you eat?”

He separated himself from your hold just enough to look at you directly then, and you pursed your lips guiltily.

“No…but I did pick up some takeout.”

You had a bad habit of waiting to eat dinner until Sangyeon got home so the two of you could eat together - especially on Fridays, when he had the highest chances of getting back at a decent hour. That meant that sometimes you went without food for longer than was acceptable to him. Not to mention you’d toss and turn all night from the lack of digestion before bed. When you couldn’t sleep he couldn’t either, no matter how tired he was.

You looked up at him sheepishly then and you could tell he was about to scold you, but before he could, the two of you heard the loud rumble of his stomach.

“Uh…” Sangyeon started with his own guilty look.

You giggled, a smirk forming on your lips. The blush on his face was unmistakable as he averted his eyes from yours, rubbing the back of his reddening neck.

“Let’s eat,” you said, taking charge then.

You got up before he could hold you back with those tempting hands of his and began filling up two plates, grabbing water for the both of you as well and making your way back to the couch. He looked at you gratefully as he took a plate from your hands, eager to dig in. The two of you ate in silence, you spooning yourself up servings of kimchi fried rice while Sangyeon dove into a container of noodles and some egg rolls, his favorite from this spot a few blocks away from your place. He finished his food first, like he always did, sipping on his water as he stared over at you reverently.

“What?” You asked as you swallowed another mouthful of rice, a rare moment of self-consciousness bubbling up inside of you.

“I just like seeing you eat well. That’s all.”

He leaned in then and gave you a peck on your lips. It tasted faintly sweet like the sauce from his egg rolls and even though you knew he was trying to be quick you still got lost in it like you did every time he kissed you, closing your eyes for a moment before he pulled away.

“Uh uh, finish eating first and then let’s get ready for bed,” he chided, and you rolled your eyes, trying to finish the rest of your food as quickly as possible.

You’d already showered so once you were done eating you worked on brushing your teeth and cleaning your face as Sangyeon hopped into the shower. The two of you were so used to sharing space by now that you didn’t even blink twice as he took his shirt off before he even reached the bathroom. He finished undressing and slipped into the stream of warm water while you focused on yourself in the mirror, proud that you only peaked at his silhouette through the shower curtains once while he was cleaning up.

You were in bed laying under the sheets with a book in your hands when he finally got out of the bathroom, a look of pure bliss on his face as he put his towel away and made his way over to your shared bed. You could tell that, just as usual, he was feeling much better after a good shower.

He rolled under the sheets before leaning over towards you, his head craning towards your neck as he gave you another kiss there, this one slightly longer. You could feel the softness of his lips and smell the lavender scent of his shampoo, even noticing how smooth and soft the little bits of his skin that touched yours were from the lotion you always urged him to use.

You closed your book immediately and set it on the nightstand because you knew you wouldn’t be able to read a single word with him right beside you like this. Sangyeon shuffled even closer to you then, your shoulders touching as he raised his head to be at eye level again. His large hand landed on your thigh, the rough calluses of his palm contrasting with how gently he touched you and making goosebumps rise on your skin. You knew he was only touching you in a comfort sort of way but somehow it still made butterflies appear in your stomach - just like the first time the two of you ever laid together.

“Thank you,” you said softly as you looked over at him, not wanting to disrupt such a precious moment.

“For what?” he asked, a genuine curiosity lighting up his face.

You just tilted your head and shook it serenely, a tiny sigh leaving your lips.

“For taking care of me. Even when you’re exhausted.”

‘’Of course. I should be thanking you too, you know. I love you.”

He always said those three words so easily, like he was just breathing in air or blinking. They came out on instinct because at this point it was just a fact - he’d known for a while now that you were forever a part of him, simple as that.

You didn’t respond with words, instead leaning in with hooded eyes and cupping the side of his face with your hand. You kissed him softly, trying to tell him how you were feeling with your lips. Words had never come that easily to you.

He tilted his head and intensified the kiss, nipping at your lips a few times but keeping the pace slow and his kisses deep. You could feel his hair pressed against your forehead from how close he was and after a while it just felt like you were melting into each other somehow.

When you finally parted, he finished with another quick peck before quickly turning out the lamp on his side and pulling you into his arms, the two of you making yourselves comfortable as you laid down in bed.

“Come here,” Sangyeon mumbled in playful stubbornness, pulling you impossibly closer as you giggled.

Your head laid on his chest with an arm draped across his waist while his arm was securely wrapped around yours. The pairs of your legs tangled together seamlessly under the sheets as he laid on his back and you on your side, nestled into him.

As your eyes finally drifted closed, a whisper of “I love you too,” slipped from between your lips while your fingers rubbed back and forth across his wide chest, luring you to sleep.

“I know baby. I know.”

#sangyeon #sangyeon fluff #the boyz #the boyz fluff #the boyz imagines #sangyeon x reader #the boyz x reader #tbz fluff #tbz x reader #tbz imagines #tbz scenarios

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mrhaitch · 2 months

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Ah, anonymous or non-anonymous? The age old question.

I've got two questions for you, Mr. Haitch. (I keep wanting to get rid of the 'i' for some reason, jeez.)

1) Now that we're aware of your astigmatism (crazy prescription, by the way. And I thought my -2.5L and -1.25R was bad). I was wondering what style your frames are. For reference, mine are clear and cat-eye. The color is known to brighten up my darker skin tone. The frame guides the eyes up from my round face to my eyes.

Do I know everything about color psychology? No. I'll be honest with you, I just searched up 'What do cat-eye frames do for the face?' It was pretty fascinating, but I didn't choose these frames, they chose me. Not to mention the ridiculous price for the lack of options in the store. I think the invoice for my two frames came to 150-ish USD.

2) For some reason, I'm imagining you standing in the middle of the garden, holding a running water hose. You're not directly aiming it at anything but just holding it while you're engrossed in a book or listening to a podcast. Let's say that Mrs. Haitch told you and the boys to go touch some grass or something! I'm also picturing you wearing those white, 2000s dad shoes, like New Balances or, even worse, Reeboks. One of your boys somehow pulls you into a water balloon fight. Now you're standing there, soaked, but with a smile on your face. Please tell me how accurate that was—you give me that sort of vibe, I guess. Soft, loving dad. You'd probably say it's not true, gotta keep up that mysterious, intelligent man front. 😂

Have a wonderful evening! 🐥🐥🐥

1. Two sets, one for home and one for not-home: black thick plastic rectangular frames, and then half rim rectangular frames with metal legs also black.

2. Haitch has some thoughts on this:

Wrong wrong wrong. If you want outfit benchmarks, think either Dean Winchester, or Dream from Sandman. He's either in his thick-soled black Doc Marten boots, or he's stolen my Crocs, which, despite me having big feet, his heels hang out of because his feet are so fucking enormous.

When he's not out there lugging garden foliage around, and getting the enormous mechanical hedge trimmer to cut away and heave away the hedge cuttings, he's throwing small boys around, or he's got one hand in his pocket and the other holding his coffee, glaring at the sun like it owes him money.

He never doesn't have a frown on his face, apart from the occasional soppy look at me or the boys. We'll spend whole long minutes in companionable silence, before he breaks the silence with "I've been thinking about Ray Bradbury--" or something of the sort.

If one of the boys unexpectedly soaks him (and it happens often) they can expect to be bench-pressed while he roars at them, until they're screaming (with laughter). Or, roundly told off, which also happens often.

You've written him as this soft dad, and while yes, he is, he's also profoundly cool. He doesn't think it, of course. The mysterious, intelligent man is no front. He's soft for me and our babies, and that's about it.

#mr.haitch #mrhaitch #mr haitch #pseudowho #mrhaitch answers you too

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sanguineterrain · 1 year

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here’s a cowboy eddie thought inspired by listening to the dracula podcast. thinking about how eddie would totally say “that’s my brave girl”, about just about anything. learned a new skill? that’s my brave girl. did something you were nervous about? that’s my brave girl. had a whole nervous breakdown and are now all watery eyed in his lap? that’s my brave girl… he’d probably punctuate it with a kiss on the head, too.

anon ur brain is so big... full of incredible thoughts... luv it 🫶this one kinda got away from me lmao but i hope you like it anyway | fem!reader x cowboy!eddie, kind of suggestive at the end

****

"Missus, Missus!"

Henry skids to a stop in front of the bar, where you've been scrubbing at a sticky spot for the last five minutes.

You drop the rag into the bucket and wipe your forehead with the back of your hand.

"Ain't you s'posed to be in school, Henry Sherman?" you ask, hand on your hip.

"Aw, it's too hot for school, Missus," Henry whines. "'Sides, Mr. Porter gave me a dime to be the lookout for today. Guess who just rode in?"

"I dunno. Mr. Leland?"

Henry makes a face. "The postman? No, no. That ain't exciting. Guess again. You got one more guess."

You smile and lean against the bartop.

"Hmm... fastest gunslinger in the West?"

Henry nods eagerly. "Uh-huh! Mr. Hellfire's back!"

Your smile drops. "What? Henry, are you sure?"

Henry bounces on his toes. "Yes, ma'am! He just rode in ten minutes ago. Asked specifically for you. He's at the inn right now."

"Oh." You pat your skirt down like Mr. Hellfire's just walked in. "Uh, thank you, Henry. Here's a nickel."

You flip him a coin. Henry catches it happily.

"Alright! 'M gettin' a peppermint stick."

"Don't spoil your dinner," you say distractedly, sliding off your apron and walking around the counter to get your bag.

Henry hangs behind, drumming his fingers on the stool.

"Are you gonna marry Mr. Hellfire?"

You miss a step on your way out the door, catching yourself on the side of the building.

"What—why do you ask that, Henry?"

"'Cause you hang out with him a lot, even though people say he's bad."

"He ain't bad," you say softly. "People just talk too much."

"I know that," Henry says. "He brought me real cowboy boots for Christmas. Bad people don't give Christmas presents."

You chuckle and pat the top of Henry's head.

"No, most don't."

"He gives you lots of gifts too," Henry continues. "And Mr. Porter told me that men only give gifts to women they're gonna hitch their cart to."

You shake your head. "Henry, please don't repeat anything Mr. Porter says."

"Is it true?"

You roll your eyes. "I'm sure he thinks it's true."

"So you ain't gonna marry Mr. Hellfire? 'Cause I think it'd be real fine if you did. He's got a good horse and a big hat, and he's nice to me an' the other kids. And he brings us caramels!"

"Caramels? Don't buy peppermint sticks if he gave you caramels, Henry."

"I'm savin' those for later," he says, and you know he won't.

You go inside the inn. Eddie's hat is on the table next to him. His dark curls are pulled back into a ponytail. Sweat has gathered on his brow and in the dips of his collarbone. Your heart lurches. It's been a month since you'd seen him; you were starting to think Eddie would never come back.

Henry's sister, Sally, is sat at Eddie's feet, alongside a few other children. Eddie has his guitar out, quietly singing. You lean back on a table and listen to his crooning.

Henry eventually loses patience, though, and goes up to his sister hallway through the song.

"Sally, c'mon. Momma said we needa be home by supper."

Sally glances at her brother and pouts.

"He singin'," she says.

Eddie catches your gaze. You wave awkwardly. He beams and winks at you.

Lord, you're hungry for this man.

"I'll sing again tomorrow, Miss Sally," Eddie tells her sweetly, and drops a wrapped caramel into her tiny palm. "Any song you want. Alright?"

Sally seems to find this trade acceptable and holds Eddie's knee to stand. She walks to you and gives you a quick hug, then leaves with her brother.

"We wanna hear another song!" one boy shouts.

"Yeah, play it!"

Eddie looks at them, and you can tell his resolve will slip. Horses and kids, his only weaknesses.

"Y'know, last I checked, school isn't over," you say, brow raised. "Don't y'all have somewhere to be?"

They turn to you with wide eyes.

"Don't tell Teacher, please!"

You tilt your head at the door. "Then you'd all best get a move on, hm?"

They scramble for the door and you only feel a little guilty at the empty threat. But then Eddie stands, body long and lean, and you don't feel so bad.

"You run a tight ship, peach," he says, striding over to you.

He's always dressed in black. You've never seen him in any other color. If you'd been given any good sense, you might take that as a warning. Might heed the whispers that fly through town every time Eddie returns.

But you hadn't come into this world with any damn sense, and you don't intend to find any now.

"I've got to when Mr. Hellfire's in town," you say, leaning back on your hands. "You've made quite the reputation for yourself."

"Oh, I know," he purrs, leaning in close. "Brave girl, going toe-to-toe with the no-good devil that sweeps through."

Your heartbeat soars at Eddie's honeyed voice. He lightly presses his mouth to yours; barely a kiss. It leaves you breathless all the same.

"Ed—" you start, reaching for him.

Eddie takes your wrists in his hands, rubbing the insides with his thumbs, one leg between yours.

"Hm, baby? Whatcha need?"

"Want you to—"

He tilts his head. You anxiously look around, not wanting the innkeeper or anybody to catch you tangled up with the one person you definitely shouldn't be.

"Go on," Eddie says, breath tickling your neck. "My brave girl's gotta ask for what she wants."

"Want you to–to love on me."

"Ain't you sweet," he whispers, gently cupping the back of your neck. "Well, since my brave girl used her words so nice, of course I'll give her anything she wants."

#teeheehee :D he makes me all squishy #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson imagine #stranger things x reader #stranger things fanfiction #cowboy eddie munson #cowboy au #inbox #blurb

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entamewitchlulu · 6 months

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the other day my coworker was complaining that her kids watched people playing video games online saying something like "I don't even understand the appeal" and others were agreeing and i had to be like -raises hand- "oh uh. that's what I watch on youtube actually." and they were all like "really?? what is the appeal of it?? are you getting like tips or something??" and i had to explain like, it's like you're hanging out with your friends on the couch watching them play a video game, ya know. I should have brought up the fact that i KNOW some of them watch sports and be like "ok why do you watch sports? do you play them yourself?" but i didn't think of it at the time.

but yeah basically the appeal of watching people play games is:

body doubling. feels like you have someone to hang out with if you're home alone

works nice as a podcast to just listen to some people just chatting about games while you do other things. it's more chill than listening to an audiobook or scripted podcast because it feels more informal and sociable

introduces me to new games, to see if it would be something I want to buy myself

If it's a game I already know, i like to see people react to it for the first time and see how they interpret things

lets me see games that I would never be capable of/want to play myself but still am interested in the story (like horror games. having someone else playing it gives me that barrier to being too frightened, while playing it myself can be too much for me).

Adds new dimension to certain games through commentary or if the players are doing fun voice overs

Sometimes clues me in to things I would have missed myself, secrets i glanced over, interactions i didn't know were an option, etc. especially in huge games like BG3, where there's no way I'd ever see the whole game myself because I have my own playstyle - seeing someone interact with the game in a totally different way than I would lets me see something new I wouldn't have stumbled onto myself

it's Neat to see people who are Really Good at Games be Really Good at Games (like in speedruns)

so yeah obvs i'm preaching to the choir for the most part on this platform but i wanted to put my thoughts out more organized so that i could think about what i could say in the future, cause i do think there's a lot of unease among gen xers in particular about video games still, and this concept that they must be Less Valid a means of entertainment than other things.

#lulu talks

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thinplacesradio · 9 months

Text

a snowy, tree-lined residential street, lit by a yellow streetlamp on the right and and the warm glow from the houses. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:

[025] THE FRIEND. A CALLER REACHES OUT. THE HOST HEADS HOME.

listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:

[static, radio tuning]

[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]

[click]

Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,

and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.

[Thin Places theme]

[soft street noises] [crickets]

I’m coming to you one foot in front of the other from my studio, which is what I like to call the darkened street with the careful orange glow of street lights rising up above and around you as you walk home from your shift, wired headphones trailing down from your ears. Your hands are in your coat pockets. You didn’t turn any music on before you left, but you’re not gonna do it now, either. There’s something about the moment that it doesn’t seem like you can interrupt.

You’ve been at this job for a month, now, and you’re starting to feel like you’ll never get the hang of it. Every time you clock out, your head’s too full, and your neck is too sore. But you’re telling yourself a lie. Not that you mean to. It seems true right now, on this street corner, as you hurry across to the other side. But it isn’t.

[owl hooting]

Everybody feels like this at the start of something new, even if it’s exciting, and even if you’re good at it. [crow cawing] Your hands will become surer. Things will become second nature. You’ll be the person the next new person asks for help, and you’ll help them. I promise. It’s all already happened.

So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.

Are you having relationship trouble?

Have you been feeling lost in a big city?

Have you felt the presence of your lost loved ones near you?

When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - but also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.

[click] [voicemail:]

Hey, long time listener, first time caller. I don't really have a story. I just wanted to maybe ask a question. I recently moved, and I'm from the deep South, a very very small City, and I moved to a much bigger city far away. More people than I've ever really been around in my whole life, if I’m being honest. And if I'm being honest, I don't really have many friends here, and I've never felt more alone. But your voice is very comforting, and you seem so nice, and I'm - I guess I was wondering if we could be friends? That's all. Thank you. My name’s Adrian, by the way, and I hope that we can call each other friends. Thank you.

[click]

Hi, caller, thank you for listening, and for picking up the phone to finally call in. I could use a friend, too, these days, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like I remember how to be one, with all these gaps in the person that I used to be. But there are ways to introduce yourself even when you don’t know your own name, or where you came from.

Hi, Adrian, I’m talking to you as all the people that I used to be, but forgot. I’m talking to you as myself. [searching music] I like Doritos, but I hate jerky. I love what I do, even when it’s hard, and I know that I’m heading somewhere, because I’m trying to do it. I love listening to these calls, and I love you, too.

Everybody feels like this at the start of something new, even when it’s exciting. Everybody feels like this, but nobody feels it exactly like you do, right now, what you brought with you on purpose from where you came from and what you left behind, and what you tried to leave behind but brought with you, by accident, because you didn’t know how not to.

You say you recently moved, and I want to tell you that time will help ease the loneliness, because I think that it will. But you’ll also have to do what you’ve done, right now, with me - reach out to somebody else. And you’ll have to do it over and over. But people will reach back. I promise. There will be a voice on the radio when you need it. And on your voicemail, and at work, and at the park, and in a hundred other places, too.

And you’ll still feel that loneliness press up against you like the crowds do. You’ll bring that with you, too. That’s okay. There’s something in that feeling that tells us how to be human, too. I think I know that best of all.

I’m so happy to call you my friend, Adrian - and I know so many other people will be, too. I know they already are.

[click]

There is a crane fly somewhere in the garage , buzzing its large, ungainly body against the floorboards, the lights, when someone happens to turn them on. The crane fly, unlike the human, is a child its entire life - months or years - and an adult for just a few weeks. It will live in this garage for six more days. It will die on a shelf beside a dusty hammer without passing along its line. It will not consider this a failure because it does not know how. To a human being, it is a week’s nuisance. To the crane fly, it is everything. There is something beautiful in its spindly awkwardness, if you look. Please, notice it while you can. It won’t hurt you. Watch it fly.

[crane fly buzzes]

[click] [footsteps crunching]

When you turn the corner onto your own street, tonight, the image strikes you like you’re seeing it for the first time, even though you’ve lived here for a while. You’ve seen this collection of buildings, the small tree fighting its way up, the signs in your neighbor’s window. But something about the way the moon shines over all of it, the wind stirring around your collar, makes you stop to look at it. [footsteps pause] To say, I'm going to take a picture here, in my mind, so I can remember it when I’ve left. The shadows across the street. The red brick. The cluster of irises growing… up -

The -

Oh. Iris. [breath in] Iris… I know that name. I remember it.

I don’t think it’s mine. But it’s somebody’s. Maybe a friend.

[footsteps start again] [click]

Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.

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felassan · 1 year

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Former Mass Effect dev Mac Walters did a podcast interview with Eurogamer's "One-to-One" podcast. The full interview can be listened to at that link (it's also "available wherever you listen to podcasts"). Also at that link is an article with some quotes from the interview and thoughts from the podcast host.

Some further notes from the interview in text-form for accessibility, under a cut due to length:

Mac created and wrote Garrus Vakarianin Mass Effect 1. Turians have a militaristic, almost Roman culture. Mac said it was like "Let's find a character who is kind've almost rebelling against that, to be a foil for that. I wanted someone who was struggling with that and their place in the world. And then that gave Shepard the in to provide insight and guidance."

On the decision to leave BioWare, Mac said that he did a lot of soul-searching, as when a game ships it's a good time to do so, usually. When he shipped MELE, it was both a success in general and an internal success. "The team that we got to put together for that were really well-bonded, we still hang out and talk regularly, it was a phenomenal experience despite having to go work from home, as the pandemic hit during MELE production". He knew that at the end of that that he was done, at least for the short-term, doing anything pertaining to ME. "I had done a lot of Mass Effect and I love the series but I also wanted to do something new. I also realized how extremely fortunate I'd been in my time at BioWare to be at the start of three IPs. People don't always get an opportunity to be there at the start of one." He said that he has that sort of thing in his blood and is always dreaming up new worlds, and was feeling like "I think it's time to start considering what is out there beyond Mass Effect".

Also, when working on Mass Effect: Andromeda, he found that there are now devs who go to work at BioWare who were fans of the ME franchise before they started working on it as a dev. "So I think it's also, I don't wanna make it sound too altruistic, making way for the next generation of game devs to add their mark to the franchise".

A further reason he gave on this decision was that he had started feeling that itch after 19+ years at the same place. He talked to some other people who had moved on to other things. "I think if I'm going to really stay engaged day-to-day in making games and really stay fulfilled, I need a bit more of a seismic shift, not just moving to another project internally. I looked at lots of options, 'is there something else at EA in general that I could do, is there something new I could do at BioWare', but ultimately I think the decision was, I needed a clean break. I needed the space a nine-to-five job doesn't afford you to rethink a lot of things and take some time for myself." Taking some time to really think about it was advice that he got from a lot of people.

In the early days of BioWare, "I loved how innovative we were. How we were really pushing narrative and trying to do new things", for example new things in interactive narratives.

On the story of how he came to BioWare, Mac said that Ray Muzyka, one of the BioWare co-founders, had given an entrepreneurial talk that he had attended. "So I met him and the thing that struck me was, he was talking about him and Greg, they both have their MBAs, they were talking about BioWare as a business, and I was like, hold up, everyone said this wasn't a real job, everyone said you can't get a job doing this, someone's lied to me. And so because I had the flexibility running my own business at the time to take some time, I took a good chunk of every day for about, I'm gonna say at least a month, maybe longer, just diving into the Neverwinter Nights toolset. [...] talk about innovation that people have forgotten about, what an incredible tool that NWN toolset was, and then I basically just created a submission and said I'm gonna do this, and here we are". Mac joined BioWare in 2003.

The first experience Mac had at BioWare, what hooked him in the industry, was the spirit world level in Jade Empire. He wrote a cutscene out and talked back and forth about the cutscene with a cinematic animator. "One day, they said, wanna see it? And I said yeah. And it just utterly blew me away that something I had pictured in my head was suddenly now real. Also it wasn't just my vision, the animator had brought all their own vision to it, so the ultimate end product was something even better than I had imagined. From that moment on I was like, this is incredible."

Jade Empire was a sweet spot for Mac when he joined BioWare. "I had my submission with my own scripting, writing, I had brought in music, edited all of that and had even created a map. And I remember after the interview, they were like, you've done all this stuff, what do you wanna do here? And I chose writing because I had always enjoyed writing and it seemed like, at BioWare, that writing was gonna be a key thing. In Jade Empire I often loved it because in the engine we were using, there was still a lot of things I could do just to set up the world myself, like level design work and basic scripting. So I was in this sweet spot of, I got to write and do all these other things. I also worked heavily with the audio team to help them flesh out the music system that we had to make sure that the music actually played. I don't know if anyone noticed, but we actually ran out of time I think about three quarters of the way through the game and the music scripting actually gets much less precise the last quarter of the game. We literally just ran out of time on it."

The biggest challenge they encountered on Mass Effect 1 was the "interactive nature of it, much more branching and conditions than we did in Jade Empire. I got to learn some of the branching stuff on Jade Empire as well".

When Mac was brought onto ME, there was a core plan. "I remember Preston Watamaniuk, Drew Karpyshyn and Casey Hudson were working on things pretty early. I had been working with Drew, Drew had come over to do some Jade Empire stuff, so they kept pulling me into some of their early meetings. So that was nice from that perspective, I would often sit in their office and we would talk about like, what is the game going to be? It was Jack Bauer in space. That was an early thing that we talked about. You know, the idea of it being a trilogy of games, that was something that Casey had put a stamp on really early, even when I was still finishing off Jade Empire. That was definitely Casey's idea. There were some things that he really wanted ME to lean into, one of them was the cinematic nature of it in general. So the conversation system that we developed came out of that. But also that sort've, 'three arc', much like the original Star Wars, that inspired him and I think that was a lot of what he wanted to see. We often talked about ME2 being the darker middle act, much like Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. There was a lot of influence coming from that from day one. The other hallmark of BioWare, so the RPG side of it, we really wanted to have consequences that would then also have an impact, game to game to game as you went through the trilogy. We knew that that was really gonna be the thing. Like, saying we're gonna do three games in a franchise, that's challenging, but we're actually gonna do three games where the choices and consequences carry over. That was the big bold innovation that we tackled. That was really Casey driving all of that. It was brilliant."

By the time Mac was in there on ME regularly, they were working on 1- to 5-page documents for each game. Like, "'This is what ME1 will be' and at that time I would say we had maybe a generous paragraph on what ME2 might be and literally a line on what ME3 would be. And it would be very aspirational, like 'let's wrap this whole thing up in ME3'. I think things like the concept of, once we dug into it and once we had the idea of the Reapers, the idea that obviously that would all resolve itself in the third and final act was important. But we intentionally left a lot of that open because we weren't sure where we wanted to take everything. There's so much of the way that we handle story and worldbuilding in these IPs, it's very organic. Like there's obviously things that you hash out before anyone starts doing work to build the game, but then the actual building of the game is where I would say the majority of the worldbuilding happens. We'll say, okay, we wanna do a plot and we wanna center it around one of the alien species. And we realize, okay, we don't really know much about them yet, let's use this plot to do that, and that's where all of that gets fleshed out. And then on top of that you don't know how the fans are gonna respond, you don't know what people are gonna be attracted to, and I think, even just to say culturally relevant - it's important to really consider where you are when you go to do the next game, sorta thing. So really allowing us to let each story of each game stand on its own within the context of a trilogy, by not tying ourselves down too soon."

One of the key things that sets ME apart is the devs intentionally seeded a lot of mystery "where we were like, we're not gonna answer this now, and we don't know how or where or when we'll answer it, but we wanna put the mystery in there, and then pay it off some day going forward. The romance arcs was something I know we discussed a lot, we really, for Ash and Kaidan the idea was that could be a romance arc that you can carry throughout the trilogy. Obviously we added so many other options as you went through, but that moment was already planned to be an arc right through the series. I remember talking in the early days that having Ash or Kaidan survive, kinda fall away from you in ME2, only to return in ME3, and this idea that if you stayed true to them, there might be something different than if you didn't. Those sort've things we discussed early on as far as wanting to have that arc going through. When you look at the plot of each game, we wanted those to really stand alone as much as possible".

There is a story included in the BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development book which mentioned that at one point Mac fell down the stairs at BioWae and hurt his back. Mac said in this interview that two stories here got conflated and that this was another colleague. He had his own back issues at the time and recalls writing Garrus stuff for ME1 from home due to this.

On ME2, Mac said: "The fact that we created a Suicide Mission in ME2 where all or none of the characters could survive, tells you that we weren't too daunted after ME1 on complexity, because there couldn't be anything you could do that's more complex than that and then have to follow it up. By the time we kinda landed on that concept for the Suicide Squad we often joked in the early days like, 'welp, I guess our future selves won't be too happy with this but it's a great idea so let's go ahead with it'. So yeah, there is always complexities, even just the actual process of bringing all the conditionals forward. At one point I remember us talking about, we'll just bring forward the most critical conditional states from ME1 into ME2, and then we realized that, actually, well it depends on who you ask. It's so varied depending on who you ask, which or what's important, like some players really love certain things. We realized in the end, nope, we're gonna just have to carry every choice that you possibly made and every little state check. We had this tool called Plot Manager, it tracks so many different things, like thousands and thousands of things. We decided to bring it wholesale forward into ME2. And then what happens is you have all the Plot Manager from ME2 with all its states and changes, and layered in there are all the things from ME1, and that's where you start to go, there's a lot here, and then just wait until the next game when we have all three of these Plot Managers, states persistent, and that you can pull from them, like, yeah. I think that for folks who probably joined on the third game, I don't know how they, it would just blow their mind. I had the benefit of being able to just know what certain things were and what was gonna be important, even intuitively understand some of these things and keep track of them in my head, but yeah, like, so much data, quite frankly, that we're carrying from game to game. Just incredible".

On ME2 they "would often joke that our future selves are gonna have to pay for this. We didn't let this hold us back. We were like, this is gonna be challenging, but we had that sort've, we'll figure it out mentality, when the time is right. I'm so thankful for that. If you think of all the things that people tend to talk about when they're referring to ME2, they don't necessarily know all the technical things that are happening in the background and the complexity there, but without that, those things wouldn't exist. The Suicide Squad, the conflicts you can have with your characters. All of that is this spaghetti of conditionals in the background. If we had too much time and said, oh this is gonna be hard, let's not do it, then ME2 wouldn't have been what it was, so I'm so glad."

On ME3, "We realized that it was going to be tricky and expensive. A lot of folks just don't realize how much content is actually in ME3 simply because of all those conditionals. On a single playthrough you're only gonna see a fraction of what we created for ME3 because all these conditions come into play. Different people can be dead, alive, they like you, dislike you, etc. ME3 is on par with being ME1 and ME2 combined in terms of number of assets in there. When you look at line counts it's much bigger, there's just so much going on in there. And this was with us getting better at things too, keep in mind we were much more efficient by the time of ME3. In ME1 we shipped so much content that you probably didn't see, but because it was meant to come out of the game, but it was left in hooked up because we were still figuring out Unreal, the tools, all that stuff. So if you actually cleaned it up and got more efficient with it, that's where we were with ME3, and yet it was still so huge, just a massive amount of work. The team really understood what we were making better than the other two projects, simply from a perspective of, we've been there, we've done it before, we knew kind've with a level of certainty what something would cost, or the effort it would take. If you took ME3 content-wise and built that but back when we were figuring everything out on ME1, it would've taken us ten years probably to figure it all out."

The interviewer asked Mac about challenges. "Going from linear narrative to a branching interactive fiction where the player has autonomy, that's a challenge always to do. Then taking it that next step going game to game to game, the threads are just branching out to almost infinity. Then add the other complexities, the same writer might not be taking up the same thread game to game. A good example is on ME3 I wanted to write Garrus, but due to my role at the time I just didn't have the bandwidth, as lead writer I was managing all these threads and I was like, I have to give up Garrus. So John Dombrow came in and picked him up. So John not only has to worry about the voice of Garrus and making sure he's got all that right, but what are all the threads? What are all the permutations in there? We worked in a 'writer's pit' for ME3 where we were all together in a room. There was a lot of 'hey, what happened in ME2, what did you do with that?' It's a lot of spelunking, going back into these tools, trying to determine where the thread was. It is a feat that I think, because we were in it at the time, we didn't realize how special it was. The amount of work that we've done in there to really let the player feel like they have autonomy, like it's 'My Shepard and my story' and there's so many versions of that story out there, I don't think even I have a full understanding of how crazy and complex and ultimately, I think, impressive it was that we were able to pull that off over the course of three games."

Mac mentioned that he is "a glutton for puzzles. I love logic puzzles, so I never really felt like we'd bitten off more than we could chew, certainly while we were in it. I mean there were always small challenges that came up in game development that you always have, but nothing in the sense of 'we've bitten off more than we can chew. Ultimately if I'm being honest we often wanted to do more with each game than we were actually able to accomplish. We were always trying to do so much, so we often had to pare back, move things to DLC, do things in DLC instead of in the main title, etc".

After ME3, Mac went to work on Anthem.

The interviewer asked, "Does BioWare, has BioWare ever talked about doing a trilogy again, in the time that you were there, have you ever heard anyone talk about doing a trilogy again?". Mac replied, "I don't think so no, I don't think we've ever talked about that again. Even with the talk of the next game, when we were talking about Mass Effect: Andromeda, it wasn't really about, we knew that we wanted it to be a series for sure, but not a trilogy per se. We were looking, again, because we were innovating, we were like, we've done that, what else can we do? The early days of ME:A, I should say the idea of carrying plots and stories and characters through the series, and choices and consequences, was part of it on ME:A. In the early days of ME:A, I wasn't on the project then, it was very much, some of the concepting had been inspired by No Man's Sky, things like that, where it's like hey, we're a space game, what if we went bigger, something more procedurally-based, where you can really feel like you're really exploring a universe and tapping into the exploration side of things. Ultimately I think that was too much at odds with a lot of the way that we tell stories and the way that we create our content, it's very bespoke, a lot of big set pieces and things like that. It's hard to translate that into a procedural world. But I think that was at the start at the very least, the innovation, what the teams were looking at. Most of the core Mass Effect team was still, I guess you'd call us consultants, we were definitely consulted on a lot of things, but because we were also building out Anthem, which was codenamed Dylan at the time. This was our first new IP in many years, you can imagine that my day to day was not only taken up with that but that that was what my interest was. I spent 2006 to 2012/2013 on ME, now I get to start again and also ground floor, now I'm the Narrative Director. So that was all-consuming. And as much as I wanted to help the ME:A team as they were consulting I was like, I think they got it, they're good."

After 1.5 years Mac was pulled back onto ME:A. Things were "kind've in disarray, certainly from a leadership perspective as Casey had just left, as Executive Producer he had still been overseeing ME:A. Without him there they were lacking that continuity from the core leadership team. They also, I think, had just departed with their game director or creative director, so it was just that sort've void that they had there in leadership on the continuity side. So I came in there, and I would say that it wasn't so much that it was in disarray or anything, but it was that pivot point, that inflexion of, we can't do both procedural stuff and fulfill all the wishes and hopes of our fan base who really wanna see a lot of this bespoke narrative written in a certain way. So that was probably my first challenge, how do we marry these two things, or can we? That was the main challenge about that whole process, it wasn't just making another ME game, which the team was well on their way to doing, it was how do we do it and also innovate in more of an open-world space [at the same time]."

The host asked Mac his feelings on ME:A's release and reception. "I don't know if people were too harsh. We had set a very high bar with ME3. Certainly, on some key areas we didn't live up to that. I think the problem was, if you look at it just more internally and what we were looking at, it felt more like ME1 in the development. New engine, new cycle, brand new team (although a lot of veterans as well), but new team in Montreal. It goes back to what I was saying before. If you tried to put all the content of ME3 on the ME1 team it would've taken us ten years. Similarly there were just a lot of things that we had to relearn and refigure out on ME:A, and ultimately when you do that it's very challenging to come out and be as polished as your third iteration was, and we didn't hit that. And we probably should have in hindsight just reduced scope more and executed on what we could to quality. But we were also at a weird place/phase in the industry where a lot of people were saying quantity was quality, and so we were kind've, I think, you know, deluding ourselves internally a little bit like, you know, if it's maybe not as polished as ME3, it's fine, it's bigger, there's more here and more to do. We kind've hit a point where people were like, no, it isn't okay, or at least is isn't okay for your franchise, and that's fine, it's a lesson learned. I think ultimately when I look back on ME:A and what the team was able to do, it's another phenomenal game. If we actually look at where we innovated and what you could do in that space, there's a lot of incredible stuff. I only wish we had been able to then do a second one. Because then you would've really seen that polish, just like we did on ME1 to ME2 in the original."

The interviewer then asked Mac how he felt about the backlash and griping against BioWare, inside BioWare. "We definitely felt it, it felt like, there's a couple things. One, on ME:A we're trying to innovate onto a sort've open-world space and on Anthem we're trying to innovate onto a free-to-play co-operative space, and in both cases what we didn't do was marry that as well as we could to the expected BioWare Experience. On Anthem it was even more of a dichotomy I think, it almost felt like two games in one and neither really fully fleshed out, unfortunately, although still an interesting concept there. And I think even internally, we started to feel like there were people who were like, this isn't a BioWare game, why are we doing this? And then of course it's confirmed when it comes out. But the thing that I would often remind people of, especially people who hadn't been there as long is like, again, when I joined BioWare, we were innovative, we were always trying to push, and innovation means sometimes you don't get it right unfortunately. And what you really hope for is that opportunity to improve upon it, like on ME, you know, there's arguably lots of things that we didn't do right, but then we got to hone it and improve it on ME2 and then sort've perfect it on ME3. I think, you know, again, Anthem was already trending to something that was actually pretty unique and interesting, and had a really legitimate space and argument to be in the game space, but it just needed time there. And certainly had we shipped an ME:A 2 I'm 100% certain we would've improved on all the things that people called out and then also been able to lean into the innovative things we were trying to do as well."

The host then asked if Mac has had anything to do with the new vision for the Next Mass Effect. "Yeah, I mean, early days, Casey and myself, it was more of a consulting thing, where I was in, we were just talking about it as obviously, like you said, 'that Mass Effect Guy' [meaning Mac]. I was in there with Casey and we were talking about where that would go, along with Mike Gamble, and then once MELE kicked off and we got that greenlit - because we had been trying to get that greenlit, I don't know how long we'd been trying to get that greenlit - once it was finally greenlit it was like, alright everyone, I'm gonna go do this, good luck, I'm here if you need me but I'm gonna focus on MELE." Here the host said "So people would occasionally come to you and say, hey Mac, what do you think about this?" Mac replied, "Yeah, we'd set up, there was actually like formal meetings where I'd get involved, especially if they were gonna go into a pitch or something like that, just get another set of eyes and feedback on it. But I'll be honest, the deeper we got into the MELE production cycle, especially again having to deal with the pandemic and things like that, the more I was like, y'all have got it, you don't really need me for this. It's not that I stopped going, I just said, only call me if it's an emergency."

They finished up talking about Mac's stint working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. "It was strange, because it was weird being on this IP. So here's an interesting story. When I first started at BioWare, one of the programmers showed me a really cool sequence from the earliest days of DA. It was a sequence where there's a bridge and all these people are warring down below and stuff. [sounds like the Battle of Ostagar] He was telling me how they'd done it through cards and how it looked like there's thousands of people on-screen but there isn't, and I was like, wow, that looks really cool, I'd love to work on that. It wasn't day one, it was week 1 of my time at BioWare. So here's something that's been a part of my professional world for almost 19 years, and I've never worked on it. And you know, the closest I've come is sometimes we would do internal reviews or something like that, plus you have your quarterly internal milestones where everyone gets up and talks about the project. So you learn about the project that way, but it's always kind've just over there. So then suddenly being in it and realizing how little you know. It's what I was talking about before with how I can't imagine someone [a dev] who's new to ME3 trying to drink from that firehose of all the different things in ME1 and ME2, and that's kind've where I found myself on DA. Like I don't know half the stuff as instinctually as the people who are on this team. I was also in a very production-centric role on that, so I sort've came in to fill a very specific need. So you know I didn't have to be on top of it from a creative perspective, but it was kind've like a really kinda surreal almost, experience, to finally be working in that space that had just been so parallel to my universe for so long and now I was in that lane."

In general/kinda in closing, Mac said "Clearly, we've tried a bunch of things at BioWare over the years and some have been very successful and others not so much."

[source <- including embedded full video and article]

#bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #video games #garrus vakarian #best boy #long post #longpost #jade empire #anthem #next mass effect #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #tags based on what games mac talked about during the interview #covid mention

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women-of-malevolent · 24 days

Text

All references to women in Part 44 - The Deliverance

Brief mention to the witch because she's the reason Arthur is swinging between life and death right now

Arthur is sleeping in the witch's bed. He's not happy about it. The three boys are trapped in her home/labyrinth.

The witch stole some clothes from her victims so they're gonna wear those

Looking through the clothes... Yorick says "my breastplate is in there", like, the prince, so, hooray, glad that The Vanguard can empathize with its male hosts and feel like those were part of him. It's exclusively women that it doesn't care about. Samantha was too rotted. The Prince was fresh! It's only good sense. It's not like every choice in the entire story is made by one single person who keeps choosing not to write women as anything except scary, servants, or dead

Maybe the talisman prevented ARthur from going to the Dark Wrold. Faroe must be there, right>>>

witch reference in the dithering

Maybe Mother Darkness is mad at us. For killing her daughter. Well, we'll just kill her, too, by shooting her with the literal gun. Dragging my hands down my face

I can't believe how many words we're using to say "the witch trapped us here with magic"

Blah blah blah getting out of the witch hole

They're solving the maze puzzle and I don't care. Pretty sure Arthur says "I love you" to John for the first time here lmao, borderline gaslighting and during an argument. Is this the beautiful platonic bond everyone has been gushing over

Gonna use the witch's corpse as a key to get out of the maze. She's in her object era. All women in Malevolent enter this era eventually

More dithering about witch and magic and getting out. Yorick wants to take her left hand, as the key. Left hand of darkness, her unwedded ring finger, John's left hand

Why her left hand? Yorick is vague, says "a hag's left hand can be a powerful object". 2024! Hooray! We've come so far! Independent media with zero creative restraints that can say whatever it fucking wants to, and it wants to say "a hag's left hand can be a powerful object" in the year 2024. Anyways, they've got to fish the hag witch's bloated corpse out of the water so they can break out of her home with the treasure they stole from her. (she *did* escalate to murder first) (i don't blame them for killing her i just blame the story for being this fucking obnoxious in 2024)

Anyways, Yorick wants the hand, and refuses to say why. That's weird, I adore Yorick

Fishin in the water for hag-corpse

Corpse descriptions. Cutting off her wrist. Yuck how icky. Her eyes seem to move in the moonlight, watching them, studying the ones who killed her. Is this meeee I hope she has podcasts too. I'm coming to hang out with you, you horrible old lady. I'll introduce you to *my* maggot children (compost heap) (Listen... My maggot spawn eat so much junk. Their frass feeds my plants... the hatched flies are pollinators, among other ecosystem functions... it's good stuff. Maggots can be friends in controlled and mutually beneficial ways. It's shown as horror here; so was an old lady who giggled too much)

They get her hand and get out. Now they're free. They see Castle Kerringford, no one thinks about Castle ChildRape aka the French Benedictine monastery, wtf I guess that was just a one-off character's backstory flavor (and as of writing, it's not even trigger warned far lol unlike literally every abused boy), fuck this story. Fuck this story.

Castle Kerringford is the place with the guys who allegedly worship the King in Yellow. Everyone celebrate

They're avoiding populated areas because Yorick says Mother Darkness's children will have a harder time seeing them in the woods. Arthur and John are annoyed by the fact that Yorick didn't lead with this info

They briefly forget about the witch's hand, then remember it again. There's like 15 different characters who sheepishly realize that they've forgotten about a woman (or woman's object, for women who have entered their object era) in this story. It's really weird.

Yorick *does* have Prince info. The Prince has an appointment at the John Worship Castle Kerringford. According to Yorick: the Prince was on his way to Castle Kerringford, and the Witch killed him to compost him for her maggot children. Naughty witch. Whatever maybe she had her reasons idk

Honestly I feel bad for talking shit about Yorick's trustworthiness... considering the rest of the party is Arthur "the woman I loved (don't regret leaving to die alone and betrayed as she bled out birthing my child)" Lester and a literal former deity of manipulation and lies. The whole thing is very "what even IS truth" and there's no reason to single out Yorick.

The Prince had not been to Castle Kerringford before, and he wasn't sure what he was being invited there for, but he was curious. The Magic Bullshit and the Plot Itself are pointing the boys at Castle Kerringford, so they're going there. It's half a day's travel (by foot? cart? horse? wheelbarrow?) away.

Yorick wants the hag hand, and he refuses to explain what he's going to do with it. Naughty vanguard, keep your secrets

im not clipping it out but i want to throw down that owls are associated with Lillith according to the Wikipedia page

#part 44

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sunskate · 2 months

Note

https://www.tumblr.com/virtchandmoir/179143651020/disclaimer-this-is-not-a-new-interview-i-am

Have you ever listened to this interview? I would love to hear your thoughts about it. Alma seems more shy than I thought. Lol at Scott always running home crying every time he played with his brothers. And calling him a bad poker player because he shows all his emotions on his face. Being too emotional is something he’s struggled with his whole life I guess. I noticed she seems to have the most trouble answering questions about Scott compared to her other boys. Pj had to take over a few times and answer for Alma.

i do remember this interview - it's good, she does seem soft spoken. i always have this impression of her, idk it it's true, that she's soft hearted and emotional but has some steel to her. and has strong convictions about the right way to do things. and that she's a workaholic who doesn't like to be idle. maybe she hesitates answering about Scott because anything she says is going to be more remembered and dissected. we're talking about this podcast because she's his mom after all, and this interview is from around the start of the comeback

i'm always 👀 that she says her son Charlie is her most athletic - maybe she means in running faster, throwing a ball harder, all around athleticism. because it's hard to imagine you have one who's the goat at one sport and another who was better who didn't' pursue sports further. i didn't know Charlie was a pairs skater through novice nationals

she's so practical, saying she steered her boys to ice dance because it would be a good part time job being a dance partner for girls taking their tests at the rink

she says more than once that Scott is passionate, like that's his trait most notable to her. the street hockey story about it "always [being] the baby" coming home crying is a good one. the kind of tidbit you'll only hear about from a mom. how her sons signed up each year for figure skating because they loved being in the ice show. that it was mother-son time for them to be at the rink with her, that they would hang out with their friends there.

her coaching philosophy seems like it might be carrying forward at IAMO: that a coach needs to be a real person, sympathetic to the needs of a skater, to make their athlete the best person possible for life ❤️

her father was in the military, and her older siblings boarded in London because of skating, so then their mom moved Alma and Carol there as well while their dad commuted to Ottawa. Danny and Sheri boarded in Waterloo before Tessa and Scott did, also for skating.

that Tessa and Scott always had a natural glide, a poise, and love for performing, even as kids. this was ❤️ too - that she just wanted them to be happy when they came off the ice - "when they come out for the warmup i either get really nervous or i'm like all right because i know what they're like. when they're finished, i watch them in the k&c, if they're excited about how they skated then all is good"

says the rink keeps her young (she wasn't that old when she gave this interview, c'mon Alma) and when prompted to fill in the blank, skating is ... amazing

#that other interview when she says she told scott he had to make his mark #in skating #you could tell she has some strong stuff to her #and that the message he was getting at home vs tessa in hers was different

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pyromegalomaniac · 1 year

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What is up!!!!!!!!!!

aight, bro….

make the reader a gigachad with a sigma male grind set, he worships Andrew Tate, and Wally is able to turn this gigachad into a big softie…. Wally brings out the true gay out of this gigachad….

however………… have Wall-E (yes, the actual robot) try to fight for the gigachad’s love……..

Sigh... everyone... this is my friend, poo. They know nothing about Welcome Home but they read all my posts cus the homies gotta support each other. Okay poo, here's your wack ass ficlet. Enjoy.

Alpha Male Turned Gayass🍎🏳️‍🌈🎀

☆°•☆°•☆°•☆

It was a day like any other, a day for posting on reddit and listening to alpha male podcasts. I was voice chatting with another dude on discord (not in a gay way though) about how terrible the new Mario movie was.

"Yeah it sucks they made Peach be all strong and stuff," I said.

"It's like, who wants a woman with any kind of agency? Next you're gonna be telling me she's a butch lesbian! If she met me I'd be able to set her straight. I bet her female brain would fall head over heels for an alpha like mys- oh, I just got a dm, hang on."

I checked the dm, from a user I'd never seen before. It said "I see you."

Then they sent a low quality and blurry picture of what looked like a pair of eyes, though it was almost too dark to tell. Couldn't even pay for nitro and send decent pictures, what a loser.

Just then, a pair of arms reached out of the screen and dragged me inside!

I didn't remember anything after that, and I woke up laying in the grass, which felt strange after not touching it for so long.

"Hello, y/n. Good to see you're awake. Sorry if you got hurt on the way here!"

I looked up to see who was talking, and saw what looked like a Jim Henson style puppet talking to me! Without anyone puppeteering!

He reached out a hand to me and grinned.

"Are you alright?"

I felt my face heat up, and his pompador-ish hair and almost sleepy grin and monotone voice awoke something inside me that I had mocked all my life.

"Yeah..." I said, taking his hand and standing.

"Where am I? Who are you?" I should've been scared, but for some reason his eye contact that he maintained with me had a weirdly calming effect. It was almost hypnotic...

"Oh, I do apologize," he said gently. "This must be a very abrupt change for you. Where are my manners? Welcome to the neighborhood." He outstretched his arm, gesturing to the array of colorful houses and buildings down the hill, which I was just now noticing.

"I'm Wally Darling."

In the next few days I grew accustomed to the neighborhood, and learned its ways. I almost immediately dropped all my thoughts I'd carried with me about love, and friendship, and people in general.

I hadn't been an "alpha male." I'd been a duchebag. And I'd treated people like property. God, I felt horrible.

Wally had insisted I stay with him in his house, (which may or may not be alive...??) which I had no problem with. I wanted to get to know him as much as I could. He was... intriguing.

But there I was, under the covers of the bed, refusing to move, even though it was mid afternoon.

I heard a soft knock on the open door.

"Go away," I said without any real conviction.

I knew it wouldn't do anything, and this was confirmed when I heard footsteps and felt a presence beside me on the bed.

"What's wrong? You've been moping a lot lately. I can't help but be worried. Come on..." He said, putting his hand on me through the sheets.

I threw off the blanket and glared at him.

"Ever since you brought me here, it's been..." I searched for words, looking into Wally's eyes, who, of course, looked back with infinite patience and a gentle, kind smile.

"It's been wonderful."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Everyone is honest with themselves, and is nice to each other just because. No one has to use any tactics or strategies to form or change a relationship, and it's just... I..."

I felt tears well in my eyes, and I looked away, embarrassed.

"And you're... the nicest," I whispered under my breath.

"Too nice. You've done something to me..."

I closed my eyes, but I felt fingers gently put themselves under my chin and pull me back. I met Wally's eyes, filled with understanding and kindness and something that made my heart pound until the sound of it filled my ears.

"Y/n... I don't want to be too forward with this, but I... I must come clean. I... I confess that I've developed romantic feelings for you, and I do hope you reciprocate them."

I couldn't do anything but listen to my own hearbeat for a moment, staring into his eyes, my mouth agape in disbelief.

Then, my mouth was on his. It was tender and gentle, slow and genuine. It was like birdsong and butterflies and a warm pastry. It was like sunlight in the morning and the sound of bells and the smell of chocolate.

I felt like everything was going to be okay.

(Epilog: Wall-E shows up and Wally and y/n decide to form a threesome or he just leaves or something)

☆°•☆°•☆°○☆

There you go poo. Hope you're happy. Here's a drawing of you for the fans.

#pyro does requests #pyro does ficlets #pyro writes #welcome home #wally darling x reader #wally darling #wally darling x reader ficlet #my art #pyro doodles

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pbandjesse · 4 months

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It was a nice memorial day today.

I slept fine last night. I woke up a few times but when I woke up at 9 I felt pretty good. James came and laid in bed with me. They had already done laundry and gone for a bike ride. They told me the world was beautiful today. We would lay in bed for a bit longer but we would get up and went to get dressed.

I liked my outfit. It's the same new shirt I got on Friday and it is so soft. It's great.

I felt pretty good overall. James made a coffee and I had some soda and we decided to go out for breakfast. So pretty soon after that we were off and into the world.

We decided to go to Broadway Diner. And it was busy! I wasn't shocked, it's a bank holiday. James and me have an ongoing will they won't they about the right side of the restaurant. Which we have never once sat at. Every time we go to James makes a whole thing about how this is going to be the one!!! But nope, we still seated in the left side.

We had a quiet brunch. My stomach continues to hurt when I eat but I still enjoyed the morning with my husband. I would people watch and we looked at things on each other's phones. I had shared the styles of doors I would like for the house. The type of fence too. It was a good morning.

While we were out i decided I would like to stop at the craft store because I wanted to get yarn. And so we did exactly that.

The yarn was not as on sale as I was hoping. But I have an idea about creating a double layered loom knit blanket. Almost like a puff quilt.

We did have a 20% coupon though and I got 6 skeins of yarn for my project. I am very excited and I really hope that it works out the way I am imagining. It is going to be a lot work though! Nice to have something outside of my temperature blanket though.

We would get home and have a few hours to just chill. James would play some video games. I would work on knitting. We had Ruby trying to clean but she kept getting stuck. Poor Ruby. She has her good days and her bad days.

We would leave here around 1. I would do a quick little vacuum of the frog tank because the snails were going crazy. And very soon we were on the road.

It was a nice drive to DC. I worked on knitting and we listened to a podcast. There wasn't much traffic. And we would arrive in Eve's beautiful little neighborhood a little after 2.

She is moving to Trinidad at the end of the summer but she's going to do some other traveling throughout the summer. But the state department is sending the movers to come pack all of her stuff up tomorrow. Crazy! I am very excited for her. Like it's going to be a really amazing experience I am sure!!

When we got to her place her and her roommate had us up on her roof. We were the first guests but more would come. We had burgers and dogs and fruit and an amazing lemon cake. And I was just having a really good time.

I would have some great conversations. Specifically with this girl Charlie. She was so nice! We exchanged numbers and I hope we hang out some time because she was so lovely. Me and James would tell a whole story about when I was a furby influencer. And there was lots of baseball talk. It was fun.

Eventually we would join the table with everyone else. Where I had a really great time talking to one of Eve's friends who is into mushroom foraging. I got to show him my mushroom pictures and he was able to name them all!! He's much braver then me and actually eats them though!

We would be there for 5ish hours. We all tried to download an app to do palm reading. We had amazing lemon cake. We told stories. I got to talk about my arthritis stuff which was nice. It was nice to be able to talk through the whole craziness of last year and the chemo and the weirdness of that. I am finally feeling like I'm back to myself after a year.

We would leave there around 6. And after stopping in her apartment to use the bathroom and say hi to her beautiful cats, there were hugs and then goodbyes!!

It was a nice drive home. But the sky was getting darker and darker. There has been a tornado watch in DC and a severe thunderstorm warning in Baltimore. It felt like we were racing the storm home. But it would start to come down right before we parked.

But it wouldn't get bad for a little while. We were safely and securely in the house when the sky opened for real. Lightening and thunder!!

James would paint their nails. And I would just chill on the couch. Had a little dinner. And we have just been resting and having a nice evening.

But now I would like to go shower and get ready for bed. I have a long day tomorrow. Both camp and then an event. I really hope that it is an easy transition. Fingers crossed.

I hope you all sleep well tonight. I love you all. Good night!!!

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pompadourpink · 2 years

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Hi mom im 19 in college and i feel super depressed but i have no idea why, my life is great, i love my family, nothing is wrong, but i'm just super bored and miserable, feel like i'm wasting my time on social media but can't stop, do you have any advice?

Hello dear,

Two things: overstimulation and loneliness.

We are drowning in content (social media, YT, podcasts, shows, ads, music) as well as sensory experiences (traffic, chatter, crowds, colours, lights) and our cerebral activity is constantly through the roof. Spend twenty minutes on TikTok and you can easily have your heart broken by someone saying goodbye to their cat, be reminded of your singleness (and comment something that "the highway is looking real nice rn"), amazed by someone's beauty and laugh at a dog video.

This is an exhausting way to live. You should be the main character of your life but you choose, day after day, to be a spectator of everyone else's. You happily gamble away hours and hours of your existence that you will never get back in order to find out what this influencer ate today or what's happened to Ned Fulmer. That's the reason why I post very little on my own social media: I don't want to rob you of your time, the most precious thing you'll ever have.

You don't communicate much because you've never learned how to make friends (since you ignore people IRL - watching stories and liking tweets don't count). You don't call grandma, don't hang out with friends, don't have Halloween plans. You stroke your pet with one hand and your eyes pinned to your screen (could be a blanket and you wouldn't know), neglect your needs, and procrastinate until you are so disgusted with yourself that you have a breakdown.

And obviously, politics aren't helping. My gen isn't doing too good, gen Z is scarily passive when something bad happens because they're unsensitized to violence (as they binge true crime, fear school shootings and make suicide jokes constantly), and I don't even want to know how iPad babies are going to turn out.

The people who make content purposefully put you in a position where you will want to keep scrolling, watching, liking, they'll make you believe that you need their product until you buy it (and nothing happens because you never needed it but now you lost money and you're sad because the happy chemicals are already back home) and they know it's hurting you, but it makes them money, so they won't stop. This means you need to make the decision to walk away yourself.

You don't need to consume stuff all the time. You shouldn't feel a need to get your phone out when waiting in line. You shouldn't feel ugly without a filter (if you even like yourself at all). You shouldn't feel ghost vibrations when your phone is in your pocket. You shouldn't have something playing at all times. You shouldn't be afraid of eating out alone or of being empty-handed because then your demons would start talking and you're unwilling to see what they want and how they got there.

Put your phone on flying mode after 9pm. Dim the lights. Turn off the music. Open the window and see what the world is up to. Count red cars, find shapes in the clouds, guess people's jobs, look for dogs, whatever you want, but nothing else. No music, no screens, no distractions. Lie on the bed and try to feel every part of your body. Have a full conversation without taking your eyes away from the other person. Eat without something to watch. Leave your phone in the room when you're going potty. Go for walks and listen to birds. Make small talk with anyone who looks nice, on the subway, at the laundromat, in class.

Choose to live before it's too late. It's already your second chance.

Love,

Mum

#ask #malks

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hozaloza · 7 months

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Aiden v Thomas thingy (Rainbow Factory AU)

Song- Stayed Gone from Hazbin Hotel

(This is a parody in a way)

Aiden-That fucker is back! Ben (on speech device)-Yeah, I thought he was gone for good too. A-It's been years! B-You still pissed he almost beat you that time? A-Uh, fuck you!? B-Just saying. A-Things have changed a lot since he went back to the main company.. B-That's for sure. A-I gotta send a message of who's really in charge of things now… {Aiden} Welcome home I'm gonna make you wish that you'd stayed gone Say hello to a new status quo Everyone knows that there's a brand new dawn Turn the TV on! {Rainbow Swans Logo broadcast} Camera speeds Rolling in three, two (Welcome to the show) A-Top of the hour, and we're discussing a certain has-been Who has been spotted cavorting around town (Welcome to the show) After a long-year absence! Did anybody miss him? (Welcome to the show) Did anybody notice? More on tonight's program So, the Smiling Crane is back in town, Why is he hanging around? What does that mean for your family? Well handily, I've got good news! He's a loser, a fossil! And I don't mean to sound hostile, {but the Crane is a coward!} You can take that as gospel. Pulling my viewers? Impossible!! I'm visual, he's barely audible! Stop giving him the time of day, don't listen to a word he'd say :) I hope he had a nice vacay, {but he should've stayed away}

A-While he hid in radio, we've pivoted to video (Thomas walking in the Company official broadcast rooms) Now his medium is getting bloody rare! Rainbow Origami's been better since he split :) Where's he been? Who gives a shit?! :D {Thomas} Salutations! Good to be back on the air Yes, I know it's been a while Since someone with style treated Georgia to a broadcast Georgians, rejoice! A-What a dated voice! T-Instead of a clout-chasing mediocre video podcast A-Come on! T-Is Aiden insecure, pursuing allure? Flitting between this fad and that, is nothing working? A-Ignore his chirping! T-Every day, he's got a new format! A-You're looking at the future, he's the shit that comes before that! T-Is Aiden as strong as he purports? Or is it based on his support? He'd be powerless without the other Clarks A-Oh, please! T-And here's the sugar on the cream His dad asked me to join his team! A- H-hold on! T-I said no, and now the child's pissy That's the tea! A-You old-timey prick, I'll show you suf-ffering T-Uh oh, the golden child is buffering! A-I'll destroy you, yo-ou lit-tle— {Thomas} I'm afraid you've lost your signal Let's begin I'm gonna make you wish that I'd stayed gone, tune on in When I'm done, your status quo will know its race is run Oh, this will be fun {Aiden} Fuck!

-------

Daniel asked Thomas if he wanted to join the Rainbow Swans sub-organization for a deal, but Thomas declined, rather working at the main company. Daniel himself didn't care, understanding Thomas, but Aiden was pissy about it.

"Oh, why didn't he join my family's sub-group?? Does he think he's too good for us??? Well, I'll show him >:("

And so Thomas had a grudge against a child for like 5-7 years (he sees it as a silly thing, Aiden sees it as serious competition).

Imagine Aiden's horror (comedically) when he found out where Thomas was working at for the company.

#school bus graveyard #webtoon #origami cranes #mr. thomas #aiden clark #au #sbg au #alternate universe #rainbow factory

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theoldaeroplane · 1 year

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jouwnaling

had a really, really nice day yesterday, was just in a lovely mood all day. I think it may have been related to the fact I did not get high the night before, so I'm going to try to test that theory and dial my usage down. I really enjoy weed and think it has a lot of benefits, especially for neurodivergent folk, but I'm recognizing that I used it as a way to cope with my situations last year. I'd like to wean myself off it a bit and be more present now that my life is starting to not suck. Still gonna keep it around for fun and really bad ruminating though. Weed makes it so much easier for me to hang out with people in person for a long time, and to go into overstimulating spaces.

Been having tons of fun rotating my version of Link in my brain for Antebellum (the WIP name of my LoZ fic). He has so many problems. He is a dumb motherfucker. I'm also consciously putting a lot of things I've been struggling with into this story, both to process them for myself and to give the fic, you know, that extra layer of authenticity, relatability? It's nice, I'm excited to be excited again. I'm gonna fuck up that elf boy so bad.

Had my second yoga class last night, it was nice. I'm not sure if I can afford to keep going but I'm going to try to. In a way it feels silly to pay for something I could technically do for free at home with a YouTube video, but I think the atmosphere makes a significant enough difference to be worth paying for.

Finally made a vet appointment for the dog. She needs her shots and I can't put off the fact she needs dental surgery any longer.

I really, really need to reopen commissions, but I still feel burned out on art. I'm trying to make some adoptables and YCHs as a middle ground. Haven't had a lot of success there yet. That said, I've been putting a lot of my energy into cleaning up my house and taking care of myself. The house is coming along really well, and hopefully soon I'll have it leveled out enough to make it a nicer space for my creative endeavors.

I applied for another job this week, one totally out of my field and experience: house cleaning. It's not something I'd ever considered, but I found the listing by chance and it occurred to me that a job where I just clean and listen to podcasts sounds like heaven. Especially for my autistic ass. No constant stream of customers. No dress shirts. No repeatedly explaining terms and price sheets. Just show up and clean. I'm sure such a job has its own frustrations (hard on the body, exceptionally gross houses, telling people when something is not in my job description, driving a lot), but, like. My current job---while I genuinely like a lot of the work, and I really love my boss and coworkers---the customer service aspect is killing me, the dress code brings back bad memories, and even though I'm working full time (over full time, even, I'm there 8:30-5 because I take a thirty minute lunch break) I'm not making enough to fully support myself. I keep getting sent home early because there's nothing for me to do, and my boss is only a regional manager and has been very forthcoming with the fact I am already at the absolute highest end of the payscale for my position without taking on more responsibilities.

The fact that I can be working full time and still have to rely on a side hustle, and even THEN can't put anything aside for savings, is awful. I can't do more hours, I can't take on more responsibilities, and I can't get a second job. Any of those things would seriously compromise my mental health and I have to take care of myself. I've always dreaded it when I'm asked to take on more responsibilities at my jobs. I don't want advancement, I don't want to manage anyone (I can barely manage myself!), I don't give a shit what my title is. I want to do my work really well, get paid, and go home.

And the cleaning job, at the absolute lowest end, still pays about 5k more per year than my current position.

So, currently, yeah, housecleaning sounds like a dream job. Show up. Clean. Leave. Repeat. The company in question also has glowing employee reviews on Glassdoor, with the worst things being "could pay better" and "sometimes there's favoritism." I don't have any qualms about """being a maid""" on like a social level or whatever. I like the idea that I would be making a tangible difference for individuals, instead of printing out hundreds of advertising mailers that are going to go directly into the trash. I finding cleaning very satisfying. I like the idea of not sitting around bored because there's no customers and nothing to do and I'm not allowed to have my phone out, and then getting sent home early so I miss out on half my pay for that day. And so much less masking! My god! It sounds like paradise!

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but sometimes that's because it really is better grass.

So. Hoping to hear back about that soon. I filled out a questionnaire thing for them yesterday that seemed like it was basically checking to see if I was a narcissistic sociopath or not. I have a weekend without any Special Events happening for the first time in like a month, just my tabletop games and my volunteer work. My clothes and bedding are all washed, I got most of the dog piss smell out of the carpet from when I was too exhausted to take her out often enough, and I cut my hair. I have a writing project again. I've been making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. I adore going out to the barn every saturday. My therapist says I'm doing really, really well. Everything's coming up Corgi, for now. Fingers crossed :)

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