#just your regular spooky doctor

[mountain-ghouls]

I introduced him years back but here’s an updated reference sheet for my big cryptid Leviathan! Based off a light cycle :>

[cthene]

Is Fox Mulder the most comically-brutalized protagonist in television history? Not only is he shot and beaten up on a regular basis, but the list of extreme and exotic injuries he accrues over the course of the series has got to be some kind of TV cop record. The man is mind-wiped by the military in only the second episode. For any other TV cop, that would be a career-defining event, but it’s just a day in the life of Agent Spooky.

Bro was cocooned by carnivorous insects, thrown out of a nuclear submarine into the Alaskan tundra by an alien bounty hunter, beaten up by an invisible gorilla. He was experimented on in a Siberian gulag, drowned in the Bermuda Triangle, tortured by Neo-Nazis. I wonder what getting Freaky Friday-ed by a malfunctioning UFO cloaking device does to your gonads. How much radiation has he been exposed to? Someone test this man’s hair follicles. How many mysterious bodily fluids has he dipped his finger in and tasted at crime scenes? Dear God, someone test him for HIV. Imagine being the FBI doctor who administers his physicals.

Remember when the Shadow Government was putting LSD in Mulder’s water tank? Our boy got blown up in an underground train car and resurrected in a Navajo healing ceremony, and that’s not even the last train car he would get blown up in. One time, his lungs were filled with mutated tobacco beetles. Hoss let a quack doctor give him ketamine and drill a hole in his goddamn skull. In an unrelated incident, he had a chunk of his brain stolen. He was locked in a padded cell, trapped inside of a video game, and— of course —abducted by aliens. Fox Mulder was fully dead, and then came back to life after being exhumed, and nobody even seemed that surprised when he rolled up at the J. Edgar Hoover building like nothing had happened.

Am I missing anything? How is this man still alive? His body must be like a pillowcase full of broken lightbulbs. Every time he moves, you just hear crunching.

[sharpedgedfool]

i fucking love your monster au design for shadow could we have some lore abt him? (if you want to :])

Apologies for the essay I'm about to drop for your ask jddfgsdkgf, but here's a sketch as a peace offering and I'll drop all the lore I have for you under the read more! Glad people are interested in it cause I'm currently obsessed with it lmao

OK so basically Eggman in this universe is still the mad doctor type, he’s just obsessed with the occult instead of robotics. He’s a mortal human but hunts monsters for experiments and he’s obsessed with gaining supernatural powers to rule the world, and Sonic and Amy with their usual group are his main enemies.

He has a big following of humans (who think he’s trying to save them from monsters) and a rather large army of other monsters who work for him - so he has a ton of resources despite being a 'regular dude', and he’s slowly collecting spellbooks and teaching himself magic.

He finds a rare grimoire, and it unlocks a treasure trove of dark magics. Now his big master plan is to summon a demon to serve him and gain ultimate power, to do this he needs the seven emeralds for the ritual.

Sonic and Amy are the main hero duo in the story, Sonic was cursed with lycanthropy as a child when a pack attacked his village, he was spared because he was young, and went to find a witch in hopes of a cure. The witch he found was Vanilla, her daughter Cream, and Amy who is her apprentice. Before Sonic could be cured he made friends with a few other cryptids who live in the same woods and in the end decided he’d rather stay cursed with them as he had nowhere else to go anyways. He’s not in a traditional pack (all were-creatures) instead they have a rag-tag group with all kinds of different monsters that live with the witches (Tails and Knux are in there somewhere I promise jkfgdhdf). He likes having the werehog strength so he can fight back and protect his new family.

Rouge is a born Vampire, not turned. Her parents were killed at some point and she took over their coven after she avenged them and proved herself worthy. She’s like the Queen of sorts and rules over a majority of the vampires across the world - she has eyes (and ears) everywhere, there's very little she doesn’t know about. So Sonic and Amy ask her for help when they realise Eggman’s planning something big. She has a huge hoard of gems locked up in a big spooky cliffside castle, she’s obsessed with treasure still. She agrees to aid them to overthrow Eggman in exchange for the seven emeralds for herself. She doesn’t want to use them for their power, so they agree.

Everyone teams up to find the emeralds first, but Eggman outsmarts them, and the ritual begins before they can stop him, and once it’s begun it’s irreversible. The only thing they can do at this point is change who the demon is bound to, so Sonic throws himself into the curse (he already has one after all).

Shadow is the demon that’s summoned. Typical demon pacts imply that he’ll do whatever the summoner asks, granting them ultimate power, but he’ll get their soul in return. The catch is if Sonic never asks him to do anything, he’s technically not indebted and Shadow won't get his soul. It’s a game of temptation, but since Sonic was technically an unwilling participant, Shadow's more intrigued than anything - he’s confident Sonic will eventually cave and ask him for something (they always do) so he doesn’t attempt to trick him, he sees no need.

Sonic now has a demon chained to him constantly, and he’s extremely on guard (demons are as powerful as creatures get in this universe) and he’s off put by how genuine Shadow comes across. Shadow asks a lot of questions, and Sonic assumes he’s doing it to learn how to manipulate him - Shadow finds it amusing. Eventually they get used to each other, Shadow and Rouge get along well (though they both tease Sonic mercilessly together so he tries to avoid her but Shadow will nag him to visit) Amy tries to work on a spell to break the bond between them but it's a notoriously hard spell to break (perhaps impossible as they destroyed the grimoire in the fight with Eggman), but eventually Sonic and Shadow are both unsure if they want it to be broken at all…

Sonic starts asking Shadow questions too, and finds out more about Shadow. Originally he was an angel - thousands of years ago he had a mortal friend (Maria) and the two of them were inseparable. Unlike demons, angels rarely interact with the world so her village mistook her good fortune as witchcraft and assumed Shadow to be a demon. They killed her over it, and Shadow was heartbroken - in a fit of rage he lashed out, wiped out their town and proved to them he could be the demon they thought he was. He became a fallen angel, scorned and bitter - not born of pure evil but clearly capable of carnage all the same.

Unlike hellborn demons, Shadow doesn’t enjoy mindlessly committing atrocities - he has to feel it’s a necessary evil or he’ll turn it on his summoner (this makes him dangerous to summon, he’s normally considered off-limits). He’s one of the more powerful demons but he’s hard to reason with to make it worth it. Eggman targeted him specifically because he thought Shadow would side with him as Maria was a distant ancestor of his.

Once the annoyance of being forcefully summoned wears off,  Shadow’s rather pleased Sonic isn’t trying to use him for anything - he’s secretly happy to have someone with decent morals to hang out with (he’s an outcast in hell for obvious reasons) but he’d refused to make mortal contact with anyone willingly after Maria for fear of resigning them to a bad fate all over again.

Again thank you for reading!! I'll have more art to share soon!! :)

[mrsjellymunson]

Hello, Stranger

Pairing: Eddie Munson x gn!reader, Eddie Munson x you, Eddie Munson x reader

For @lesservillain’s excellent Strange and Spooky Stories Halloween writing event for the prompt: ‘Stranger’

Summary: A stranger comes in to buy weird stuff at odd times, and as the cashier at the local hardware store you’re not quite sure what to make of it…

CW: 18+ (MDNI), fluff, maybe SFW though caution for mature and dark themes and allusions to crime and violence. Flirting, li’l bit of awkwardness, some swearing. Both Eddie and reader are in their 20s. Reader’s gender and appearance are not described, they can be whatever you want. No use of y/n. Time period is not mentioned, and any inaccuracies/inconsistencies about history, equipment, American schooling (I’m not from around these parts) or science are deliberate and artistic oh yes they are. No smut, I thought I’d better assess whether I could string a semi-coherent story together before attempting to add that 😆

WC: ~6.2k

A/N: I love gore, revenge movies, murder shows, true crime, science/biology/forensics and DIY (sort of), so this prompt seemed like a perfect fit. There are tiny Easter eggs from The Equalizer, Breaking Bad, 80s crime TV, The Blacklist and John Wick in here - let me know if you spot any! This is the first ‘proper’ fic I’ve posted so I’d love to know what you think. Comments, reblogs and feedback are hugely appreciated and very welcome!

(Also this is my first attempt at dividers too, I hope they worked, I literally have no idea what I’m doing!)

Yep, you were ‘that’ weird kid. Your friends in Middle School had called you a freak because you brought squirrel tails and chicken feet to show’n’tell.

“But look! If you pull this tendon it makes the claw close! Isn’t that cool?!”

No, apparently that was not cool. Especially when demonstrated against your teacher’s finger...

You’d visit a friend whose father was a doctor, begging to read his medical and pathology text books, and preferring to look at pictures of dissected and diseased organs and spontaneous human combustion over braiding your friend’s hair or talking about boys.

And, apparently, scoring a class-topping 9.5/10 for your rat dissection also wasn’t the social merit badge you thought it might be, even amongst your science-abreast academic peers.

So what if you had a strong constitution. And a love of anatomy and pathology. And then compounded it with a love of true crime, particularly serial killers and forensic methods. Surely there were worse things to be interested in?

By the time you’d finished High School you’d learned to mask your enthusiasm, covering your (apparently, socially unacceptable) fascination for all things ‘gross’ and ‘murderous’ (your friends’ words) by choosing science majors like human anatomy and pathology, criminal behaviour and forensics.

People just thought you were clever, nerdy, a scientist. You never let on that you were itching to actually experience some of these things for yourself, in real time, with your own hands…

You work the evening shift at the sprawling out-of-town homewares store on the road running out of Indianapolis towards a tiny town you’ve never been to (Hawksville? Hawking?). You work a few evenings a week plus alternate Sundays, currently in the gardening, kitchen and hardware department. It wouldn’t be your chosen section of the store (in the short time you’ve been there you’ve had to amass a lot of knowledge about tools. Also, how to politely deflect the regulars’ offers to share details of their new projects, lest you get drawn in to a half-hour discussion about u-bends or rawl plugs), but the hours suit you and fit around your college classes, and the employee discount comes in handy when things in your shitty apartment break down or your roommate carelessly breaks something, again.

The final few hours of your shifts were usually pretty quiet, barring the occasional domestic plumbing emergency, or a bored Hawkins housewife coming in looking for batteries.

You don’t mind spending your evenings amongst the tools and machinery, it gives you a chance to flick through the latest copy of forensic magazine or True Crime, or work on your college assignments.

One thing that does make the slow evenings more entertaining is the unusual clientele. A nerdy-looking guy with a moustache needing releasable cable ties, cooking oil and a large plastic sheet at 9.30pm must have an interesting backstory, right?

You find yourself concocting fantastical vignettes about the oddballs that pass through, giving them the most amusing or disturbing story you can think of as they glide by in the night.

The guy with the cable ties? Too easy. Clearly he’s got a ‘special friend’ and an interesting evening planned. TBH, that’s probably not even fictional. You call him Salacious Scott.

The friendly, rotund lady who regularly comes in for for buckets and sawdust? You know it’s Mrs Henderson, who is trying to go self-sufficient and has recently installed a composting toilet, but you prefer to imagine she’s actually a madam with a ‘specialist interest’ playroom, who you brand Madame Urolagnia.

The paranoid guy with a beard and thick glasses who won’t tell you his name, buys a lot of vodka from the liquor store nearby and comes in for plastic pipe, cladding and those slot-together foam mats for kids? He tells you he’s into martial arts and these make safe weapon facsimiles for training, but you reckon he’s actually some kind of government agent. Your imaginary name for him is Mysterious Murray.

One oddball in particular has caught your attention, and not just because he’s easily the handsomest customer you’ve had in a while.

Wait, no, you didn’t just admit that; you just find him interesting, that’s all.

It was his speed and demeanour that had struck you first, rushing in, hand atop the bandana on his head, gangly legs in ripped jeans looking like they were trying to run in two different directions at once, large, dark eyes wide as he’d frantically looked around the store.

“Uh, rope, I need rope, where’d you keep the rope?”

You’d blurted some instructions and he’d headed off, not looking in your direction.

His leather jacket and swinging chains certainly commanded attention amongst the flannel and blue denim that was usually in your line of sight, and you’d found your eyes following him, catching sight of him moving between the aisles from your position behind the counter.

He’d moved towards you with a sturdy knife, a shovel and 3 rolls of duct tape that he’d collected on his way to the checkout, arms full (he didn’t pick up a basket), when you’d ventured,

“I’d recommend the next brand up, if you want something stronger with better sticking power? It costs a little more, but it’s better quality, so overall you’ll use less”, (silently thanking Mr Wheeler’s recent diatribe on the merits and pitfalls of various brands of adhesive tape, remembering the detail because he’d gone so far as to demonstrate by sticking small pieces of it to your skin. It was a weird interaction for sure, but also oddly informative).

He’d lifted his head to look at you and your eyes had connected for the first time. Your eyes widened, and you think you spotted a slight twitch of a smile at one side of his mouth.

Oh, he’s actually really cute.

“Uh, okay, if you think that’s best”.

He dropped his eyes from yours and, after unceremoniously dumping everything else onto your counter, he’d exchanged the rolls and returned.

You’d both paused, you don’t know for how long, and you’d wondered how someone buying rope could be so captivating. But the spell was broken as you’d both spoke simultaneously:

“Did you find everything you need?”

“I’m kinda in a rush, so…”

You’d both chuckled nervously, and you’d set about ringing up his purchases, noticing that a small smile definitely now graced those previously harried features.

He’d paid with a handful of old, crumpled bills pulled from his jacket, politely declining your offer of a bag, and then he was gone as quick as he came, hurrying out into the night with the swish of the automatic doors and a breeze of parking lot-scented night air.

You didn’t know why anyone would need rope and a shovel at that time on a weeknight, but with this particular guy, who you dubbed The Stranger, you found yourself thinking that you wouldn’t mind finding out.

You’d unintentionally spent the rest of that evening coming up with fantasies about that particular customer, although, unusually for you, quite a few of them hadn’t actually involved what was on his receipt…

When The Stranger next comes in he’s after heavyweight garbage bags, more tape and a saw, but seems in slightly less of a rush.

He pauses at your counter for a few moments, making polite conversation, asking how long you’d been working here, whether you were working late tonight.

Is he trying to… flirt? Surely not…

“Thanks for the tape recommendation by the way, it was a real lifesaver. That stuff’s really good, I definitely have a new favourite!”, gracing you with a broad grin (oh fuck, that was a sight) before he was on his way again.

Another time he bought shears, tarp and a large quantity of painting coveralls.

The next trip involved wire cutters, buckets and a wet’n’dry vacuum.

You begin to enjoy The Stranger coming in buying random shit at odd hours. You can’t quite make him out. He buys a lot of gardening and decorating-type equipment (plus he’s almost single-handedly keeping the cleaning product aisle in business), but he dresses like neither - always in tight, ripped jeans, shredded band tees and his signature leather jacket. You’ve never seen him covered in leaves or dirt, and his clothes have zero paint on them. Those coveralls must do a really good job…

You build up a rapport of sorts with him. There’s always a polite, verging on friendly greeting between you, and you let him know when there’s special offers on tarp and garbage bags, and what days there are deliveries of latex gloves and those painting coveralls he seems to like so much. (Sometimes you’ll even stash a few of the latter for him under the counter if there’s a holiday weekend coming up, knowing Hawkins’ husbands will be out in force and not wanting him to miss out.)

But the ‘fantasy vignette’ and forensically-inclined parts of your brain begin to overlap, and start to tickle your imagination. It’s almost as if each selection of items he buys could be used to either dispatch someone, or dispose of a body. But that’s crazy, right? He seems way too nice to be a serial killer. And mob activity in this part of Indiana? Nah. That wouldn’t happen around here.

Would it?

It’s a quiet Friday night when you next see The Stranger. He’s picked up bolt cutters, pliers, some metal trays, a sledgehammer, a mop, and, most bizarrely of all because you’ve noticed he’s not usually one for personal safety equipment, ear defenders.

Again, he’s basket-less, barely able to contain the items piled up in his arms. They topple as he arrives at your counter, and some end up partially covering your open magazine.

“Shit, I’m really sorry about that.”

“Oh, no problem, honestly. I probably shouldn’t be reading on the clock anyway”, you say, slightly bashful, as you move the crumpled magazine out from underneath his items, smoothing it down. The Stranger’s eyes are locked on your hands, and as they move across the page they reveal a headline about a recently apprehended serial murderer and some photographs of a variety of grisly-looking, bloody weapons.

“That looks… interesting, watcha reading there?”, he remarks, leaning in.

“Oh, this? It’s about a new guy they’ve just caught over in Europe. He’s fascinating, he used such a variety of tools and methods that at first the police didn’t even think to link the crimes. Ingenious, really, when you think about it. So creative!”

You look up, and The Stranger is regarding you with an unreadable expression. Does he think you’re weird, babbling on about this murderer like you admire him? Or is he actually impressed with your enthusiasm?

“Sorry, I’m a true crime buff, it’s a bit of a pet topic of mine. And I’m studying forensics at college, so it’s kind of like schoolwork too.” You chuckle nervously, arms moving in front of your body and shoulders subtly curling in on yourself in embarrassment.

The Stranger seems to sense your discomfort, and shakes his head, making his curls bounce, smiling and chuckling along with you.

“No, yeah, uh, me too with the crime thing, actually. Well, not so much the reading, I’m more of a hear-it-through-the grapevine, hands on kinda guy.”

‘Hands on’? WTF does that mean?

“Oh, cool, coolcoolcool”. Smooth…

As you scan his items your fantasy vignette tickles your brain again.

No, don’t be silly…

You bag everything up this time, insisting it’ll be easier to carry, handing them to him and taking his crumpled bills.

Your curiosity is more than piqued and you can’t hold it in any longer. Feeling bold, you ask, “So, what’s all this for?”

“Huh?”

“The- the stuff. What’re you doin’ with it?”

The Stranger looks at you through his lashes, not speaking.

Shit, you’ve overstepped, he’s gonna leave, find a different store and you’ll never see him again.

“Uh, well, some people I know out near the big city are, er, planning a, uh, party, with a few of their, um, associates, and I think it’s gonna get pretty loud, hence the earphones. I, uh, don’t usually get involved in stuff until later in the evening, y’know, after all the main fun’s over.”

You look a little quizzical.

He thinks for a moment.

“I tidy up, but I sorta make it a bit more fun for everyone. Bring a bit of pizazz to a usually mundane part of the evening. Kinda thing.”

You process for a few moments. The ‘Mob Cleaner’ vignette you’d fantasised about screams loud and long into your cerebrum.

Nerves give way to curiosity, and you brashly ask, “So, what exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m kind of a cleaner, I guess? If someone has a problem that they’ve had dealt with and they wanna make the cleanup more, um, interesting, I’m the guy they call.”

Probing further, you clarify, “So you don’t make the, uh, mess, you just clean it up. Creatively?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

He explains he’s still quite new to the job, and kinda fell into it. His boss and his mentor are both encouraging, saying his USP is truly original (Unique Selling Point, he explains when you look confused), and that he definitely ‘has potential’. He’s learning a lot as he goes, but his enthusiasm seems to be appreciated and he wants to do well.

“All you really need is a strong stomach, imagination and a flair for the dramatic!”

He illustrates his last point by making jazz hands by the sides of his head, offering you a generous smile. Yeah, you can see how that particular part of the job comes easy to him.

“Oh, well, it sounds like fun. I hope you have a very successful evening!”

“Okay, well, thanks again! I’ll see you.”

You watch him leave, noticing in particular how well his jeans fit tonight.

What’s that saying again - I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave…?

You shake your head to rid yourself of the lewd - and crazy, yeah, totally crazy - thoughts you’re having about The Stranger and encourage yourself back into work mode.

As you busy yourself and tidy your counter you notice something small and white on the floor in front, about the size of a credit card. It must’ve fallen out of his jacket as he fumbled for cash.

Cash. Always cash. Never credit card, never cheque, never — anything traceable…

You round the counter and pick it up, thinking you’d save it and return it to him the next time he comes in. It’s a business card. The text is unfussy and clear, but glossy, bold and slightly gothic. It’s a company name above some text and a pager number, but it may well be the most intriguing piece of writing that you’ve ever come across:

E.M. Creative Disposal Services, Apprentice to Mr Kaplan & Associates, For dinner reservations call: (555)-666-6969

It’s another quiet night, but there’s already a couple of people at the counter when The Stranger arrives. Mr Sinclair needs a pipe wrench and a plunger (you don’t envy him his evening), and Mrs Wheeler has come in to buy double-As for the second time this month (although this time she also added gardening gloves and secateurs to pad out her basket. Not that you’d judge either way).

You spot The Stranger’s curls before anything else, bobbing in the fluorescent lights as he comes through the entrance doors. He spots the queue and immediately joins it, glancing towards the counter and visibly brightening when he sees you behind it. He’s carrying the sledgehammer he bought last time. As you start to ring up Mrs Wheeler’s batteries you see him examining the head of the hammer. Frowning slightly, he moistens his thumb with his tongue and rubs at one corner, then polishes the same spot on the front of his jeans.

He reaches the counter, receipt retrieved from a bundle pulled from inside his jacket.

You greet each other with a quiet ‘hey’. He continues, “I, uh, wanted to return this. Can I do that?”

“Yeah, sure, lemme ring it through the till. Can I ask why? Company policy,” you shrug, almost apologetically.

“Sure, uh, well you know that phase ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut‘? Turns out a sledgehammer does indeed obliterate the, uh, nuts… Let’s just say it wasn’t really suitable for the project I had in mind. I think I need something…”

Lighter? Easier to aim?

“With a little more finesse?” You venture, eyebrows raised, hoping you haven’t completely misread things.

“Yeah, finesse! I like that”. He beams widely at you tilting his head slightly, revealing the most gorgeous dimples you’ve ever seen, and it’s all you can do to hold on to the edge of the counter while your knees gently fail beneath you.

“Umm, you want some help choosing?”

He readily agrees and you direct him to the hammer section, both of you discussing the merits and disadvantages of various models as you choose ones from the display and encourage him to feel their weight and balance. He seems impressed, clearly not expecting you to be so well-versed in the finer aspects of hardware.

“Y’know, you really know your tools!”

You squeak out a bashful, “Thanks.”

You slip into self-deprecating mode and brush off his compliment, saying, “It comes with the territory I guess. I’ve picked up a lot working here. Plus I just sometimes browse the shelves, thinking of nefarious uses for random household objects.” Hurriedly adding, “For school, of course!”

You cringe a bit, thinking this must make you look like some kind of weirdo, but The Stranger takes it easily in his stride, commenting, “You know, you’d be surprised to learn just how much of a marketable skill that can be.”

You chat some more and he eventually chooses a smaller, less unwieldy hammer, and after he pays you part ways again.

You still desperately want to ask him exactly what he used that other hammer for, what ‘Creative Disposal Services’ actually means, and what the hell have dinner reservations got to do with any of this?

The next night you see The Stranger he saunters in at about 8:30. He has a different energy about him this evening, seeming both more relaxed but also somewhat on edge. He’s not in his usual ratty band tee tonight, you notice, and no leather jacket either. Instead he’s wearing a what looks to be a clean, maybe even pressed, electric blue raglan shirt with black half length sleeves. You spot a crimson guitar pick necklace that you’ve not seen before dangling from a twinkling silver ball chain, resting against his sternum and resplendent against the blue.

Observing his forearms for the first time you notice how attractive - and (oh!) tattooed - they are. Toned and veined, their shape and his mix of tattoos are shown off to perfection by that sleeve length, and a leather and chain bracelet that adorns one powerful-looking wrist. The glint of his chunky silver rings accentuates his large hands that peek out of his jeans pockets as he wanders over to you. He’s still in tight black jeans, but they seem a little… neater than usual. And he’s not in a rush. It’s almost like he’s not working, maybe even making an effort.

You feel a frisson of excitement - could it be that he’s come in just to see you?

Exhibit A, m’lud: Scrubbing up well.

He heads straight for your counter, and you greet each other with your characteristic friendliness.

He spies the hefty text books you’ve spread before you, and leans onto the counter to get a closer look.

“Watcha workin’ on tonight, Doctor Quincy?”

You swallow at the cute nickname, voice cracking slightly as you start to tell him about the assignment you’ve got. It’s about evidential tool marks, and how pathologists can identify what’s been used as a weapon or tool of dismemberment.

The Stranger tries to play down his interest, but his demeanour betrays him as he presses for more details, even asking if he could maybe read the finished piece.

That’s weird, right? People don’t read other people’s science essays for fun. Do they?

But you agree, promising to bring him a copy when it’s done.

The conversation lulls, and The Stranger twists the pad of one of his thumbs against the counter, seemingly a little nervous, though you can’t imagine what about.

To break the silence you slip into work mode, but for some reason drop your voice a couple of octaves and murmur,

“So anyway, what is it that can I help you with, sir?”

Wait, is he blushing?

“Um, oh, uh, I actually don’t have a shopping list today, I was, uh, just gonna browse, I guess.”

He backs away from your counter, giving it a few rhythmic slaps with his fingertips before turning away from you and ambling off into the store. He returns a few moments later with a small hatchet and mid-range fold-out knife, plus two rolls of his now-favourite tape.

“You can never have too many of these, amirite?”

He gives you that dimpled smile again, and you feel your stomach do a full (though anatomically impossible) 360° flip.

Observing his lack of focus and comparatively small selection of items, you wonder if he really needs those things, or whether he’s just picking them up as an excuse to come in to the store. Your chest heats up a little at the thought.

Exhibit B: Small, possibly unnecessary purchase. The evidence is mounting up.

Seeing the hatchet, your eyes light up with enthusiasm as you remember something.

“Hey, we just got some new stock in that I think you might like, y’know, if I’m not overstepping or anything.” You finish with a nervous chuckle.

You smile at him nervously through your lashes, skin heating even more in case this is suddenly all a bit too familiar.

He grins, responding, “Sure, go ahead!”

Your smile broadens and relaxes as you turn away from him and walk to the back shelves, crouching down and retrieving something in your arms.

Standing quickly and turning, you notice his eyes widen and immediately flick up to yours, a slightly alarmed expression on his face.

Exhibit C: Was he checking you out when he thought you wouldn’t notice? (Also, is it getting hot in here?)

With a loud thunk you lay two (frankly, terrifying-looking) multi-tools out on the counter in front of him. One looks like an oversized, overspec-ed Swiss Army knife, and the other could easily pass as a prop from an exorcism-themed horror movie. You over-excitedly explain the features of each, saying, “This one has a hammer and an axe, plus screwdrivers, pliers, a saw, wire cutters, a magnesium rod”, you look up at him quickly and ask, “do you ever need to start fires? Plus, it has…”, you wave your hand dramatically over your favourite part of the item, like you were showing it off on a shopping channel, and stretch out the syllables of the final two words for emphasis, “…a bottle opener…”. You raise your eyebrows and grin widely, like this must surely be the deal breaker.

The Stranger laughs, throwing his head back with deep-throated barks from the centre of his chest, and then he chuckles a little, bringing a strand of hair over his cheek and a curled finger to his lips. You’re slightly distracted by that glimpse of his extended neck (god, you want to gnaw at it), and that laugh? You wish you could’ve recorded it somehow.

You quickly compose yourself and continue, switching to the ’horror prop’ product, “And this one has fewer features, but I like it for its simplicity, robustness and practical charm. It’s an axe, hammer, nail puller and pry bar. And it even has a rubber coated handle, so you can still use it safely even if your hands are wet. For, y’know, whatever reason…” you finish, slightly abashed.

“Aw, Pumpkin, this is the kindest thing anyone’s done for me in a while, thank you.”

Pumpkin. PumpkinPumpkinPumpkin. Exhibit D: A term of endearment!

He takes some time to examine both articles, testing out their various features, hefting them in his (large, strong) hands (stop it!).

“I love them. Y’know what, I can’t decide. I’ll take both. What’s the damage?”

You visibly brighten, a squeak of delight that you hope he didn’t hear inadvertently leaving you as you puff up with both his term of endearment and your ever-growing customer service confidence.

You check whether he’d still like the other items he’d brought to the counter, and apart from the duct tape (“You really can’t have too much of this stuff!”), he allows you to reshelve the rest.

He watches, enthralled, as you wrap his new tools in the store-issue brown paper reverently and carefully, as though you were wrapping an expensive gift in a fancy department store, the pair of you sharing bashful looks and half smiles as you work.

As he hands over the now-unsurprising crumpled bills and takes his change his hand drifts closer to yours, glancing his fingers over your palm and lingering for just a moment. There’s a little hitch in your inhale, and you think you see his ears redden a little.

He gathers up his purchases in his arms carefully and gently, and he backs away from your counter slowly.

“I guess I’ll head out then. Uh, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, I guess you will, uhh-”

“Eddie. My name’s Eddie.”

“Okay, I guess so, Eddie.” You say his name slowly, like you’re testing out the syllables in your mouth.

You continue speaking, offering your name in reciprocation.

“Yeah, yeah I know your name, it’s kinda on your little badge there.” A tiny nod indicates the plastic rectangle pinned on your apron strap near your left shoulder.

Your cheeks heat again. “Right, of course. Ha!” You inwardly cringe. Well, that could’ve gone better.

He’s still backing away, getting dangerously close to an intricately balanced display of colourful children’s watering cans. You’re about to say something, but he turns just in time, ambling towards the illuminated exit with a mumbled, “Okay, bye then. Thanks again for these…” lifting the packages in his arms, and turning to look over his shoulder a couple more times before he finally reaches the door and disappears into the parking lot.

“Hey, d’you know anything about wood chippers?”

It’s been a week since you’ve seen The Stranger Eddie, and you turn abruptly to find him walking towards your counter.

His question throws you out of your stocktaking zone (you’d been focussing on ordering enough plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets for all of Hawkins’ kids this Halloween), but you quickly slip into customer service mode and ask for more details.

Eddie explains, using mostly his arms, that he needs one that, “throws everything everywhere”. You finally work out that he means the type where you feed stuff into a hopper on one side and the shredded debris is forced out of a raised chute on the other (as opposed to the more gravity-based ones where stuff is fed into the top and simply falls out the bottom).

He’s passing it off as being involved in some avant garde student art project, a performance piece involving feeding a load of wood and, uh, paint, yeah, paint into a wood chipper and having it spray out the other side. He blusters that the students are trying to make a point about climate change, or maybe it’s deforestation, he can’t seem to decide.

He explains that the piece is to be performed indoors, that there’ll be quite a few people present, and that he also needs a large quantity of tarp and coveralls because it was likely to make a huge mess.

This is the clincher. You’re absolutely convinced there is no art project, and what’s go through that chipper is more likely to be a human body. Or, given the amount of effort being gone to, and Eddie’s flair for theatrics, probably more than one.

“What size branches?”

He looks at you, confused. “Huh?”

“The, uh, limbs. What size will you be shredding? Some of the smaller models won’t cope with thick trunks.”

He swallows. His eyes meet yours, and he licks his lips. You can’t help but stare at those full, pink… Look away! Just look away!!

He subtly smirks, slowly moves his hands across the counter, and, gently taking hold of one of your hands in his, loops his other finger and thumb around your wrist.

“Um, definitely thicker than this…” - he extends your arm towards him, and moves his other hand slowly up your skin until he gets to your upper arm - “…and maybe a little thicker than this, too.”

You hope he can’t feel the burning sensation that’s erupted up your arm. You know he can’t possibly hear your racing heartbeat or detect the adrenaline that’s coursing through your veins, but you’re acutely aware of both just the same. You briefly ponder whether you’ll need to get a fire extinguisher from aisle 7.

“Umm, how about I show you what we’ve got?”

Composing yourself, barely, you take him to the large garden implements section, explaining that for larger trunks and limbs he may need something towable.

Under the guise of working out whether various models would be suitable, you take the opportunity to dig a little and find out what kind of vehicle he drives. It’s a van, so roomy, practical for carrying a lot of equipment that needs to be kept out of sight. Well, this all tracks.

Also, your brain helpfully suggests, it could potentially be romantic, a private little hideaway where you and he could… No! Stay on topic, you’re at work for god’s sake!

As you debate the various choices you find you’re occasionally leaning into each other, shoulders and elbows lightly bumping, you stealing glances at his chiselled jawline when you think he isn’t looking.

Eddie eventually decides on a mid-size towable model, and as you arrange for it to be delivered to the collection bay he bids you goodnight and disappears out to his van.

‘Art project’, huh? I don’t think so…

You don’t see Eddie for a couple of weeks after that, and you begin to wonder whether he doesn’t like you. Maybe you went too far, did you bore him? Did you frighten him off? Did he feel pressured into buying those gadgets or the expensive wood chipper?

Maybe he’s finally realised you’re a weirdo, like everyone at school eventually did?

Trying to get out of your funk you steel yourself and ask your department manager, Keith, whether he’d seen an odd, metal-looking guy in the store at all.

“Nah, not recently, but someone like that did come in a few weeks back, asking about when you’d be working. Something about your product knowledge helping him with a job, or whatever. I told him your schedule, I hope that’s ok.”

So you haven’t missed him, and maybe he’s not avoiding you. Good, that’s good. Exhibit E: He’s been asking about you?? Oh fu-

You’re startled out of your reverie by the sound of someone slapping two plastic packets down onto the counter.

“Oh, hi Mrs Wheeler, let me ring those up for you…”

On his next visit it’s clear Eddie is restocking his cleaning supplies, and he’s even deigned to use a small trolley this time to transport the heavy and bulky items.

As well as multi-surface cleaner, mops, cloths and some heavy duty gloves, you notice his trolley also contains numerous bottles of chlorine bleach.

“Big clean-up job tonight, huh?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I guess so. I need to leave the place without any trace of the, uh, performance this time.”

“Depends what you need to clean up, I guess. Y’know, chlorine bleach doesn’t necessarily get rid of everything.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, it’s fascinating, common misconception by the way. Chlorine bleach gets rid of visible stains, so that’s great if your main concern is aesthetics. But you can still detect haemoglobin, if you have access to the right tools and solutions.”

Eddie looks bath engaged and confused.

“A-heema-whatnow?”

You snicker.

“Haemo-, y’know what, never mind. Blood, basically. So actually, oxygen bleach is your best bet if your biggest concern removing all traces of, let’s say, blood and DNA. Whilst it doesn’t necessarily remove all the marks, it does degrade everything biological to the point where it’s undetectable. At least, with the tests we currently have.”

Eddie leans his elbows on the counter, giving you his full attention, resting his cheeks on his knuckles and pushing his dimpled grin up even further. Emboldened, you talk at length about haemoglobin, DNA degradation, specialist chemical solutions and alternative light sources.

He stays there, rapt, until you come to a natural stop. Just before he straightens up he quietly mumbles, still smiling, “Fucking incredible”.

With a deep breath he returns to the aisles to procure both types of bleach, pays and heads out into the night with a cheery, “Wish me luck!”

The cleanup must’ve gone well, because Eddie’s back a few days later and is making conversation.

“Hey, um, I remember reading once about some guy in England, years ago, who, like, melted people. You ever heard of that?”

You contemplate for a moment.

“Oh, d’you mean the Acid Bath Murderer, John Haigh?”

“Acid bath? Yeah, that sounds familiar.”

“Y’know, that’s actually one of my favourite case studies! It was one of the stories that first got me interested in true crime. 1940s England, dude thought he could get away with it if there was no body. Nope, sorry! When I first heard about it I thought it was really inventive, though he actually took the idea from a French guy who’d already done similar. Makes you wonder how many undiscovered dissolved bodies there might’ve been before and since, huh?”

You wax lyrical for a little while on the relative merits and disadvantages of the dissolving of human bodies in acid, even relating an anecdote about how your lab partner once chose the wrong combination of acid and beaker type, finishing with, “Hoo-boy, that was a mess!”

You become a little awkward, aware of how long you’ve been talking and the possibly-disturbingly-creepy level of detail you’ve gone into, though Eddie doesn’t seem to mind and presents somewhat like he’s paying attention in a chem class. Regardless, you decide to change the subject.

“I meant to ask last time, how did that wood chipping project go?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, really good, thanks. Y’know that advice you gave me about the chipper came in real handy. It was quite the show!” He looks gleefully at you, flashing that brilliant smile. A few small fireworks quietly explode in your innards.

“I’m so glad! Did the client like it?”

“Oh yeah, baby, they were thrilled!”

Baby. That’s new. You like it, and you add it to your growing mental filing system labelled ‘Evidence that Eddie might like me’. You can’t even remember what letter you’re up to now, you’re just enjoying stuffing it fuller every time he graces you with another morsel.

“They even gave me a nice bonus, for my ‘theatricality’.” He begins to lift his arms, but stops himself, resisting doing the jazz hands things again, reasoning there’s only so many times he can do an impersonation of a court jester before it puts someone off. “Said they’re gonna recommend me to their buddies too.”

More softly, and a little bashful, looking through his lashes he adds, “Kinda wish you could’ve been there, actually.”

Oh my, is he blushing again?

“Yeah, me too. I’d love to see you work sometime…”

“You would?”

Okay, he’s definitely blushing.

He leans in over your counter, close, so he can say in a low voice,

“Uh, just so we’re on the same page, you know what I do has nothing to do with art projects, right?”

Holding his gaze, and with your voice surprisingly steady, you swallow before confirming, “Yes, Eddie. I know.”

He huffs out a stuttering breath, and the air between you seems to heat.

He lifts one hand and rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“Hey listen, uh, I dunno if this is a little too forward, or weird, or y’know, whatever,” He’s rambling now. It’s adorable.

“I was kinda gonna ask you if you wanted to get milkshakes sometime, but, uh, maybe you’d actually wanna come out on a job with me? I’ve got one coming up on Sunday that I could really use an extra pair of hands on. I could pay you of course, y’know, for your time.”

You want to blurt out that, for him, you’d willingly burn the world and everyone in it for free. Instead, you smile wide, and settle for,

“Well, my tutors are always encouraging us to get real world experience…”

“Great, so I’ll pick you up at the end of your shift?”

“Sure, Eddie. I’ll look forward to it.”

You’re both grinning, stuttering messes.

“Great! Great. Uh, okay then, I guess I’ll see you Sunday?”

As he turns to leave, you stop him with one final question.

“Just one more thing Eddie. Should I bring my own coveralls..?”

If you got this far, thanks so much for reading!!

Comments and reblogs make my world spin, do let me know what you think.

[wormsin]

everytime i talk to my prison phd friend i learn the most fascinating and horrifying things about prison and criminalization.

i absolutely cannot share the gossip i heard last night, but she was in town recently and i got the low down on philly's Eastern State Penitentiary, an important historic prison. the long and short of it is that it was the most expensive, utopian architecture panopticon prison whose ideals were reformist and noble and whose execution was extremely deadly and horrible.

first of all, they do haunted houses here which you should never go on because it is morally bankrupt to participate in prison site entertainment, and there's also an insane amount of lead paint and other hazards. like the regular tour guides are not working in safe conditions. don't touch anything. don't get your halloween spooky hard on at a site of mass torture and murder.

with that out of the way, look at this blueprint. the guard post is in the center, which allows them to look down any block and see everything. panopticon shit. you can also see that every cell has an individual courtyard.

this was the ideal design. in the ideal system, a prisoner would be brought in through the entry hall, meet the warden, have a bag placed over their head and be brought to their cell, after which point the only people they would see during their sentence was a daily visit from the warden and weekly visit by a doctor and a priest. they were also expected to never speak.

so you have your cell, an attached courtyard you can use anytime to go outside (and garden in or keep pets if you wanted), a manual labor task, and a lot of social isolation. the idea was to create an environment where the prisoner could contemplate their crimes and be penitent. (hence, penitentiary.) the prevalent idea at the time was that crime was a social contagion, so prisoners who socialized together might spread it amongst themselves. but here, there's just ample opportunity for self reflection. you weren't allowed to speak as to not disturb the other prisoners' reform.

(prisoners shoemaking 1897)

they put hoods on the prisoners during transfers *and* anonymised their names in records so that no one on the outside would know they had been to prison and attach stigma to them.

so the idea was honestly very dope, especially compared to the Alburn/New York system.

however, the masterminds behind this system did not know that social isolation is deadly to humans. which led to some other prisons adapting *part* of the system to extremely lethal results.

but that wasn't totally the problem with this prison. while the ideal system had goodish intentions, its actual implementation was very different. prisoners were not socially isolated to that degree (good!) and were punished and tortured by guards and counselors (very very bad!). you can see the degradation of the original plan through the architecture over the years.

theres honestly so much that is fascinating here, even just in the architecture. they built the halls to feel like churches! the cells were supposed to have one skylight because "god was always watching"! they used mirrors to surveil the various angles and corridors! the cell doors might have been so small because they wanted prisoners to bow before entering and exiting! fascinating stuff.

there's a ton of history here and if you have the chance you should take the tour. just don't touch anything. because of the lead.

"In its intention I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who designed this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentleman who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are doing….I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye,… and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment in which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay." — Charles Dickens, 1841

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️ 11x07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz

The one where... technology comes for Mulder and Scully because Mulder didn’t leave a tip on their weird silent sushi date.

Tagline: VGhlIFRydXRoIGlzIE91dCBUaGVyZQ= (aka The Truth Is Out There)

Best: Holding hands in a diner, just comfortably enjoying each other’s company after a long, wild night 🥰

Worst: This episode doesn’t really make sense (the silent sushi date, Scully’s weird smart house, etc) and isn’t subtle or all that deep, but it’s fun.

✔️ Flashlights

❌ Woods/Desert

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

❌ Scully Misses It

❌ Mulder Ditch

✔️ Sunflower Seeds

✔️ Voiceover: AI intro VO

✔️ Catch Phrase: AI (IWTB)

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!

❌ Fox/Dana

✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

✔️ Casual Scully

✔️ Casual Mulder

❌ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Mulder

50 States: DC x109 (45/50)

Investigate: Together & Apart

Solve Rate: 77%

❌ Bechdel Test: Only other human person in the episode is the waitress but only Mulder speaks with her.

MSR: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽

Creepiness: 👽👽

Humor: 👽👽👽👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

William check-in: No mention.

Break-up check-in: Well, they still have separate places (or did until Scully’s exploded) but they’re going on evening sushi dates and holding hands on their morning diner date so I think they’re going to be ok.

I like the concept of a silent episode - or episode where the only communication is with technology - but it just feels weird and unnatural that they aren’t talking on their sushi date. Also why is the place completely empty?? It would have felt more natural to me if they were in a busy restaurant and it was so loud they couldn’t hear each other and couldn’t talk or something. I know they’re going for a dystopian feel and to contrast with the diner at the end though.

The blob fish!! GA’s beloved

Her panicked who am I talking to! in the car 🤣

Mulder: You suck Mr. phone.

Scully: Poor! Awful! Terrible! Never again! Me on every automated customer service line trying to get through to speak with an actual person.

Scully’s smart house is very much a suspension of disbelief for me for this one episode. It’s nothing like the cozy aesthetic of her apartment in the original series or the Unremarkable house. If it was just aesthetic change that would be one thing - you could argue that she wanted something completely different when she moved out or that she thought of it as temporary so she never made it homey, etc. But after going on the run from the government and all her trust no one paranoia, the Scully I know would not live in a house that tracked her every movement and uploaded all that information online for whatever company or government agency or shadow conspiracy or individual to use against her!

Her password is Queequeg!

Rock it like a Redhead huh Scully? Her hair color changes so much over the years, I’m definitely a Scully has some red to her hair but she colors it truther.

Not sure how I feel about Scully’s new short hair - I think it just feels more like a wig to me because it’s so straight? It’s not bad but we know what Scully’s hair looked like when it was that length back in the day so it doesn’t feel quite right.

Scully’s little pink vibrator! To me Mulder’s look says more surprise that she’s carrying it around right now, not surprise that she has one - because you know he knows she does. TMI my little pink vibrator is not the same one, but the selection may have been (heavily) influenced by this episode.

Mulder’s frustration at being forced into this tip - it’s definitely worth $5 to make this stop 😂 Of course that’s what the tech companies are counting on 💀

Mulder thanks the waitress by name - this little diner seems like the kind of spot Mulder would be a regular at.

Mulder: Well, it’s good to see you got all your personal devices back. Scully: Not all of them. Significant look 👀

The first episode of the revival written by women (although Dr Anne Simon & Dr Margaret Fearon have story credit on MSII in season 10)

[counterfeit-cryptid]

I wanted to talk about some of my tma headcanons, ideas???? Or whatever involving my concept 4 jon in writing and art, I want to create

Anyways, let's talk vision!!! I was reading this one fic, and it really gave me some cool ideas for the whole spooky eye powers thing. In much much later chapters he goes to the eye doctors as his vision has increasingly worsened and it is mentioned he has gained a new set of pupils which is pretty cool ngl anyways beside the point the whole ordeal made me think of the possibility of vision loss being a common thing 4 avatars of the eye and all of that

Because if you can see and know all even without it first hand witnessing it or anything, what's the point of needing regular eyes anymore anyways. Like I get the whole "blinding self" to escape from the eye and I'd think that'd still work but I mean loss of vision in the sense of only being able to see thru the eye after a certain state your eyes no longer belonging to yourself but still being a part of you leading to the person constantly viewing their world in an altered state

The altered state being whatever you want!!! Want to make your silly Archivist see several things at once like it's multiple moniters your looking at? Cool very cool, or do you want it more like looking at your own body as it pilots itself thing.

I think you could play it out into a gradual thing to, it starts off with your prescription changing eventually till the point everything is blurry, but everything is so clear in your mind type of ordeal. This could alter entirely how someone thinks too, which would be insane

Imagine not being able to visually see things within your mind, you lose your vision, and suddenly, you see pictures within your mind now that you can with your eyes. However, that may work. I think I'd be absolutely bewildered.

Back to the blinding yourself purposefully, though to escape the eye, I think that'd still work in this sense, but instead of "natural loss of eyesight," bringing physical harm would stop it. Like gouging them out or something as violent as it is. Or just general harm, idk. I'm just simply going from what I've heard passed around as I've not listened to the last 2 seasons yet to actually know/understand if any 1 does something like that to escape the eye.

[trifoliumrex]

Namjoon Master List

Doctor Monsters Blood Bracelet 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

A car accident leaves you with bad injuries and an even worse curse. Lucky this handsome doctor with secrets of his own seems to know a thing or two about curses and how to break them. Is that all he’s interested or is the spark you feel between you two more than spooky magic energy?

Mafia Meet Cute Namjoon 1 2 3

You never thought working at an electronics repair shop could even be dangerous. Then again your thought your favorite customer who you’ve been crushing on for just about forever was just a regular guy. Seems you were wrong on both counts.

[pocketbelt]

Girls' Frontline: Slow Shock (iOS)

This is a long one so you probably want to click into the post so the Keep Reading break works properly.

GFL has had, among its circle, infamously wordy events before but this is probably the most direly it's ever needed an editor.

There are plenty of scenes and portions that could be flatly cut and not a thing would change or be lost, from pointless cutscenes where two villains speak euphemistically about something that never pays off to extensive, highly repetitious descriptions of cyber-zombie corpse and experiment destruction that do nothing but pad the run-time and the 'node count' (each 'node' on the event's level select is a cutscene or level) of the event to keep it in the 70-90 range major events usually have. And even then it needs a bunch of post-story minor detail cutscenes with a Sangvis Ferri squad to actually hit that.

And it still manages to leave out or skip over events for 'twists' and an in medias res start that just make parts of it incoherent or nonsensical. Pray tell, how did the other factions (Statesec and KCCO/Military) get spy devices into the beating heart of this super-populated cyber-zombie tower's control and spying platform in the heart of the ultra-bioradiation zone before we got there? Has everyone just always had their shit figured out and just been pretending this whole time to fuck with us?

The story itself is the first time since Polarised Light (TWO YEARS AGO) that your military commander character actually does some military command and carries out an actual campaign/assault on an enemy structure, and while I would like to enjoy it it just overly highlights how you've been doing either fucking nothing or the most incompetent operation executions possible in the last three events. Also, high-ranking enemies who were pretty impervious to bullets and standard attacks are suddenly, inexplicably quite pervious; Narciss two events or so ago needed to be literally Deus Ex Machina'd by Lunasia to save everyone because she was invincibly fast and powerful and now she gets triple-teamed by a Sangvis squad who don't event get hit, they just floss on her and shoot her while she's down and walk off. Nothing materially has changed in the Griffin camp's weapons (unless, inexplicably, we somehow canonically did not have the Sangvis bosses from Destroyer onward until right now) but even the normal T-Dolls can actually hurt the various super-Nytos they just couldn't before.

I realise this might sound stupid, given my prevailing complaint about GFL's story has been the inexplicable invincibility and random magic powers Paradeus has had for four major events or so now, but in just taking it away for no adequately explored reason you just highlight the fucking absurdity of it before now. It's not even completely gone; they somehow get a cyber-zombie girl with pure white armour and a cloak and a giant gleaming white scythe into a standard hospital in a populated area with a cyborg clone of a doctor in tow to kill and replace one. That scene is to show that they're going to do something evil to Kalina, your adjutant, while you're away but all drama around her well-being is out the window because we know from GFL2 pre-release trailers that she's perfectly fine.

It's a mess, it's just a mess. It isn't plotted well, it's padded to hell, there's just weird gaps all over and it spends too much time masturbating over trying to be spooky and sad by going over and over how the regular Nytos are poor little girls abducted into the cyber-zombie nightmare, but also they've been doing and saying that shit for multiple major events now and it's no longer shocking or spooky or worth reading. Nothing new is done with it.

I follow GFL1's main plot basically out of inertia, now, and because when the main recurring cast interact they are charming (the dynamics of Team 404, DEFY, the AR Team and Dandelion are all still great). Last event, Longtudinal Strain, was said to be the first event of "GFL1's final arc" when it was announced for CN however long ago, and miraculously the EN server is now up-to-date and level with CN for story content.

It feels pretty clear that they intend to have everyone hit the ending as close to simultaneously as possible, which is good, but GFL2 is in the "soft-release" open beta state if not officially released in China now, as of last week. With that in mind, and some of the issues here, I start to wonder if GFL1 isn't simply in a hasty wrap-up phase, given this event sticks even things as momentous as DEFY finally capturing the elusive William into a post-story node with no real fanfare (and spent the entire event building up Martha Meitner as the real brains behind all things Paradeus).

There is more underneath the cut below, but in short, man, GFL1 went off the rails after Polarised Light. Eclipse & Saros stands out as a high point post-PL, and Longtudinal Strain had some cool parts, but yeah I'm basically ready for this to tie its stupid plot off and get to those character-focus stories and mini-events they discussed doing (since they can't advance main plot much past a specific point now that GFL2 is out there and real).

On the off-chance you know, feel free to explain/answer any of the things I'm going to mention here, I'll cop to being wrong; but, if your answer/explanation is "well in this side material broadly not released to anyone outside China" maybe don't bother. If your story needs supplemental material to just stand up and work at all your story's fucked and you need to go back and redo it (starting with putting all that shit into the actual story).

So here's one; when RO frees Ange in Slow Shock, she pops a glorified fitbit on her wrist that tracks her vitals and reports to Persica about her status. This happens at a very specific point in time; the assault teams creeping up the Paradeus tower base are made aware of the fitbit's activation and know then that RO has succeeded (and are able to tell when RO has received their comms or not besides). After this, they are locked in combat with the super-Nyto procession, fighting Grig, wounding Bramedb, getting into various computer rooms, dealing with the Evangel Axis and freeing Aliana from its grip and so on and so on. Also, at a very specific point in time, given as 10 minutes from when the Commander issues an order to an aerial-support controlling T-Doll, bombers will take off to come and annihilate the towers and wipe out the Paradeus base.

In and around all this, AN-94 and AK-15 manage to ace their way up the tower, find SOP-II and nudge her toward RO, then find and abduct William and exfiltrate completely undetected by anyone, and the Sangvis Ferri assault squads bring the rear looting the tower and recording video of its technologies for analysis and such. Toward the end of the assault, Ange's vitals are reported as flatlining, RO runs and checks, and Ange is just gone.

So, what the fuck was RO doing that entire time? Between rescuing Ange and finding SOP-II/being told of Ange removing the fitbit and fleeing (presumably being swept along by DEFY because the Nyto possessed by AK-12 also just vanishes), she seemed to just space out, just went into a corner to disassociate for the entire rest of the event until that moment. Ange was barely alive and needed extensive medical equipment to keep her body ticking over, why did RO just leave her and wander off? Where did that entire time span go? RO explicitly did not join the fight or have to hold off a Nyto or anything else!

To talk of padding, the first chapter is rife with it; it's focused on Ange and her memories, of when she was a child, then when she joined the Military, then Griffin and then finally a hilariously false faking of the manor fight against Grey from previous event Mirror Stage (I think it was MS). The idea is Martha and presumably RPK-16 are doing Nyto-surgery on Ange and fucking with her memories to see if she would ever change her actions or decisions, and she doesn't, and also casts 'mystery' over what actually happened in her past.

Why have the faked Mirror Stage sequence at all? Ange's actions didn't matter there because Nyto-Grey and the Paradeus forces invincibly beat everyone and walked through everything that might've stopped them, teleporting soldiers in from nowhere and shrugging off anything they got hit with. It seems like it might be a brainwashing thing because it changes the Paradeus win to a hilarious loss and makes Statesec go evil to kill Ange, but the post-sequence scene is the exact same "she makes the same choices every time" spiel and also clearly ends with the entire sequence breaking down and not working. What does it achieve? Nothing, really, except to remind you of an embarrassingly bad sequence and prove that the protagonists only get to achieve things or be cool in literal dream sequences/fake realities.

The other sequences there are also too long for what they want to convey (introducing Martha and Sana, revealing Martha to be former Relics Agency and also the true origin of Paradeus, giving Ange's motivation for being hellbent on fighting Paradeus because it hilariously has not come up until now) but they at least have things they're doing that obviously matter for the plot. That fourth sequence doesn't.

On that note, the entire handling of Martha in isolation is fine, but in the context of the wider plot it's fucking stupid. Martha made the base tech underpinning Nytos, she has always had a callous disregard for ethics and human experimentation, she was doing it all along to try and resurrect her daughter Sana who died in a terrorist attack during World War III. Okay.

So why is she only coming up now? Why did they just graft the motivation for William, to this point explicitly said and shown to be the origin of Paradeus and beating heart of it all, onto her as well? Because William has clearly been chasing the means of resurrecting his sister Lunasia (who also died in a terror attack!), so why introduce this other character to co-opt and do all of it too and be the actual origin of all the cyber-zombie collective consciousness shit? What did William bring to any of this, then? The cult stuff that doesn't seem to matter? His dad's money?

Like I don't think that's a "well wait and see where the story goes next" thing; why is Martha here at all? She hasn't been mentioned to this point or mattered and this is, by the devs' own proclamation, the final arc of the story. A lot of what Martha is here for is to explain why Ange has been running herself into her grave doggedly hunting Paradeus, because without a deeply personal angle her antics are just insane after a point, but why couldn't you just make that William? Why introduce a whole other character to do all this instead of just...using William, the mystery man we've been pursuing since Continuum Turbulence three years ago (five years if you're on CN). If you want to be truly surreal, have Martha be William and go nuts with it, some alchemical rebus shit giving it's all about pursuing immortality and resurrection in insane and obviously stupid ways.

I'll specifically call myself out if that happens in the next event but I'm pretty confident it won't.

Last thing and this is minor by itself, but in the post-story bits with the Sangvis squad sweeping the tower to look at the weird shit around the place, they find a series of projection rooms that are set up to display recordings of key events in Martha's life, such as when she got fired from the Relics Agency or met Von Oberstein in Germany and so on. And like, why? I guess they could be set up for her to reminisce about, but they're unlocked, unprotected and are set to instantly delete themselves if they detect an unauthorised person enter...which would, presumably, be everyone in rank below the unique super/boss Nytos, right? The regular ones get nothing out of it and are often kept from seeing key files or knowing anything about the Paradeus leaders.

Like it's for us, the player, even if the sequences are so fucking short as to tell us nothing that we didn't already know or couldn't just infer (or show us Paradeus Magic happening again with a recreation of Paradeus killing a press cluster and a politician on an airfield to replace him with a cyborg clone, somehow no-one saw that, just more fucking cyber-zombie magic), but why not just have them be video files sucked out of a damaged mainframe like the other scenes shown? It's just weird, is all, like why would they build these and put them there?

You might ask "why question it if you know it's mainly for your benefit" and sure, I grant you that, but GFL for a good lot of its run was actually pretty grounded despite the anime girl Terminators core concept. Their guns were real guns with real limitations and capabilities, the Dolls with anti-materiel/anti-tank rifles didn't show up for a while so tanks were super threats back at the time of Singularity/Continuum Turbulence; even the fictional tech was pretty grounded stuff, the T-Dolls have real constraints like battery and wireless comms issues and being hacked and ammo is a constant concern, their rules are pretty straightforward and all. This made the Neural Upgrade/MOD process especially cool because in-universe it was technology advancing, the addition of HOCs and Sangvis Capture and son were grounded advancements and cool because of that.

It's why the KCCO and early Paradeus were effective villains; they had similarly realistic/grounded constraints they had to work around, even the special Paradeus forcefields had limitations (couldn't block heavy ordinance, for example) that made sense even if the tech was unknowable cyber-future-esque stuff. It's why later Paradeus fall off, because they start being able to silently mass-evacuate dense residential zones to teleport their pure white soldiers and mechs and hyper-destructive tentacle-and-robe cyber women into places and no-one notices or sees. There's a little tidbit in Slow Shock revealing the news broadcaster Shadowless is actually on the Paradeus payroll but she's one lady and there's no way they can black-out an entire residential block complaining on social media (which does, explicitly, exist, T-Dolls even use it too) about the cops shuffling them all out for a few hours (and this happens multiple times!), especially when some have to come back to destroyed apartments and so on. That requires explanations and money to smooth over/cover repairs, which makes trails somewhere, and if the world is so grounded then this is the stuff the spy agencies would be finding and the Paradeus conspiracy wouldn't be as secretive as it has been.

But they don't because Paradeus are Magic and don't have any limits or concerns or operational and logistical constraints until the plot needs them to. And stuff like the Plot Projection Rooms just glare in the same way; they don't make sense for the style and tone GFL set for itself, and it doesn't offer any explanation for why Martha has three whole unlocked and unsecured rooms dedicated to projecting 3D recordings of key points of her life that are rigged to self-destruct if someone with a low-ranked or no ID badge walks in.

Yeah, it's a minor thing, it doesn't matter for shit ultimately, it just annoys me, you know? This is just the best way to explain what my brain damage is, is all.

[moonshinemagpie]

Love when I'm reading a medical website and I'm reminded that humans have all these spooky fucked up lovecraftian sleep disorders:

"Also, if you or a loved one tends to act out dreams on a regular basis, this should prompt a visit with the doctor as any suspected cases of REM behavior disorder need to be diagnosed as treated promptly."

The same website said that 20% of people with my arthritis disease have nightmare disorder, compared to about 2% of the general population.

Besides the fact that I knew my constant nightmares were unusual but didn't realize there's a medicalized term for it, the idea that your joints are on fire and your subconscious is screaming for help every night is just mmm chef's kiss, so deeply ripe for a body horror story that I need to live inside for a bit longer before I write it down

[1863designs]

- It’s October 1st which means…ITS OFFICIALLY SPOOKY SEASON🎃!!!! And boy do we have a way for you to express your love of the spooky and the Civil War!! Doctor Sawbones is in the house! The doctor is a cartoon reorientation of how the soldier saw the surgeons who regularly worked on them. There was a delightful little poem accompanied him. How’d that go again? Oh, yeah: TO THE SURGEON Ho! Ho! Old Saw Bones, here you come, Yes, when the rebel whack us, You are always ready with your traps, To mangle, saw, and hack us. Now isn’t that just a lovely piece of writing? You can find both our Saw Bones stickers as Transparents but the full doctor will soon be available as a regular sticker. Meaning the remaining few transparent full doctor stickers are the last of that version! Make sure to get these while the doctor is still in. He may not be here forever! Welcome to Spooky season! #civilwar #civilwarmedicine #civilwar #civilwarart #sawbones #myleg #civilwardoctor #doctor #spookyseason #halloween #spookyskeleton #october (at Frederick, Maryland) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjL_YksOFLH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[overwatch-imagines-hub]

May I request HCs for Lúcio, Sigma, and Roadhog going out with their S/O and taking their S/O’s younger relatives (siblings, cousins, etc) trick or treating with them? Sorry if this request doesn’t make sense, I’ll clarify if needed, but thank you ( ◠‿◠ )

A/N: No worries, friend, I getchu!

Also, happy Halloween!!!

~~~

Lucio

He’s so excited

Like, SO excited

Halloween is one of his favorite holidays so you know he goes all out

Tricks out the kiddos’ costumes probably a little too much

Luci, your young cousin dressed as a robot doesn’t actually need functional robotic arms

If you’re someone who doesn’t do costumes, too bad because you and Lucio are wearing fancy matching ones

He’s so giddy about Halloween that it’s almost like you’re dealing with another kid

Before the group goes out, he sits down with the kids and makes a game plan

Helps them figure out the best and fastest candy routes, and pick out which houses have the best goodies so you guys can hit them first

He also picks out a few check-in spots in the neighborhood just in case anyone gets lost

Strong believer of the idea that no one is too old for trick-or-treating, so he waits until the kids each grab a couple of pieces before snagging a piece each for himself and you

He’s running around and being just as squirrel-y as the kids are

It’s chaos

But it’s fun chaos

By the end of the night, each of the kids has a giant bag of candy, and so do you and Lucio to share

He’s probably just as exhausted as the kids are by the end of the night but he ends up hauling like three half-asleep kids home on his shoulders and in his arms anyway

Once back home, it’s movie and candy-trading time

Everyone pours out their candy into separate piles and trades disliked treats for faves

Then the lot of you curl up and watch some Halloween classics

The kids don’t make it through one movie before falling asleep

Lucio barely makes it through two

Sigma

Excited but more for the kiddos than himself

Tbh, he’d much rather be at home handing out candy than wandering around in the chilly evening air b u t he loves to spend time with your and your family, so he’s immediately on board

Not much a costume man, so he lets the kids pick what he is and does his best to recreate it

The youngest member of the group demands he be a doctor fairy and he just can’t refuse

While out and about, he hangs back with you to share small talk and keep and eye on the kids going haywire around you

He helps you corral them around and make sure everyone is behaving and being nice to each other

Some house have candy bowls sitting on tables or stair railings that are too high for the kiddos to reach, so he picks them up one by one to help them snag their favorite ones

On occasion, he’ll sneak a candy to bring back and split with you as your group continues on its way

Tbh, most of the night is just you two corralling children and sharing kisses and candy when you get a chance to

Roadhog

Honestly, a little stressed, not that he really shows that

You know him well enough to tell, though

Nervous because he thinks he’s scary but not in the fun Halloween way

Your young relatives disagree but he chalks that up to them being familiar with him from previous meetings

If he comes down the street dressed up in a costume, he’s going to scare everyone and send them running

Which he normally wouldn’t care about but he doesn’t want to ruin things for you and your family specifically

You might have to convince him to wear something other than his regular attire because he thinks his normal getup is spooky enough

“Mako, you can’t go like that, you’re literally a wanted criminal.”

He grumbles about it being Halloween so no one will know it’s him, only to be shut down when you point out that it would be hard to overlook the fact that his body type and his outfit are identical to that of the wanted Roadhog

He probably quietly pouts a little bit longer but caves almost immediately when you bring out the puppy eyes

If he has to wear a costume, you have to pick it for him

So, naturally, you pick a cutesie pink pig

And you’re the farmer that owns said pig

Moving onto the actual outing, though

The kids basically ride Roadie all evening

He’s a giant, a few tiny people in glitter and face paint would be like carrying a gallon of milk

They sit on his shoulders or hang off his back and arms

He doesn’t mind in the slightest

They only hop off to run up porches to get the goods

He wasn’t entirely wrong that he would spook people but with his piggie outfit, it was only enough to get them to veer out of his way

Which meant your group got to the best candy first

Once he realized his power and your young family members’ enjoyment of it, he started actively spooking groups of kids and parents out of the way

You probably would have scolded him if you didn’t notice the kids getting such a kick out of it

[wallflowerimagines]

I love your writing so much, it's very great! Anyways, can you make one with the lords with a s/o who can see ghosts, but everytime they see one they tensed up ? Thanks alot! <3 <3 <3

In a horror game???? With a horror villain s/o?????

Anon, you are so brave 😔✊ let's get spooky.

Alcina Dimitrescu

There are SO many ghosts in Castle Dimitrescu. And they're all so LOUD.

The majority seem to be victims of House Dimitrescu. All of them drift through the air, drained and skeletal, eyes sightless, and they just wail non stop. The wailing itself is actually kind of a lower volume, but because there are so many ghosts around, the sound layers and echoes through the space until you can barely hear yourself think.

They remind you of jellyfish in a way. They just aimlessly drift through the air, clothes billowing around them, sliding through the walls. Constantly screaming.

You actually prefer the ghosts of the victims of the Cadou experiments. They might be horrible, shuffling abominations of flesh and oozing blood, but at least they're quiet.

Alcina notices you flinch without any kind of visible stimulus, and immediately gets suspicious. She pulls you into a room and demands an explanation of your behavior.

If there is a problem, she's going to fix it.

When you tell her about the ghosts, her lips press into a fine line. You mean to tell her that these worthless wastes of space are crowding her halls, polluting her home even after their death?

They dare to not only crowd the noble house of Dimitrescu under her nose for years, but they're bothering you while they do it?

Yeah, Alcina is Furious.

She gets a couple exorcists on Retainer. Every month or so, priests of various religions are paraded through the house and cleanse the place from top to bottom. She has you follow them around and check their work, too. If any of them happen to be charlatans, they'll just join the horde of ghosts. No skin off her nose.

It is a little annoying that she has to hire even more people to clean up the mess in her Castle, but Alcina is a highborn lady. Any kind of clutter (living or dead) is unacceptable. Her home should be pristine.

Besides, her favorite reward is seeing you fall asleep in her arms, entirely peaceful. You had been so obviously stressed by the situation. It's such a relief to have you relaxed and calm once again.

Donna Beneviento

When Donna finds out you can see ghosts, she gets a bit ...manic.

This is a woman who lost her entire family, and is unable to deal with grief in a healthy way. She's constantly in mourning garb, and her veil rarely comes off. Hell, her grief was the catalyst for her current hobby-- which is what turned it into a hyperfixation.

I'm not going to lie to you, this revelation puts your relationship on pause. She's going to use you to get what she wants, and she wants her family back.

Donna pulls out all the family photo albums and portraits. She coaches you on her mother's laugh, her father's focused expression. She gets the projector and plays you home movies to show you how they walk and talk. Anything she can show you to help identify the ghosts of her family, she does it.

If you tense up, Donna gets so excited. Is it someone she knew? Her sister, maybe?

Unfortunately, most of the ghosts around are Donna's victims. They huddle in the corners of her home, rocking back and forth in terror, clawing at the walls in a futile attempt to escape whatever horror they've been eternally trapped in.

Sometimes, at night, you hear soft whimpers and scratches at your door...

If there is a ghost that isn't a member of her family around, Donna gets frustrated with it. She will banish any ghost that isn't a member of her family, or a member of the previous staff that could help them in the afterlife.

Eventually you need to sit her down and have a serious conversation with her. You're not something she can use to connect to her family. You might be willing to help, but all she's done lately is treat you like an object, not a partner. It has to stop.

It's the wake up call Donna needs. You both hold each other and cry for a long time, because the last thing she ever wanted to do is hurt you, but... She misses them. So much.

You still look for their ghosts for her, still tense in the hallway, but Donna stops asking you to describe them to her. She trusts you to tell her if they look familiar now. She can be patient.

Salvatore Moreau

Fish man might have been a doctor once, but he is a Small Town Doctor from a small fishing Hamlet. I don't care how much "logic" and "reason" you might think he has. This man is SUPER-fucking-STICIOUS.

Salt over your shoulder, four leaf clover carrying, fear of curse having man DOES NOT LIKE the idea of being haunted.

The ghosts of the reservoir are extra spooky too. Some of them are mid-mutation from the failed Cadou experiments...But the drowning victims are more common.

There aren't many ghosts around, but when they do appear, they're bloated, skin slipping off their bones, clothes dissolving around them as they glide through the air. They move much slower than other ghosts too, like the fact that they died in the water has permanently trapped them in that state.

If you tense up out of nowhere, Moreau does too.

What did you see?? Are they close?? Do they look bound to an object??

Salvatore will turn into his giant fish form and yeet anything that you might feel to be haunted over the mountain range. He takes no chances with that shit.

You two both are regular customers of the Duke's specifically for new exorcism methods. The Duke doesn't scam you guys either-- he provides candles, scriptures, holy water, perfumes, all of it works to keep the spirits at bay.

You and Moreau will walk around the reservoir, on guard for any hauntings, and clean up any area that might possibly have a ghost attached to it. It's a incredibly weird and very niche bonding experience.

By the end of the day, the reservoir is the least haunted place in the whole Village. Just how you and Salvatore like it.

Karl Heisenberg

Eat my ass, spirits

Heisenberg is not afraid of ghosts. He actually makes fun of you a little bit for even believing in them, until he sees you tense up out of the blue.

He trusts you enough to know you're not lying to him, so he knows that you are seeing something. He just doesn't know if they're really ghosts.

There aren't as many ghosts in the factory as there are at the Castle, but there is still quite a few.

A lot of them are missing limbs, unsurprisingly. They gasp and scramble around, eyes (if they are even there) bulging out of rotting faces as they scan the surrounding area for their missing pieces. They scuttle around like spiders up and through the walls, poking their heads into random rooms and constantly searching for something, anything to make them whole.

The worst thing about them is that they ALL scream when they see Heisenberg. It's not even a wail like from a normal ghost-- this is a full on shriek of rage and grief. They know who he is. They know what he's done. And they can't do anything about it.

Is it any wonder that you tense up all the time?

After you describe the ghosts in more detail to your partner, Heisenberg sets his jaw, gets pissed, and finds a way to exorcise the lot of them. While he can't see them, you can, and they might make you think less of him. He can't have that.

Plus, they're obviously bothering you. Karl does not tolerate some dumb spirits harassing his partner. If he has to nail a couple crucifixes to the wall and get a spray bottle of holy water, he will.

He also sees if he can kill his victims in an isolated section of the factory. Maybe having one specific room might limit the range on these things? It also makes for easier clean up.

[beewritesposts]

hey!! my main interests right now are the sims 4 and monster high, so naturally i decided to combine them and make a sims 4 monster high legacy challenge!! here are the rules, if anyone wants to participate i would love if you posted your heirs/families/builds on the gallery with the hashtag #fr0gemo!!

monster high legacy challenge

inspired by lilsimsie’s not so berry challenge, this challenge is based off of the monster high characters. it is meant to give you new storyline ideas you haven’t used before, while also satisfying your childhood nostalgia!

basic rules:

1. you have the option to play with berry sim colours, to make sure your heirs the same as the character they’re based off of, or to make a humanized version of the character. you have full creative freedom, as long as you reference the character somehow!

2. ideally, you should also base each generations spouse on the character’s significant other in the monster high series, but this is optional

3. money cheats are allowed in moderation, but i don’t recommend them. struggling is fun in the sims

4. you can live wherever you want, i recommend forgotten hollow or glimmerbrook for the full spooky monster high effect

5. you must complete the career and aspiration for each generation

6. play on normal lifespan

gen 1: frankie stein

you were an only child who was homeschooled and is finally moving out on her own. you took an interest in biology in your high school years and you’re fascinated by life. that’s why you want to create your own. outside of your scientific endeavours, you also love knitting and using your newfound social life to make as many friends as you can.

traits: cheerful, clumsy, foodie

aspiration: friend of the world

requirements:

- join the doctor career

- master the robotics and knitting skills

- create 2 servos in your lifetime and keep them for the rest of the legacy

- have one daughter

- have 2 best friends that you go on weekly outings with

- optional: if you make her spouse jackson jekyll, give him the erratic trait

gen 2: draculaura

you love your parents, but they didn’t exactly pay much attention to you as a child. you were basically raised by servos. you want to give your children a more tight knit family experience, so you take up a career that allows you to work from home. you’re also a bit of a gossip, wanting to know what’s going on in everyone’s lives.

traits: ambitious, vegetarian, romantic

aspiration: neighbourhood confidante

requirements:

- become a vampire as a teenager (optional if you hate occult sims that much, if you do choose to do it then gen 3 starts when the next heir becomes a young adult)

- be closer with your father than you are with your mother

- join the social media career

- master the gardening, charisma and vampire lore skills

- marry someone, divorce them, and marry someone else

- have a vegetable garden

- have a high relationship with all your children

gen 3: clawdeen wolf

growing up, you never really experienced romantic love. not for lack of opportunity, you had many suitors in your teenage years, you just were never interested in having a partner. you’re more of a lone wolf. you do, however, have an interest in parenting. your dream was to adopt children to get them out of the foster care system, and you did just that. you can’t spend all your time home when you’re a single parent, so in order to pay the bills you took a fashion photographer job, and actually ended up really liking it.

traits: glutton, unflirty, family-oriented

aspiration: super parent

requirements:

- if you chose to become a vampire in the last generation, make this heir turn back into a regular sim.

- you can go on dates, but don’t have an official romantic relationship

- join the fashion photographer career

- adopt 3 kids and 3 dogs

- don’t leave the house at night (when it’s dark out)

- master parenting and pet training skills

- be best friends with your mother

gen 4: lagoona blue

you’re a simple sim. you have one goal: help save the ocean to the best of your ability. you’re just one sim, so you can’t singlehandedly clean the entire ocean, but you just want to make a difference. in order to do this, you moved to sulani to get closer to the sea, and in your adulthood you realized being able to breathe underwater is much more efficient than using diving gear, so you became a mermaid. your other passion is fitness, making frequent gym visits to keep in shape for your job.

traits: child of the ocean, bro, active

aspiration: bodybuilder

requirements:

- go to university for environmental science (biology?) and play soccer in university

- join the conservationist career

- live in sulani

- marry someone who also has the child of the ocean trait

- complete the fish collection

- eat mermaidic kelp after you have your children (once again optional if you don’t like occult sims)

- master fishing and fitness skills

gen 5: cleo denile

you’re a popular it girl. you’re hot, everyone wants you, and for lack of a better way to put it, you’re kind of a bitch. when you graduated, you decided to join the style influencer career. you were already criticizing people’s outfits, may as well get paid to do it. you also have a deep belief in self care, so you make sure you bring yourself to the spa every week. working and spa trips aren’t your true ambition though, what you really want to do is find the love of your life.

traits: snob, high maintenance, self absorbed

aspiration: soulmate

requirements:

- join style influencer career

- master photography and wellness skills

- complete the crystal collection and display them in your house

- go to the spa weekly

- go on dates with 5 different people before getting married

- have triplet daughters (you can use cheats for this)

- have 100k simoleons in your bank account at some point

gen 6: abbey bominable

your mother was a bit of a priss growing up, and you are nothing like her. you moved away from home as soon as you could to the snowy mountain ranges of mt. komorebi so you could live your dream of participating in winter sports. you’re a loner and not the greatest at communication, but in order to combat that you practice comedy. weirdly, you also have an affinity for growing flowers to counteract your more tough side.

traits: adventurous, dog lover, loves outdoors

aspiration: extreme sports enthusiast

requirements:

- join the bodybuilder career

- move to the yukimatsu district of mt. komorebi

- climb mt. komorebi

- marry someone with the outgoing trait (heath burns)

- master snowboarding and comedy skills

- have a greenhouse with a flower garden

- have a pet samoyed named shiver

gen 7: operetta

your parents are a bit old fashioned. they wanted you to find a nice man, get married and give them grandchildren. you aren’t against having a family, but first you want to make it big in the music business. unfortunately, you have stage fright and refuse to perform live, so you want to be a mysterious musician who only gains fame through your records. you’re also a bit of a rebellious loner who isn’t afraid to cause mischief in the lives of people who wrong you.

traits: music lover, loner, mean

aspiration: villainous valentine, musical genius (not necessary to complete)

requirements:

- master the guitar, organ and mischief skills

- join the entertainer career in the musician branch

- publish songs and become famous, but never perform live

- be best friends with 2 guys who you previously had romantic relationships with

- don’t get married until you reach fame star level 3

- live in the basement of an abandoned house

gen 8: venus mcflytrap

you were raised by a rebel and a musician, and as a result you found yourself immersed in punk culture, specifically eco punk. you want to break out of society’s industrialization and make the world a more eco friendly place by doing your part personally and professionally, which is why you joined the civil designer career in order to help develop green infrastructure. outside of your environmental passions, you also love gardening and partying.

traits: freegan, dance machine, green fiend

aspiration: master maker

requirements:

- live in a house in a green neighbourhood with only recycled furniture (to the best of your ability)

- join the civil designer career in the green technician branch

- master the fabrication, gardening and dance skills

- vote on NAPs every week

- have a flower garden on your lot

- be the leader of an environmental club

- attend parties/social outings whenever you’re asked

gen 9: ghoulia yelps

from a young age, you were a genius. you spent most of your childhood studying and developing your intellect, as well as indulging yourself in “geek” type hobbies like video games. while doing your university degree in physics to become a doctor, you gained an interest in rocket science and decided you wanted to use your income once you graduated to build your own rocket ship.

traits: genius, bookworm, geek

aspiration: nerd brain

requirements:

- go to university and do a distinguished degree in physics

- join the brainiacs organization

- join the scientist career

- master logic and rocket science skills

- attend geekcon every time it occurs

- have one best friend

- complete the mysims trophy collection

gen 10: rochelle goyle

your mother raised you with knowledge of the sciences, in hopes that you would grow up to follow in her footsteps. instead, though, you want to learn all there is to know about everything. you’re a jack of all trades. namely, you have an interest in the culinary arts, painting and fitness.

traits: foodie, hot-headed, non-committal

aspiration: renaissance sim

requirements:

- complete the whiz kid aspiration

- reach level 3 in a part time career of your choice as a teen

- reach level 5 logic skill as a teen and move out

- join the culinary career when you become a young adult

- quit your job and become a food critic when you become an adult

- go rollerskating whenever you come across a rink

- master the cooking, painting and fitness skills

- reach level 8 in 3 other skills of your choice

- cheat on your high school partner as a young adult, you can choose if you end up with your first partner or your second one

- optional: live in a house with gothic style architecture (gargoyles!!!)

[differentkettleoffishalltogether]

An Inconvenient Affection - New Series Sneak Peek - [S. R. Series]

When a couples’ therapist is suspected of murdering his own patients, Y/N and Spencer must go undercover as a feuding married couple to draw him out.

A/N:  I’m so excited to be starting my second series. I’ve got the first few chapters written and the whole thing outlined already so I’m hoping to stick to a regular posing schedule. For this I’m sort of picturing a mid-seasons Spencer with a kind of switch energy, so it’s neither dom! nor sub! Spencer! 

I really hope you enjoy it, let me know if you’d like to be on the taglist, and as always, reblogs, comments, tags, and messages really keep me motivated and excited to write <3

Read Chapter 1 Here 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Category: Fake Dating, Friends to Lovers, Smut, Fluff, Angst

Warnings: Cursing, Adult Themes, Smut in Later Chapters, Alcohol Consumption, Stalking, Adultery, Criminal Minds Typical Violence

Word Count: TBA (Roughly 10 Chapters)

“A married couple?!” Spencer all but shouts, the office is hardly soundproof and the rest of the team must’ve caught on by now. For the ‘smartest member of the team’ Spencer sure had some gaping holes in his foresight.

“You can’t be serious!”

He stands up from his chair, shaking his head in disbelief, starting to pace around the medium sized office to work off the nervous energy building in his chest.

“This is hardly outrageous Reid” Hotch states, making sympathetic but brief eye contact with Y/N before he pinches the bridge of his nose in an effort to restrain himself. “Yourself and Y/N already have a friendship to build on, she’s worked undercover many times and your memory should make it simple for you to integrate into the false narrative she can construct. Plus, you’re a non-threatening presence to an unsub like this. What else could you possibly need convincing of?” Hotch adds with exasperation, he’d mentioned all of that and more in his initial proposition but Spencer was still reluctant.

“If I’m really that repulsive I’m sure we can find someone else to play my husband Spence?” Y/N tries to joke but there’s something about the sentence that makes her stomach uneasy.

“No!” Spencer sits again with haste, looking between the two other agents, “No that’s not it, I just” he takes in a deep sigh, “I don’t know if I’ll be any good at this, I don’t want to ruin the investigation” he confesses and Hotch immediately shoots it down.

“That won’t be an issue, our unsub’s primary target will be Y/N. She’ll be the cheating partner, your role will mostly be following her lead which shouldn’t be too difficult”

Spencer might be great at acting after all. He lets his shoulders slump and his posture relaxes entirely as though his boss has just put all of his worries to rest. But that’s not what was bothering him. Not even close.

He’s had a stupid schoolboy crush on Y/N from her first day at the BAU. He’d like to think it had come later but he knew it had been almost instant. Her first day had been on Halloween 2 years earlier, he’d been explaining the historical origins of the holiday when Y/N corrected his pronunciation of the Irish word Samhain.

“It’s more like ‘Sah-whin’ than ‘Sam-hain’ in spite of its spooky origins it’s actually the current Irish word for November” she spoke up from her seat in the bullpen, setting up some stationary at the once empty desk next to Spencer’s.

“Y/N L/N,” she stood up outstretching her hand, “I guess I’m your new co-worker” she half-smiled, her nervous energy getting the better of her as he ignored her gesture and just looked at her palm instead.

“He’s just weird about touching” Emily reaches out to reciprocate the handshake, “I’m Emily Prentiss, it’s nice to meet you, this little guy here is Spencer Reid” she says as she places her hands on both of his shoulders and shakes him gently

“Dr. Spencer Reid” he corrects quickly, shooting her a tight lipped smile paired with an even more awkward half-wave.

“Oh, a doctor” she raises her eyebrows, “best not tell my Mom I work with a doctor or she’ll be hounding me to marry you” she cracks. It’s obviously a joke but Spencer can’t help but recall the conversation now and how prescient it feels.

“We can work out the details together if you think that’ll help you feel more comfortable?” Y/N reaches out her hand to touch his forearm to steady him in his seat. He’d grown so used to her casual touch by now that he barely noticed it. But this time, with his rolled up sleeve, feeling her fingertips against his bare skin it felt as though he was going to combust.

How was he going to be able to hide this childish infatuation if they had to masquerade as a married couple. What if she touched him literally anywhere else. She was a profiler too, of course she’d notice.

Read Chapter 1 Here

——

Let me know what you thought about this sneak peek here <3

And let me know if you'd like to be on the tag-list, I'll be posting the first full chapter later this week!

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

[charzard-lord]

Masterlist - last edited on Feb. 27. 2023

Key

☁️ = fluff

🎭 = drama

🧸 = comfort

💣 = angst

😋 = humor

🏳️‍🌈 = LGBTQ+ topics

💋 = steam

🔞 = smut

❤ = romantic

🤝 = platonic

☠ = death

🔪 = violence

🩸 = blood/gore

🎬 = action

🍷 = drinking/substance use

🌌 = alternate universe

♀️ = specified female (reader/character)

♂️ = specified male (reader/character)

☂️ = gender non specified or other (reader/character)

Fanfics

Good Omens

Touch Starved (Aziraphale/Reader/Crowley)☁️🧸💣☂️ Summary: You were never big on physical affection. You learned at a very young age that it wasn’t safe. But after a particularly rough week, you find yourself craving someone’s touch. You go to your good friends, Aziraphale and Crowley, but you don’t know how to breach the subject. Luckily, your angel and demon know you well enough to know that something is wrong, and eventually, they coax it out of you. Fluffy cuddles ensue.

Looks Good On You (Crowley/Reader)☁️💋❤☂️ Summary: Crowley finds you wearing his shirt and he just can’t help himself. Love confessions ensue.

Ugh! (Aziraphale/Crowley/Reader) ☁️🧸🍷☂️ Summary: Life has been really difficult lately. Everything seems too overwhelming and you don’t know how much more you can take. Lucky for you, Aziraphale and Crowley know just the right way to help you relax. 

Good Omens: Let’s Get Spooky! (Halloween/Autumn Headcanons)☁️☂️ Summary: Just some headcanons about doing fall activities with the gang (corn maze, apple picking, pumpkin carving/decorating, haunted house, and scary movies)

Doctor Who

Engagement (Eleventh Doctor/Reader/River Song)☁️💣❤☂️ Summary: The Doctor takes you and River to an alien planet that’s in the middle of a festival. When a handsome prince offers you a glittering rose, you accept, unknowingly agreeing to a marriage with him. When you try to back out, the prince threatens to kill the Doctor and River if you don’t comply. Seeing no other choice, you agree. Will you get out of this? Or will you be stuck on an alien planet married to a stranger?

You’re The Mystery I Need To Solve (Eleventh Doctor/Reader/Tenth Doctor) 🎭💣😋❤☂️ Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight (Status: Complete) Summary: You’ve had several dreams about a madman with a box and when you finally meet him in real life, you realize that something is very wrong. For some reason, the TARDIS doesn’t react well around you. In fact, it seems to completely stop working and turns into a regular police box. The Doctor is terrified yet fascinated, and completely determined to solve this mystery.

What’s Left Behind (River Song/Reader) 🧸💣❤🍷☂️ Summary: You have a dissociative episode and River confesses her feelings for you

Every Part Of Me (River Song/Fem!Reader)☁️🎭🧸💣♀️ Summary: You have DID and while out with River, you switch a few times. 

Marvel

Soothing Touch (Platonic!Avengers/Reader, implied Loki/Reader)☁️🧸🤝☂️ Summary: Whenever one of the Avengers is feeling down or in need of affection, they come to you for comfort. Everyone agrees that you have the most soothing touch. You will stroke their hair and sing/hum for them and it always helps them to relax. It has become a regular occurrence in the building, and sometimes, they will even fight over who gets to cuddle with you first. Loki is also quietly in love with you, but never acts on his feelings. 

Worship (Sub!Loki/Fem!Reader)☁️🔞❤♀️ Summary: You give Loki what he wants. Pure smut. If you’re looking for plot, go elsewhere because this is just fucking. 

Breaking Point (Avengers/Reader)☁️🧸💣🤝☂️Summary: You have been overwhelmed with emotions, always taking on your teammates burdens. You finally snap and the team comforts you. 

Under the Tension of Hate (Sub!Loki/Fem!Reader)🎭💣💋🔞♀️Summary: You have a sex dream about the one person you hate the most, creating confusion and uncertainty in your heart. 

The Arcana

Breathtaking (Asra/Fem!ReaderSmut)☁️🔞❤♀️ Summary: Lazy mornings with Asra lead to praise kink sex

Moodboards

Touch Starved

Looks Good On You

Engagement

What’s Left Behind

Breathtaking

Good Omens: Let’s Get Spooky!

Other Links

Rules, Characters, Fandoms

AO3