#some meat is okay just not meat as the main event

[algolagniaa]

does anyone have any good non-meat centric recipes that don’t involve heavy spices or garlic or onions?

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

Heisei/Reiwa Kamen Rider Bike Riding Time research

Hello there! Does anyone remember from a little while back when this image was going around?

For a while, at least in fan communities I frequented; this was quite infamous for showing just how sharp a decline Kamen Rider's namesake had become in the last few years, with the absolute nadir of the Heisei 20th anniversary Kamen Rider using his bike for a total of 47 seconds (and also, on the other end; just how much Kuuga would not get off his bike)

Obviously, it's been a few years since Saber now; and I've found myself wondering from time to time exactly how the Riders since then have fared, especially since both Geats and Gotchard have garnered a reputation of sorts for putting a bit more emphasis on the bikes and feeling like they have more screentime than your Zero-Ones and your Sabers.

So! I went looking and found the source. This extremely dedicated Japanese poster called Yamashita Radio who of course I will be basing the majority of this on, including his rules and his counting. And when I say 'dedicated' I mean that at one point he lost all his data so he just counted Kuuga through Saber all over again. MAD respect for this man! I highly recommend a full readthrough of this 5-part post at one point because it's very impressive and interesting stuff in my opinion

One other interesting point is that that chart there? That's main rider only; and also includes any riding they did as civilians. There is a separate chart for all motorbike riding in the show as a whole; including other riders, including monsters, including even just random civilians! For posterity, I think it's important to post that chart for comparison with the main rider one -- I've colour coded here so that red is Heisei 1 (Kuuga-Decade), green is Heisei 2 (W-Zi-O) and yellow is Reiwa (Zero-One onwards). Main rider only on the left, all biking on the right.

Up front there are some absolutely fascinating observations to make here - Zero-One had the least bike scenes of any show! Brand new era of Kamen Rider! - but I think I've talked about the past enough. With all this said and what I feel is a very important plug to make, let's get into the meat of this -- how do Revice, Geats and Gotchard compare to previous shows?

Rules

... okay, yeah, sure; let's quickly establish a baseline first. As I'm going off of Yamashita's work, I'm also going by all his rules; it's a good thing I agree with all of them because I kinda didn't want to completely redo the count of every season!

TV Show ONLY! No movies, no TTFC specials, no HBVs, no V-Cinema, none of it. The main reason given is that, uh, Paradise Lost has a 100+ bike scene near the start so that's too much of an advantage -- fair enough! Personally I also think it's more interesting, because movies generally have more budget and allowances for bike scenes so those tend to be the same. Maybe a separate count would still be interesting, but I think including movies would flatten out the times too much and make the data pretty uninteresting

No openings! Agito has too much of an advantage

Non-transformed states count the same as transformed states. Godai riding a bike is the same as Kuuga riding a bike.

All motorcycles are treated equally! Mopeds and even CG scenes and bikes are allowed

Other vehicles such as cars, trains and even bicycles and hoverbikes are excluded. Two big exceptions are made for Drive and Revice as they do not have a main motorbike otherwise, but this does exclude things like Gaim's Dandeliner, many of the Oni in Hibiki's transport vehicles, Den-O's Den-Liner, Gotchard's Steamliner and Madwheel and Decade's Agito Slider

Transformations of the bike still count as long as it's being ridden. The Boostriker turns into fox mode while you're riding it? That's fair game

Flashbacks and other repeat footage ("previously on" segments etc) don't count of course. But in cases where it's clearly stock footage but it's still a new event, like the many Ryuki Rideshooter scenes, that's still counted

Count from the moment the bike is straddled to the moment the bike is gotten off, and everything in between. Scenes where the bike isn't technically visible - such as close-ups of the rider's face, or cutting to another character's reaction - are still counted if it's all the same scene

Revice

3m21s (2m23s for Revi only)

Oh lucky me, this was actually done for me! Yamashita made a small update after Revice finished to add this. I just went over and double checked it.

At 3m21s, Revice is at this point the series with the 2nd least amount of bike riding; above Zero-One and below Zi-O. For Revi alone he's in 3rd least; above Zero-One and below Saber. Happy 50th anniversary!

An interesting note here is that Ikki never rides Vice Ptera untransformed -- concerns over the actor's safety, maybe? Daiji also pulls in 58 seconds for the show on his own motorbike, but abandons it completely after episode 13; only bringing it back for the summer movie (which is also the only place he rode it as Live). Interestingly, the 12 seconds he rides it with Sakura in episode 13 is the only time he uses it in the show after becoming a Rider. The skateboarding scene in episode 7 for Jackal Form goes on for over a minute, but unfortunately can't count for this...

I think most people expected Revice to place quite low, though. So let's move on to a show I think a lot of people expect to place higher.

Geats

4m05s (3m45s for Geats only)

I keep repeating it, but this is a show where it seemed a lot of people got the impression of the bike having more importance than before. I think there's a lot of aspects that come together into that -- the bike being tied to a specific 'special' item that's even part of the main rider's main form, the upgrade forms going off of that, and the bike being used in prominent scenes including in the first episode. Geats even arrives on it in his Revice summer movie cameo!

But ultimately if you look at riding time, Geats ends up in 3rd place for overall bike time; above Revice and below Zi-O, while for main rider only Ace ends up in 5th last; above Saber and below Decade. As such he ends up being the main Reiwa Rider to use his bike the most.

This is where I started splitting main rider and untransformed rider in my personal tracking charts, just for fun -- I actually couldn't do that for Revice because as said Ikki never rides anything untransformed except his bicycle. Until episode 11 Ace actually just slightly edged out Geats for having more bike time which was enjoyable to see.

A very interesting thing happens in regards to the Boostriker's transformed state. I decided not to include finishers involving it unless the Rider is specifically riding it -- and the one and only one to do so was Buffa in episode 6, accounting for every single second he rode the machine. He had a penchant for using the buckles' weapons in ways he wasn't supposed to, and he kept up that rule even when the 'weapon' was a bike.

Geats spends a decent amount of time in the final episode sitting on his bike while talking to Regad and the other Riders, and that really saved the show's overall times.

Gotchard

5m09s (2m32s for Gotchard alone)

According to production blogs, Gotchard had a stated aim of using the bike more. Unfortunately it seems this didn't manifest itself in a very major way... but I think we did see more interesting uses of it! Spanner has his own bike (that like Daiji, he never rides transformed!), there's a version of Golddash from the future, other characters including Golddash itself ride rather than Hotaro at multiple points!

For 'others', the 3 seconds in Episode 2 is when Minato rolls up to deliver Golddash to Hotaro personally. Episode 9's 5 seconds have Renge (with Sabimaru in the back) riding it to deliver Hotaro's cards to him in Kyoto.

Spanner shockingly saved the series' overall time here in a similar way to final episode Ace, by sitting on his for an extended period of time during his conversation with Lachesis at the start of episode 47.

While it's not a very long scene nor did it change anything for the rankings, the bike scene in the final episode that just aired is notable for an extremely rare instance of a Rider Machine being ridden by a Kamen Rider's final form. To my knowledge this has previously only been done by Agito, Den-O and Revice (the latter in a movie). Fittingly for a show where part of the direction was inspired by Agito, both Agito and Gotchard do this Final Form bike scene in their final episodes.

And now, for the final count...

Gotchard ended up in 21st for overall bike time between Zi-O and Saber, but this was largely due to other characters; so Hotaro alone ended up in 22nd between Revice and Saber.

Overall we're now 5 shows in instead of 2, we can indeed see a very large dropoff in the Reiwa Era -- including Zi-O, the most recent 6 shows are all at the bottom of the list. This is especially notable when The next most recent series, Build, had 12m31s; almost double that of Saber's -- and this wasn't uncommon, with Ghost and Ex-Aid sharing similar times.

This was the main thrust of my research... but what say we go on a little addendum? Because when I mentioned Yamashita updated his post to include Revice in 2022, there was... one other series he saw fit to do a count for. One that was only halfway through, but nonetheless saw an impressive amount of bike riding time. He only got halfway, but what say I finish the job out of pure interest?

It is "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers"

The extremely normal 2022 entry into the Super Sentai series has a number of bike scenes. Some you may expect from Don Momotaro riding his CGI Enyarideon on his Palanquin for much of the first cour. Some of you might say that CGI shouldn't count, it's easy enough to animate together a scene than deal with road laws and such -- but does Kijibrother not count? Does Inubrother not count? Do none of the mech scenes count? It's a festival, people. Let's enjoy it.

Even aside from the CGI, Yamashita noted halfway through the show; that can't quite account for everything else. Sonoi has a bike he rides in multiple episodes, every time with a wheelie. Inuzuka twice within 4 episodes steals a bike and almost runs people over with it, as is perfectly fine for a hero. Don Kaito shows up with his own motorbike to promote his new book, which you should buy. For a show where it's not even in the name and for recent Sentai, there's an awful lot of riding going on.

Yamashita in his post speculates that part of this is Inoue's own habits -- as a man whose Toku experience largely consists of regularly writing for Kamen Rider in the 00s, it's natural to expect he would be inclined to write something like "Inubrother escapes the scene on a motorcycle..." as if it was second nature; as if that's nothing special for a modern show.

And I would be inclined to believe that... as such a habit is something that would likely get ironed out after a while; and sure enough, while bike scenes are frequent for the first half of the show, they disappear entirely from episode 23 to 43. It is at this point in my own count I thought we would simply never see a large bike scene from the show again, and the sheer fun of counting up Donbrothers would be lost.

And then... he appeared.

My saviour from the future.

With a full uninterrupted 1 minute 15 second bike scene

I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I remembered the future episode but I had completely forgotten this was a part of it. When I started timing this episode I was leaving the house fairly shortly and I figured like the past 20 episodes this would be easy enough to count, and I was utterly bewildered. I should never have disbelieved for a moment.

With all that said... where does Donbrothers end up in full?

7m21s (4m23s for Don Momotaro alone)

This overwhelming record easily puts both Donbrothers and Don Momotaro in 20th place of their respective charts; beating all Reiwa Riders and Zi-O -- with Don Momotaro even coming close to dethroning Kamen Rider Decade's riding time!

This is where we stand, my companions. In an era where Kamen Rider's biking time is lower than ever before and shows no sign of significant recovery, Donbrothers swoops in to steal its glory. Never lose faith. The festival never ends

[dualumina]

A Quick Full Guide for getting Gold in

Lowland Shore: Harvest Shore Salmon Run!

~~~

Update! So it's been brought to our attention that the race event, has a significantly longer timer to achieve gold than the adventure does, assuming you show up right before the race starts.

It's possible this is a bug, so it might be patched out in the coming future. It's also possible that Anet will change the gold requirements to be less strict (we've never heard of this happening before, but who knows.)

Either way, at the time of editing this (September 7th 2024) the below guide still applies for the adventure!

Further update: The latest GW2 update actually added extra time to qualify for Gold, so you may not need all the expensive gear to achieve it. If you're still struggling, pre-booning will still offer a decent headstart, even if some class traits might not work in fish form.

Best of luck out there, fellow salmon! 🐟

Before even starting the race, you'll need the right stuff to have a chance of succeeding.

Equipment:

Get at least 1 or 2 of Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew

Equip 6 Superior Runes of Speed

Equip a Relic of Speed

Build:

There are several things you'll want on your build to make your life as painless as possible.

Adrenaline Regeneration

Vigor Source

Movement Speed Increase

Pre-Race Boons

The main boons you want to give yourself are Swiftness, Vigor, Quickness/Alacrity, and Superspeed. Other boons may or may not be necessary depending on your class.

As you may have noticed, this is all stuff available on an Engineer (Mechanist with Tools and Alchemy trait lines). Because that's the class we decided to first try this race on.

Thankfully we're feeling generous, so here are the best builds for all other 8 classes. Usually there's only a few critical things you need in each case, so if something isn't specified, just pick whatever.

Mesmer:

Dueling > Mental Gymnastics Chronomancer > Time Marches On Signet of Inspiration, Well of Action, Time Warp Focus (Temporal Curtain)

Elementalist:

Water > Soothing Disruption Air > Zephyr's Speed > One With Air Weaver > Woven Stride Ether Renewal, Unravel (Water), Cleansing Fire, Signet of Air Staff (Air > Windborne Speed)

Necromancer:

Blood Magic > Banshee's Wail Soul Reaping > Speed of Shadows > Eternal Life Harbinger > Twisted Medicine > Deathly Haste Spectral Recall, Signet of the Locust, Elixir of Anguish Warhorn (Locust Swarm)

Revenant:

Retribution > Enduring Recovery > Unwavering Avoidance Invocation > Rapid Flow Herald > Core Value > Draconic Echo Legendary Dragon Stance (activate and consume all skills, starting with Facet of Chaos)

Guardian:

Honor > Vigorous Precision > Purity of Body Virtues > Absolute Resolve > Power of the Virtuous Firebrand > Archivist of Whispers > Swift Scholar > Stalwart Speed > Loremaster Mantra of Potence, Advance!, Signet of Mercy, Feel My Wrath! Tome of Resolve (Chapter 3)

Warrior:

Defence > Last Stand Discipline > Warrior's Sprint > Doubled Standards Bladesworn > Swift As the Wind Combat Stimulant, Signet of Stamina, Banner of Tactics, Frenzy, Signet of Rage Warhorn

Ranger:

Wilderness Survival > Natural Vigor Skirmishing > Tail Wind > Primal Reflexes Soulbeast > Live Fast > Essence of Speed > Leader of the Pack Water Spirit, Signet of the Hunt, Quickening Zephyr, Griffon Stance, Strength of the Pact! Warhorn (Call of the Wild)

Thief:

Acrobatics > Expeditious Dodger > Feline Grace Daredevil > Physical Supremacy > Unhindered Combatant Haste, Signet of Shadows

(Thief is weirdly low on options it seems)

Okay and of course Engineer was already covered earlier

Race:

So you've got your gear, your build, and now onto the race itself. First off, here's what you need to know about your skills that aren't obvious at a glance.

Dash!

This skill works noticeably differently depending on where you're located. When you're in deep water, the skill works just fine. On land, it's similar enough to not worth mentioning. But if you're on the water's surface, to the point that your skills aren't listed, for the love of every god don't use the dash! You will get no benefit except wasting your stamina.

If you don't see your skills just don't press 'em!

Flop!

Flop is the most versatile skill at your disposal, and has drastically different effects for different situations. If you're in deep water, then using flop will yeet you to the water's surface. This can be handy for needing to get up to checkpoints in shallower water quickly. If you're already at the water's surface, then you'll go straight up... usually. This race is a bit finicky at times. If you're on flat land, you'll also go straight up. Thankfully it's pretty consistent. However if you're on an upwards slope, or close enough to one, then you will go up it at record speed.

A prime flop location

Glub

Glub :3

Now go out there and get glubbin'!

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2024-08-04

(Previous post - current page 440)

Breaktime's over, it's about time to continue! Expect me to take a handful of days between each posting-day like this just to pace myself, and have time for fun video games and other such. But I've been really enjoying finally reading more HS2 too, especially seeing such hopeful stuff like this last pair of pages really hitting home on the optimism! Let's get back to it.

Meanwhile...

Wait did we SEE her keel back over like this? Alt!Callie in this younger/teenage corpse of Jade Harley's body I mean? When did that happen? *thumbs back through old pages...* Let's see here... my browser still glitches the fuck out seizureways at the few pages that were Blacked Out, so i'll use a backup browser for those... no, further back... oh wow I forgot Aradia got such a cool Calliope-supporting outfit to show off she's on their side, literally zero memory of that and that's some FINE drip...

Oh shit wait, so it happened back over here??? (289/290)

--I figured back then she'd gotten a snap headache because of having to abandon possessing Jade's MAIN body in the struggle Alt!Calliope had with Jade's consciousness culminating around page 168, but these cuts are all so far apart-- and being knocked out of the other Jade's body shouldn't have knocked her out of this CORPSE. So is somethign entirely NEW going on that has to do perhaps with Dirk Strider's plans to maintain control of the narrative when the other kids arrive there?? Hmmm.

Anyway now I know where that bonus panel I'd accidentally glimpsed with "god-tier bodies don't decompose right" that I mentioned last blogging session came from. But why the fuck?

==>

Gosh I've missed seeing panels like this.

Wait, why are we cutting to CANDY JOHN like that's relevant here? Wasn't he in Roxy's secret lab last we saw him? Does THAT have something to do with this?! Oh shit.

(John: Investigate noise.)

Following Roxy's instructions, you proceed in the direction of the noise to go and meet up with your old friends. You approach where you thought you heard them, but to your surprise you hear an unfamiliar voice grumbling something incoherent.

JOHN: uhhh, rose? jade? JOHN: ... kanaya?

Hm? What was going on upstairs again, Karkat met up with the other liberators right? Okay let me not be so lazy and go back and check again...

Excuse me for a second, I'm going backwards to review and post some older HS2 stuff for a bit:

No they left, then John came from his destroyed old house to his and Roxy's NOT-old house, then they transportalized downstairs to the secret lab buried "hella underground" not directly under the house, where Calliope is wearing... suspiciously the EXACT new outfit that Aradia is wearing, and gives her hints that she enjoys all sorts of alternate stories like watching Roxy be in a relationship with John here in Candy instead of with herself in Meat, and added fuel to our obvious theory suspicions that Meat Alive Calliope is the author-narrator shaping the (Candy) timeline with her wall drawings and Muse of Space powers, and that they are... standing in the location in their reality that corresponds to the exact center of the singularity / black hole they're trying to stabilize? I'd forgotten about that... and then Calliope told John that alt!Calliope and Aradia and such had broken out of the black hole's event horizon for their mission, while Calliope explained that (Candy)'s timeline is so WEIRD because they've been disconnected a little TOO much from the canon of reality, like a fanwork that strays a little too far from the source material, so they need to stabilize it somehow AND NEED VRISKA (to either steal some relevance back from Canon or to get swapped there with something else or, something else we might have theorized?) but I had plumb forgotten that they SPECIFICALLY say that for their plans to work they needed John to leave and do something:

ROXY: this is finally where u come in jegbert ROXY: we gots quests for yous CALLIOPE: hee hee, yes. CALLIOPE: or *a* quest, to be specific. JOHN: oh boy!

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity. ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan. CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more. CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it. CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

Right, Vriska's constant focus on making herself one of the most relevant characters to Canon and her powerset actually making her perfect TO do that as a Thief of Light (relevance/importance) makes that a good plan. And I fully expected one possibility was that they somehow allow her to break through to the Canon Meat timeline and both (1) influence it some way, and (2) get to a place where she could eventually reunite with Terezi Pyrope finally instead of just having left her a parting message, which may or may not happen if Meat Terezi is going to focus possibly a bit more on her relationship with John(June) once somehow resurrected or such but would definitely be amazing to have them reunited when Terezi spent SO MUCH TIME looking for her that she wasn't even part of the (Candy) timeline of events? Enough re-theorizing let me keep re-reading-- And... oh right,

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I'm sure I was happy as hell to see that explicitly spelled out in canon for once instead of implied, because it may have been obvious to those of you who follow theoryblogs but one of the big reasons I'm glad to see these things made more explicit out in HS^2 is so even casual readers can pick up that these aspects always had these additional more important purposes that line up with all the events that happened in the past of the original comic.

But anyway. John's about to go on his bust-Vriska-out-of-prison quest:

And it's not like he has other plans. He may as well do this! It's at least going to get him involved in things again, if nothing else. He turns to go, and then hears a sound. It's the sound of feet and knocking on doors, echoed through stone and digital static.

And then,

JOHN: did you hear that? ROXY: wha ROXY: oh yeah uh ROXY: i may have messaged rose and kan and jade to check on them too ROXY: so its prob onea them showin up ROXY: they don't need to know bout all this tho ROXY: we got time to chat with them b4 u go get vriska JOHN: i'll go stall em. ROXY: thx babe ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one's fine. ROXY: oh good ok see u up there soon!

And that's where we left off-- wasn't it their kids' team who got back into their house or something? Eh I'm done looking, now I at least know there was A NOISE that was playing through the monitors from the topside of their house above the teleporter that he's running to intercept.

Okay, past catch-up over. Back to present liveblogging. Looks like this isn't Rose and Kanaya like John expects, from the sound of it-- but the way John's running down a hallway makes it look like this is INSIDE OF THE LAB STILL, so the question is who is down here or CAME down here or...

(==>)

Oh, Sollux is helping Roxy and Calliope out with their project, playing on Roxy's pink retro consoles. That shouldn't actually be too shocking should it.

Wait, how is he playing video games if he's BLIND? Robo-eyes? It's gotta be robo-eyes.

(==>)

Stare

(==>)

Sandwich stare

(==>)

SOLLUX: eating a sandwich.

Brilliant. And yeah he lives here-- but he's actually LOOKING at stuff isn't he, with eyes of some sort? Even though he's still using the 0 quirk? Tell us what's up with that!

(==>)

John stop thinking this is a relationship between Sollux and Roxy, your divorcee/ex. Unless it is, which would be pretty cool honestly.

(==>)

SOLLUX: y0u w0rried im m0ving in 0n y0ur ex? JOHN: ...hmm. SOLLUX: ... JOHN: hm. hmm. hm. JOHN: hm? HMMMM. SOLLUX: what is g0ing 0n here. JOHN: sorry, i had an answer but then i started actually considering it. JOHN: am i jealous? JOHN: hmmm... SOLLUX: if i tell y0u straight up n0 we arent h00king up will y0u st0p? JOHN: ...maybe? SOLLUX: g0ddammit.

I'm really enjoying all this for some reason.

JOHN: are you still hanging out with that creepy alive girl? SOLLUX: SOLLUX: 0n a spiritual level. JOHN: cool! JOHN: is ... she also dating roxy? SOLLUX: what? SOLLUX: idk.

I'm pretty sure I get excited at the idea of literally ANY relationship potentially happening between all these characters I love.

(==>)

Oh no John is offloading his personal problems on him in longform conversation. He doesn't want that! XD

JOHN: and it only changed because i started talking to people again. SOLLUX: (i did this t0 myself why did i ask) JOHN: i guess in gamer terms it's the same as screwing yourself over by not checking every non playable character dialogue box. JOHN: any one of them could have the clues you need.

Feels kind of like we're doing the thing from that Steven Universe: Future episode where Steven is critically upset that important things happened in the lives of his friends offscreen somewhere he wasn't around to be aware of it, when realistically as a person you can't keep up with everything, especially not John who kept to himself in a slump for a decade as he puts it in some of the conversation I'm not fully requoting.

Okay Sollux dunks on John a bit, possibly deservedly... and to some extent, in a misogynist gamer phrasing typical to Sollux, John's lack of agency? Which I think would improve somewhat once the gender issues Roxy alluded to both upstairs and in the lab with him are resolved in part, because he can't be FULLY comfortable swept up in a relationship while he's still considering herself "he"...

SOLLUX: i have n0t been able t0 play this game the wh0le time because s0me0ne was talking 0ver the s0und. JOHN: oh! JOHN: sorry : (

Oh he's been using sound-only and audio assistance to play the game like a speedrunner almost instead of seeing it. That explains that.

(==>)

I don't quite understand the shape of that thing to the right of Sollux's head, like there's some sort of watermark over it WAIT THAT'S A DOOM SYMBOL WATERMARK TAKING UP MOST OF THE FRAME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE

SOLLUX: w0rds d0nt mean much. SOLLUX: 0nly acti0ns.

(This is a perfect sort of thing someone for someone on the Life/Doom spectrum to say, which would be MUCH MUCH HARDER for someone on the Light/Void spectrum to say or especially a Light player. Doom being about the consequences of one's actions in part and all.) Is he about to use some Mage of Doom powers visibly onscreen?

(==>)

Ohhh. So he was making a dramatic Doom Prophecy that will matter to John's choices in the future if he heeds the right lessons, while also hinting toward the nature of Doom itself as I covered. Got it. That's fun! Also it was a pink cat pillow behind his head, that's the thing I was having so much trouble seeing.

(==>)

SOLLUX: WAIT. JOHN: !

He's gonna ask him to pass him a soda from across the room or something.

(==>)

SOLLUX: change my game f0r me.

This is so cute.

(Be Vrissy.)

GODDAMNIT JAILBREAK AGAIN LOL

Vriska the elder has decided to take it upon herself to test if you measure up to the arduous task of being a Vriska. For your first test: find a way to bust out of this dump. What will you do?

Stop judging her on your stupid Vriska standards, Vriska! I hope the way this plays out eventually plays straight into the idea that this very-Vriska-like-but-not-quite-Vriska individual has her own unique strengths. I'm not sure I mentioned it earlier, but when I said that it's possible that Vrissy is a Mind player, I'm actually really excited to see the comic demonstrate that (regardless of whether or not Vrissy is or isn't completely genetically identical to Vriska) because not only would it be a good lesson for the original Vriska that Vrissy has her own value, it's also a great Classpect demonstration of how the difference in their characters and action styles amounts to a different effect on reality in the form of a Hero Title that is different...

...and in fact now that I think about it, even though it may have rubbed me just slightly wrong somewhere inside that Vrissy and Vriska could have different Hero Titles even if they WERE genetically identical, I'm actually gonna turn around and say I've decided I love that, because if Sburb gives the genetically identical Vrissy a different title and she unlocks a different powerset purely because of the unique combination of nature *AND* nurture that resulted in her, that would emphasize much more properly that Sburb isn't FORCING or pigeonholing you into a Hero Title that doesn't suit you, it really is reading into your future and soul to tell you THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY you PERSONALLY would find right to influence reality around you. That makes the lesson of its title assignment and the answer to the Ultimate Riddle that I've long discussed a STRONGER answer, not a weaker one.

And I'm encouraged by the very first thing Vrissy tries being something the original Vriska would NEVER have tried first, which Vriska over here probably is gonna be snide/discouraging about:

(Vrissy: Call for help.)

Have we SEEN their chumhandles before? I feel like we've seen Vrissy's before at least-- "adamantGriftress" is an awesome chumhandle for her, and I know for SURE I've already seen thespiansGlamor as Harry Anderson's. Who the fuck is glutinousGymnast, is that Yiffy's handle, and what does glutinous mean again?!?? (I had to google it just in case, it's New Tavros's handle. Glutinous is "like glue in texture; sticky.", often referring to sticky rice or baking dough. Ew. Stickiness sort of implies the opposite of Breath doesn't it...? And he's a gymnast?)

Now. Who the fuck is "recidivousGainsayer"? Vrissy didn't know Yiffy existed, so she wouldn't have her in her phone already unless they'd been internet friends without knowing each other personally, which would be... kinda sweet really. And Yiffy is certainly rebellious, but she seems more recalcitrant than recidivous, though I can't rule it out, especially since she's basically grown up at a boarding school; a quick google to see if we'd seen the chumhandle before also highlighted someone commenting that "RG" doesn't follow the ACGT DNA pattern, and even if you switch to RNA it just swaps the T with a U. Could be that this is a chumhandle of one of the characters we had been following over in the Bonus Comics or something.

You're pretty sure that would be an automatic fail on Vriska's test. But even if it wasn't, it isn't like you could message anyone; not anyone worth talking to anyway. There's no service in here, the only bars you've got are the ones on the windows.

Yeah, Vrissy at least knows Vriska well enough to know what she'd approve and disapprove of most broadly, unfortunately. I hope she comes to understand how Vriska should really not be her role model.

Oh not this again--

(Vrissy: Get key.)

Vriska drew this shitty key on the floor "juuuuuuuust in case you need a reminder of what you should be working towards ::::)."

Vriska, you asshole!

(Vrissy: Try the door.)

You fruitlessly pull on the bars. Vriska says it looks like it's still locked. Yeah???????? No shit, you tell her. You're just trying to see if you can get a guard's attention. She says ooooooooh that's a good idea.

If you don't keep complimenting her I'm going to be very cross with you, Vriska.

Hm, it'd be really fitting and interesting if Vrissy Mindgames her way out of this one by putting on a façade of distress and convincing the guard to barge in, maybe saying Vriska's escaped or such.

(Vrissy: Get a guard's attention.)

One of those guards Jane intentionally had all dress like Dave to taunt Jane about Dave's death or just make them harder for her and Rose to stomach fighting, right.

Maybe you should use some of your SICKNASTY BRAIN EXPLOITABLES on this jabroni.

How much practice does she have with her psychic powers? All Aranea was able to do with Cerulean psychics on humans was get a vague sense of the emotions of people around her toward her like she always does, and Vriska WAS able to put a human to sleep or wake them in another universe but only when trying so hard that her Light symbol flashed in her eye, emphasizing that a Cerulean troll who WASN'T using the powers of a God-Tier Thief of Light wouldn't necessarily be able to do the same to a human. Stealing wakefulness or stealing through wakefulness, wakefulness being a part of Agency and thus Light, where Void is associated with sleep and dreams, et cetera. (Vriska put people (like Jade D:) to sleep FAR FAR MORE OFTEN than she woke them up, and when she woke John that one time it could have been considered "stealing THROUGH Light" because it deprived him of an opportunity in his dreams to meet his Dad as his dreamself just to give Vriska the selfish opportunity to speak with him at the exact time she'd wanted to speak with him.)

Also, if Vrissy DOES refer to her Cerulean mind powers as "sicknasty BRAIN exploitables" that does put Mind more in mind than usual... and exploitables could just be flavor or it COULD be a reference to EXPLOIT, the theoretical Knight/Page action verb?! --Nah that's probably a stretch.

(Vrissy: Use your Sicknasty Brain Exploitables.)

You apply the focused totality of your psychic power into this douchebag's cranium. Frustratingly, it looks like this guy is resisting your psychic enthrallment so he can get at that donut. Other than occasionally making Tavros dance when he's being boring, you honestly don't do this much.

Holy shit, if she could make New Tavros DANCE, this actually means that Vrissy has more control over human minds than Vriska ever had?!? That or New Tavros is uniquely impressionable, which is ALSO a possibility; the original comic itself emphasized that the "impressiona8le" were more vulnerable to her abilities... those who had less control or agency over themselves.

Also, Vriska had only just met her first humans when her psychic talents were limited to making them sleep-- Vrissy grew up alongside other humans, and that might just be enough for her to understand their minds enough to do some occasional manipulation.

Your mom is always like, "You Need To Listen To Me Vriska Its Important To Keep These Skills Honed In Case Shit Gets Real", but shit so rarely if ever gets real so mom should get OFF your CASE!!!!!!!! Until now, you guess. Wow do you hate realizing your mom was right about shit. ANYWAYS, LAY OFF THE FUCKING DONUTS AND GET OVER HERE ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!

On the one hand, it's unsurprising that Vrissy didn't keep her talents honed for battle or anything, and wouldn't have invested nearly as much energy into exploiting people with psychic powers as Vriska's twisted childhood forced her to; but on the other hand, like I said, this is STILL a bit more direct influence over humans than Vriska ever had, even if it's not working right now!

(==>)

Hell yeah!!!!!!!!

HOLY SHIT SHE ACTUALLY OUTCLASSED ORIGINAL VRISKA IN CONTROLLING A HUMAN MIND.

Is Vriska going to feel jealous?! Holy shit?!?? Or is this old hat for her now and she's gonna say she could do it all along, or a retcon along those lines or-- gosh just PLEASE I WANNA SEE VRISKA JEALOUS AS FUCK OF VRISSY'S PSYCHIC TALENTS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HAVE ORIGINAL VRISKA GO "WHOA HOW DID YOU DO THAT"

(Vriskas: Exit the cell.)

Damn that felt good. After locking up the guard you turn to Vriska and ask her what next. Vriska says that now it's time to fuck some shit up. You like the sound of that. You ask her if there's any specific shit or place she wants to go fuck up. She says you'll just walk around until you land somewhere cool. You both laugh. You ask her what her real plan is. She keeps laughing as she walks away.

That's definitely her real plan. But anyway-- UGH, missed opportunity here. I guess we're just supposed to take it as a given that if original Vriska had had enough time, or grown up more, she could do the same thing to impressionable-enough humans as she did to trolls too, or the like.

(==>)

ALARMS BLARING, GUARDS RUNNING-- yeah they didn't cause this, this is some other assault on the Jail, right?

Okay, that's a lot of goons. You suggest to Vriska that you should go the other direction. Vriska says nah this is definitely where we wanna be. She says between the two of you, you've probably got enough luck to take this whole place off the map if you really wanted. You ask her what the fuck she means by that. She says you know like with your Thief of Light powers. You tell her you don't have anything like that. She says huh, weird!

VRISKA WHY THE FUCK WOULD IT BE WEIRD, VRISSY DIDN'T PLAY THE GAME OR GO GOD-TIER, YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD LUCK-STEALING POWERS UNTIL YOU PLAYED THE GAME!!!

Wait, let's back up a sec.

Vriska is smart enough to know that you CAN tap into your Hero Title powers even if you're not someone who's hit God-Tier. As a gleaner of deep lore about the game, Vriska ALSO would put together that the powers you get in the game are inherent to you even before you PLAY the game if you're skilled enough or high up on your echeladder enough to access them, so even if she never Stole Light directly before she played Sgrub, she technically COULD have. Maybe she figures Vrissy, as a coincidental genetically identical alt-version of her, should have access to the same powers just by virtue of having the same genes and training from her Seer of Light Mom knowing she'd have that potential in her genetically, OR, hear me out--

Vriska has already let us know that she's PLANNING ON STARTING A NEW GAME SESSION which we all figure will include Vrissy and the other kids as the players, and Vriska probably figures those kids will be the players too!

So, and I know this is some 3D-chess assumption-maneuvering here and I might be way off base, just taking so much from this single exchange...

...My guess is that Vriska thinks Vrissy ought to ALREADY HAVE inherent Thief of Light powers deep inside her and untapped, because she thinks Vrissy is going to be a PLAYER and thus ALWAYS WOULD gain her powers! Powers which she, of course, would ASSUME would match hers given their genetic similarity-- she would ASSUME Vrissy would also be a Thief of Light.

Except that none of the way Vrissy has actually behaved has resembled a Thief of Light much at all, and Hero Titles are inherent to your PERSONALITY and its method of action of influencing reality around you... and we already have background hinting that matches MUCH closer to her character and her behavior/actions in dialogue with others that she may be a Mind player.

Vriska didn't scold Vrissy for not having tried hard enough to develop the Thief of Light abilities she ASSUMED were inherent to Vrissy. She instead seems confused that she's never manifested any, and said "huh, weird!". Despite the knots in her psychology, both Vriska's smarts and her hero title are likely hinting to her that there might be some flaw in her assumptions here-- something that's keeping this from being a sarcastic scolding and instead telling her something isn't right about the knowledge she thought she had at hand.

(==>)

Vriska says that's perfectly fine as she always prefers a challenge. Vriska Serket, the daring Thief of Light and her imitation kid Vriska sidekick against countless foes. Marquise Spinneret Mindfang leading her Neophyte Bluehair, it's a tale for th- w8 w8 hold the fuck up. You ask her what the fuck does she mean "imitation.

Of course, just because Vriska isn't going to be an asshole in that PARTICULAR direction was never any assurance that Vriska wasn't going to be an asshole. She still views (Vrissy) as the less important version of the original her, and she's still going to frame everything in that light because of course she would, it's still in her nature and she still hasn't fully learned her lesson yet.

(==>)

I'm at the image limit so I'm gonna hold off on posting Vriska's hilariously condescending greasy expression and Vrissy squinting hilariously absolutely having fucking none of it:

Vriska says to not let it get to you, but she's pretty much figured out that this whoooooooole timeline is phony. You know, inauthentic. Fake. Bogus even. She says it's somehow the off brand equivalent of a universe and she really hopes you kept the receipt. You assure her that both you and this timeline are in fact, real as shit. She doesn't seem convinced. She says it's mostly from the little things she's noticed. You ask like what, she's only been on this planet for like a day and a half. She gestures vaguely and tells you to give her a boost so she can reach that ventilation shaft.

Yeah, the way this version of reality isn't as tethered to Canon means Vriska isn't going to take it seriously-- she shares Dirk's view of the (Candy) timeline in that regard, really. And they BOTH are going to receive their comeuppance and learn their lesson.

Phew-- that image limit was a good sign, I was already hitting the limits of my energy for the day, that was hours of liveblogging and typing. I guess we'll leave off here until another day! As I said at the outset, I'm still going to be pacing myself and only doing liveblogging every few days like I mentioned, but that doesn't mean I'm not VERY MUCH enjoying this and very looking forward to where it's going. If I weren't liveblogging, I'd get there a lot faster, I assure you, but then you wouldn't get to see me go off on random Classpect tangents about stuff you already guessed! :D

See you in a few days!

[cupcakeslushie]

Okay. I've been tip-toeing around this AU for a while now, but I just got caught up, and now I think I have a (decent) grasp on what's going on. So I wanna go over everything I know so far to see if I'm right or wrong on anything. Don't know if you'd be willing to correct me or not. Either way, I hope my mistakes can help you understand what to clarify to other fans like me. But, I also have some questions. You probably won't be able to answer most of them, but it's at least worth a shot.

First, where's Venus? Like, why is she not in your comics that are (sort of) separate frome the canon now story. The ones that skip to the future way after all the turtles reunite. Did she die? Did she escape? Is it because she wasn't introduced yet when you made those comics?

Two, why do you keep on making references to the future timeline? I know you're planning on possibly making your own stuff leading up to the events of the movie. It just gives me a jumpscare when I see certain...imagery in those comics. I guess you're hinting at what your version of the future apocalypse would look like, but it just hurts to see. Specifically in the comic explaining both the events and aftermath of the movie and the bad future timeline. It's starting to really confuse my brain as to where this story is headed. What's meant to be the main focus? The Hamto's reuniting? The aftermath? Or the future?

Third, did you make all those min-comics before you started the actual AU? Or did you do them during?

Fourth, are any of those mini-comics relevant to the actual story now? Or have you changed your mind on a few things? It's just that everything is so all over the place, I don't really know whether to trust if they're accurate. I know most of them are just there for funzies, but the longer ones concern me. I guess I'm just not used to the storyteller doing sequel, start, prequel, start, sequel, prequel, prequel, sequel, and then end. Or maybe it's just me, and I'm sleep deprived.

My little observation speech is gonna take a while for me to get out in your asks because when I get theoretical, my speech gets long, and my proper English goes down the drain. So I'll be back. I appreciate your work very much. Despite the pain it causes me, it's still amazing.

I’ll try my best to clear up what confusion I can!

1. As far as Venus. The answer is kind of a mix of, I was still figuring out her design and backstory while coming out with some of those early comics, and then, once I had that down, I wanted the boys to grow strong bonds as a main cast. That’s why a lot of the side characters are only making small appearances in the Sep!AU Life stories, as those are mainly for the boys reconnecting. (Usagi shows up the most because I love him and am totally biased towards him).

This maybe hasn’t been stated outright, but I wasn’t really expecting so many ppl to like Vee as much as they do, and now im trying not to spoil too much of her story. It’ll unfortunately just take us a while to get to the meat of it. Since the boys reconnecting takes up a lot of the early s1s2 story, Im trying to follow the familiar Rise blueprint of Draxum, Shredder, Krang, and then in s3 we’ll have crazy fun new stories with the extra characters.

Ive also decided to take this little nugget from one of the Q&As, and use it for Venus instead of Jennika. It was a much needed bit of inspiration to explain why Venus sorta disappears for a while and will go through some major physical changes (not yet revealed) before the family can figure out a way to reach her.

2. I’m not sure if you mean jump scared in a bad/triggering or neutral way, but if you need me to tag anything on those posts please let me know!

The glimpses of the future timeline, are being scattered throughout wherever they parallel the present story in little ways, but that’s only for now. As we get closer to the movie plot, bigger chunks of the future will be revealed, because the future versions of the boys will have a larger role to play in the present timeline. So we will need more backstory than what the canon got. And also I just enjoy drawing my future versions so sometimes I don’t think too hard on a reason. I just like throwing them at ppl with no warning or reason.

When s2 ends, I plan on collecting all the future related stuff that’s been released, and recapping it for easier reading. Right now, it’s just little sprinkles of foreshadowing to give ppl an idea that, ‘oh crap. The doomed timeline is a bummer’. In my mind, I guess i thought it’d be kinda like a fun scavenger hunt for clues, but maybe ppl don’t like that 😅

3. All of the side-stories were written as the main comic was/is being released. A lot of them resulted from asks that just spawned the need to expand on certain ideas, or a desire to give all the turtles their time to shine.

For instance, when I was doing Donnie’s section of the main comic, it was a good few months where we hardly saw anyone but him and Venus. I wanted to just mix it up, and give Raph some love with his ‘Raph Time’ short. When Leo was front and center in the main, we hardly saw the others, so Mikey and Donnie got their little ‘Secrets’ short (and it was also I fun thank you for EW making it so far in the tmnt sep competition).

4. Anything that has been reworked/revised or just plain dropped should have an ‘Edit’ note because yes—I have gone back and changed some things, but more so from the asks i got in the early days, and some movie idea drafts.

All the short comics done in the last year, especially the ones that are listed in my pinned post, are canon and fall somewhere in the timeline. They’re like supplemental reading though—extra meat to give the world and the characters more personality. They do have particular backstory plot and important info in them, but nothing that shouldn’t eventually be re-visited/repeated in the main story.

um I hope that cleared up some things! I know it’s kind of a crazy amount of lore. I’ve tried my best to organize it in the pinned post, huge timeline, and search bar tags, but I know it’s getting harder and harder for newer ppl to jump in as it just get bigger. Thanks for reading regardless!

[sweetbottletops]

"Alone? Will you be okay?" Koga is a delicate soft marshmallow on the best of days and Aya knows it.

What could go wrong?

Ch. 93

When you're not used to being part of the main plot lines in school it can be easy to just not concern yourself with them at all. You get a non-combatant label and can slip in and out without too much worry.

"Yahaha" "Stop that!" Perhaps not everyone in the room agrees with what is going on? Tabling that until later.

Accidental MC arrives at the scene of the crime.

Of course it was the Maths book. The most untrustworthy of subjects.

"You must be pretty smart writing a whole song in English."

"I bet she used machine translation though. Just look!"

Scanlator later changed that to: "I ran it through a translator. Just look!"

I've seen some people speculate Koga isn't the most reliable with her reactions. So I attempted to look at these lines from at least a more neutral toned angle.

At the most generous that first comment might be neutral in tone (setting aside the whole violation of privacy part...the guy is literally waving her property around) but the MTL line is meant to put her down.

I'm going with negative for both regardless of Koga being potentially unreliable in some of her reactions. And tbh once you've been violated like this any reaction outweighs intent to me. And the intent is sus.

"Hey, is this a love song!?" (They have rewritten the lyrics out in Japanese on the blackboard... not sure why it wasn't translated by the scanlator because Japanese readers were meat to get hints from it, but there are legible phrases there if you use google translate...keeping in mind the kids might have done a bad translation from English to Japanese themselves....)

"You should just give it up." (Was that towards Koga's music or a third party towards the guy waving her stuff around? Unclear.) Scanlator changed it to "Hey man, stop it!" which made it clearer they were talking about the instigator.

"You mean the one in that video was really Koga-san?"

"She gives off a totally different vibe though."

When someone (strangers even) question your abilities, appearance, personality, and motivations like that it can only be negative. And putting it up on the chalkboard and waving it in her face makes it a whole classroom problem.

I'm not convinced there are 100% shitheads in the room, but unless someone steps up next chapter then you all get to be in the shithead bin as well. That's how it works. The Gyaru + Pretty Boy alliance wouldn't be silent for this so let's see if anyone else separates themselves from the mob.

Last week I had been thinking the worst that would come from this was maybe her being volunteered for some school event against her will or having someone find out about her muse since it was likely a love song, but this is exponentially worse.

And I'm not sure I like her side of the relationship getting exposed via poorly translated lyrics on the blackboard. Sure, it's going to advance things quicker, but at what cost?

Kind, green Aya-eyes cutting through all of the black ink that took over the last three pages.

I'm not sure if someone already in the room will come to their senses and put a stop to things, if Koga will finally have her say to those mean faces that's been lurking through her entire school career, if Aya will come back in time to show the extent of her own gap, or if Aya will come back and Koga will just be missing... and force her to realize some things from the evidence left behind.

We know that Aya didn't understand the English lyrics to the song Koga wrote and sang for her earlier. It's been a comment from her lurking in the background the whole time.

Koga might have technically already confessed then. If this is the same song and it's a love song then the translation on the blackboard should be enough to clue Aya in.

As an aside... Are we in the final stretch? I feel like volume 3 should end around chapter 110-ish right? If that's the case and it's the end (no inside info here, just speculation) there isn't a ton of time for relationship and wrapping up the Joe/Kanna/America/Family mystery. But it's also a little hard for me to anticipate a volume 4 since they are almost finished with their final year in school which should be a natural resolution point for most of the drama.

We will see how it is paced next week I guess.

[ssuperficialspacecadett]

Crutches and Crushes

Chapter Three of the Through the Scope series | Chapter Four

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 4.9K

TW: Unhealthy relationship and mentions of cocaine

Chapter Overview: You run into Frankie while you are out shopping.

Notes: Hey everyone ! I love that I'm still going to say no set posting schedule even though I have been consistent in my posting schedule. I just don't want to give a day and then miss it and blah blah blah. ANYWAY I'm absolutely beside myself that people wanted to be on the tag list for this series (i could cry) so thank you to the people that are investing time into this just like me (: my asks are always open if you want to chat about this series in particular or literally anything else !! happy reading <3

*no use of y/n & female presenting reader*

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

With a whole week of work at Brass Knuckles now officially under your belt, your dad wanted to celebrate. He called you and asked if you would come and eat lunch with him on Sunday afternoon. You knew that this meant you would be the one selected to go pick up and pay for lunch at some restaurant, but it was the fact that he remembered in the first place. Your dad was the kind of man that remembered globally recognized celebratory events: Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Thanksgiving. However, he struggled a bit with remembering ones that hit closer to home: your birthday, his own wedding anniversary, and any school function you had. You knew that he never did this with any malice or bad intentions, that wasn’t in his nature, but that didn’t ever numb the pain when it inevitably happened. 

“Did you really have to get me a salad?” 

You already knew that he was going to ask this. “Yes, I did.”

“Well could you have at least ordered me one that is topped with fried chicken and not this skinless bitch chicken.”

“Fried meats are one of the main foods that you have to avoid because of your diabetes,” You narrow your eyes at him. “So eat your ‘bitch chicken’ and be happy.”

“You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry, Sweet Pea. Thank you for bringing the food and for putting up with me.” 

“Of course, dad, but speaking of putting up with you…how has your physical therapy been going with Miss. Maggie?”

“I have my good days and my bad days. I actually managed to hold myself up on the uhh…what’s that thing called again? The one that has those horizontal poles on either side of me?”

“The parallel bars?”

“Yeah!” He snaps his fingers together. “I managed to hold myself up on the parallel bars, but I used all my strength focusing on not falling over which meant that I didn’t have much left in me when it came time to try taking a step.”

“I’m still really proud of you! Doing everything that you’re doing isn’t easy. All that anyone can ask is that you take it day by day and to try your best.”

“When did you grow up and get so smart?” His voice sounds airy. 

“When you blinked.”

“Is that so? Okay, smarty pants, what’s the first thing that I’m going to do when I can walk on my own again?”

You lean back in your seat and ponder his question. It wouldn’t have anything to do with playing cards, since he has that poker tournament every Sunday evening. It wouldn’t be going on a date, although you suspect he might have a little thing for Miss. Maggie. As you rack your brain for the answer a car fires up its engine in the retirement home parking lot. Got it.

“The first thing that you’re going to do when you can walk on your own is go to a car show. Then after you’re done, you’ll probably go get the greasiest burger you can get your hands on just to spite me.” 

“Fuckin’ hell. You got me all figured out.” 

“How about this? We go to the car show together, but skip the burgers.”

“Or we go to the car show together, skip the burgers, and get a basket of fries instead?”

You know when you're in the middle of a losing argument. A frustrated sigh comes from you as you nod your head at his counter-proposal. 

“Deal, dad.” 

***

You should have known this was a bad idea. You should have turned your car around the moment you saw how packed the parking lot was. Days like today were the reason why online shopping and curbside delivery were invented. Unfortunately for you, you had no better way to spend the afternoon of your day off than braving the hectic crowds of IKEA. Your desperate need for items inside the store outweighed your hesitation to go inside. You have only just grabbed a basket when your phone starts ringing.

“Thank fucking god you called, Robbie. I just got into IKEA and I need someone to talk to so I don’t get completely overwhelmed here.” 

You spend the next 45 minutes wandering in and out of different furniture sections while filling Robbie in about your new job and friends. You tell her about Benny and how he has become your closest friend so far down here. She audibly gags when you mention Brunson and how he acted when you first met him. Although you reassure her that Benny stepped in and shut him down, she still has a few choice words that you hope the family standing next to you can’t hear through the phone. 

By the time you finally bring up Will, Pope, and Frankie your basket is quite full. You found all the kitchenware you needed: pots and pans, cups, plates, bowls, utensils, etc. Then for your room you got a nightstand, a dresser drawer, a lamp, decorative throw pillows, and a full length mirror to hang on your closet door. You wrote down the item numbers for some of the items that are too big to cart around, kitchen table and chairs and a couch, so you could order them on a later date. 

“So, Santiago is Pope, Will is Ironhead, Frankie is Catfish, and Benny is…just Benny?” 

“It’s weird, I know.” You laugh. “They’re all really sweet, but Frankie is by far the most attractive one in the group.” 

“What did I fucking say?! I knew that you would have better luck finding a boyfriend in Florida than back home!”

“He’s not my boyfriend! I just think he’s cute, damn!”

“Tell me about him! I need a good mental image.”

“He’s a few inches taller than me, maybe 5’11? His hair curls at the end and is this beautiful brown which matches his eyes. Broad, and I mean broad, shoulders.” Robbie squeals on the other end of the phone. “Big nose and probably 10-15 years older than me?”

“I told you that you like ‘em older.”

You playfully roll your eyes at her comment as you walk into the section of the store that carries the bed frames.

“But I think you would really like Will. He’s tall, ruggedly handsome, has a sexy southern accent, and seems really smart.”

She’s quiet on the other end of the phone while you explain more about him to her. You love Robbie, but the men that she has dated in the past couldn’t match her on any level. She needed a partner that could challenge her intellectually and push her out of her comfort zone. Will is the kind of man that could do that for her. 

“Basically, what I’m trying to tell you is that you should date men that are actually men.”

“Well, it looks like I’ll have some homework to do when I come down next month for spring break.”

“Just give him a chance, that’s all I’m asking. Hey, I should probably go. I’ve already been here way longer than I intended and if I keep talking to you there's no telling when I’ll finish.” 

The two of you make plans to talk later and you hang up the phone. Now to find a bed frame and get the fuck out of here. You survey the room to see if anything catches your eye and something does. The only issue is that it's not a piece of furniture. Familiar curls peek out from underneath a black cap. He’s facing away from you which allows you to read the lettering on the back of his shirt.

B.K.B.G Sponsor of the Month

Tire Town Auto Body Repair Shop

When you first met Frankie, Benny had accidentally cut it short. You have been embarrassingly hung up on the fact that you didn’t get to talk to him the way you had with the other two men that evening. Now the universe has allowed you a second chance by placing him just a few feet away. You find yourself stuck in between feeling excitement and apprehension to approach him. Would he think you were weird if you came up and talked to him? Would he see you as Benny’s little receptionist and nothing more? These questions and countless more plague your mind as your feet guide you over to him. 

“Uhh…Frankie?”

He turns around and looks down at you with those enchanting eyes. The wrinkles that form around them when he smiles softly at you echo the photo you saw of him. The front of his shirt has ‘B.K.B.G Friday Fight Night’ written in a large font across his chest. 

“Hey! What are you doing here?”

You shily gesture to your very full basket. “Turns out that one of the many consequences of moving quickly is having to buy all new furniture because you didn’t have time to bring the stuff you already owned.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” he chuckles and scratches the nape of his neck. “That was a stupid question.” 

“No, no it wasn’t! At least I have a job now so I can pay for it all.”

“How is that going by the way? You just finished your first week, right?” 

You try to convince yourself that him remembering how long you had already been working at Brass Knuckles for wasn’t a big deal. He had come into the gym on Monday and since today is Sunday, a logical person could conclude that you had completed your first week. Try as you might, you couldn’t stop the balloon-like swelling you felt in your heart. 

“I did! It was pretty good, honestly. I feel like I’ve got the hang of everything I’m in charge of. Speaking of Brass Knuckles, I like your shirt.”

He looks down at the shirt he probably didn’t think twice about throwing on this morning. 

“You don’t have one of the fight night shirts yet? I think this is the one my job sponsored.” You laugh as he tries to look over his shoulder to read the back of the shirt.

“No, I haven’t been to the fights yet. You work at Tire Town Auto Body Shop?”

“For the time being.” His eyes drift away while he says. You can tell that there is more to the story than he is letting on.

“Well it’s comforting to know that you work there,” His gaze falls back on you. “I have the worst luck with cars so it’s only a matter of time before I’ll need to find a shop.”

“I hope nothing goes wrong with your car, but if it does, just bring it over to me and I’ll take care of everything for you. Wait, wait…did you say that you haven’t been to the fights?”

“In my defense I have only known about them for a week! Benny is the only one I know there, but he is either preparing the fighters or organizing the event as a whole. I would feel out of place if I went by myself.”

“Well now you know me and Will and Pope. Come with us.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” he rests his hand on the edge of your cart. “It’s actually a pretty fun time. I would love it if you went with me- me and the guys.” You watch his fingers pick anxiously at a piece of tape on the end of one of your boxes.

“Sounds like a plan to me, Frankie.” 

Upon hearing you agree to go with him the corners of his lips curl into a smile. It’s so infectious that you find yourself beaming in the middle of the bustling store as well. His shyness makes you yearn to know what makes him tick. Makes you want to know how to coax that coveted smile out of him. Because maybe doing that will help you smile more as well. 

It looks like he is opening his mouth to say something when he’s cut off by the blaring of his ringtone. He easily takes the device out of his pocket, but falters when he sees the name that's displayed on the screen. His once relaxed demeanor has now been replaced by something tense and foreign to you. 

“I’ve uhh I’ve gotta take this. I’m so sorry.” He hits the answer button and places the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“No worries,” You whisper to him. “I’m sure I’ll see you later.” 

You watch as he nods and starts to walk deeper into the store. Before he gets out of your ear shot you hear him say the name ‘Rochelle’. Leave it to you to be into a man that already has another woman first in line.

***

“Why do we always have to come to this dump? They don’t have any good drinks and the music sucks.”

Frankie sits across from Rochelle at a random table in The Barrel. He knew better than to let her sit at the guy's designated table. He didn’t want her to corrode them the way she had done with him. 

“Why do you want to get back together, Rochelle? We never made each other happy. Our whole relationship was a coked out blur.” 

“But you liked it.” She places her hand on his. It was cold and wet since she had been using it to hold her beer bottle. 

“I’m not the same man I was before, Rochelle. I can’t do shit like that anymore. I don’t want to do shit like that anymore.” He forces himself to look her in the eyes. “You know what it cost me.”

She meets his plea with a scoff and brings her drink to her overlined lips. She never seemed interested in conversations where she wasn’t leading or the center of attention. 

“You were fun. I was fun. We were fun. So what if we needed a little bump every now and then to get there?” Her fingers curl tighter around his hand. “I miss you, Frankie.”

He missed having someone ride shotgun. He missed having someone there when he needed to vent about the shitty day that he had at work. He missed having a warm body to sleep next to at night. He missed having someone to care for. He just didn’t know if he missed her. She gave him a distraction when he needed it in the past, but could she give him the support he needs now? The support he would inevitably need in the future?

“The only way I would consider revisiting ‘us’ is if it's just us. No more coke.”

He can see the annoyance in her eyes as he lays out his boundaries on the table. She slowly retracts her hand from his and coils it back around her glass. 

“Fine.” Her tone is flat.

“I’m not kidding. I want a fresh start. If we are going to try again I want to do it right.”

“Then let's start with that woman’s voice I heard on the other end of your phone today. Who was that?”

“Are you serio- I ran into Benny’s new hire while I was out shopping for stuff for my place. She’s new to the area and doesn’t have a lot of friends here yet. It was just a friendly conversation, Rochelle.”

"Well,” Her voice is syrupy sweet. “You don’t need to be her friend because you’re already mine.”

He really wanted to believe her when she said that. He really wanted to believe that she cared for him enough to change and grow as a person. He really wanted to ignore the sound of the water calling his name the longer he sat with her. 

***

By Wednesday, you felt completely at ease working in the gym. You recognized and chatted with regulars, became quite the sales woman for both memberships and Friday tickets, and were able to kick the washing machine into submission without Benny’s help. Your desk was also coming along nicely too. You had posted notes in your favorite color, a photo you and Robbie took together in a photobooth shoved into the top right corner of your computer, multi colored pens, and even a small filing basket so you could better organize your paperwork. Your new found confidence in the job gave you the push you needed to officially pitch the idea of gym wide air fresheners to Benny.

“I don’t want this place smellin’ like a fruity little spa.” 

“You do know that they make dozens, if not hundreds, of different kinds of scents right?”

“People come here to workout, not pretend that they are on a tropical vacation.” 

“People can’t workout if the smell suffocates them.” You retort.

“It’s not even that bad!”

“You’ve gone nose blind, Benny! Please know that I say this out of the kindness of my heart, but it is fucking rancid in here.” 

“Now you’re just bein’ mean.” 

“Listen, what if I buy some, only the most manly smelling ones of course, and let you test them out? It’s a win-win because you won’t have to charge them on the company card and if you hate them I can just return them all.”

“Alright, but you promise that I will get the final say?” 

“You’re the boss, Benny. Oh, what should we eat today?”

The two of you have been eating lunch together during the week. There is a good window of time right after the gym’s lunch rush and before the after work rush. You even made sure to block off at least an hour in Benny’s schedule around that time so he could have a much needed break. 

“Have you tried that burger place up the street? Goddamn, they’re so good.” 

“Burgers it is then. Text me your order so I know what to get you.”

What? Just because your dad has to be on a strict diet doesn’t mean that you have to be on one.

***

Benny had wheeled his rolly chair all the way from his back office and crammed it behind your desk. Both of you sit snugly with your feast of burgers and fries littered in front of you. The silence is only broken up by the occasional ‘can you pass the ketchup?’ or ‘are there extra napkins in the bag?’. When you have eaten half of your burger you decide to set it down and bring up what’s been on your mind. You know you can’t just come out and ask it so you opt to bring it up gradually. 

“I saw Frankie the other day while I was out and he suggested I come to the fights this Friday.”

“I’ve been askin’ you to come since you got here!” His mouth is still full from the last bite he took. 

“Gross, Benny!” You swat him in the shoulder. “I know you have been asking, but you’re busy helping organize things! You’re the only one I know here.”

You can’t tell if he chooses to keep his mouth shut because you’re right or because you just reprimanded him.

“Frankie said I could go with him and the other guys. Plus I have no social life and it's starting to feel like the walls of my apartment are closing in on me.”

“Regardless of who convinced you to go, I’m happy you’re comin’! You’re gonna have a blast! Fish and the guys throw down pretty hard at these things too so you’ll be in good company.” 

“Yeah I think I will be too.” You have to shove a fry in your mouth to hide the smile you can feel making its way across your lips. Only once you have finished chewing, you don’t want to be a hypocrite, do you bring up what you really have been wanting too. “Can I ask a question? It might not be my place though.”

The man across from you motions, burger in hand, for you to continue. You take a deep breath and rip the band-aid off.

“Well, Frankie and I’s conversation was actually cut short when he got a phone call. I wouldn’t have said anything except- except he looked so tense when he got it? I don’t know, maybe I’m imagining things.”

“No you’re definitely not imaginin’ things. I don’t want to get into Frankie’s business because that's his own shit to talk about, but long story short, a woman is tryin’ to come back into his life that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

You pick your burger back up and take a bite as he carries on with his story. 

“The guys and I all found ways to cope with comin’ back to reality after dealin’ with the worst of the worst in and out of the service. Mine was openin’ this place, Will’s was helpin’ other vet’s, Pope’s was bein’ a military consultant, and Frankie’s was…well Frankie’s was Rochelle.”

“Rochelle.” You wanted to feel how her name felt on your tongue. “I heard him say that name when he was walking away.”

“Damnit, Fish.”

***

“So, remind me again why we are here?”

Frankie pulls into Brass Knuckles’ parking lot with Pope in his passenger seat. He knew he should have done this without him. If anyone was going to sniff out that he had a small thing for you it was going to be Pope.

“Benny left some clothes at my place last week and since we were in the neighborhood I figured I would just drop them off.” 

“As opposed to giving them to him on Friday? Which is only two days from now, might I add.” He looks in the backseat and grabs the small cardboard box. “I think he would have made it until then without a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.”

“Shut up and get out of my truck, man.” 

Frankie takes the box of clothes out of Pope’s hands when they both round the bed of the truck and start walking towards the door. He can see you entranced by something on your computer screen through the windows. 

“I also invited her to come to the fights with us this week.” Frankie flicks his chin in your direction when Pope looks at him. 

“You already have her number? Damn, Fish. I thought I worked quickly.”

“No, man,” He groans. “We ran into each other while I was at IKEA on Sunday. I just thought it would be fun, you know? It’s not like that, Pope.” 

“Fish, you were a bad liar when we served together and you’re a bad liar now.” He turns to look at Frankie. “Come on, you think she’s cute don’t you?”

“She’s just cool.” He should have never brought Pope.

“Whatever you say.” 

The chime of the door bell pulls you from your emails. You’re shocked, but not unhappy, when you look up and see the two of them coming through the door.

“Hey guys. I didn’t know y’all were coming by today.”

“I would have texted you, love, but I haven’t got your number.” Pope flashes his signature beaming grin in your direction. 

“Well you never asked, love.” You tease. 

“We wanted to drop some things off for Benny.” Frankie says as he comes up and places a cardboard box gingerly on your desk.

“Who's ‘we’?” Pope gabs. 

Your attention stays on Frankie as you speak. “Oh, sure! He’s in the back office doing…actually I'm not really sure what he does back there.”

When Frankie doesn’t immediately move, Pope reaches over and slides the box towards himself. 

“Hey, what are you-?”

“Let me take this for you, Fish. Why don’t you stay here and get her number for me? Strictly for scientific purposes of course.” You can see a playful look in his eyes when he turns back to his clearly panicking friend. 

“Wait, no it’s-”

“It’s no big deal, exactly.” Pope whisks the box off your desk and starts walking into the gym, but not before tossing you a wink. 

It suddenly feels a little harder to breathe when it’s just the two of you up front. You want to compliment the soft, yellow jacket he is wearing, but no words come. The only thing you can selfishly focus on right now is your heart and how it's beating so hard in your chest that he can probably hear it. 

“It’s nice to see you again.” You think you can hear his voice shutter a bit.

“It’s nice to see you again too, Frankie. Still alright for me to come with everyone on Friday? I don’t want to impose.”

“You’re not imposing!” The words tumble out of his mouth. “You’re not imposing. I invited you, remember?” His tone settles.

“Thanks again for that by the way.” 

A silence falls between the two of you. You both must have been racking your brains for something to say because you speak at the same time.

“Did you-?”

“Were you able-?”

Comfortable laughter blossoms and it dawns on you that he might be just as nervous to talk to you as you were to talk to him. 

“No, no you go first!” You choke out while trying to catch your breath. 

“Did you end up getting anything else after I left the other day?” 

“I actually did; thanks for asking! I found a bed frame I liked. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to put it together though.” 

Frankie has never been more grateful for the front desk than in this exact moment. Images of your naked, writhing body cuffed to a bed frame flood his mind. God, he could do anything he wanted to you. He would take it slow at first, not wanting to leave any part of your body undiscovered by his tongue. Then, only when you were begging him, would he give you what you wanted. 

“Frankie?”

“I-I’m sorry what did you say?”

“I asked if you were able to find anything? You didn’t have a basket when I saw you.”

“No, I didn’t. The thing I wanted was just out of reach-stock! The thing I wanted was just out of stock.” He corrects.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” You pray your voice doesn’t give away the curiosity you have about his little slip up. “Here. Let me give you something to make up for it.” 

You take out a pen from its holder and move your stack of sticky notes in front of you. His eyes capture your every move. You write out your number slowly on the small piece of paper as you revel in the knowledge that you have his undivided attention. When you’re finished you sign it with your name and a tiny heart and pray that you haven’t misread this situation. 

“I know Pope was the one that asked for this, but I want you to hold on to it.” 

Your cheeks burn as you hand him your proverbial olive branch. When he takes it from you and reads what you had written he laughs quietly to himself. 

“You know, so you can text me about this Friday.”

“Not for scientific purposes?” He mimics his friend's earlier statement.

“Unlucky for Pope, I was never really that into the sciences.”

“Lucky for me then.” 

He folds up your note and carefully places it into his front shirt pocket. His timing couldn't have been better because Benny and Pope emerge from behind the brick wall as soon as he’s done. 

“I hear that you managed to convince our girl here to come with y’all to the fights, Fish! Good on you!” He comes up and claps his friend on the back. “I’m not at all jealous that you did it when I couldn’t.”

“Benny.” you chide.

“Why don’t you make it up to Benny and come to the bar with us?”

“One step at a time, Pope. One step at a time. I do have something for you though.”

He comes over to you as you start writing your number out again. Out of the corner of your eye you see him give Frankie and Benny and thumbs up. Oh you poor, sweet, incorrect bastard. You nonchalantly pass it to him and hope Frankie see’s that there is no heart drawn on this time. 

“Your reward for being such a big helper today by returning Benny’s clothes. If you text me in the middle of the night and wake me up I swear to God I’ll kill you.” 

“What bliss that would be.” 

“Hey! Unless y’all are gonna workout y’all better get a move on. Just because we are friends doesn’t mean y’all can take up valuable lobby space in my gym.” 

“We’re going, we’re going.” For a man that is getting ushered out of a building, Frankie sure looks happy. 

“Bye, guys!”

They both wave and say ‘bye’ to you and Benny as they open the door and head into the parking lot. Benny heads back to his office before they reach their truck, but you keep watching. As Frankie’s hand curls around his truck door, he looks back at you, and pats over his shirt pocket. Then he disappears inside and drives off with Pope. 

Frankie could feel the note he placed in his pocket burning a hole through his chest the whole ride back to Pope’s place. It made it hard to carry on a simple conversation with him because that fiery sensation was all he could focus on. It was the type of heat that seeped into his very bones and made him feel as if he was glowing from the inside out. He knew you had unknowingly seared yourself onto his heart and that feeling scared him.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

{tag list: @pimosworld @c-justhere @javicstories @saltybutteredtoast @hoeslingz @avastrasposts @bitchwitch1981 @smol-beb @cutesyscreenname }

[thecosmiccrow]

Trick or treat

here have some doodles, concepts, and never before seen art from me bcause NO FUCKING TRICK OR TREATERS RPEAL LIFE. SAD!

also vita carnis mimic jumpscare. please zoom into the image it took me 13 and a half hours and you can see the strands of meat inside the holes.

also very rare event of me hornyposting on main. lmk if you guys are okay with that stuff and ill post some shit. otherwise it just gets sent to ppl privately

[daxwormzz]

Who’s Piter? (Full disclosure, I’m entirely prepared for rambling, I’ve just never heard of this)

HIIIIIIII OKAY SO. Basically. Piter de Vries is this guy from hit 1960s scifi novel Dune by Frank Herbert. He’s the right-hand to the main villain, The Baron Harkonnen. He’s only in the first half of the first book, and some of the bad prequel novels.

Piter’s whole thing is that he’s a Mentat, a human trained to essentially function like a supercomputer and be crazy good at calculating shit. (Because “thinking machines” have been outlawed in the world of Dune, so no computers!) but also he’s specifically this thing called a TWISTED MENTAT, which means he’s a computer who’s evil and has no moral compass. It’s up to interpretation what exactly caused this— there’s sorta two theories with equal amounts of evidence. One: this one evil organization purposefully fucks up Mentats to MAKE them essentially lose faith in morality and humanity as a whole. Like reeeeaaally fucks them up. And two: they’re actually just born like that. Like the mentat was already predisposed to “evil” behavior and that one organization just exploits that and employs them.

I sorta think it was a mix of that for Piter, I think he was born with obvious signs of brain illness and that was exploited and exacerbated by whatever he was put through. I think if he wasn’t “twisted” he probably would’ve grown up to he just some kinda strange asshole, rather than one of the most wretched guys you’ll ever meet.

That being said, the actual gist of Piter’s personality and description is this: eccentric and snarky conniving guy who LOVES to torture. He’s also shown to be very power-hungry, and subtly obsessed with control and death as a whole. And also poisons. He has a passion for poison-making. As a mentat, he’s also an assassin of sorts, cause turns out they’re pretty good at that. He’s described as having a terrifying “silky” voice, so kind of like if a snake was a guy. He’s also described as followed: a short “effeminate” man with frizzy hair, probably wears platform boots, blue-within-blue eyes, and red-stained lips. (“It was like a mask grimace over those eyes like holes”, to quote the book directly.) his eyes and mouth are an important detail, because those come from all the DRUGS he takes. Like so many. He’s specifically takes Spice, the most important substance in Dune basically. That’s what makes his eyes that weird blue! So he’s like… unnerving-pretty. Weird looking but pretty in the way a very toxic sea creature is. Do NOT touch. Sometimes he refers to himself in the third person and he sounds like the Miette cat post.

BUUUUT YEAH so like, weird guy amiright? I’m prone to loving evil right hand man characters, I’ll be for real. But what really got me crazy about his character is how he’s treated in the story by various characters. Sure, he’s a bad awful guy and all that- but he is also CONSTANTLY dehumanized. Specifically by his “employer”, The Baron. Who is a whole other can of worms. There’s even a whole scene where the baron puts Piter on “display” and refers to him as “it”. The baron also explicitly exploits Piter’s drug addiction to get him to comply and stay “loyal”, which is particularly scary I think, because spice withdrawal is incredibly deadly.

Piter and the Baron have some of the most bonkers banter in the entire book. It’s comedically evil in every way. You can tell they HATE each other but it’s hidden under so many layers of scheming and posturing. Piter would take the barony if he could 💪💪💪😔😔😔 Piter is also THE guy who comes up with the entire coup against the main character’s noble house that sparks the main events of the entire book??? Like he states directly that it was HIM. On like page 21 of the book. And this is not talked about much. None of his movie versions really get to the “meat” of his character, especially the newest Dune films. He’s very glossed-over, honestly. Which is a shame because as you can tell, I find him fascinating!

I think…. I’m done now… thank you for coming to my Piter talk… I hope this is enlightening 💚

[mirror-ralsei]

The Sound Test is hands down my favourite piece of horror in Undertale.

Yeah, sure. Photoshop Flowey is a great spiritual successor to Giygas, and Gaster to Uboa. The Chara jumpscare is disturbing, as is the entire No Mercy run. But the Sound Test is a masterfully crafted anecdote that deserves more appreciation.

So to recap, Fun event 65 begins when you walk north in the crossroads before Snowdin. The music cuts out to transition to text on a black background.

It starts off positively: “Welcome to the Sound Test! Listen to all your favorites. Press Left or Right to select. Press Z to play a song.” The friendly terms fade in calmly, offsetting any disturbance caused by this sudden interruption by easing into it. We also need to note Undertale was designed as a niche RPG for RPG fans, which intentionally played with their expectations.

With that audience in mind, the player also likely has an expectation here: contemporary sound test rooms are typically a cool bonus for players, unlocked either through the progression of a game or its completion, or sometimes only through codes or developer consoles. They provide a list to play of all the sound files in a game, or at least the OST. This is a generally beloved feature when provided, allowing players to jam out to their favourite tracks. “Listen to all your favorites” seems to confirm this, reinforcing the brain to glaze over any specifics and autofill an expected experience here.

So we dive excitedly into this bonus feature (if maybe a little bit confused). Sound tests typically are accessible from main menus, and we were just interrupted while playing the game, but whatever, this game is a bit weird anyway. What songs do we have? You can cycle through them, but more likely people will play one by one in successsion.

We start with “Happy Town.” There hasn't been a “Happy Town” location yet that we've seen, but this is probably an area from later in the game or something. We click on it, and it's... short. It's just a simple loop on two channels, too. The melody itself is rather boring. Okay. Maybe this is just an intro track, so on to the next one.

“Meat Factory.” Uhh. This is definitely from later in the game... probably? When you think on it for even a moment, you realize this grim title sounds very tonally out of place in a game that's so far been pretty fantastical and friendly, and that makes it immediately unsettling. Clicking on it immediately confirms this. Where Happy Town was pretty noncommittal, Meat Factory's 8-bit loop is even shorter and almost oppressive in its relentless, growling two notes, repeating at an alarming pace, as if approaching with deadly intent. Why is something so disturbing and almost industrial in a funny little game?

You quickly switch to the next song. “Trouble Dingle.” A “dingle” might imply something a little bit lighter, and “trouble” sounds maybe a little more whimsical than “doom,” but there is no relief here. This loop is longer, but distorted and chaotic. It sounds corrupted. There's no trackable melody, it loses the 8-bit instrument, and like Photoshop Flowey's fight or the unpredictable melody of “Amalgamate,” is generally throwing away all sense of safety in favour of absolute disorientation.

At this point, you have likely forgotten about the context and are trying to find one song that's not incredibly disturbing. Maybe you've even realized by now that there is no way to even exit this unsettling “room.”

It's an auditory chase scene. The pressure increases with every song. Something is approaching, and fast.

Enter “Gaster's Theme.”

The hunt is over. The music has caught you. Suddenly, no matter what you do, you are trapped, forced to listen to this piece, this theme of a character you do not know, which starts off curious before dipping threateningly into the minor key. You rightfully may get the impression that this character “Gaster,” whoever they are, exerts some terrifying control over you, to be able to freeze you like this, able to writhe around between song tracks but change absoutely nothing, escape utterly futile.

You are only free when this music chooses to let you go. It cuts off abruptly. “Thanks for your feedback!” it says cheerfully. Then:

“Be seeing you soon.”

It's an incredibly compelling little horror piece and potential villain introduction that I find even more unsettling than the 66 mysteryman door itself. It's short but sweet, toying perfectly with expectations and making us deliberately uncomfortable at every turn.

[phlurrii]

Welcome! ;D

Hey nerds, welcome to my fluff pit! This is the home of myself and my fan comic “The Ancient Mew” about some goofy ass cats and their increasingly dark lil slice of life.

If you wanna support myself, my cat Moo, or my comics, feel free to DM about commissions or become a member of my patreon for extra and exclusive content! As well as early access to all the comics ;3

✨Patreon✨

Some content warnings for my comics and art: Explicit/Implied Violence, Heavy/Dark themes, Death, Gore, Horror, and… drawing inconsistencies. (Spoopy)

-

:Relevant Comic Links:

Comic Start : This is janky and breaks a lot, would recommend using the links on the comics to find recent ones to either catch up/double check things!

Ancient Mew Chrono Link : This link is the meat of this blog, if you wanna see the story, important asks/answers, explanations, lore, details, world building, doodles, interactions, extra comics/art, and overall all art/animatic/important ask content relating to this series, THIS is your link.

Grotto of the Ancients : If you JUST want the main comic, either to catch up, review, go back, or re-read, THIS is your link. First time viewers should see the above link in red.

Click read more for extra content, characters sheets, and links to get caught up on lore ;3

:Lore Related Posts:

Timeline : Documented timeline of all notable events available to readers currently.

Family Tree: Current relations between all characters, present and upcoming.

Missingno. Chrono Link : All asks, answers, and art relating Missingno. and their Lore.

Decamark Chrono Link : All asks, answers, and art relating Decamark and their Lore.

Meau Chrono Link : All asks, answers, and art relating to Meau and their Lore.

:Commonly Asked Questions:

“Can I make an Ancient Mew OC using your concept/design?”

No. I have a post here explaining my thoughts on it and what I’m ok with versus not.

“Are Fanart/interactions okay?”

Of course! I LOVE seeing what ya’ll get up too!! Please feel free to tag me or send an ask if I miss it aswell >;3c

“What is Noe’s and Meau’s relationship?”

Queer Platonic Relationship! QPR! Basically they are Aroace companions till the end of their days! Link to explanation here.

“Why did Meau’s eyes change?”

The comic starts off with Meau in a much weaker state then where she was after she took a long rest. Her phenotype related genome had corroded and she was forced to relay on different genes to make her up visual appearance. They were repaired during that nap.

Character References

Meau: They/She/It

Missingno. : They/He/It

Mewtwo: They/He/It

Circe: She/They/It

Decamark: They/Them/It

Mew: They/She/It

Qari: He/They/It

Periodically available for asks, currently travelling through dimensional portals.

[havikshoochiemama]

My Star Wars Acolyte rant >:(

This shit is not proofread LMAO it’s 5 am i’m mad leave me alone just me being the hater that i am 🤭

I originally wasn’t gonna talk about the Acolyte because clearly the show was just another emotionally immature shitty Disney cash grab with horribly written characters BUT DUDE i keep seeing ads and stuff on my tumblr NONSTOP and i’m actually sick of it .. most of you guys saw one Tumblr Sexyman and just went ham with that…We as a fandom need to stand up because Disney doesn’t care about star wars imma keep it a buck they just want to make their next mcu and they just greenlighting anything at this point

“oh but i like Andor” yeah that’s like what ever 10 shows they make they make one good one that’s not good 😭… anyways like i was saying they are literally pulling shit out their ass they are getting shit from the star wars legends that’s it’s own universe and putting it in…like excuse me ??? those books don’t follow the events of the movie so why would your show that allegedly takes place before the movies (I said allegedly because writers can’t even get characters ages right ) also i’m talking about that bs w the helmet that stops lightsabers… apparently it’s called cortosis from legends never once mentioned in any of the movies (i’m not watching them live action shows idgaf i like SOME of the animated ones) but they use it as a Mcguffin when they want bc they never built on this they just stole it from legends LMAOAA you just can’t do that  i’m literally about to pop a blood vessel 😭 i’m not watching that show again but let me critique the shit i do remember… also the “Gayest Star Wars we ever made” KEEP MY PEOPLE OUT YOUR SHITTY WORK !!! but after that man who’s to edgy for a name killed all her friends she “loved” she’s sees his face and is like wow 😍 literally thinkin with her pussy very hetro of you 💀 gah this show just pisses me off star war at its heart is a fuckin space opera and i dont think disney understands that. i literally fell in love with star wars back when i played battlefront and watched all the movies read as many comics and books as i could get my hands on and seeing something you love become something you hate is fuckin sick and crazy it’s started with me from the force awakens that movie is horrible you bitches say pretty graphics and said oh good movie 😍 NO NO it literally was just a new Hope setting everything that luke did back making him basically useless LMAO and they butchered the old characters to help the new ones which are really not that great 💀 i’m still mad that them used Finn as a token black person 😐 i could rewrite the force awakens better same characters and all and yk actually do something better (joking i would if Disney paid me to)LMAO also i hate kylo ren don’t get me wrong i love my cry baby tantrum throwing villains but he’s nawt it LMAO i’m sorry this is a rant about the shitty show YALL NOT READY FOR ME TO SPEAK ON THE FORCE AWAKENS 😭

yeah i hate that show i literally don’t wanna talk about it anymore heart emoji 😝 remember when people said the Phantom Menace was bad yeah…  at least it have character development atleast it had good world building atleast the universe was establish and yk i liked it but the prequel’s have always been my favorite clone wars literally came out on my birth year >:3 it was made for me 🤭 but i’m just a whore for world building and lore yeah… umm idk to me start wats ended with the return of the Jedi 🗣️

dont @ me idc this is my opinion and if you want to continue meat riding corporate greed that literally is ruining my fave franchise pop off if you liked the show i don’t care good for you (your def new gen star wars fan)

also Darth Plagueis ?? LMAO WHAT they just doing anything i see and why where all the jedis fuckin morons … okay ? and your main character sucked you don’t get the satisfaction of character arcs like “her joining the dark side” if there was no character building to begin with like ? it not to late Disney just burn it get it over with. Also it’s all so Fuckin boring LMAO also i can talk shit about character development and arcs all i want bc i’m writing my own novel and i’ve did a lot of research even tho this whole rant is a mess it’s 5 in the morning give ur girl a break i just really like my silly space movie okay 🥹 i literally spent a band on the Star Wars encyclopedia leave me alone

Um if you wanna argue my comments are open <3 i love arguing i’m somewhat of a scorpio myself

[chelleztjs18]

Vision (E.O)

Elizabeth Olsen x Fem!Reader

Sumarry: Both of you and Lizzie find a little sweet treat moment while grocery shopping.

Warning: None. A late Halloween late fluff fic from my Halloween event.

Requested: Yes by @xxxtwilightaxelxxx . I hope you like it! :D

A/n: Hello! Here's the second to last of my Halloween fics. I just finished writing this literally few minutes ago. lol. Thank you @honey-sweet-hiraeth for helping me brainstorming and share an idea i can put in this fic. :) Happy reading! Reblog and comments are highly appreciated.

Halloween Masterlist | Main Masterlist

“Okay babe, so we got the bread, anchovies, avocado, your favorite chocolate milk and all of the ingredients for our dinner tonight.” Your wife of three years mumbles as she checks the inside of the cart while reading the shopping list at the same time.

“I love how fresh the fruits and the meat this store has.” the blonde comments with a smile, her green eyes look at yours.

“See…I told you, Elizabeth. This store has better produce than the one you used to go to before we met.” Your smile and tone has obvious pride in it. She laughs a little right after that. “Y/n, honey, the other store has as good produce as the one in here. We started going to this one because it sells your favorite chocolate milk and cheese.” She jokingly shakes her head as she walks with you while you push the cart.

“Oh, let’s go to the candy aisle at the end. I want to get some just in case trick or treat-ers come to our house.” Lizzie points to the aisle.

“Ouh yess candy! Let’s go!” You respond excitedly.

Lizzie looks around as soon as both of you get to the candy aisle and grabs a few different bags of candy and chocolate. You put a bag of dark chocolates into the cart. Before Lizzie gets her chance to say that she is done and it's time to leave, something caught your attention and you exclaimed “Ouh babe, look! They have some Halloween stuff too. Look at those decorations they sell!”

"Oh yeah. They have pretty good stuff here." The blonde shows her agreement with you.

“Wow, out of all the Halloween themes and myths they can pick, they still don’t have werewolves stuff. Werewolves are so underrated!” Disappointment is written all over your face right after you can’t find anything werewolves related among the things.

“Aaawww, my poor puppy. Don’t be upset.” the Scarlet Witch cast teases you. A soft pat on your head from her then she gives a peck of kiss on your cheek. Surely, a blush magically appears on your face. You smile. “Well, I guess, I can’t be upset when you call me that and get a kiss too.” she winks and giggles at your comment.

“Oh, there’s some costume too, y/n. Oh, they have a kid's werewolf costume.” She excitedly shows it to you. “Oh! Yay, something werewolf! Oh, Liz! Look what I found!” You take your turn showing what you have found.

“It's a Scarlet Witch costume for little girls! Aaawwww!” Pride wraps your tone while holding the costume.

“Oh my gosh! That actually looks so cute! I remember the first time I tried on my real Scarlet Witch costume, it was a little tight and they put wires around me for the flying scenes. It was fun.” a titter jumps out of her lips while her mind recalls the funny memories.

“Oh yeah, I remembered the first time I saw you on set with that suit. You look insanely stunning in it” You wiggle your eyebrows with a teasing smirk and she playfully rolls her eyes.

“I remember that day, when I walked past you wearing the suit you tripped on a cord on the set after you were done doing Paul’s makeup.” Both of you laughed together from the quick trip on the memory lane.

You and Lizzie observe a little more until you see something interesting. "Look at these mason jars mug, darling! Witch's brew!" You try to say the last two words in a scary horror way followed by a fake witch laugh. She laughs at your antics, she always adores your silliness.

“Oh yeah, those are cool. Maybe we can use this for your apple martinis or absinthe cocktails. Isn’t witch’s brews always green in color?” Lizzie proposes her idea.

“Oh yeah, we’ll take this. Wanda should use this as her cup.” You joke and it easily gains another laughter from your wife.

“I know right. I’m gonna take a picture of this and send it to Aubrey since she is turning into a witch soon in Marvel with Kathryn.” a giggle slips out between her words as she smiles while she takes a picture of the said mug.

“Ssshh, Elizabeth! People might hear what you just said.” You remind her to be more careful about the confidential content in a whisper. “Oops, oh yeah. Sorry..sorry.” she apologizes in whispers as her right hand moves as if she is zipping her lips to keep the secret in her.

Then both of you hear a little voice from behind you. “Excuse me, Wanda? Is that you?”

Lizzie quickly turned around, so did you and found a cute little girl wearing the same exact Scarlet Witch costume. The little red haired girl is looking at your wife with such admiration. Her green eyes sparkle in excitement.

“Uh oh. Liz, do you think she heard what you said about Aubrey?” You ask in a whisper to her. “Babe, she’s just a kid. She probably doesn’t understand what we were talking about even if she heard it.” She answers you shortly before she greets the little girl.

“Oh hello, sweetheart. Yes, I am Wanda. You look exactly like me.” Lizzie’s warm and welcoming smile appears across her face. Soon after, the exhilarated girl’s mother comes. “Emily, there you are! Why did you run like that? I’m sor– Oh my god! Ms. Olsen! My daughters and I are fans of yours. She bought her costume here and she wanted to wear it early.” The mom was talking to the mini version of Wanda until she realized who her daughter was talking to and instantly got as excited as her daughter while explaining..

“Oh no. She’s fine. Don’t worry about it. She’s really cute. Also thank you so much.” Without any doubt Lizzie gives the brunette mom the reassurance she thinks that she needs as she crouches to the little girl’s eye level. You were going to do the same she did but you falter your move and stand there awkwardly instead when she asked your wife “Who is she? Where is Vision, Wanda?”

Lizzie and the little girl turn their heads together and look at you. “Her? Well, let me tell you, sweetie. So the world you see in the comic or movie is a different world than ours. In this world we live in, she is my Vision. She loves me as much as the other Vision loves Wanda and I love her too.” Her soft voice warmly explains and her hand rubs the girl’s arm gently.

“So she is Vision even though she looks different? Why she doesn’t look like a superhero? Where is the yellow stone?” Emily asks innocently.

Lizzie instantly laughs a little because of the cute row of questions. “Oh yeah she is. I know she looks different than the other Vision. Right now, she doesn’t look like a superhero because we are on a secret mission now and nobody can see us in our superhero suits but we can show you the yellow stone if you want.” Patience fills Lizzie’s answer and she starts to whisper a little saying the last sentence as if it’s a real secret. As usual, you take her answer as your cue to join in.

“Hello, sweetheart. My name is Y/n. I’m Wanda’s Vision here. I heard that you want to see the secret mind stone?” You ask excitedly in whispers and pretend to carefully look around.

The second after Emily nods in agreement followed by a whispered "yes, please." You pulled out a necklace with the mind stone replica diamond charm that was under your shirt.

"Whoaaaa! So cool! Mommy! Look! It's the yellow stone!" Emily's eyes fill with amazement as she looks at it and she soon forgets to keep it as a secret.

Her mom watches everything in awe and decides to play along and reminds her daughter "Ssst…Emily, they said it's a secret, remember?" She puts her index finger in front of her lips.

"Oh yes, I'm sorry, Wanda." Emily acknowledges her mistake.

"Aw, it's okay Emily. Do you want to know another secret?" You offer another secret to share with her and of course she nods one more time and this time with a bigger smile.

Lizzie knows what she has to say next. "Y/n and I share the stone together. We have the same necklace. So we will always remember each other." Just like you did, she pulls out her necklace and shows it to Emily.

Without missing a beat, she admires Lizzie's necklace as well.

This is not the first time both of you have to handle cute innocent Marvel little fans who ask these adorable questions. Since the first time a situation like this happened, you and Lizzie decided to have matching necklaces with the yellow diamond charm and always use this trick whenever some kids or family’s / friend’s children come up to both of you.

“Wow, Emily! That is so cool! Don’t forget to say thank you to Wanda and Y/n. We need to go, baby and I’m sure that they need to continue their secret mission too.” The lady walks closer to her daughter and initiates the idea to give your privacy back.

“Thank you Wanda! Thank you Y/n! One day, I will be a superhero like you.” Emily exclaims with confidence.

Warmth spreads in Lizzie’s heart, her eyes twinkle with joy while she responds to the girl’s gratitude. “You are welcomed, sweetie. Y/n and I will go back to our mission, to make sure there are enough fresh fruit and veggies for all the kids in the world including you.” She gently taps the tip of Emily’s nose and giggles together with her.

“Yes, kiddo. Don’t forget to eat your greens so you will be a superhero like us, someday.” You added.

“Come here, Emily. Let’s have a group hug.” invites Lizzie. The three of you quickly bundle up in the tightest hug a happy little hug a kid can give. WIth that, you and Lizzie spend a little more time talking with Emily’s mom then the four of you take a picture together.

Right away after you gain your privacy back with your wife and as you walk back to your car then put the groceries in. You look at her. You fall in love with her all over again. A thought came out of nowhere. It instantly draws a smile while you get inside the car.

“Babe, why did you look at me like that?” Her interest lures the question out of her.

“Oh nothing. You looked so adorable when you were interacting with Emily. She was so cute. You always love kids, so do I. We’ve been married for three years so I’m think—”

She gasps and her hand rapidly grabs yours in such elation. “Oh my god. Y/n, honey, are you thinking what I’m thinking?!”

All you can do right now is smile and that was more than words to answer her question. Her eyes glisten, she smiles from ear to ear and pulls you into a hug. Excitement raced through both of you.

You felt drunk with happiness because of a vision and a future you have planned with her.

A/n: Welp, that's it for today! Let me know what you think. See you in next!

Cheerio!

Taglist: @madamevirgo @musicinourlips @unstable-sapphic-hoe @fanboy7794 @chloe7076 @b0mbdotc0m @trikruismybitch @ichala @californianwhiterabbit @honey-sweet-hiraeth @imfuckinggenius @sxfwap @chaekhan @daenerys713 @luvmcgrath @stupidsapphicsstuff @pattypavo @frvny @franfineashell @heyyoweveryone @ygtft-chen @yaaskasey @sweeet-likeeee-cinnamonn @paumxmff @dopeyouth @beaniejennie @ineedafinghug @idkwhatimwriting @lucydiibi @mainly-rebloging-fics-i-like @gloriousfoxruins @grxvitye @mcubreakdown101 @aos22 @wandanatstan @paulawand @yeeterthekeeper @femalehomosexual666 @snowdrop1026 @modernmonalisa @nothingisrealanyway @idamaemann @sweeterlust @royalityofmultifandom @playboysaleen @peabrain112 @gwhaley127 @harleyswanda @bodhi-j @darth-rain @cristin-rjd , 

[fangirlblogger]

Fangirl Analysis Three: Bill Skarsgard's double chin.

Okay girlies, this one is close to my heart. In fact, it burns my heart and starts this fire that never dies out. Bill Skarsgard's Double Chin is a character of its own. It deserves the world's standing ovation for eternity. Yes, some might say his eyes are the main character but for me personally (and to the girlies who also find double chins gob-smackingly sexy), his double chin when he smiles is a whole dinner table I want to devour eternally. Let's dissect these sets of images that vividly displays the previous information provided.

Image 1 Analysis

Firstly, look at how gorgeous and adorable he looks with that cute smile on his face. I simply can not BREATHE, but I will try my best to because I have to make my point. Secondly, this image has so many gems to analyze, and girl, I have my panties off, legs spread open and I'm ready to play.

To clarify things, I'm not a Bill Skarsgard obsessed fan girl (not that I have anything against anyone who does - I love that!), I recently just hopped on the train after watching Hemlock Grove (mind you I'm aware of his existence - Pennywise duh - I just never paid any attention to him because I had some other celebrity white men with brunette hair and blue eyes in my pants [I will get more into that this semester]), so I wouldn't know much about him as someone who has love him since day 1. To add on, I instantly fell in-love with him after the blood scene (I've mentioned this in the previous post but I'll say it again:

Roman Godfrey had my pussy by the clit the moment he sexually devoured that blood.

Back to the analysis. I do not know where this image of Bill was taken or when, but I'm pretty sure this was taken during a press conference of the John Wick 4 movie. Girl, his whole demeanor had my pussy throbbing and craving his slickness. After the movie, I felt like I was pregnant with his baby. His whole appearance was a breeding session for me, and I dropped from heaven when the movie ended.

Case study question: Why is this image devour worthy?

Firstly, it's Bill Skarsgard. He is devour worthy. Secondly, his smile isn't too wide to hide away his double chin. You can see that he has more meat to his cheeks which makes the smile more heavenly. I must say, having a kid does make him more daddyfied not that he wasn't before but all that daddy weight just makes me want him to daddy me.

Moving on, his eyes are literal definition of perfection. If he smiles and looks at me like that, the eggs in my ovaries would automatically be fertilized, conceived and I'd be ready to birth his kid in a few seconds after all that interaction.

Finally, I love this picture because it makes him human. You can see his perfectness and you can also see his flaws. Others might consider the hairstyle unattractive, I find that attractive. It makes him more human, imperfect and real.

Image 2 Analysis

Okay girlypops, I'm just going to come out and say it. I don't care how many people are sitting with him at whatever event this is, if I was there, I would literally get on my knees and start giving this man the gluck gluck three thousand. While doing that, I'd command him to just sit like that with his arms crossed, with that smile and look on his face, til I make him come with my mouth. I need to worship this man. My desires for him are cannibalistic and religious at this point. And, this image right here heightens those desires and urges for me.

Case study question: Why is this the sluttiest image of Bill?

As a girly that finds men rolling their sleeves to their forearms slutty, I also find men in turtle-necks, sweaters and textured long coats slutty and horny as hell. If this image of Bill was a dildo, I would fuck myself with it till Satan repents. The way he leans back on his chair, with his arms crossed below his chest that is not too firm to have his clothes looking too tight but enough to see that he is comfortable. This sight is such a fine art. Forget about looking at Renaissance paintings, this is all the renaissance you need to have your pussy coming over and over again.

Finally to the best part: His double chin. His jaw is so perfect that when leans back and smile, his double chin becomes too perfect. Just the perfect amount of mound for a Bill Skarsgard fangirl to devour eternally. The double chin is a god in this image. Everything else comes second. The double chin also enhances his emotions, therefore making his smile more bubbly, cheerful and innocent. It's inviting and it speaks to the viewers or whoever he is interacting with that he is comfortable with the conversation and the environment he is in.

Image 3 Analysis

Girlies, this image here is a real one. I adore this image. It shows how authentic, flawed and real Bill is. It shows him in the act - that is him interacting with people as he always does. His hair, eyes, nail, neck, double chin, teeth, nose, cheeks and forehead looks so organic. I love that. In a world that has a lot of people playing around with their looks to look so perfect, this image here is a breath of fresh air.

Case study question: How perfect can this image be?

This image is already perfect because everything in this image is not perfect. Yes, I meant NOT PERFECT. Once again, images like this make me desire him more. His humanness makes him more devouring and attractive (this sounds so cannibalistic but if you get the metaphor, you understand). The most vital part of his face that is so slutty is his double chin. My pussy is getting sluttier just looking that double chin (if only I can sit on it).

A special gem that I have identified from this image that makes my heart and pussy throb at the same time is the smile wrinkles at the side of his eyes. If I was given the chance to build a house and live on those wrinkles, I would definitely take that chance. I honestly think they enhance his beauty and his smile and make him more divine and desirable.

Conclusively, I am a whore and slut for Bill Skarsgard's double chin. I am also a whore for men with double chins like Bill (not Bill being an influence lol). I also go slutty for his cheeks when he smiles. His smile make my panties soak and the wrinkle at the side of his eyes make me want to go sexually feral for that man.

The point here is that women find the non-sexual things about men sexual. Sometimes it's the least attractive thing on a man that makes a woman go feral for him. Other times, it's the small movements that the man does that make the woman wet for him. Ageism and a bit of body changes such as weight gain can enhance those physical features of the man and make him 20 or 30 times attractive. That is why some of us girlies have daddy issues. It's not our fault the man we like are older, authentic and more enhanced.

[cosmic-crybaby]

Blue Skies - Tommy Shelby

Chapter 13: ‘You Can Do No Wrong’ 

Warning in this chapter: You finally meet the Shelby family, and come face to face with Polly Grey herself.

Masterlist: 

---

The Shelby family always knew how to throw a proper party. 

You recall that it was a family party, but you knew that meant anyone who was in close ties with the Shelby family. Nevertheless, you felt the pressure already building. The dread of intimidation and the increasing fretful pit in your gut forming with only the thought of what they might think of you. When he first proposed his idea of the party, you hesitated even attending. Fearing that his family would show the most hostility to you and your ‘broken; family since you were not married and you were pregnant with his child. But, even with the storms of scenarios that ran through your mind, Thomas made sure to clear the clouds and reassure you that his family did not give a single fuck if you were married or not yet. 

‘I call the shots, okay? No ones going to fuck with you if you are with me,’ 

He had told you while he held you in his arms. His words made you feel only the slightest bit less anxious. The party was in celebration of their business finally taking off, which brought your stress and worries even higher. You wanted everything to be perfect. 

“B-but I don’t have a dress to wear, the kids need new formal clothes, the cooks still haven’t bought the meat for the main course and-” You rambled. You and Thomas both knew you had plenty of dresses to wear, but you felt as though none of them were good enough. Each one didn’t fit the way you wanted, or didn’t match the jewelry you had planned on dawning. 

“Sweetheart, please...: He held your heated face in his cold and rough hands. Taking a deep breath with you. “Don’t worry about that...I will have everything taken care of, when I get home tonight I’ll buy you a new dress and some clothes for the kids...okay?” You only looked at him, gathering your thoughts. 

“And I’ll make sure Francis has everything ready...Please, I want them to meet you,” 

You nod. Reluctantly agreeing. 

The day of the event came quickly. 

With each passing hour and the closer you were to completing your appearance, the more the realization began to creep up on you. You stood there in your shared master bedroom, giving yourself one last look over of yourself in the mirror. The deep blue dress was heavy with the beaded detailing but hugged your body in just the right way. It was especially comfortable around your midsection. Your neck was decorated with the jewelry that reflected under the dim lighting. Exhaling, you run your hands down your sides to smooth out any wrinkles in the dress. A timid knock at the door caused you to jump a bit. 

“Ms. (L/n), the guests are arriving,” Francis stated from behind the heavy wooden door. 

“Thank you Francis, I’ll be out in just a moment,” You had called back. Taking a deep breath once again and fixing any stray hairs before turning to open the door. Laughter had echoed through the house as you closed the bedroom door behind you. 

“They will be gathering in the drawing room,” She told you once you reached the bottom of the stairs. You nod once again, thanking her with a smile as you walk to the open doors. Peering in to see just how many people were attending. Your eyes had scanned the room for anyone familiar, as most of the people who were there were people you had never seen before. Elizabeth and Henry were talking to two other boys around Elizabeth's age as they sat around a chess board on the small table. John and Esme were attempting to calm down and round of their own children as they wondered and ran around the room with Johnny Doggs’ flock of kids. You made an effort in getting to know everyone’s names that were attending beforehand, making sure you didn’t make any mistakes when meeting them. There were only a few you could point out. Uncle Charlie, Curly, and Johnny Doggs were in one corner. Sitting on the couch next to your children was the second youngest Shelby sibling, Ada. The brunette was speaking to one of the boys, which you only assumed was her son Karl. Across from her was Linda Shelby, Arthurs God-devoted wife. She watched the other boy carefully, her son Billy, as he was introducing himself to Elizabeth and Henry. Your eyes scanned some more. Beside Thomas was Arthur himself, speaking quietly but yet his gruff voice still carried throughout the room. Then there was Aunt Polly, who sat in one of the chairs as she smoked a cigarette with elegance and grace as her son, Michael, stood beside her as he talked with Finn, the youngest Shelby sibling. 

Shaking slightly as you squeezed your hands together. When you had fully entered the room, you held your head down a bit and laid your hands one over the other. Gracing them with your very presence, the room almost went silent. You had only glanced up when you felt Thomas stand beside you, clearing his throat as he held a hand out for you to take to join his side. Handsome as ever in his suit. You walked to him, taking a few strides to interlock your hand with his. 

“Everyone,” He started. “This won’t take long, I figured there will be no better place to introduce this amazing woman by my side, rather than tonight,” He looked at the guests scattered around the room. 

“Throw her to the wolves, why don’t you,” Polly was the first to comment through the silence, a scoff and a snicker following her words. “Pol...” Thomas sent her a warning glance. His patience wore thin and you couldn’t help but hide a giggle and pat his chest gently. ‘Relax darling’ You mutter to him. He takes a deep breath before he finally was able to introduce you, you earned a small round if applause and some whistling when he revealed that you were expecting. 

“You might want to relax Tommy, it seems like you’re the one who’s pregnant,” His sister, Ada, joked as she approached you with a smile. You chuckled as he let out an exasperated sigh.

“Ada... ” He spoke. If she didn’t say anything, you wouldn’t have noticed how stressed he looked. But, the slightest bit of tone changed in him when he introduced you to his sister.

“This is (Y/n), (Y/n) this is-”

“Ada Thorne, his sister,” She interrupted as she held your hands in hers. She seemed the calmer, pleasant sibling out of the bunch, but you knew looks were deceiving when it came to Shelby women.

“Ada, it is so nice to finally meet you,” You smiled happily, feeling yourself instantly become more comfortable. “Oh I hope my children aren’t causing too much trouble for you?” You said, glancing at the four children playing games and entertaining each other.

“Oh? Those two are yours?” She asked. You hum and nod. “Oh of course not, they’re absolute angels!” You humbly smiled at her.

“They get along so well with Karl, you should consider letting them come over once in a while, Karl does need more friends his age and he seems to enjoy being around them,” She explained. You raised your brows in slight surprise.

“I- yes, yes that would be nice, they have many activities outside of school but how about this upcoming weekend?” You asked.

“Sounds perfect to me, I’ll have Tommy bring em over,” She winked. Before you could continue the conversation John then came up to give you a tight hug as he greeted you.

“Oh, John it’s so good to see you,” You laughed, he let you go as he looked down at you, holding your hands. 

“Look at you, (Y/n) You look amazing, absolutely glowin’' Tommy rolled his eyes as he tried to get his younger brother away from you. You chuckled before looking off to the side where Esme stood. She stood a few feet away with her arms crossed. You attempted to give her a small wave, which she ignored and with a glare and a quick swig of alcohol, she walked off to find her husband.

You nod once and look up at Thomas as he returns to your side, placing his hand on your shoulders and giving them a reassuring squeeze, letting you know that you were doing just fine.

Better than himself.

After getting introduced to the rest of the guests, and Tommy's younger brother taking a noticeable liking to you, you were finally left to meet his aunt.

“It’s very nice to finally meet you, (Y/n)” She gave you a sharp smile as she held her hand out to you. You held her hand in yours as you shook her gloved hand.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you as well, Polly,” You smiled, feeling the blush rise to your face once you noticed Thomas wasn’t standing behind you like he was just a moment ago, instead he was jokingly roughing up Finn with John and Arthur. You turned to look back at Polly and chuckled nervously.

“May I?” She asked as she motioned for your stomach.

“Oh, no of course…Everyone seems to find joy in touching it these days,” You commented light-heartedly as she took a small breath and held her hands on your clothed stomach before looking up at you with a faltering smile.

“She’ll be a beautiful baby,” She told you with a calm voice.

“She?” You repeated. She nodded with a hum.

“You should name her ‘Evelyn’, she’ll be just as talented as her family,,” She told you confidently as you both glanced at your children as you overheard Elizabeth telling Ada and Linda about her part in the ballet and Henry telling them how he wanted to play in the orchestra when he gets older. Your heart swelled as you swallowed the lump in your throat. You looked back at Polly Gray.

“It’ll be a beautiful name in lights, don’t you think?” She smirked at you. You nodded.

‘Evelyn Shelby’

‘Evelyn (L/n)’

You thought, but deciding to keep your thoughts to yourself, in fear of offending anyone around you with the last name Shelby.

“I hope my nephew is behaving himself,” She arched an eyebrow at you.

“He is,” Your mind then wandered to the day you found out about Lizzie, and you wondered if he was still seeing her behind your back. but you quickly shook the suspicion away. “Since I’ve moved in, he’s been nothing but supportive and generous to my family…not to mention helpful with our little one coming soon,” It was only a little exaggerated, he was helpful and caring but sometimes you were lonely on those long days he was gone at work.

“How far are you?” She asked.

“A little over 21 weeks now,” You told her. She hummed.

“And how have you been running that bakery all on your own?”

It caught you off guard, you didn’t think she would know your career but you only assumed Thomas had probably mentioned it at some point, but then again why would he?

“Oh I’ve been just fine, it’s been a little difficult since I’ve gotten bigger but I’ll manage,” You shrug.  

“And you prefer it that way? If not we are more than happy to provide some help for you until the baby comes,” She showed her concern.

“My mother did the same with me, I’m just following tradition, and I can’t bare parting from something I love doing everyday but when the time comes I promise I will get help,”

You hear a scoff from your right, as you see Esme roll her eyes and walk out of the room.

It wasn’t much longer until you were sitting at the dining table, Arthur pulling your chair for you since he was sitting next to you. It was the gentleman thing to do. Especially after Linda scolded him for not offering you, a pregnant woman, a seat in the first place.

“Thank you Arthur,” You gratefully smiled as you sat down in the chair, the pressure and pinching in your back slowly easing the more you rested in the cushioned chair. Tommy stood at the head of the table beside you as John sat across from you with Esme beside him. Her dark eyes barely shared a glare at you, but you were too busy noticing that the dining room was filled with chatting from all ends. You had never seen it so full and busy before, it suddenly made the room seem so much smaller than its actual grand size.

Tommy stood up, clearing his throat once again. Thanking his family and friends for joining and for the success of their company taking off after they started off from nothing but a small betting shop in Small Heath. At the end of his speech, everyone held up their drinks and cheered happily before dinner was officially served. The many conversations and loud talking threw you in a spin as they were asking you questions, trying to get to know you. You shared laughs with his siblings, which seemed to ease your tension as well as Tommy’s as he watched you smile and crack jokes. It was enough to make him feel confident in his relationship with you. It solidified his feelings for you and that you were in fact the one for him.

After dessert was finished, they were serving drinks in the drawing room once again. You took this chance to break away from the crowds and take a breather outside on the patio. You let out a small relaxed sigh from your nose as you felt the cool air hit your hot skin.

“Needed a break?” A smooth voice asked behind you. You turned to see Polly, watching in silence as she took a few steps to stand beside you, lighting a cigarette. You hastily shook your head when she offered you one from her cigarette case. She blew the smoke up towards the night sky.

“Are you using my nephew?” She asked. Her voice sounded so different from before. Her voice was deeper, calmer, yet intimidating. It made you shift a bit, having your loyalties questioned and being interrogated after the hectic night you had already endured. 

“No…” You answered calmly, you only faced her again when she asked you another question.

“Did you get pregnant on purpose?” This time her tone was a bit more harsh. Then it finally clicked, she was asking all those questions before dinner to get some kind of answers out of you.

“It was purely a coincidence…I never planned on getting pregnant again, at least until I remarried,” You explained.

“You’re much younger than him and you already have two children to support on your own and you run a bakery all by yourself…kind of hard not to believe you don’t want something out of this relationship with him…Thomas is not the smartest when it comes to beautiful women,” She shook her head in disbelief. “Surely you must want something from him,”

You chuckled.

“I don’t need a man to get what I want…I am more than capable of getting what I desire on my own and I don’t need your nephews money to get it either,” You answered. “I don’t blame you for suspecting me of ill intentions…Anyone in their right mind would have some questions about a young woman starting a relationship with the front man of the Peaky Blinders, but there was a silver lining that got us to where we are today…”

You sighed, preparing your words carefully.

“I thought long and hard, if I wanted to keep her or not just for the sake of saving our careers and reputations but that small sliver of hope is what made us work it out in the end, and trust me I made this decision myself,”

She stared at you for a moment before slowly putting the cigarette to her lips. Tapping the ash into a glass tray.

“And did you know about Lizzie while you were fucking him?” She asked, a sly smirk slowly forming on her face, thinking she caught you. You swallow the words you were about to shout in defense. 

“No...I left him when I found out that he had lied to me...to both of us,” 

She hums. “And you still went back to him?” She questioned. 

“What can I say? I adore him,” You answered honestly. 

She stood close to you, holding one of your hands.

“I like you (Y/n), but trust me when I say this family is dangerous…we get ourselves into a lot of shit and I don’t want to see you and your family in the middle of the crossfire if Thomas fucks up,” You nodded in understanding.

“I know Polly…I intend to do right by your nephew,” You told her, looking into her eyes. She smiled slightly, creating small creases by her eyes, suddenly making her look warm and comforting.

“I know you will sweetheart, after all that he’s been through he needs a good woman by his side, don’t let him fuck it up,” She finished her cigarette and placing a hand on your cheek before she walked away to rejoin her family inside.

You let out the breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Relieved that you finally got through the much anticipated and dreaded family dinner, but still reeling from all of the pointed questions, scoffs and glares from Esme, suspicions of your intentions, and judgmental thoughts of your relationship with Thomas.

A small tear spilling from your eyes as the realization hit you.

The realization that you loved him.

More than you could ever imagine.

---

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[blacktabbygames]

Hi! Thank you guys for amazing games 🖤

If that's okay with you, would you mind telling, of course without giving away stuff that is not meant to be known now, how did you come up with the story of Scarlet Hollow in the first place? The theme of a small town with horrible secrets tied with supernarutal goes back to Twin Peaks and is so much loved by storytellers that I wonder, was Twin Peaks your insiparation?

Also, what do you think about the idea of making a spin-off of the game where it is possible to choose to play for each key character? Like, same story, just from the perspective of a key character like Tabitha, Stella or Sybil.

I understand how much work it entails so I can only dream of it lol. Also, there has to be some official art for the Main Character

The last but not the list, the soundtrack for Scarlet Hollow is SO good. I really want to play more games from you 🖤

Thank you so much for the kind words!

Scarlet Hollow started from a discussion about a hypothetical dating sim set in a small town, where every date you went on took a turn for the monstrous and horrific! We're both suckers for overarching narratives though, so it quickly evolved into what it is now, though you can definitely see where some of the original ideas made their way into the story.

In terms of inspirations for the setting, Abby is from North Carolina and loves to set her stories there, and I'm heavily influenced by the songs of Bruce Springsteen, especially the ones about wanting to leave small towns full of memories and broken dreams.

I don't think we'll be making new games in the Scarlet Hollow universe after we've finished it, since it's a self-contained narrative, but we did play around with an idea last year about making "Dustin Quest" as an April Fools gag/prequel game. But it didn't really feel like it had enough meat on the bones, and Slay the Princess quickly took over all of our side-project time.

We do have a pitch for a TV show we'd love to put out there when everything is all said and done, though, and that's an adaptation of Scarlet Hollow where the player character never shows up to the funeral, and the events of the game transpire without their presence. In this case, the story would be told from the perspective of other characters (mainly the Kaneeka/Stella/Tabitha trifecta). But who knows if that'll ever happen!