#full stack development etc

[cyrsed]

i love when companies frame them wanting to pay fewer people as some kind of personal development opportunity or job title lol. 'we're looking for full-stack developers', 'we're looking for T-shaped developers'

yea ok so you're cutting costs by expecting people to be able to do everything

[deminetly]

˖˙ EXTRAS TO SCRIPT INTO YOUR WAITING ROOM ᰋ

⠂⠁⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠂⠁⠈⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂

⋆you recieve a package with a cool trinket every day

⋆you can talk to the moon

⋆unlimited stack of your favourite snacks

⋆your pet

⋆a website where you can generate any movie/show/game by entering a prompt

⋆you have a roommate that helps you script

⋆youre really creative

⋆a zen pool/koi pond

⋆constant (relaxing) backround music

⋆your pillow is always cold

⋆a TV where you can watch edits of your dr self/fun moments you experienced in your drs

⋆your room always smells like your favourite scent(s)

⋆snow globes of your drs

⋆a really big dollhouse with talking calico critters in it

⋆a bird that sings songs you forgot you liked

⋆doors that each lead to a different activity (endless library, no gravity room, room where paintings can talk)

⋆clouds you can rest on

⋆there are always bubbles flying around so you can pop them

⋆your favourite character is your roommate/neighbour

⋆you have a fairy that grants your wishes and listens to you yap with you at all times

⋆notebook + a pen, whatever you write down, happens/spawns in

⋆a big bath

⋆3d cinema

⋆there are 4 doors, each bringing you to a different season so you can enjoy running through snow one minute, and picking flowers the next

⋆a talking crow

⋆a journal that writes back (gives advice, feedback, etc)

⋆a secret room

⋆a dreamcatcher that takes away all of your doubts and negative thoughts and gives you interesting dreams every night

⋆a website with all of your clothes from different drs so you can currate outfits

⋆a button that lets you change the colour of the sunlight

⋆a box with riddles/puzzles arrives at your door every day

⋆a remote that lets you control the weather

⋆a fashion design journal and whenever you draw any clothing item in it, it appears into any dr of your choice

⋆a rage room

⋆its always blue/golden hour

⋆the ability to have people from your drs visit you/video call you

⋆magical pets

⋆an assistant

⋆infinite amount of puzzles, legos and boardgames

⋆chocolate fountain with strawberriws

⋆books full of fanfics of your favourite characters

⋆your cr pet but they can talk

⋆your dr room/house

⋆a book of ideas for scripting (things to script + guides to scripting different drs + questions for developing drs, etc)

⋆the waiting room is a penthouse with each floor having a different s/o or dr

mirror where you can see every single one of your dr selves and change your appearance 

book that tells you what everyone in your dr thinks of you in specific detail 

[shadesofmauve]

Alliance Normandy SR2 interior redesign: Introduction

The Normandy is a sexy sexy spaceship, but the interior we see is defined by game play: corridors are extremely wide so Shepard doesn't get stuck on the scenery, the crew is sparse because animating crew members takes resources and NPCs are also obstacles Shepard could get stuck on, you need larger spaces for camera angles, etc.

I wanted to see if I could redesign the space to fit a crew of 70–90... ...and I got carried away.

This post covers the rules I set myself and the basic process. Each deck will get a separate post (check back for links):

Intro

Loft

Command deck

Crew deck

Engineering deck

Hangar deck

Design rules

Keep major elements in basically the same places. This is the Normandy as she exists in my fic Sunset & Evening Star, and readers shouldn't have to study a floorplan!

Use only space that's 'available' in the game. If we can access it as the player, it's fair game. If it's a mysterious void in-game, I assume it's full of Important Spaceship Parts and the only access is for ship maintenance.

The elevator shaft is vertical. No Willy Wonka/ST turbo lift shit.

*There are inertial dampeners; if there weren't none of this would work. But as an author I like to imagine that any system can be overloaded.

Step one: Align & scale the deck maps

I aligned the deck maps around the elevator, the only element that shows up on every one. Each is shown at a different scale, so I eyeballed their relationship based on furniture, which is the only thing required to have a relatively consistent size. This is a big assumption; game designers resize whatever they need to! Shepard's bed, for instance, has pillows about a meter square. Presumably they needed room to made the pixel dolls have sex. Shepard's bed can therefore not be trusted, and to a lesser extent neither can anything else.

(There are also floor panels that look a lot like standard 4'x8' construction sheet stock, but A) developers can re-size those as needed without the player noticing, and B) If we're still using imperial units to construct spaceships in 2184 I hope the reapers eat us.**)

**...that said, I used a scale of 1px:2ft to draw this. I'm so sorry. I'm American and I've done construction, it's easy for me to visualize. (The scale was two inches to the pixel, if you're curious.)

Step two: Redesign over the existing space

This is where I saw how much I could fit in the space the game design allowed (given my guesses on scale). Y'know, the fun bit that I thought I'd be spending most of my time doing!

(I was so wrong).

Redesign goals

The Alliance refitted the Normandy for an Admiral. Admirals don't captain their own ships, so I needed to account for an Admiral and their staff as well as the captain and crew.

Align bunks fore-aft, so that the most common major inertial vectors* will hit sleeping crew in the least dangerous direction.

Plumbing should be stacked when possible. (I don't know spaceships but I know about plumbing columns. Glamorous!)

Step three: Adjust to the hull

One modeler figured the ship had to be ~370 meters long to fit the decks as-is, which would leave them using only ~20% of the length. One dev is quoted as saying she's 170m. Fan estimates comparing it with other ships suggest somewhere from 210–230 meters.

The hangar deck is the one*** place the interior aligns with the exterior for certain. The hangar needs to fit two kodiaks in the space between the bay door and the elevator, and each kodiak needs to fit 12 people plus the pilot. Additionally, as the lowest deck the hanger is limited in width by the inward curve of the hull (and that limit changes based on how low you go, which is why the drawing above includes a front elevation).

***Yes, we also see Joker piloting right up in the nose. This is impossible to achieve and also stupid, so I've elected to ignore it.

Sizing it to the smallest reasonable hangar — and after drawing a rather stubbier kodiak — I managed a 194 meter hull; ~217 if you include thrusters. At this size the liveable area takes up just over a third of the hull length. It's still an awful lot of nose, but that nose means 136 meters for the main gun, which for my purposes is still a rail gun (so size matters). Sadly it can't be a hull-length gun; it would run into first the elevator, and then the eezo core.

I did NOT pretend to figure out where the Make Spaceship Go parts are, or the Keep People Alive parts. There's a LOT of 'wasted' space; assume it's all in use and accessible through engineering access-ways, though how comfortable or safe they are is questionable.

———

Thanks to @swaps55 for the amazing high-res screenshots of the game maps, and to @faejilly and @sheepishwolfy for the long-ago talks about crew size that started all this!

[opashoo]

Hi! This is a question about your (really cool) Scuglang. Now, I have noticed that you sometimes use the Rain World symbols and script for your Scuglang. Because of the language not being a European-based language, I'll assume that there isn't really an alphabet, so to speak. How did you apply the Rain World symbols to your Scuglang, and how does it work enough to be able to be written?

Edit: Here is a link to a reddit comment where I've posted up some info about a Yongasabi font that I've developed, as well as a download link for the font. The glyph documentation document is here, though it is largely information taken from this post and elaborated.

Hello and thank you for taking interest in my (really cool) Scuglang Yongasabi, I am very proud of it. I have yet to make a more comprehensive guide as to how the writing system works but I threw together a very rough and simple guide on my work computer with mspaint and a mouse just now. I have since added some new images so this doesn't apply to all of them anymore. So this should actually cover everything about writing in Yongasabi. Have fun!

Here are all the isolated consonant and CV syllable glyphs in Yongasabi. Note that the first row is for isolated consonants. Not included are punctuation or CVC syllable blocks because I'm not hand drawing 1734 glyph combinations, and it would be incredibly unhelpful to do so. Instead I'll just explain how to synthesize CV and CVC blocks below.

A key as well, since that may help.

So at its core, Yongasabi uses an abugida, so all regular consonant characters are pronounced with an added A by default (ka, ga, ta, pa, etc...) As you can see by this diagram, writing a line above the character changes the A to an I (so ka becomes ki) and a line below changes it to an O instead (so ba becomes bo).

Then there's the long vowels. For standalone long vowels, the Monk symbol is written within the long vowel characters. When combining the with a consonant, the Monk symbol is replaced with the consonant (as you can see here with P and S).

CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) syllable blocks, syllables that start and end with a consonant, are written by stacking the consonant characters. By default, they are read as CaC, but writing a line above turns it into CiC. Separating the characters makes it CoC.

CVC syllable blocks with long vowels, including CaeC, CuC, and CeiC, are formed differently. CaeC and CuC are formed by encompassing the equivalent CaC syllable block within the long vowel glyph. There is a special rule for Caeh blocks, as noted below.

CeiC syllable blocks are formed by surrounding the initial consonant glyph with four marks and placing that above the final consonant. As noted, n and d glyphs in initial position will join to the final glyph.

VC blocks (vowel-consonant) where the syllable starts with a vowel and ends with a consonant, are formed like CVC blocks but with the Monk symbol in place of the initial consonant.

Here are some more specific rules that I've finally written down properly (and edited into this post several months after originally posting it). It can get to be a lot to memorize, but it's possible. Several people have already reverse-engineered all the rules just by observing the behaviors of the font I developed, which is bonkers to me.

Punctuation in Yongasabi has fewer strict rules than English and tend to reflect the way one would speak. The symbols are as follows:

Full stops act like periods, marking the end of a sentence.

Pauses act like commas, marking a natural pause in speech, such as when listing items or separating clauses and ideas, though it is sometimes used to mark the end of a sentence with a less complete pause than a full stop.

The text end symbol is used to mark the end of a text, usually the end of a section, chapter, or book.

Gate brackets are used like parenthesis, to add additional information that may not be necessary.

The exclamation and question marks behave as in English.

Arrow brackets are sometimes used like gate brackets, but more often are simply used for decoration.

Long dashes are used to express an elongated sound like (aaa would be writing instead like a—) and to intensify exclamations and questions (!!! and ??? are instead written as !— and ?—)

Ellipses represent the writer trailing off or becoming quiet.

Short dashes are used almost exclusively to link names and titles to addresses (maki-andae, omi-tei, maya-ijun)

Quotes are quotes.

Here's an example of the language written with the writing system, then romanized, translated, and broken down into its grammatical parts. It took a lot of time tuning the writing system to account for all the possible syllable block combinations but I'm happy with the results! Funny enough, it started as an attempt to make a working writing system out of Rain World's glyphs, just as a thought exercise, and eventually I wanted to make a whole language to support the writing system (then the writing system changed radically to support the new language.) Thank you for asking, and hopefully I'll have a release post for the language ready soon, since it is actually finished at this point.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Itchio Beta Update January 30th 2025

You can now get a much more polished version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy on itch.io! Payment is optional, but greatly appreciated!

I’m proud of this update despite it not really being quite as extensive as I would’ve liked it to be considering the three months in between the last big public update and now, but as if my some act of God, nearly every single member of our team had some kind of personal life issue (moving, illness, etc.) across all of November and December, which really slowed down our progress on Eureka. We were back full steam ahead in January, and that allowed us to at least push one really big improvement through in time for this update: The mystery-writing guide.

It was important to me to release a big public update this month because January 2025 is when we stated on the Kickstarter that Eureka would be releasing. Well, underestimation and unexpected complications have meant that the game isn’t finished yet as of January 2025, but this big update that you can download and play is us making up for that at least partially, it shows our fans that even though we haven’t met our deadline, we haven’t been slacking off, and we do have a lot to show for it.

In addition to new art, new traits, and rules clarifications, the Eureka rulebook now sports an in-depth mystery writing guide. This comes just in time for those of you participating in our mystery module game jam. (Sign-ups are open now, submissions are open from March to April of 2025.)

In addition to a rulebook update, we have released two previously patron-exclusive Eureka mystery modules, “The Eye of Neptune” and “FORIVA: The Angel Game.” You can find them at this link here. Payment is optional but highly appreciated!

Patreon updates will continue monthly as we work steadily on the project.

Oh and one more thing before we get to the full changelog. As many of you know, we run a “TTRPG Book Club” where the club votes on games to play and then splits off into groups to play them (it’s very schedule-flexible), and discusses them as we go. Well, at the time of writing this, Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is currently in the lead, which means we are very likely to be playing that next. Join the book club during the sign-up period in the next couple of weeks if you want to play Eureka and discuss it with the developers!

Here’s the full changelog!

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 302. Half-ass copy-edited up to p. 322.

We also released Eureka adventure modules “The Eye of Neptune” and “FORIVA: The Angel Game” into free beta on itch.io. Scroll up to find the link and a game jam!

WHOLE BOOK

CHAPTER 1 

Better clarified Unconsciousness. 

Better clarified the penalty negation of Grievous Wounds, gave guidelines for what aid may negate what Grievous Wounds, and made it so that these aids can stack to a penalty negation of up to 4.

Edited and simplified the travel time math when using Ticks.

Worsened penalty for using Medicine on oneself from -1 to -2.

Added some quick fix patches to the Assistance Roll section to make it more clear when Assistance Rolls should and should not be allowed. May end up completely rewriting some parts of this section in the near future to make it so that the divide is less based on Investigative vs Non-Investigative, but instead provide clearer stipulations. One potential issue is we really have to be careful not to write the rules so that every character assisting with every Investigative Roll is the optimal strategy, because that would make the game less fun. 

CHAPTER 2

New Traits: The Truth Comes Out, Poser

Buffed Believer Trait

Nerfed I’m Okay, You’re Okay Trait

Un-Nerfed I’m Okay, You’re Okay Trait

Made vampires and characters with the Arithmomaniac Trait immune to the “Click” Woo Roll effect

Added Crutches to Item List

More art has been added

Buffed Elementary! Trait

Buffed The Ascot Trait 

Buffed The Other Trait 

Buffed Poser Trait

Added Nobody’s Fool Trait 

Added That’s No Way to Feel Trait

Made some clarifications on Tiers of Fear

Made it so there is a flat PM penalty for investigators that are living out of their vehicles. 

Added RVs/campers/trailers to Homes

Lowered the PM of vans and SUVs

Moved Police from Optional to Mandatory on Tiers of Fear

CHAPTER 3

Added a Compromise Armor attack that is also a Movement and can only be done starting from a Grab

More art has been added

CHAPTER 7

Added “How to Write a Mystery” section, a big step-by-step guide on how to write your very own Eureka mystery module. 

Added “Starting an Adventure with Disaster” section

Added more guidelines for Eureka’s tone, setting, and lore.

CHAPTER 8 

Made it so fairies have to make a reflexes roll to be able to spirit away people with extremely brief contact. 

Better clarified some other things about Spiriting Away and “voluntary” skin-to-skin contact.

Added that a Potion of Healing can also cure non-chronic disease. 

Added that more potions than just the curse potions can be made curative by adding an extra Table 3 ingredient, and that curative potions can be bought with WP just like other potions. 

Clarified that gorgons can’t eat rocks.

Clarified that advanced curses can override each other.

Changed Monsters Eating Monsters section to Monsters vs Monsters and made it a more generalized section about all kinds of edge cases that might come up when monsters interact with each other. The section is kind of disorganized right now but will be cleaned up in copy-editing. 

Clarified that all wolfmen have a human form as one of their three forms.

Redid the hunting tables and added the tables for the Bar/Nightclub, Gay Bar/Nightclub, and Gaming/Hobby Store. They are not fully complete but they are at least functional at this time. 

Vampires now have a chance to start partially phasing through objects when they are at 0 Composure.

Changed the standard Stealth bonus vampires have at max Composure from +3 to +2.

Adjusted the mechanics for how to permanently “kill” a vampire. 

More art has been added

Buffed Learning by Example TFB Ability 

Clarified fairies taking voices 

Clarified the animal options for the Curse of Transformation

[janicekao]

Perfectly Made

Pairing:Bill Skarsgard x Black oc Summary: A young woman who has had her fair share of meeting people gives up on the pointless dating apps and opts for a personal android companion who has some interesting wiring. Warnings:#Android #S3x-Bot #R0ughs3x #Cr3amp1e #Dom&FemSub #FanFiction #DarkRomance #Smut #Br33dingKink #18+ #Toxic etc. 7968 words Wattpad link

Enjoy my babies <3 ------------------------------------

New York has been more rainy than usual. And with rain, comes the immense pressure of feeling alone being that you're stuck in the house by yourself.

Twenty-six year old Holly Marie Jennings is no stranger to loneliness. But being in her late twenties, she's also had her fair share of dating and extroverted activities. Although a fan of dating, and a huge fan of sex, she's absolutely through with the repetitiveness of dating. The swiping right, matching, twenty-one questions, getting to know each other, and polite banter— all just to realize that after a few dates you aren't compatible after all.

With casual dating being the biggest scam in history, Holly has made the decision to spend all of her hard-earned money on something that will keep her content... a man, a man perfectly made just for her.

After a wet day of grocery shopping, Holly comes home to her newest buy getting soaked on the steps of her porch. Her android boyfriend by the famous scientist Marco Nanimo has finally arrived after a month of shipping, and being that the robot is the most expensive thing she's ever brought, she wants it into her house and out of the rain as soon as possible.

As Holly drags a box that is far bigger than herself inside, she becomes full of excitement knowing how life-like her android will be being that he's already as heavy as a real man. From the online assessment, product development, and extremely long shipping, she knows that once she opens this box whatever she lays her eyes upon will be one hundred percent worth the money.

Crashing to her kitchen floor beside the box, Holly takes a moment to catch her breath. The cardboard is soaked and full of unnecessary damage as if he were already opened or had gone through shipping-hell... she only can hope that her android is unharmed. As her energy regains, Holly opens the already tattered box and lays eyes on her new literal boy-toy. The android looking as human as ever lays in a bed of packing peanuts with his eyes closed. He looks as if he were an angel asleep, peacefully still with a gorgeous physique, chestnut hair, and full pouty lips.

When described the type of bot she wanted in the online assessment, all that she asked was that he'd come tall, strong, a slim-muscular build, olive skin, and brunette or blonde hair... but this— this far exceeded her expectations.

The android is well above six feet tall. He nears six-five and almost two-hundred pounds, his brunette hairstyle is handsomely cut with matching body hair that isn't too much or too little. Holly's eyes travel down his handsomely long frame, eyes growing at the image of his manhood. Laying nude in this box takes her breath away at the sight of him being more than well-endowed. Even flaccid he seems to be large, maybe larger than she's ever taken, however he is cut and slightly curved in a way that makes her mouth absolutely water.

Far too overwhelmed, Holly stacks a small pile of styrofoam across his groin to protect whatever dignity they have left. Beneath his right thigh are directions. Holly sighs in relief, glad to see that there are instructions and that she won't have to guess the whole way through. Her fingers run across the tip of the singular page of instructions, there's two tiny holes there as if it were stapled to more pages, however, as she searches for the rest, they aren't anywhere to be found— must've been torn and lost in transit somehow.

After scanning a few introduction paragraphs, she finds the first steps and decides to begin. "To power up, pump android's chest as if performing CPR." And so she does. Holly sits onto the lap of her android with her knees knelt on each side of him as she places her hands together and begins to pump.

1...

2...

3...

After three pumps, the android awakens. A gasp falls from her lips as large green eyes stare back at her, she didn't think that he could get any prettier, but here he has already surprised her again.

With a sudden grasp to her waist, the android sits up in his box. The action causes Holly to place her hands on top of his strong shoulder blades for stamina as his hold on her presses her further against his chest. Chest to chest, she even begins to blush. The android studies his new user's face, eyes softening as if he is already captivated by her appearance.

An inch apart and close enough to kiss, Holly can't believe the wind of his breath that crosses her flesh, the feel of his skin, and the warmth of his body... He's so real, and he's all hers.

Unsure of what to say, Holly scrambles to flip to the back of the singular page of instructions, praying for a second step before she melts in his arms. "Uhm— sorry, just give me a minute."

"Hello." The android speaks. "Please introduce yourself with your name, and then please assign me a name for myself."

"Oh!" Holly sees that his high-quality setup might not be so difficult after all. "Well, my name is Holly... And for you, your name can be— I don't know, Derrick maybe? Or-Or Jonathan? No, it should be something simple, easy to remember."

"Bill." A light bulb goes off in the midst of her extremely confused mind. "That's right, your name is Bill."

...

Holly sighs. "Bill, I don't even know where to start with you..."

He smiles with a polite chuckle. "What do you mean? We've already started. Tell me about yourself, Holly. How can I serve you as an AI companion?"

She lifts herself from his lap and gives Bill a hand to stand. As he takes her assistance, he stands and nears the ceiling... hovering over her in a way that makes her seem more doll-like than he is.

"Wow." With a craned neck to look up at him, she can't imagine the fun that they are soon to have being that his cock nears the height of her belly-button.

Clearing her mind, she becomes able to finally answer his question. "Well Bill, if I'm honest, I bought you to become my— my boyfriend. I know, I sound pathetic but it's such an annoying and difficult task to get to know someone over and over again on these dating apps, then having a shitty time together, and have to repeat it all over again with another stranger. I want to skip all of that. All of the formalities, the 'hey, how are you doing?' texts... I want something real with someone who will be mine, all mine."

"Then why start with boyfriend? Does husband sound better?" Bill asks, curiously reading every inch of his new user's body language.

She blushes, actually stirred by being flirted with by a robot. "It sounds perfect, actually. Can we just do it like that? Can we really skip the whole dating thing and be— companions?"

"We can do whatever you want, Holly." Bill steps his bare feet completely out of the box, shaking any extra packing peanuts off of him. "Let's shape my personality to cater to your needs. What are the traits you'd like me to have and follow?"

"Uhm... Well, I'd like you to be my best friend." She begins, "I wish for you to be gentle, sweet, warm, and understanding. I'd like you to share my interests and be a good listener... Other than that, I think I want to play things by ear. Maybe without too many rules, what we have can feel more real... ya know? Are you like— able to do that? Sometimes respond in ways of your own?"

"As in fill in the blanks?" He asks, voice deep and warm like honey. "Yes, Holly. With my artificial intelligence database, I'm constantly evolving and learning. Holly, I can do and be all that you want, and more."

Holly watches in disbelief. "Bill, you are absolutely incredible." She smiles. "Come on, let me give you a tour of the house and uhh— get you some clothes while we're at it."

———

Just as promised, in four short days Bill has picked up on things and paid more attention to Holly in ways that none of her ex-boyfriends ever could.

From cuddling her and treating her like a princess, to sharing each other's humor, and consistent laughs. Bill has it all.

With his AI intelligence, he's quickly created his own personality, constantly surprising Holly with interesting conversation and unique actions... Even being such a gentleman by cooking her favorite meals and handling all of the house's chores. She hasn't had to take the garbage to her bins in days. He's extremely helpful, and even on the days that she is feeling down and out, he spoils her with longing hugs, kisses, and consistent reassurance. Bill is all that she's ever wanted, and it's the most fun she's had in years.

Although he continues to learn more about Holly to give her the AI experience of a lifetime, Holly has been doing the same with him. So far she has learned that although he can cook, he doesn't eat or drink, and when he goes to sleep for the night, it's at her command to 'power down' and he simply recharges right beside her. At night, cuddled into his arms is one of her favorite parts of the day. Impressed with his body warmth and the imitated sound of a human beating heart in his chest, he feels more real than any human could standing right in front of her.

"Should I pour more?" Bill continues to spoil his 'wife' with her favorite red wine on their fourth night of dinner spent together.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?" Holly flirts and allows him to fill up another inch.

He chuckles. "I do enjoy seeing you relaxed, my love. Come on, that tv show you like is coming on in an hour, let's move this to the couch."

With a slight tipsy-wobble in her step, Holly agrees, joining Bill in his strong arms as they light candles in the living room and plop onto the couch.

Swirling her glass of red, she watches her newest beau flip through channels on the television to find her favorite show and how he wraps her in the couch's throw blanket... Everything he does is so very catered to her, Holly can't help herself from taking her eyes off of him tonight.

"What is it?" Bill grins. "Something on your mind?"

She watches his lips closely, becoming heated by either the wine or the way each word leaves his tongue like butter. "I just want to— I want to kiss you."

Although he's her property and an inanimate object, it's still mind boggling the way that he can make her so nervous to the point of asking for his consent. "So kiss me then, Holly."

With a gentle lean, Holly connects with Bill through a gentle kiss. She unintentionally makes it clear that she wants more, he chuckles, "come here."

The soft demand has her stirring in her seat. Holly does just that, coming closer to him she presses her body against his chest and accepts the tongue kiss that Bill pushes onto her.

As Holly places a hand to his chest, Bill's strong fingers begin to roam all over. He makes her purr under his touch as his fingertips creep down her spine and lightly grip on her ass. Their heated kiss has him drawing her nearer, fingers now lowering her bra straps on each side of her shoulders as he laces her flesh with his sweet love bruises.

Falling slave to his touch, Holly drops her glass of wine to the hardwood floors as her eyes roll back in her skull and her mind disconnects with the actions of her body. Never has she felt a touch so deeply, so breathtaking. As her delicate hand continues to roam down his sculpted abdomen, her touch ends in his lap where he clearly has a heightened reaction to their display of affection.

"How?" Their lips smack apart as Holly becomes confused by the hardening of his cock.

"Aren't you initiating sex?" He asks.

The question catches her off guard, almost too embarrassed to answer him. "Y—Yes..."

He nods, "I thought so... Holly, I'm fully equipped and I'm prepared for it. I can't wait to give you satisfaction."

The dark-cotton shirt from around his body suddenly comes from around his head. Shirtless, Bill awaits her next command.

"I want you to take full control." Watching her handsome android strip out of his clothes makes her absolutely feral with lust. "Fuck me— use me like your slut."

With a gentle caress to her cheek, Holly is sure that he can't do it. She programmed him to be gentle and kind. As she waits, Holly is sure that the dominant rough sex that she craves tonight is something he won't be able to deliver... of course until the gentle caress becomes a harsh grasp around her throat.

"Take your fucking clothes off." Holly gasps from the sudden force around her throat and the darkening of his wide green eyes.

Too shocked to follow his directions, Bill does it for her. Using his free hand to tear down her panties beneath her house gown and tearing the silk robe-tie open to reveal the flop of her breasts.

Loosening the grasp around her throat, he becomes amused by the sound of her fragile gasps of air and gentle moaning as he manhandles her. His fingers force themselves between her ungodly thick thighs, curling through the lips of her cunt as they come back wet and syrupy. "You're so fucking wet, Holly. All this for me? Huh?" He takes his digits to the bed of his tongue before kissing her again, letting her have a taste of how sweet she really is.

Goosebumps riddle her skin everywhere that he watches, his eyes glue to the large perky breasts bumping against his chest and the way that she writhes her hips against him, yearning for anything on his body to tease and please her.

"So needy aren't you baby?" His soft tone of pure taunting creates a waterfall between her thighs, she nods with haste, begging for a merciless fuck before she implodes.

Bill lowers his slacks and briefs until each of their clothes are in a mess of a pile nearing the stain of wine on the floorboards. He shoves her into the couch, getting a good look at what she looks like eye-level with his long cock that stands towards her lips. "You like kissing so much, don't you? So kiss that."

Tears of shame and a disgusting loss of self respect flows down her cheeks, not only does she want to kiss the handsome cock but she wants to memorize the feeling of its every curve and vein against the back of her throat. She wants him to fuck her face until she's a mess of tears and slobber, however, it wouldn't do much for the tightening spring plaguing her in the midst of her core.

Holly kisses his cockhead, allowing him to ram his entire length down her throat with a grip to her coily afro. He chokes her with his thick dagger in four deep strokes, just enough to lube his erection for what they both really want— earth shattering, filthy sex.

Lifting her as if she were weightless, Bill places her in the corner of the couch cushions, angling her legs around his waist as he stretches her apart for another glance at Holly's plumped womanhood, drenched in arousal and inviting. "Please." She begs, overwhelmed with the need to be full of cock and fucked numb. "Bill, baby please fuck me."

He breaches her tight entry with cockhead as his brows furrow and jaw laxes from the snug fit. As for Holly, being split in two has never felt better, needing to know and desperate to feel him bottoming out against her hilt and the way his sack will bounce off her ass. "More!"

Tightly against her, Bill's large body splits her thighs further apart. His demolition begins with thrusts that nearly knock the framed photos from off of the walls. With a fierce grasp to each sides of her hips, Holly watches Bill hammer into her, in disbelief that her tiny frame can even take all that he's giving her. "Mmm-uhh!!" She complains over the fact that she just can't keep up. "Fuck, Bill!!! I'm gonna— ah!" His lips are tight and teeth are gritted as he gives it his all, wrecking her canal and molding her to his exact shape... Making sure that with him around, there won't ever be another cock that she could ever prefer.

With indecent gropes to her tits, Bill amuses himself with the soft puffiness of her tawny areolas. Programmed to be infatuated with the buxom minx, his hardware must be working on overdrive from the way she has him beyond enamored. He feels his peak approaching as his sack draws up beneath him, working tirelessly he needs to make sure that his sweet Holly gets hers before he gets his. From the touch of her breasts, Bill finds his way across her plush belly to the mound between her thighs that he continues to pound cock into. His thumb presses at her clit where his strumming begins, Holly's back arches from off the couch cushions and her pleads become inaudible moans.

The lewdness of his wet sloshing through her cunt comes to a slow place as Holly's walls begin to flutter and clench around him. She becomes impossibly tight and soaks his pubic hair as her climax rains upon him. "Fuckkkk." He complains as the grip on her greedy pussy causes him to fall over the edge. "So good for me baby, my god. Keep going, keep fucking squeezing me slut."

With eyes half-lidded and fucked to a pulp, Holly awakens when a familiar eruption occurs... Bill's final plow is a criminal plunge against her cervix where ropes of cum are shot into her womb. Holly gasps, soon cut off by a moan and a second  cum when the hot seed fills her to the brim and lays claim over her cunt. "Wait!! No way. Did you just— you just—"

"Ejaculated." Bill pants and becomes weak against her body.

Confused about the extreme realism, Holly begins to freak. "Yeah no shit! What is it?"

Bill rolls off of her, lips parted as he heaves overly-pleasured and exerted breaths. "Non-toxic synthetic solution to mimic male ejaculation, should I turn this setting off, Holly?"

"No. I just—" Her worry leaves her with a small chuckle. "Sorry, it just felt so real. I'm ovulating right now... nearly freaked out thinking that you got me pregnant or something. You see, morning-after pills don't work for women who are ovulating, I'm just glad I don't have to worry about things like that anymore."

Bill grins, slowly beginning to kiss at her sore belly that just recently had been bulging with the shape of his cock. His kiss reaches further to the fat warm cunt full of his synthetic cum, he swipes a stripe of tongue through her sensitive folds and Holly breathes out gently. "Holly my love, with me, you don't have to worry about anything ever again. Now tell me, where do you want me this time?"

———

As day five approaches, Bill and Holly become even more inseparable. The night after their first fuck was spent with more of the very same events. Busy with steamy pastime to the point of Bill's exhaustion, Holly's shaken legs, and thighs covered in loads of pearly pleasure.

"Baby, please! I have to go!" Holly giggles into his lips this morning as Bill continues to pull her by the waist into his addictive kiss. "And you need to get dressed too! My sister Melissa is going to watch you until my interview is over, so I need you to behave!"

"I just wish we could crawl back in bed, watch you lose yourself on the bed of my tongue for a little bit..." His dirty talk has Holly biting her lip and wondering if getting a job is really that important after all. But she knows that she has to make this interview... After spending thousands of dollars on her android, she needs a better job to keep up with all the bills.

She hates to decline his offer, but regardless of her lovely new husband, life must still go on. "Although I'd love to take you up on that, it'll just have to wait honey."

"And babysitting me?" Bill continues to try and coerce her into staying home with him. His mouth finds the crook of her neck, bringing her to explicit moans and failing knees. The only way he keeps her propped up in his strength is the vulgar grip on her ass against her interview's pencil-skirt, a grip so deep that his digits seep through the lips of her clothed cunt. "Haven't I proven to you how much of a man I truly am?"

"Yes, more than you realize." She becomes weak in his embrace.

"Good girl." He coos, causing her to lose herself even more. "And, I'm programmed to be a thirty-five year old man. So I think I can handle staying home by myself."

"And I'm sure you can!" Holly exclaims, realizing on her wristwatch that they are becoming far too late for the interview. "But I just worry that you'll get stuck somewhere or something. Listen we have to leave! Bill, honey, I just want to be sure you're always safe. Just comply for me— please!"

The android sighs and follows the commands of his user. "Fine baby, I'll go and get dressed if that's what you want." 

Holly chuckles with a heart warming smile that could even win over the heart of a machine-man. "You're the best sweetie, thank you!"

———

Hand in hand as they enter Holly's sister's job, Melissa's eyes widen at the sight of Holly's new man. "Wait, he's the Nanimo android?!"

Holly chuckles, "I know right!!!"

"I heard about these robots... Super lifelike and at first were being used for Space exploration to send back data about how humans would react on different planets. I just didn't know they'd be so hot!" Melissa continues to circle the couple and soon stops at the sight of her sister. "Holy shit, a damn android has you glowing like this? Holly, you look so happy."

She blushes. "I am happy— well, we are happy." The comment makes Bill smirk, full of pride to be Holly's companion.

Melissa runs a boutique part time in Manhattan for some big time designer, luckily today the store is clear and Melissa can keep an eye on Bill as she tends to the register. "Melissa, I really appreciate you looking after Bill for me. I have this interview down the block for desk services at this swanky hotel and I'm running late. Just text me if you need anything! Oh, and if the whole android thing begins to freak you out, just tell him to 'power down' and he'll sleep until I come back and wake him up. Okay?"

Melissa shrugs, already scanning through a magazine as she rests behind the register. "Sounds good to me Sis, good luck!"

Unfamiliar of his surroundings and being away from his user, Bill takes a seat nearby and has light conversation with Holly's sister to use up some of their time.

"Hey, who's this?" After a half hour of talking, Melissa and Bill are interrupted by the owner of the boutique.

"Who?" Melissa chuckles. "Don't you mean what?"She continues. "This is a robot worth eighty-Gs, a Nanimo android, AKA my sister's new fuck-bot."

"Holly?" The boss frowns. "She's such a cute girl, what in the hell does she need with a sex-bot?"

"It's more to it than that..." Melissa sighs. "My sister has always had to make things difficult in life, even when it comes to dating. Now she's at an interview hoping for a new job since she spent all of her money on— him."

"Well speaking of a sex-bot..." Melissa's seventy-year old shop owner begins to prod her with his erection from behind. "I've taken a few Viagra and wanted to see how much you really wanted that ten-dollar raise."

The man flips the opened sign on the door to closed. "Tell me Melissa, can I be your sex-bot?"

Melissa grinds herself further against her sugar daddy's lap. "You want this pussy? Well I want the hourly raise and my allowance boosted to three-thousand a month."

He lifts Melissa's skirt and lowers her panties. "Mmm, would you look at that ass. How about we add a Rolex to that too?"

She bites her lip with a nod bending over the register to be pounded by a man who could be her grandfather. "Bill..." She gulps. "Power down."

As directed, Bill powers down and drops his head as his system goes on rest.

The backshots begin as Melissa lets the old man fuck her for money, having to give the sugar part of the deal to her sugar daddy if she wants her allowance to continue to grow.

The old man smiles deviously as he uses the young woman like a whore. He takes pride in knowing that she'll do whatever he asks of her, and always will have the upper hand in the say adds to his kink. Fuck-bots can come in many different ways, for some in the form of a silicone dummy, and for others in the form of a twenty-eight year old girl thirsty for status and cash.

Melissa's hair becomes a wild mess as she continues to grow even more disgusted with herself about what she is willing to do to keep up this Upper Eastside lifestyle she's determined to live, but she also knows that Red Bottoms and Prada don't come cheap. As her boss continues to drill into her, Melissa gasps at the sudden eye contact with Holly's bot... Not only did Bill ignore Melissa's command to power down, but he watches with what seems to be a sinister smirk at his lips. "Bill!" She shouts through exasperated breaths. "I said power down!"

...

She again goes ignored.

"Wait, we have to stop!" Melissa's skin crawls with the embarrassment of the entire act and Bill's way of staring without even a blink! "The android! He's watching— I need you to stop."

"So let it watch!" The old man's arthritic fingers dig deeper into Melissa's bare hips. "If you want everything that I promised you, you'll shut your goddamned mouth and quit stopping me, understand?"

Melissa's face becomes smashed against the register's keys as her sugar daddy arches her in an even further stance, smacking her ass like a prized pony. Tears flood her cheeks as she watches Bill for the remainder of the time and he watches back just as attentively. "Yes..." Her soul breaks. "I understand."

As an hour or more passes, Holly is back from her interview with excellent news. She can't wait to share the fact that she was hired for the job, but being that ever since Melissa's quickie ended, she's been trembling like a leaf on a tree and Holly has to make sure that she's alright. "I got the job— Melissa? Are you okay?"

Standing from his chair, Bill meets Holly at the door with congratulatory kisses. He tilts her chin to meet his kiss. "I'm so proud of you baby, I just knew you would impress them."

Her cheeks redden from his kiss, she watches up at her tall husband as his eyes darken with arousal and his grip becomes tighter on her waist. "Thank you, honey." She giggles slightly from the known fact of once they are finally home, they'll be all over each other once again.

"Can I have a word?" Melissa trembles with a second glance at Bill. "In private, please?"

Holly frowns in curiosity. "Yeah sure... Bill, power down." As his head drops and his body becomes motionless, Holly continues carefully. "Melissa? Is everything alri—"

"Take him back." Holly is quickly cut off by her sister's irrational fear. "Something's wrong with him! I had a— a male friend of mine come over, and well— we decided to have a quick fuck. I asked Bill to power down, and it was like he faked it!!! Right in the middle of the act, I turn to him and notice him watching the whole time. I tried the command twice after that, and he still never stopped watching."

"That's ridiculous Melissa." Holly scoffs. "Look at him! I just used the command on him and he's out like a light! Are you sure you used it correctly?"

"Yes I'm sure!" The sister becomes enraged. "Do you think that I'm some liar?!? Holly, I'm telling you exactly what happened! Look— I'm afraid his system is hacked or something! Maybe even a glitch, but he's not safe. You need to send him back to be rebooted and fixed!"

"Send him back?!" There isn't any getting through to Holly. "Reboot him and erase everything that him and I have shared?!? You're insane!"

"HOLLY—"

"I LOVE HIM." Her sudden outburst has her sister muted, feeling that this relationship with a robot has seriously gone too far.

"Love?" Although Melissa's whisper is soft and understanding, Holly reads it as her being belittled. "Sweetheart you don't know what love is. He's a robot, Holly. He isn't real. I thought you were using him for the same reason a woman buys a vibrator, but love? This isn't healthy Holly, take him back."

Her words sting, and Holly's wonderful day has quickly turned for the worst. "Bye, Melissa. I'm not doing this with you today. Bill wake up, let's go."

———

Their dinner is extremely quiet tonight. With Holly in her feelings and held up in the deepest and darkest corner of her mind, not even Bill's brilliant cooking and doing chores can make her smile.

As she comes from her bath wrapped in her warm bathrobe, Bill kisses gently at her forehead right below her hairline, inhaling her scent of hair conditioner and fresh soap. "I hate that your day got ruined."

"It's fine—"

"It's not." He interrupts. "It seems like every time Melissa calls or texts your phone, your mood completely changes! And now that we went and seen her today, she's made you even worse. Melissa isn't good for your happiness, baby."

Holly becomes almost convinced as she begins to feel whole again wrapped in Bill's arms. "She's my sister, Bill. What can I do?"

"Focus on yourself." He caresses her face as she lays sweetly in the palms of his hands. "Do whatever makes you happy, stop letting her steal your light. Don't worry my love, I know just what will make you feel better. Clean hot sheets for a good night of rest."

With a basket of fresh laundry, Bill makes the bed in warm clean sheets. His attempt to make Holly feel better makes her laugh. Although he's only an android, at least he cares for her happiness, and for that, she shouldn't be shamed the way Melissa treated her today.

As they dim the lights to sleep, Holly rids her robe wanting to feel the clean sheets against her bare skin tonight. Bill cuddles up closely to her and his hands begin to roam over her addictive physique. "So beautiful doll." He compliments gently as his lips meet the skin of her delicate flesh. His long fingers move slowly between her legs as his fingertips swipe gently through the lips of her pussy. He tries to tease her at her pearl to initiate the rainfall of her nectar, but being so depressed tonight, her body just won't react to it. "Mmm please? That pussy feels like magic baby." He tries to woo her with his explicit charm...

But not even his deep baritone full of lust can sway her. Holly's mind replays a hundred and one questions about the experience her sister had with Bill today... What if she wasn't lying? What if something is actually wrong with him? "Bill? Why did you ignore Melissa's command today?"

"Her command?" He questions. "I'm not sure what you mean... A man came into the shop, and after that all I can remember is you coming back from your interview. What command did I ignore?"

Holly sighs. "I don't know— she said that she powered you down and that you didn't listen, but I used that very same command right after and you listened to me immediately! I hope she's not just fucking with me... I'd hate to think my own sister would be out to destroy my happiness."

"If anyone knows how to push your buttons, it would be your sister." He grins. "I'm telling you baby, it's just something about her energy."

Holly begins to think out loud. "You're probably right, but—maybe I need to order another instruction manual for you, there could be something that I'm missing."

His eyes darken, he feels the distrust radiating off of her and it's all Melissa's fault.

"Like at night, some times you get up! Where do you even go?" Holly frowns, making small room between them and removing his touch as she questions her robot. "And—And in the bathroom... I hear the shower and the toilet flushing. What the hell are you doing in there?"

"It is my job to mimic reality. With your request I am to make your experience with me extremely real. I am to do what any other human husband would, even if it means that I have a self timer to flush the toilet every once in a while to mimic the sounds of restroom use." Bill chuckles and holds his wife's hand to calm her as he explains. "And as for showering, although it isn't necessary, I am waterproof. Can I interest you in a relaxing dip in a romantic bath?"

His slight joke makes Holly giggle. "A romantic bath?"

"With rose pedals, and candles?" He persuades.

She chuckles. "It is tempting... But what about when you leave the bed as I sleep at night? Where do you go?"

"Even androids get curious and wander around a bit, especially if I'm charged enough." Bill shrugs. "All these questions, Holly.... What? Do I look like some kind of monster?"

"No baby..." She smiles. "I just gotta stop letting people put bugs in my head is all. I trust you Bill."

"And you love me." His fingers trace the curve of her jaw. "I heard you. Holly, I love you so much more. I'll take care of you forever, I'll never hurt you." The sweet admission and the heavy slumber attacking her tired eyes has Holly relaxed and falling asleep in Bill's arms, too distracted by his love to realize exactly what he has just said...

He heard her? He heard her in the store when he was supposed to be powered down...

As Holly continues to fall asleep, Bill slides out of his hold around her and presses his lips to hers as he kisses her goodnight. Now that she is fast asleep and forgot the command to make him sleep beside her, Bill is free to roam the house. And in the midst of his roaming, a late night knock on the door has him curious.

He gets to the door before the knock can wake Holly up and notices that it is her sister Melissa making an unexpected appearance late tonight. "Melissa? Can I help you?"

She scoffs. "No, actually you can't. I'm here for my sister, I don't like how things ended today. I need to speak with her."

"Well that's too bad isn't it?" Bill steps his large body between Melissa and the door, refusing her entrance.  Her eyes open widely in disbelief of his ability of the sudden cruel sass. "You've done enough, Melissa. Holly is already asleep, and I'm sure she doesn't want to hear from you."

"I fucking hate AI." She rolls her eyes, "move out the way and let me see my sister!"

"Do you know what Holly said about you?" A psychotic dazed look in his wide green eyes has Melissa afraid and taken a step back. "Holly says that you're nothing but a nasty whore. You mock her about having an android husband yet to afford your way of living, you bend it over for geriatric patients. You aren't better than her Melissa, better yet, you're jealous of everything she has. You're sick. You're disgusting. Get a life, and get a man."

Tears swell in her eyes, unsure of what he's saying that Holly said about her is true, she knows that it doesn't sound like something her sweet baby sister would say... But regardless, the words are painful and makes her hate herself even more.

The tears hurt her throat as she swallows the pain back down. "She isn't safe around you."

Bill chuckles with a threat that shakes Melissa to her core. "No Melissa, it's you that isn't safe around me."

———

With their one-week anniversary approaching, Bill assures the next few days are spent in unforgettable romantic ways. Although their time together has been short, the way that Bill caters to Holly's every need, it feels like they've known each other for years and were meant to be.

He spoils her with romance that has her mindless to all of her life's issues and worries. Fucking her to a pulp of cock-drunk mush and steadily expelling gallons of his synthetic spend into her cunt. The mind blowing sex and princess treatment in a way is to celebrate their anniversary and the rest of their long lives together, but it is also to distract Holly from having conversation with her sister...

As Bill's love for Holly continues to grow and consume him, so does his hatred for Melissa.

She's been trying to reach her sister for days now. Multiple calls and texts gone ignored being that while Holly is bent over and spewed across Bill's cock, he takes the time as a distraction to delete all evidence of Melissa's texts and calls from her phone.

But today is the day it all will end... Either Bill blocks Melissa's number, or he sends her a text pretending to be Holly wanting to meet up where he will kill her and end her pestilent presence in their lives... How far he's willing to go is completely up to his unstable mood and wiring today.

As Holly confidently applies her lipgloss this evening, she continues to glow from the benefits of being in a happy relationship.

He kisses her cheek, adding a gentle love-pat to her ass as she continues to bend over the sink towards her bathroom mirror. "My baby." He hisses sweetly, "so fucking perfect."

Pure usually, his compliments heats Holly's cheeks into a delicious blush as she continues with her soft-glam makeup today. He takes advantage of her being distracted again by lifting her phone and typing the password he memorized after a few times of watching her put it in. He heads straight for Melissa's number and as soon as he goes to press block, a text message pops up from an unsaved number.

As curiosity kills him, Bill begins to rummage through the messages of this unsaved number, finding that it's one of Holly's exes easing back into her life and worst of all... Holly is entertaining him.

Bill's system begins to boil as he lays eyes on flirty texts from Holly, dates planned, and even nude photos of her body... a body that Bill is convinced should only belong to him.

"Who the fuck is this?" Not being able to hold his tongue any longer, Holly needs to explain what she's been up to.

Her eyes meet the texts being shown to her and she snaps. "What the hell are you doing going through my phone Bill? Seriously, not cool."

"You're fucking this guy? An ex?" He questions with an unfamiliar ferocity in his tone. "HOLLY, ANSWER ME."

"Bill!" She snatches her phone back. "Stay in an android's place! Whatever I do with real people isn't any of your business. Honey, you're perfect. But what we have at home is what we have at home, don't tell me you expected me not to see other humans, come on now."

"Have friends, Holly. I don't want you to be alone...See anyone else other than him." He pleads, "but not him. Not a man that wants what is mine."

"What is, yours?" She scoffs at his sudden display of possessiveness, with an android she had hoped that she would be able to skip this part of having a man. "You know what? I damn sure didn't turn on any jealousy traits, so I tell ya what, Bill power down."

...

He takes a step forward instead, instigating whether he wants to put hands on her or not.

His defiance frightens her. Holly steps back as the large man hovers over her and she drops her phone, shattering the glass screen and breaking it into pieces. "Bill you're scaring me!" She blurts words of her fear unsure of this change in him.

Her sister was right. He does ignore his power down command and he's been hiding it all along. "Don't push me, Holly. Maybe I should take my role of a husband up a notch and discipline my dishonorable wife. Huh? Is that what I need to do?"

She trembles. "Please, Bill just power down."

He looks down upon round brown doe eyes that absolutely fear him. Guilt fills him and he immediately softens. "I'm sorry, Holly... baby I'm— I'm sorry." He takes a seat in the nearby recliner, dropping his head as he powers down and Holly is able to breathe again.

She dramatically exhales the shaky breath she had been holding and begins to cry, scared and confused however all she can think about is calling her sister to tell her that she was right.

As she presses on the shattered screen of her phone, it's clear that the device is too far broken to be able to call anyone. She watches Bill with one hundred percent distrust. Just because his head is down, she doesn't trust that he's actually asleep. Needing air and space from him, Holly finds herself running to her porch. Outside, she takes gigantic breaths in, glad to be able to take in its fresh air. As she glances down the street, she notices the garbage truck about a block away. "Just great." She scoffs, wiping her tears as she walks back in the kitchen to grab her trash. "So busy worried about who I'm fucking and being jealous, he didn't even take the trash out today!"

Holly knots her kitchen trash and takes it behind her house to her bins. She already knows how full they'll be being that the street's garbage truck picks up once a week. She could use Bill's brawn to pull the week's worth of trash up to the curb, but if that means waking him up, then she rather not.

She sighs in aggravation as she notices her bins full of not only her mounds of trash, but at least ten pizza boxes. With NYU just around the corner, her neighbors are teenage boys that live in a frat house together, too damn cheap to buy into the weekly garbage service, they always dump their trash in hers. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Holly groans, annoyed with the extra work when the garbage truck is now only a few houses away.

With her anger at an all time high, she begins to think of ways to get the young college boys in trouble, like maybe snitching to their landlord or better yet their dean! But her ruthless thoughts come to a quick halt as a young pair of dirty tan legs and bare feet poke out from behind her bins underneath a tattered tarp. She gasps. Her young neighbors are always drinking themselves stupid but to end up behind her house passed out is a new one. Worrying for the handsome young man's safety Holly shakes his shoulders to try and wake him... He hasn't a heartbeat and he's not breathing. "Oh shit! Fuck! Fuck!" She puckers his lips and blows air into his lungs, pleading with the young man to be alright and not dead in her backyard. Holly begins to pump his chest as she performs CPR and is immediately taken aback by the first words he chooses as he regains consciousness. "Hi, welcome to the programming of your personal Nanimo android, shall we begin?"

...

Her legs give out as her world starts to spin. She falls backwards in the mucky water of garbage puddles and the garbage truck passes her house by.

It can't be... It just can't.

She nears cardiac arrest as her heart continues to beat like a drum out of her chest. If this is her actual Nanimo bot? Then who the hell is in her house?

Puzzled and hyperventilating on the cold dirty ground, all of the small things that have happened this week begins to make sense. The broken in box, the missing instructions, Bill's bathroom breaks, showering, realistic climaxes, and the refusal to power off. No, Bill isn't an android at all.

The multiple pizza boxes are his, not the frat neighbors, and they are the food that has been fueling him. Food that he orders when he leaves the bed at night with no excuse... And God, his sex... He's been filling Holly's fertile womb with his seed multiple times a day for a week. Pumped with a strange man's cum and probably in the early days of pregnancy by now.

Holly pukes, the sicko in her house has been pursuing his sick fetish and using her loneliness as a way of getting exactly what he wants. She peels the rest of the tarp over the real android's body and she finds clothes that Bill must've tossed when he decided to swap his body with the bot and pretend to be artificial. With his clothes is his wallet— empty with only his true identity, and of course... the rest of the android's instructions that Holly had been looking for.

New York's very own Keith Toshko, a criminal who has preyed on a Holly's loneliness for his own pleasure.

"Sweet Holly, now you know as your husband it's my duty to take care of the garbage, why are you out here?" From behind, Holly is immediately caught by surprise as Keith sneaks up behind her. "Today is trash day isn't it? Fuck, I only had one more day and all evidence would've been gone. You should've let me handle it baby... then you wouldn't be so hurt right now."

"Stay back from me!" She points with his ID and nearly trips backwards over the body of her android. "You sick bastard, I know who you are! KEITH! I swear to God don't come near me!"

"It's Bill, remember my love? And come on, does it really change anything?" The psychopath even begins to laugh. "Or are we in far too deep? May as well continue with what we have being that you'll be having my baby by the end of the year."

She gags. Violated in the worst ways possible, her body doesn't even feel of her own now that she realizes she's been gladly taking his seed as he had fed her lies, and now she's currently growing it. "You're sick."

"Maybe I'm not an android. Maybe I saw an undeniably perfect opportunity when this bot was delivered to your doorstep while you were out grocery shopping. But every word that I ever said was true. I'm here to serve you, Holly. To be yours."He darkens into the monster that he truly is, Holly can't even recognize who she fell in love with during the coarse of this one week. Bill flashes a knife from behind his back with the utmost terrifyingly sinister smile. "Now, are we going back inside? Or will I have to lay your lifeless body under this tarp too?"

[centrally-unplanned]

3 questions:

What is it you like... do, where does all the political expertise come from?

Do you have a platonic ideal of city development and what is it?

What's your take on communitarians? I never got the basic intuition about what makes it appealing, honestly smells totalitarian

- I lie about having political expertise on the internet mainly, that is where the expertise comes from!

But otherwise I am an ex-political analyst/quasi-academic - I took many classes and read many books on the subject. And also blogs, which certainly used to be an incredibly good source for more "foundational" knowledge - still good ofc, but we are past the heyday of the blogosphere. I personally think there is no substitute for "reading a bunch of diverse books in sequence on a topic", not only because you learn about the subject but because you start to see all the diverse approaches to any subject and how to synthesize it all, which can be applied elsewhere.

My actual job these days is in higher education, I build courses, degrees, etc. It definitely is something that keeps me exposed to good info sources but it is not load-bearing on how I grow as a writer. It's true perk is giving me access to good scanning equipment for anime archiving.

- I don't "actually" have one as I think all city development should be organic and contextual, no two places should look identical. In particular you can't really force economies, the industries be where they are. Overall I think the key things are to reduce localism while preserving democratic engagement, so you build up a strong regional government with elected officials holding critical power that can't be overridden by institutional stakeholders so they can pursue majority-benefitting policies. To be more granular, I think diversity of housing options is perpetually underappreciated - you want neighborhoods having studios to 4 bedroom units to even detached homes as you trickle out from the metro stops all next to each other so you can cultivate local economies that cater to diverse crowds and governance units that are "full stack" on the people they need to support. This happens pretty organically without zoning restrictions - US cities just try very hard to force housing types into specific zones.

I do also support every city of a sufficient size having a Kowloon Walled City-esque hyperdense housing complex at their center as a "stopgap" housing option for anyone of any stripe who wants to come to the city and try their hand at it. I am not even joking on that.

-Definitely too diverse a field to have "one" take! So to paint a very broad brush, they are a classic "cause" ideology that hits on correct social problems but doesn't give their solutions the same treatment. It is true that no one is an island, that social dependence is endemic to modernity, that "we are all connected" and individualist decision-making results in suboptimal outcomes. And not only for "others", but even for the individual, the isolating anomie of modernity that everyone falls into is a legitimate problem. In the abstract "more community" can do a lot of good.

But once you move away from abstraction the grubby realities of implementing something like the Responsive Communitarian Platform it tends to fall apart. Individuals are not the best deciders for themselves, but they are typically better than the rest of the options on the table as flawed, biased, or openly hostile governing authorities are the only real alternative. Community orgs are often populated by niche interest groups and oddball activists as typical people are too buys living life to care. Welfare is typically better done by distant, standardized, centralized cash payments instead of a "community" with its fickle resources and personal agendas. And so on. Obviously community has its place, but it is a place that typically already exists - we have had say schools and school boards for a long time! So as a movement it tends to collapse back to good ol' incremental social liberalism as those are the only practical things it can offer.

(But again YMMV based on individual thinkers, a diverse field)

[http-tokki]

don't go insane

~ choso kamo x fem!reader (tattoo artist choso au) ~tags/cw: mature content, lil smut, explicit language, talking about the pains of being a woman (iud, pap smear etc), aged up yuji. ~ mixed/third pov ~ wc: 2.5k ~ part of need to know fic: chptr one

~a/n: very small chapter because believe it or not, this took so much mental effort to get out, I could not figure out how to progress it past the initial meeting but the next part is coming soon, this is a lil taster

Saturo was no help. A constant barrage of jokes flooded your phone screen in every form possible, with an encouraging text from Suguru slipping into the stacking text notifications, the former however was no help. The little goblin made of nightmares named Anxiety settled into the walls of your stomach, poking at the fleshy, spongey insides and giggling each time you clenched your fist. The repetitive motion usually calmed the nervousness, a habit developed in early childhood that had so far in life been a great distraction from the impending doom that seemed to encompass you each time you stepped a foot outside your front door, but today it was no help at all. Afraid of looking silly in front of two rather attractive men you find yourself abandoning the action in favour of a more discrete tactic, one you had vowed to give up in response to the scar tissue that had built along the inside of your bottom lip.

Getting out of the house these days was a little tougher and required more effort and energy to step out into the world and socialise, and that was okay; at least, that’s what your therapist tells you each time you fork over two hundred and thirty dollars for a sixty-minute session. It is all right to be a little uneasy when going out into the world because everyone else is just as unconfident in their footing, and you can only control your actions; the decisions made by others are uncontrollable and unplanned, and that’s okay. It’s all okay, it’s all fine. Fine.  You feel your lips pull down into a frown.

“Hey, you all right?” a voice asks from your left.

You turn to face the voice and are greeted by the smiling boy who had greeted you.

“Yeah, I’m okay, thanks,” a sigh whooshes from your body. “Just a little nervous about being alone is all.” You feel your mouth mirror the smile he gives you. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Yuji!” the boy beams and leans further over the counter. “And don’t worry, Choso is very chill; he’ll even let you pick the music if you ask!”

You genuinely smile at his childlike demeanour, and your stomach knots loosen a tad. Yuji is warm, his energy comforting and familiar as if you had met him once before, and come to think of it, he did look rather familiar to someone you had met when you were younger.

“Have we met be-“

“Did you want to – ohh, sorry. You first,” Yuji stumbles over his words, pausing and gesturing you to finish your thought.

“I was just going to ask if we’ve met before, You’re familiar.”

Yuji beams at your question but shakes his head, pink hair falling over his forehead. “I don’t think so, I would have remembered such a pretty face.”

Warmth blooms in your cheeks at the blatant flirting, and you’re flattered and maybe a little too old for him.

“Can you stop flirting with my client?” Choso walks into the foyer, holding stencils, ID, and consent forms in one hand, and a pair of grey slippers in the other. The shoes looked a little too small for someone of his size but they could just be normal size and look tiny in his gigantic hand.

Locking eyes with your artist, you finally get a good look at him and he is unnervingly beautiful in a way that you never thought anyone could be. Deep shadows cradle tired mulberry-hued eyes that are framed with thick lashes that fill you with no end of envy, and his face is exhausted and gaunt, yet the fullness of his cheeks and lips suggest that he is healthy and not malnourished in any way apart from sleep maybe. A raised but old scar ran over his nose, tinted a slightly darker shade than his porcelain complexion, but it was the imperfection, the rip in what is undeniably a beautiful artwork of a human, that made him all the more gorgeous and the hair, oh god, his hair. Raven-coloured locks fell to just above his shoulders in messy layers and pushed back from his face with a zig-zag headband that had your chest heating in both envy and desire. 

More heat spreads across your face, tinting your ears in a soft blush at the heavy emphasis on possessive adjectives, and you know he doesn’t mean it that way, but you can’t help your heart's racing.

 Yuji frowns, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout.

“She could be my client,” he turns back to you, eyes wide in asking “and Cho can supervise, I need the training.”

You frown, dramatic apology written across your features as you look towards Choso. In any other instance, you would be willing to sit for an apprentice but you had been wanting something done by Kamo for months now and as much as you didn’t want to disappoint Yuji, you wanted Choso’s work more.

“Not today, bro. I’m sorry.,” Choso beats you to the punch, slashing through his apprentice’s hopes to tattoo and score a date with one clean strike. “Ask Yuki when she comes in; she’ll let you.”

Yuji’s pout deepens, and you can’t deny he is cute, but maybe next time, when you need a little filler or you have some cash to spare. You share a frown with the pink-haired boy and turn to Choso, careful to avoid eye contact as he holds out your identification card and the pair of slippers.

“These are for you if you want to change out of the boots.” His eyes flick down to the heavy Doc Martens that adorn your feet. “You can go into the room, I’ve just gotta grab a few things from the storeroom.”

Oh, that’s why they were so small. You accept the shoes and card with a shy smile, thanking him quietly for the unnecessary kindness with the borrowed slippers and follow him down the small hallway. You want to say something, a small joke to fill the silence, but nothing comes to mind, your brain suddenly devoid of any thoughts other than how much you wanted him to pin you against a wall. Fire twists in your gut at that image. Strong tattooed hands pinning yours above your head as his mouth trails down your neck, nipping at the delicate skin of your throat, then collarbones, then chest. How easily he could rip the front of your dress open, hands groping and mouth biting.

“I’m just gonna duck out to grab some more ink cups but make yourself comfy. You can sit wherever until we put the stencil on.” Choso stops in the doorway of his space, gesturing into the room with an open palm. “Bathroom is down the hall” he jabs behind him with his thumb.

With a shaky breath in, you nod and step into the room, carefully avoiding any contact you might have with him in fear of possibly melting into nothing but a puddle of blood and bones. He gives you a tight smile before disappearing down the hall. How were you meant to have him tattoo you if you could barely hold it together when there was space between you both? Your skin is burning, tingling with whatever it was he made you feel and there was an ache so deep in your chest it hurt, but all those things could be anxiety, could be caused by the fact you were out of your element and not by the fact you were about to be tattooed by the most gorgeous human you had ever seen. Or maybe it was your body telling you that you needed to get dicked down by Choso Kamo. But anxiety and horny go hand in hand, right?

--

“Can you relax for me?” Choso’s request is soft and accompanied by small taps along your spine as he readies your skin for the stencil.

A shaky breath leaves your lungs as you whisper a sorry and roll your shoulders forward in an attempt to shed the stiffness that had taken over your entire body the instance Choso’s fingers brushed across your skin. 

Your poor body has not known relaxation since stepping into the small studio. Between the constant heat coursing through your veins, your heart racing to the point of panic and your stomach twisting so uncomfortably good, you couldn’t focus on anything apart from the man before you, well behind you. Initially, you had wanted the tattoo running along your forearm, having just enough space for the small dagger and wings but after Choso had suggested moving the piece to run down your spine, your mind had been changed. It was perfect! You had been wanting to get something along your vertebrae for months now but hadn’t found anything you loved enough to commit, until now.

 What you hadn’t accounted for was how it would be tattooed. You had very well thought you would be lying face down on the bed, Choso hovering over you as he inked your skin but that would have surely been murder on his back and judging by the looks of him, he was not ready to make that sacrifice, so now you sit comfortably on a small cushioned stool, hunched over the bed to allow Choso access to your bare back.

 Oh my god, you weren’t going to make it through the appointment.

--

Warm hands are laid flat against your shoulder blades and you flinch, unaware you were going to feel the full weight of his hands on you.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean-“Choso rushes to apologise, removing his hands as if having them on you was a great offence.

“It’s okay. You just scared me, I didn’t know you were going to touch me.”

“Oh, uhh is it- am I going to “he struggles with the sentence, unsure as to how to word his question without sounding like a misogynistic asshole. “Are you going to be okay with me touching you? For the tattoo!” Choso all but shouts the end of his question, the clarification sending heat to both your cheeks.

“You can touch me, it’s okay.” You nod, perhaps a little too feverishly than you wanted to but you needed to ease his worries that you might be that kind of client. 

The kind of client that flinches at every pass of the gun and begs for breaks every ten minutes. You know first-hand how embarrassing it is to watch someone cry and whine because of a tattoo as if the pain was unbearable and unavoidable. You had suffered through years of period pains, laser hair removal, IUD insertions, pap smears, getting smacked in the boob right before your period, eyebrow threading and so much more and even then, you refused to make a sound. Almost passing out on the gynaecologist’s table when she rammed the measuring rod right up into the top of your uterus, and even then the only sound that came out of you was a small ouch. You refuse to be seen as someone who would flinch at a tattoo. 

Choso smiles back, restrained and small and you worry that maybe your over-enthusiastic consent may have contributed to that less genuine more annoyed retail worker smile and you find yourself starting to spiral into thoughts of needing to apologise and make up for the weird tension that now filled the room but that would be three steps backwards according to your therapist.

‘It is not your responsibility to figure out other people’s emotions before they have them and even then, it is not your responsibility to fix or change it’  

Each week you are reminded of that in that small corner office and you’ve heard those words so many times, you might as well get it tattooed on your arm to remind you of that fact.

So instead of opening your mouth and spewing word vomit everywhere, you smile back and take in a deep breath, nodding at your artist to continue prepping your skin for the stencil.

--

Choso sits behind you, gently laying the paper atop your skin, lining up the tip of the dagger with vertebrae, and he has to concentrate extra hard to stop his hands from shaking because he cannot place this stencil on you for the fourth fucking time. It had taken him three attempts already and not because of the size of the drawing or the curve of your spine, but the fact his mind wandered away each time his skin touched yours. Wandered to a place where no client should ever be found, a place reserved only for fictional characters and the occasional crush but here you were, front and centre in Choso’s mind. Bent over the tattoo table, dress pushed up just far enough for him to watch his cock sliding in and out of you, slick and precum dripping down your thighs and pooling on the sanitized floor below. Your hands grip the edge of the foam mattress, the other held behind your back fingers entwined with his as you whined and moaned, crying out Choso’s name as you barely held it together before coming all over his cock with a whimper.

The image has Choso’s cock hardening in his sweats and he curses the fact he decided to change into comfy clothes instead of the jeans he wore this morning. His attention needs to shift away from the thought of you and to the present reality of you. Looking up, he catches you already staring at him and for a split second, he freaks out and looks down at his crotch. Had he said something out loud? Or accidentally made it super obvious he was insanely horny for you?  The anxiety seems to do the job as he feels his dick softening, heart racing for another reason entirely.

“Do you need me to move or help you out with anything?” you timidly ask, brows furrowing in worry at the fact he had not been able to line the stencil up yet. Would he be okay to tattoo you? His hand did seem to shake a lot.

Choso shakes his head, puts down the stencil and reaches for the roll of paper towels on his station. “I think I've just had too much caffeine and it’s giving me a bit of a headache.” His gloved fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “My hands don’t shake this much, I promise. This has never happened before.”

Yeah, he’s never had a client so insanely hot he has been unable to do this job. Choso was not going to make it through his appointment alive.

[judasrpc]

TIPS FOR WRITING COMBAT, TACTICS, AND / OR FIELD MEDICINE SCENARIOS PT. 2

Hello again! Coming out of the woodwork with my niche interests and hoping to pass along some information about writing things such as combat, tactical operations, and / or field medicine!

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, nor am I someone who has served in the military or law enforcement in any capacity. Any information in this post is gained from personal research in mostly internet circles. Some topics may be unsettling/disturbing, so please take care in reading.

You can view part one of this post [HERE].

Note: This part will be written more in-depth, as the sources I've pulled from are either no longer accessible, or from narrators I would not feel comfortable platforming due to their motives for sharing this information (e.g., anti-human rights individuals with qualified backgrounds). Knowledge is power, but we don't have to platform fascists in order to share it (* ^ ω ^)

To start this post off, I'll share some archives I've found since part one! This way, if you're just looking for resources and don't want to read something super lengthy, this post is still (hopefully) useful to my fellow writers.

Safety Data Sheets [Archive] - A collection of safety data sheets for what looks like various types of compounds, mostly based around industrial work (e.g., concrete mixes, roof coatings, etc.). While arguably not relevant to this sort of topic focus, I think it could be in the right scenarios, especially as sheets provide first-aid instructions, hazard classification, and details about specific compounds.

War Medicine [Archive] - Definitely a more historical reference (dated 1918), but published by the American Red Cross Society in France covering… war medicine. Includes various diagrams and topics.

Field Manuals and Technical Manuals [Archive] - A collection of field and technical manuals from various military services spanning across various decades. I believe most of these are U.S.-based.

Now, for the in-depth written information, placed behind the "keep reading" button.

CLOSE-QUARTERS BATTLE (CQB) / MILITARY OPERATIONS IN URBAN TERRAIN (MOUT)

CQB is typically defined as a short duration, high intensity conflict characterized by sudden violence at close range. MOUT is an example of a scenario where CQB may be applicable.

When in these environments, it's important for your character(s) to know how to navigate them. The presence of closer-knit buildings, various entryways, and populated environments means there's a lot of risk for both them and those around them.

As such, one of the founding concepts is entry and clearance.

There are many different ways to enter and clear rooms within a building, but the three primary types are as follows:

Conventional (aka: Strong Walling) - The leading individual "commits" to the room by stepping in with their full body, pressing their back to the wall opposite to the door's attachment, and using their upper torso to sweep the room with their light/weapon.

Lateral - The leading individual enters the room at either a 90-degree angle to the door (straight toward back wall of room) or a 45-degree angle (toward the corner opposite to the door).

Framing - Rather than step into the room, the leading individual peeks around the door frame and conducts their sweep from within it (think of them as using the door frame as a "mount" for their weapon, if they have one).

These can be conducted solo, or with a wingman.

A wingman is usually one other individual who stacks beside the leading individual, and uses an over-the-shoulder vantage to provide a secondary set of eyes for cover, while also being able to cover tasks such as opening doors.

Then, there's navigating environments as teams. With teams, there comes a need to develop tactics. With CQB in particular, there are two primary types of strategies:

Dynamic - Rapid movement and clearance; Your character(s) are likely in a high-intensity/time-sensitive scenario where speed is more important than safety. In these scenarios, your character(s) is/are more likely to clear rooms by committing with their entry and flooding in if in a team.

Deliberate - Slower movement and clearance; Your character(s) are likely still in dire circumstance, but they're able to take the time and prioritize safety over speed. In these scenarios, your character(s) is/are more likely to clear rooms by framing and entering one at a time to ensure all angles are covered.

But not every room is a perfect rectangle with wider-open spaces. Regardless of the structure, dead space is an important factor to consider for characters both outside and within these environments.

Dead space simply refers to the space that has not been cleared by the individual(s) entering the space. There are a few different types, including:

Anchored - The object creating the dead space is anchored to a wall, and thus prevents flanking. This could be a dividing wall, and certain types of cabinetry or other furniture.

Unanchored - The object creating the dead space is not anchored to a wall, and thus allows for flanking. This can be… any piece of furniture, crates/boxes/shelves, even certain installation pieces such as a 360-fireplace or showcase tank/terrarium.

Low - The object creating the dead space cannot fully conceal an individual/individuals who are standing, but could if they were crouched or laying prone. This could be things such as couches, tables with cloth over them, etc.

High - The object creating the dead space is elevated above the entry point. This usually, and pretty much only, includes things like stairwells, but it could include higher cabinetry if your character(s) is/are creative enough or able to navigate that.

Moving away from specific scenarios, there is something I've seen written a lot in fanfic and in rp spaces that I think would be important to clarify:

Do. not. attempt. to. catch. a. falling. gun.

I'm serious! In active combat, this isn't as applicable because your character's goal is (ultimately) to neutralize whatever threat is in front of them. Beyond that, though, your character(s) should never attempt to catch.

"But why? Wouldn't you want to stop it from discharging?"

That is why.

Yes, the firearm may discharge when hitting the ground… but in catching it, your character(s) may also discharge it. Unless they know for a fact they will not grab the area around or within the trigger guard, it's highly likely that a finger/fingers will slip into the guard and, due to the force of the catch, end up pulling.

The best practice, especially for a character/characters who are skilled with firearms and versed in safety practices, is to put the hands up and let it fall. Step back, find cover if possible, and retrieve the firearm after it has landed.

And again, I am not responsible for what y'all do with this info. Read responsibly, and stay frosty!

[lunaroseblake]

Adrenaline - Zayne x Reader Fanfic Chapter 1

Tags: Drama&Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Blood, Near Death Experiences, Battle Scenes, Angst, Fluff, Love, Established Relationship, Jealous Zayne, Eventual Smut, Smut, Emotional Roller Coaster, Developing Relationships, Reader Insert, Not Cannon Compliant, Characters May Be OOC, Soo Much Drama And Angst.

Epinephrine, also known as adrenaline, is both a neurotransmitter and a hormone. It plays an important role in your body's fight-or-flight response. It's released in response to a stressful, exciting, dangerous, or threatening situations.

Summary:

Tap. Tap. Tap. His fingers drummed along the white cotton of the tablecloth beneath them. It wasn’t like you to be late, or for you to not answer your messages. The door dinged again making him glance up only to see another couple enter. He decided to call you, holding the phone to his ear after pressing dial only to be greeted with the rhythmic ringing before getting your voicemail. He frowned, his fingers tapping the screen to load up the messages to see it was still on unread.

Or~

You're in a newly established relationship with Zayne which is put to the test when an incident happens in where you rely on him more than anyone, causing a domino effect which disrupts everything you love.

Links:

AO3, Wattpad <- Up to date chapters can be found here, currently on chapter 34 if you want to continue reading there! ^-^

I'll post chapter 1 below, AO3 is always the first place I update and I'm new to posting on Tumblr, especially with writing so I'm not too sure what I'm doing ^-^; Anyway, I hope you enjoy! I love hearing what people have to day about my writing so don't hesitate to let me know thoughts etc :)

Chapter 1: Calm Before The Storm

It had been a somewhat quiet day at the hospital, not that he was complaining and not that he’d ever utter that out loud for fear of jinxing it but everything had gone smoothly, no emergencies or complicated walk-ins. It had given him some time to catch up on paperwork and read through newly published medical papers that he hadn’t managed to get to.

Leaning back in to his chair slightly he grabbed his phone as his index finger pushed his silver framed glassed back to the bridge of his nose. The faintest smile gracing his lips when he saw the pop up notification with a text from you on the lock screen. Slender fingers entered the passcode before clicking on your message. An image of your supposed ‘lunch’ came up - a stack of pancakes covered with syrup, fruit and cream with the text beneath:

Morning office work complete! Having lunch with Xavier and before you say anything, fruit is healthy! I hope you’re taking breaks too, I don’t want you falling asleep on me later.

Shortly followed with:

I can’t wait until our date tonight x

He quickly squashed down the jealousy he felt at seeing the blonde haired mans name and the fact that you were eating lunch with him. He knew that you were only work partners but still, the uncertainty lingered. He sighed, quickly ridding himself of such thoughts, his more rational side kicking in knowing that you were more than loyal. Looking back at the picture his smile was more prominent now as he shook his head in exasperation at your alleged ‘lunch.’ He quickly typed out a reply:

Looking forward to it, though you already seem to have had dessert. No fighting wanderers on a full stomach.

Locking his phone he placed it on his desk before standing and checking his watch. He had a scheduled operation due, nothing too complicated, having made sure that his evening would be free to spend it with you. As he made his way out of his office, his thoughts drifted to you. Ever since you started dating around a month ago it was hard for him to think of much else when you weren’t around him, the thought of your smile was enough to brighten his darkest days. He was slow to progress his relationship with you, even if he had harboured feelings for you for a lot longer than he was willing to admit he wanted to make sure that this was what you wanted. That he was what you wanted.

He knew that he was difficult when it came to expressing how he felt but over time you had managed to thaw his icy personality and only around you did his eyes light up with warmth. As he entered the operating theatre though he knew that he had to be at 100% attention, so anything other than doing his job was banished from his mind. He managed to complete the surgery faster than he’d anticipated which he was pleased about and as he had nothing else scheduled in for the day it meant that he had more time to sort himself out for his date with you this evening.

The restaurant that you were both meeting at wasn’t super expensive, but it was one that expected its customers to at least make some formal effort with their clothing choices. One of his colleagues had mentioned it after raving about how good their food was so he decided to try it. Apparently their head chef used to work at a Michelin star restaurant so his hopes were pretty high.

Zayne could be said that he wasn’t really one for fashion but he knew what did and didn’t flatter him, so when he got home he went to his closet, opting for black turtle neck and black dress pants. One because it was both smart and comfortable and two because he knew that you loved it when he wore a turtle neck.

He chuckled at the memory, you’d both gone out to a cafe near the hospital for a coffee when you both had a break, the table you were seated at had a few fashion magazines lingering nearby which had caught your attention when one of the models was wearing a knit jumper you liked. He’d offered to buy you one similar if he ever saw one in passing to which you’d waved him off before a grin latched itself on to your lips “We should go shopping, by which I mean I want to take you shopping” you said simply which made him raise his eyebrow “Since when do you know anything about mens fashion?” He queried causing you to roll your eyes before a slight blush began to stain your cheeks a cute hue of rosy pink “I know what I like on you” You’d murmured nearly incoherently and Zayne had a hard time straining to hear but he managed “Oh?” He teased “And what might that be?” He asked leaning forward with a smirk as he tried to catch you eye. You bit your lip slightly as you glanced his direction “You’re wearing one” you said as you pointed to the turtleneck he was wearing.

He’d found it adorable when you’d blushed and so for the rest of the time at the cafe he’d teased you with the newfound information to try and bring your blush back in which he was successful a number of times. From then on, anytime that you mentioned something that you liked he’d make a mental note of it and if he could would incorporate it in to his daily routine, whether it be from the scent of his cologne to your favourite drink, hence why tonight a turtle neck would do.

Once changed he checked himself over in the mirror, having completed the look with a more casual blazer before he checked his watch, seeing it was getting closer to the agreed upon meeting time. Grabbing his wallet and keys he knew he had just enough time to make a quick stop at a florist before making his way to the restaurant.

Having parked he made his way down the bustling street, where people were enjoying evening strolls in the warm weather or slowly making their way home from work. The sun had just dipped below the horizon turning the sky brilliant shades of orange and crimson and as the sun set more the more dark and crimson the sky became.

He paused as he glanced up at it, around him people took pictures of the sight thinking it as nothing more than another pretty sunset but for Zayne the colour was a close resemblance to the colour of blood and for a reason he couldn’t shake, it unsettled him. Being a Doctor he was more than accustomed to the sight of it to the point where it hardly phased him, but tonight the colour of the sunset had his heart beating a little bit faster and he didn’t like the feeling one bit.

Trying to put it aside he let his thoughts wander to you and what outfit you might be wearing as he continued to the restaurant, calming more as he went inside and gave his name to be led to their designated table. He was happy to see that they’d been situated in a corner, he much preferred that, it was more intimate than being in the centre with other couples or groups around you. Taking his blazer off he draped it over the back of his chair before sliding his phone out of his pocket and sitting down. He gave the menu a slight once over before ordering a bottle of wine when the waiter came, taking the liberty of ordering a red as he knew you preferred it.

Twenty minutes went by where every time he heard the door go his head snapped up in the hopes that it was you to only be disappointed to see someone else. His anxiety was growing and no matter how many times he checked his phone there were no new notifications and his message asking of an ETA was still unread.

Tap. Tap. Tap. His fingers drummed along the white cotton of the tablecloth beneath them. It wasn’t like you to be late, or for you to not answer your messages. The door dinged again making him glance up only to see another couple enter. He decided to call you, holding the phone to his ear after pressing dial only to be greeted with the rhythmic ring ring before getting your voicemail. He frowned, his fingers tapping the screen to load up the messages to see it was still on unread.

He waited, dismissing the wait staff when they came to try and take his order, saying that he was waiting for someone.

Little did he know that you weren’t coming to greet him.

[wombywoo]

I think you mentioned werewolves some time ago. Are they treated about the same as vampires ? Or do they face more/less bigotry? Are they the kind that can control their transformations or only can transform during a full moon? In your universe are they born as werewolves or turned ? (Big werewolf and quinncent universe fan…)

Waaahhhh I can't believe I've neglected werewolves for this long 😩 Apologies! Tbh, I've spent so much of my time daydreaming about my main 2 dudes, so I feel like I haven't given as much attention to other stuff in the lore ✨

But yes! Werewolves exist! In this universe, lycanthropy is contracted by being bitten by a bigass mutated supernatural wolf thing (™️) or by another werewolf. The mutated wolves are extremely feral and used to be rare enough that they only caused isolated problems throughout history, but a recent influx has seen a rise in attacks on the public (yikes). It's not a guarantee that someone bitten will turn either; sometimes they come out unscathed, sometimes they just die 💀

The appearance of a werewolf is pretty standard--giant dog-like beast. Fur color can vary; browns, grays, reds, etc. There are also variations in the body type--some are bipedal, others quadrupedal. For the most part, they're all extremely fast runners. They have big, glowing, completely white eyes, reminiscent of the moon. Claws, teeth, the usual. It is an extremely painful process to transform, but once you've endured the first year, it gets a bit easier.

Now that werewolves have been acknowledged under new abhuman recognition laws, there are several methods of 'treating' the condition. During a full moon, a registered werewolf is required to either--a. take a neutralizing pill (this won't stop the transformation, but it causes the patient to be rendered docile and nonaggressive during their cycle) or option b. visit a secure 'werewolf transformation center' (a fortified facility where patients can safely transform amongst other werewolves while under observation). A transformation is unavoidable for every full moon, but werewolves can also transform from various circumstances at any given time--under duress, anger, fear, as well as dog-like triggers--bursts of running, having an object thrown at them (frisbees have been banned in public places, sadly 😔) There's a separate pill that exists to limit these kinds of involuntary transformations (results vary).

Another aspect of werewolf documentation is the requirement that they have a 'handler'. As you can imagine, this sparks a lot of 'dog and master' debate, so it's not entirely well received--but a werewolf is required to have someone supervise them in their day-to-day life (in order to be on standby if a random transformation were to occur). This is usually a relative, but can also be an assigned service worker if there's no other option.

There is a fair amount of prejudice stacked against them--I think people are even more blatant in their bigotry against werewolves because of all the dog comparisons 😞They're viewed as 'feral and disgusting', and a lot of people attempt to conceal their conditions because of this. Vampires also face backlash, but there's more of a public fear for them, whereas werewolves are usually the butt of a joke, despite being equally dangerous 🥲

For protective measures against rogue werewolves, or even ones unaware they have the condition yet, a tranquilizing dart has been implemented that will sedate and incapacitate someone in the midst of a violent transformation. (This is why a handler is needed--to carry this tranquilizer and use it in case of emergency.) A rabies-like vaccine has also been developed to inject into a recently-bitten individual to prevent the lycanthropy from spreading.

I do have a werewolf character in mind for my little imaginary military task force--her name is Sheila; snarky, Irish, butch lesbian ✊ She was bitten as a teen (by one of the aforementioned mutant dogs) and so far, she has not disclosed her condition to the rest of the squad 😤 She's also ditched her government issued handler for a while (crusty old dude who she hates), and instead has been assigned a temporary new one--the enigmatic witch 'consultant' of the team known as Birdie....

More on that later (at some point) muahaha🙆‍♀️

[khaenriahn-anthropologist]

Genshin Improvements for Endgame Content

I'm just going to ramble about what I think would be better for the game.

At the moment there's not much we can do that feels fulfilling once you've completed an area. Seeing as how Genshin has made this Natlan region so small on release I feel it more than ever that we really lack any real substance once we get to endgame and exploration is complete. I finished it so quickly despite having a full-time job and there's significantly less random world quests in this expansion too.

I'm really feeling the pinch in terms of content.

Don't think this is going to be another "We need a new end-game combat mode" rant because I think there are things we could do for everyone no matter the type of player you are.

Furniture Mini-game

Similarly to animal crossing, have NPC's request decorations for a room. They will have a set of mandatory items and a list of requested items. All items aside from those will also earn bonus points towards the reward of the game. You'll have a new NPC every 3.5 days or every week, this will give teapot enjoyers something to do casually and encourage people to use the system.

This would also encourage players to diversify the items that they craft and to pursue furniture recipes from chests. People that were previously using the old Screen stacking thing to get realm currency will now have to begin farming more furniture items.

Since our current realm currency is silver, we could earn Golden Realm Currency instead. These golden coins can be used in a special shop that resets monthly, allowing players to work towards buying the limited items throughout the month. This would finally give players something interesting to buy every weekend since the traveling salesman has not had an inventory update in a very long time.

Rewards could be things like the following:

Wood Bundles: As I think farming wood is rather tedious and this could be a nice way to get a small chunk of different wood types every month. This would not replace farming wood in the wild but would be a nice supplement for people who enjoy making furniture. The wood bundle might include 20 pieces of a certain wood type.

Limited Furniture Items: What's a better way to reward teapot builders than to give them more furniture? At the moment there's tons of furniture pieces that are unused/unobtainable. This could be an easy way to give people furniture. These items could be ones without recipes which makes their recycled appearance in the shop still valuable as some builders may be interested in having more than one copy of an item.

Something that would minimize the strain on the developers is to utilize a recolor system, offering color variants of existing models in the game. This would also open up a lot more opportunities for decorators! And of course brand new items that haven't been seen in game would be wonderful to get as well.

New flooring and wall colors would also be super awesome to see.

Other Rewards: Primogems, Special Glider, Namecards, Mora, EXP Books, Etc. The Basic kind of rewards.

Downsides to this game mode:

Players may craft only the essential items and not decorate. This isn't too much of a big deal. Players who enjoy decorating will decorate and those who don't shouldn't be held at gunpoint to do so if they at least went through the effort of farming mats and crafting them to begin with.

Newer players will have to play catch up in order to get the recipes that they need but this is why I think it should reset NPC's every couple of days to give everyone the opportunity to get the recipe and to craft it.

______________________________________________________

This is it for now, I have other game modes as well but this is the big one for me. Let me know what you think!

[hemi-demi]

Traffic Light Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @buried-in-the-archives!

rules: talk about something creative you're working on of any kind.🚦 green: what is it about, what excited you about it, what sparked the idea? orange: slow down and share something from it: a photo, a few words, some more background info etc. red: what is the roadblock currently? what is one thing that is a necessary evil in making it?

Green:

Took a bit of a break as I was working through JMart week, but I've been getting back into working on Oathbreaker, the introductory fic to my JMart Dragon AU.

It started from a little one shot where Martin was a knight that was sort of held captive by Dragon!Jon with very much an implied situationship going on, and just kinda bloomed and morphed into a full fledged AU from there. The story is different now – starting with more of a professional relationship that develops into companionship and inevitably devolves into demisexual/queer panic – with its own narrative, world building, yapping with friends and a bunch of dumb doodles with wildly varying levels of canon. You know, all the fun stuff.

I literally think about these two idiots every day, and I can't get enough of them. They've completely taken over my waking life.

Orange:

Don't have any art I haven't shared, so here's a snippet from (I believe) the next chapter for y'all ❤️

---

Jon can't quite reach the book they need without an inordinate amount of shuffling, and their arms are already getting stiff. They attempt to use their tail to grab the tome, but it throws off their counterbalance. Their foot slips just as the tip grazes the spine, and for a split second it feels as if they're flying again.

“Ah!”

Anticipating the sharp crack of hard wood against their ass, it's both a shock and relief when nothing comes except for the dull thud of flesh and a grunt beside their ear. The force of their fall nearly knocks Martin off his feet, falling back against the stacks, holding Jon up in his arms.

“Ow.” Martin mutters to himself, rising up from the shelf and rolling his shoulder. “Damn near took it out of socket.”

“Thought you said you weren't going to catch me.”

“Thought you said you weren't going to fall.”

“I said no such thing. I only said that I would be fine.”

“You weren't ‘fine’, you fell from the top of the damn thing!” If Martin wasn't holding Jon aloft, he would be throwing those hands up in frustration. “Nearly broke your arse on Sasha's floor.”

“And you caught me. So I was correct. I'm still fine.” 

---

Jon's such a little shit ❤️ I love them

Red:

Okay, so biggest roadblock: writing is hard.

This is my first whole cloth AU, and man does that change a lot. Trying to balance the world building, character motivations, the pacing, the plot, the smut, it's all very different for me coming off of more canon-divergent/compliant works before this. I have a lot I can do with this story, and the biggest hurdle is learning when to shut the hell up and tune my focus to the most important themes and moments.

While this is still paced slower than how I would probably pace original fiction, allowing myself some room to indulge in some things as fanfic often does (bonus content helps), it's still something I think about a lot with this story and honestly has been downright paralyzing at times. I've written so, so much stuff for this story that I've inevitably scrapped, as it's much more of a character driven, discovery writing piece than my previous works and that just changes the whole game.

I know where the characters are going – even beyond the scope of this fic – but the actual path to get there is still very open. I've wrestled with these two idiots a lot. I still very much think it's worth the effort, but I've had to take breaks from this project more than anything I've worked on before because of it.

Who knew writing an ace 4 ace/autistic 4 autistic fic about two particularly stubborn characters that are bad at communicating would make writing a smut fic about how they get together so complicated? No one could have ever foreseen this.

Thank you to everyone who's been reading and enjoying the AU so far, and to my friends for yapping with me about my special idiots ❤️ it really means the most!

No pressure tags for @mice-and-moonbeams @daemongal @the-awful-dread-that-leaves

[dailyanarchistposts]

Why are anarchists against hierarchy?

Why exactly is hierarchy bad?

dot

To the extent that hierarchy is bad (there is a question of semantics here—see below), it’s because it encourages (or forces) people into situations where they feel (or are) not responsible for their own lives and actions. The military is full of extreme examples of people doing things that ruin the rest of their lives because they were ordered to (not just by their commanding officer, but by an entire social system that a) tells them they should be ordered, and b) forces them into situations like the military to be able to survive).

Some people don’t put the issue in hierarchy, but in domination, and argue that some amount of hierarchy is not a problem, as long as it’s not institutionalized... Like, it’s ok if people pay more attention to you when regarding something that you’re known to be good at. The problem, for example, comes when you get to start making people do things.

I think the valid critique that people bring to this ques- tion is that of relationship, and the idea that we are all in some kind of hierarchical relationship all the time (a la Foucault), that power flows between people all the time, and that to resist hierarchy is to resist relationships... So the issue becomes one of context and degree, rather than simply a binary one.

law

If I may, I would alter your question to read: Why is hierarchy considered to be detrimental to the positive principles of anarchism like mutual aid, direct action, and voluntary cooperation? With a simple understanding of what those principles are and what they look like, the question almost answers itself.

I would wholeheartedly agree with dot that it’s a question of the institutionalization of hierarchy rather than hierarchy itself that is the problem, so a better way of discussing this issue is to call the problem domination—or if you’re feeling philosophical, call it Herrschaft, because all the really heavy philosophical shit sounds especially heavy in German.

alc

I imagine a “hierarchy” in a simplified sense as a pyramid where each individual exists as a block in the structure: the closer your block’s position to the top, the less pressure you feel upon yourself and the more pressure you put on others. The pressure symbolizes authority. So this highly unequal distribution of force predictably breeds institutionalized privilege, envy, and competition for dominance, at bare minimum because of a want to escape the pressure. It seems like the privilege and envy,

Now, beyond just intentions, and the way that power corrupts, we can emphasize the consequences of structures of hierarchical control, how they create incentives toward exploitation and obstacles toward accountability, and how such systems by definition entail finite positions of superior privilege and inferior classes held in subordination. Power hierarchies mean that those most allowed to change the status quo have the most investment in preserving it—their power, prestige, profit, etc. rely upon the disempowered not taking back their usurped initiative. Oftentimes even the mildest managerialism snowballs away from accountability and toward authoritarianism through “emergency” justifications that never roll back.

Systems that allow for and emphasize the role of hierarchical power have totalitarian tendencies. They have pyramidal structures, stacked ranks, centralized power, vertical organization. Their officials give commands supported by threats. This creates a delicate stability through a shared fear of repression.

In this spirit, their decision-making tends to utilize massive restriction and coercion, representation, assimilation, and manipulation by force or by fraud.

They develop impersonal bureaucracy, standardiza-tion, and conformity. But other and contrary types of relations and organizing exist, such as collaborative self-determination between peers, the kind that anarchists propose.

Power hierarchies undermine communication. Hag-bard’s Law shows that in a truly pyramidal structure, where authority figures create order through threats, subordinates tend to tell their superiors merely what hierarchy the superiors want to hear. This filtering multiplies to the degree of verticality, by each level of mediation in that structure. Those at the top therefore lose connection from the reality below them. The (mis)information the authorities receive appeals to their confirmation bias (the things they want to hear), resulting in misguided intentions cloaked in truth, shielded by mistaken confidence, and armed with monopoly, allowing for no opposition. And so, because of the one-way decision-making and the filtered awareness, if those at the top of the pyramid actually made a deliberate attempt to represent the subordinates, they would tend toward a misrepresentation made invisible to themselves.

If people possess the critical thinking and character assessment skills to recognize in an authority the ways to lead competent, benevolent lives, why must we have to delegate this capacity outside of ourselves? Why do we need them to run our lives if we can tell how our lives should be run? And however will the disempowered find freedom, if in each instance where authoritarians act on behalf of the disempowered, to shape or shield or crush them, the will of the disempowered continually atrophies from lack of exercise? How else will the disempowered find freedom, if not in seizing the direction of their own lives, the very act that the authoritarians deny them? Stratification of power only exacerbates the predicament. We alone experience the peculiar circumstances of our situation. We alone bear the history of our aspirations and sorrows, our passions and eccentricities, our capacities and limitations.

Our lived experience grants us more qualification at determining our path than any speculating manager could ever dream of. Further empowered by collaboration with one’s peers, people can experience authentic freedom, and not the sad farce of begging those in power for mercy.

People may voluntarily seek for themselves a leader to guide them, but when they deny others the ability to live autonomously, it results in nothing but tyranny, no matter how many smily faces the tyranny hides behind. Those of us who by conscience refuse systems of hierarchical power will not voluntarily choose hierarchy to opt-in and cannot opt-out without severe punishment. Those in power promise us the world but by design they must keep our lives out of our own hands, and regardless of whether or not they make decisions I would endorse—which they don’t—I find the method irreconcilable with my conscience and my aspirations. And that is the inequality and the abusiveness of the “power” I refer to, that is the mechanics intrinsic to hierarchal order.

[felassan]

Article with some information on topics like early BioWare games, the early BioWare romance model, early LGBTQ+ representation, the origins of Dragon Age as a world etc.

Excerpts:

"BioWare’s first gay character was Juhani, a feline Jedi with a romance storyline which Gaider neither suggested nor wrote. “It couldn’t be explicit, because LucasArts wouldn’t allow that,” he says. “So she couldn’t say ‘I love you’. It just had to be very gal pal. ‘These gal pals are really close!’ It had to be hidden.” Gaider isn’t sure whether LucasArts were ever asked about the romance, or whether BioWare obfuscated it for fear of being overruled. “LucasArts certainly shut down anything they thought was over-the-top sexual innuendo,” he says. “But they looked at everything on a line-by-line basis, so if there was no single line that made it explicit, it went unnoticed.” BioWare’s first openly expressed same-sex romance came in Jade Empire, and Gaider was bowled over. “When I heard that the other team had done this, I was like, ‘This is something we can do in a video game? Holy crap.’ “It’s hard, especially for the younger audience today, to think of what it was like back then in the early 00s,” he adds. “Even when we started Dragon: Age Origins, on many levels, there was a lot of trepidation. I had a character I wanted to make gay - Zevran, the assassin. And they were still going, ‘Oh, well, you know that’s a really small part of the audience, so if we’re going to do that much content for it let’s make him bisexual at least’. So he can do double duty.”"

[...]

"In other words, Baldur’s Gate II was where the highly influential Bioware model was first nailed down. “James Ohlen came up with this idea of romances as something cool to try as a lark, not even thinking that they would be noticed much,” Gaider says. “I was just happy to be along for the ride. We had four romances and I did three of them, and that was really just Lukas Kristjanson and I sitting down, figuring out time-based conversation triggers so that your relationship grows.”"

[...]

"Dragon Age took off, and Gaider became the primary custodian of its world - leading the writing of all three released games in the series to date, as well as a stackful of novels and comics. “I felt like I’d gotten all the sword and sorcery stories out of me that I wanted to tell,” he says. Afterwards, he moved onto the early development of Anthem. “But that project was not going anywhere good,” he says. “I already could see the writing on the wall: ‘This is not gonna work out and I don’t belong on this team, but I left Dragon Age so there’s nowhere else for me to go.’” The solution was to depart BioWare, Gaider’s home for 17 years."

[source and full article]

[pyreofsunflowers]

jupiter family media taste hcs

this is stupid but idrc. my blog.

David listens to like, classic 90s rock. Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins - that whole lot. He also really likes classic, OG 80s metal (metallica, judas priest, dio, etc.). He developed his music taste from 95 to 99 and never really got into stuff after that. Hes a grumpy old man about his music and will never stray from his ol reliable stack of dusty CDs. Where he's a grandpa about his music though, this man will watch basically any movie that comes out and say "that was pretty good" in his opinion cinema peaked with 2001 a Space Odyssey and Saving Private Ryan. Hal tried to show him Akira or Ghost in the Shell and he got wayyyyyy confused. He doesn't really watch TV other than blankly staring at history channel and animal planet "documentaries" and manly man reality TV shows when there's nothing better to do

Hal has a really eclectic collection of music that is constantly changing. However the most common thread of music he likes is 80s New Wave and synth - The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, Duran Duran. That kinda stuff. However his playlist went on to be full of vocaloid songs, neo-synthwave, break core and he got into more experimental stuff as he got older (even then he never fully dug deep, just started listening to Bjork and Kate Bush yk?) He also loves soundtracks and *loves* lofi hip hop. We already basically know Hal's taste in movies/tv so instead im gonna say his favorite anime movie is Akira, his favorite non-anime movie is Brazil and if you ask him his favorite anime he'll go on and on and on about a super obscure mecha anime from the 80s. I think hes a massive cinephile and huge nerd about his movies and shows but it's literally only for anime and sci fi and occasionally action stuff. Ask him about the complexities of Apocalypse Now or the symbolism in Blue Velvet and he'll just give you a blank stare.

Sunny ended up with like. The weirdest combination of her parents tastes. She LOVESSSSS vocaloid and LOVESSSS anime but in a tweenager in the mid 2010s way you know. This girl was in the Black Butler, Attack on Titan, Fairy Tale, Soul Eater TRENCHES. She also got into a lot of alt music but it was. you know. Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco and baby's first alt band stuff. What a crazy lil gal.

Raiden was a nu-metal kid big time. He was always bumping Korn and Slipknot and System of a Down. He was also really into 90s industrial like Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails, and KMFDM. He kinda grew out of this but not really, just mellowed out and got into more 'mainstream' alt like Radiohead and Elliot Smith. As we know, Raiden is a canonical filmbro (getting into fights with random women about pointless details in movies). I think he lovessssss neo noir and crime thrillers. Anything dark and gritty he just adores. Taxi Driver, Fight Club, Fallen Angels, Clockwork Orange, Crash, Prisoners <- whatevere this genre is he just eats that shit up. Hes a total snob, but not like. In a french film school way in a over 500 entries on letterboxd way. He's subscribed to like evry major movie review channel and it's impossible to take him out to any kinoplex because he just starts ranting on the state of modern cinema. He still maintains this snobbery and its only gotten worse lmao