#though without audio maybe a little less so

[skrunksthatwunk]

hiei jagan surgery hallucination wip

[catskets]

A more in-depth guide for creating visual novels, especially in the horror, horror-romance, etc circles

Some of you have seen my previous, smaller post on crafting visual novels, especially in this little space of Tumblr that a lot of us have found themselves in. Since that post took off, I've wanted to create a longer guide to help touch on some points I've thought about for the past few months.

In case you've never heard of me, I'm Kat, also known as catsket. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Game Design. I've been making games for nearly 5 years, and I've been doing visual novels more "professionally" for 2. You may know me for Art Without Blood, 10:16, God is in the Radio, or Fatal Focus. I'm here to help you make your first visual novel.

Please note that my advice does not fit everyone, and you may disagree with what I say. That's okay! It doesn't work for all. That's why there's thousands of resources out there.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NEVER MADE A GAME

So, you have an idea for a huge visual novel. Horror, a shady and obsessive love interest, a little bit of woo-hooing. 100k words. Maybe a million. What is this, the 07th Expansion?

I notice a lot of people getting into visual novels are artists first. That's okay! I wanted to do art for games before I realized how much I enjoyed writing. And even less of you have probably touched Visual Studio. Again, perfectly okay. We all start somewhere.

My number one piece of advice? Make shitty games.

What does that mean?! My recommendation to those who have never done games is to make a bunch of shitty ones. Think of a theme, or hell, even join a game jam, where you make a game that fits a theme in a short amount of time. Spend about a week on your game. Focus on making something polished. Polish your mechanics. Polish your output.

I recommend, if you can, to make at least 4-6, if not more, kind of shitty games before hopping into longer projects. Making a game is a skill, just like art, just like writing. And game development is combining ALL of these together into one big soup being stirred by a skeleton hand puppet. You'll get into the rhythm and see what works for you.

It also helps you learn, perhaps, the second most important thing here: do you even like making games? There are cases out there where people have created video games (not saying visual novels) just for clout. That's no fun for you, that's no fun for your players. And you might go through this process and find that you don't like making games. That's completely okay! It's not for everyone.

Also, you can use these shittier games to gather an audience. I've built my audience because, for the past few years, I've been releasing games that slowly give me growing fields of eyes every day. A success story overnight is a rare one. It takes time. It's like building a brand, but you aren't a brand, you're an artist.

REV UP YOUR ENGINES!

Ren'py is the number one engine you will be recommended. It is very beginner-friendly, with lots of tutorials, assets on itch.io to use and download, and support. The engine comes with a few tutorials in the form of games, whose code you can freely browse. This is the engine I use most often. Most visual novels you see are made in this engine.

Twine is a text-based engine that most people use for interactive fiction. You can add images and audio, though, if you don't mind messing with HTML. I use Twine for text games and for outlining for my larger games. Ever played Degrees of Lewdity? Yeah, I know you have. Don't ask why. That game was made in Twine.

RPG Maker has multiple versions and has been used for exclusively VNs if you don't mind fucking around with plugins. It can definitely give your game a super unique feel. I recommend RPG Maker MV, since it has the most resources. This line of engines usually costs money, but it often goes on sale for under $5-$15.

People will recommend TyranoBuilder, but as a user and player, the lack of options and the format the games often come in is just...not fun to navigate. It advertises itself as little to no code, but it's often evident in the final results. Some good games have been made in it, though, so if you want to use it for prototyping/practice, you can. I'm not a fan, but that doesn't mean that fans don't exist! This engine costs money.

Not an engine, but check out Ink! Super useful scripting language that's used for more professional projects.

DEMOS, DEMOS, DEMOS

You've got an idea for a long-term project, and now you want to show it to the world! But wait, wait, don't do that yet!

When should I start advertising my game? This is a personal opinion, but I say that you should not start advertising your game until 50-60% of your demo is complete. Why? As I've discussed with some fans of indie VNs, they can name quite a few projects that have been in the "working on the demo" age for 1-2+ years. I've been in the Kickstarter MMO circles. If you, making a single-player experience with little mechanics to balance and polish (aka a visual novel), are taking that long on a demo, I am going to assume the game is not coming out. There are some games I have seen out here that have been in "working on the demo" phase where I haven't seen a single ounce of what the project will look like.

What should I put in my demo? The purpose of a demo is to showcase the mechanics and the vibes and the mechanics of your game. It's a demonstration. In my last post, I pointed to the Dead Space 2 demo that was showcased at E3 (RIP), that takes place about 2 hours into the story and shows how enemies are defeated, some animations, bits of the story, etc. Usually, because it's less about mechanics and more about vibes, visual novel demos showcase a certain percentage of the full thing (5-10%.) Can you showcase the vibe of the game here and what players should expect? If not, show off another portion.

How long should I work on my demo? Before, I said 3-4 months. That can be true, that can also not be true. Think about how long the demo takes you in proportion to how long the actual game should take you. Don't put too much effort. The demo is to showcase the vibe. It's to see how much the public and fans may enjoy the game.

My game is 18+, what should I do? Make a splash screen when the game is downloaded to let players know your game is 18+. If it's going to contain sexual content, you can hide it with itch.io's adult content filter. Write it on the page itself that your game is for adults only. Don't put your demo behind a paywall. This is genuinely ridiculous. The purpose of a demo is to showcase what a game is like before a player purchases it. That defeats the point of a demo. I've seen this happen, and it discourages players from approaching, especially because most demos never make it past the demo phase. So...I'm paying you $10 for 2-3k words of a game that may never come out?

Should I make a social media for my game? YES! Go for it. These anchors are how people will find your game. Make a Tumblr and open that ask box. Make a Twitter. Go to BluSky. Advertising is not bad. Some YouTubers even take e-mail suggestions from developers. Feel free to shoot your shot. The worst they can do is not respond.

HOW TO SET UP YOUR ITCH.IO PAGE:

Getting your itch.io to a presentable state can be very challenging! There's many ways to do it. I highly recommend using this page image guide for learning how to size your images to make your page pop!

Itch.io themselves has suggested to not publish a page until the game or demo is released. You can make the page and keep it as a draft, but do not publish it until you're ready!

Your cover image is the image that will appear in the search of the website, on any front pages, in collections, and on your profile. What have I seen that works? Key art of one of the characters up close and the title of the game! If you can make it a .GIF, do it! Bitches love .GIFs!

Itch.io recommends 3-5 screenshots on your page. I recommend 1 of these 5 be a .GIF that shows how gameplay feels. This is effective, even for visual novels!

Write a 3-5 sentence summary about your game for the description. What is your story about? What is the draw?

DO NOT BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO IS GOING TO SAY "This is not like other visual novels. It doesn't have that cheesy this or that or-" No one cares. Genuinely. You're putting down other games in your genre and elevating yourself to the pompous level.

TAG YOUR GAME! itch.io gives you a list of tags to choose from when you go to tag. DON'T USE THIS! Try to go for more specific tags. Arimia has a very good guide on how to use itch.io's tagging system to your advantage.

GENERAL GAME MAKING ADVICE

SCOPE KNIFE IS SUPER USEFUL! Everyone makes games that are way over their workload. It's okay to cut out features and add them later. Prioritize making a finished game before hitting those stretch goals.

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN! Writing outlines is super helpful. I use Twine for my outlines, because you can connect your passages together and make really well-thought webs.

IT'S OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP! Whether it's from friends, professionals, or anything in-between. They can help with assets, editing, etc.

HONE YOUR SKILLS OUTSIDE OF GAMES! Write some poetry. Do some sketches everyday. Improve on your craft to improve your games

MUSIC IS HARD. THERE ARE RESOURCES. Most of us aren't musicians. That's okay. Make sure the music you get for your game is allowed to be used. You can use anything non-commercial if your game will not cost money or donations. I try to do songs in the public domain or free to use overall with credit if I don't have a musician. Consult the Creative Commons website if you're unsure how you're supposed to use a certain piece of music. If you don't use the right stuff, not only can it put you in legal trouble, but it can put streamers in hot water if they play your game and they can't upload the video because music is copyrighted.

PLEASE, DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR UI. Wanna know an easy way to get your game to look more professional? Edit the damn UI for your game. Make a new textbox, even if it's just a black box. Change the font. Eventually, players recognize the defaults and patterns of games made in certain engines and may attribute a lack of UI changes to a developer being lazy. It doesn't take very long to change the colors around and move text! Please do it to add a little pop to your game.

DEADLINES ARE AWESOME. Not everyone works well under pressure, but if you give yourself an infinite amount of time to make something, it'll never get done. Set goals for yourself for how much you can work on something.

IF YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP, GIVE UP. Making things is hard, especially long-term. Emergencies happen, jobs happen, life happens. Let your fans know that a project isn't happening anymore. Don't leave them in the dark. You don't need to tell strangers your medical history or anything, but transparency + honesty are really hot traits. You should use those in your creative work. This is one reason why I advocate for not publishing or advertising things until you know it's stable.

SHOWCASING YOUR CONTENT

People love to see WIPs for games! This is what the devlog is good for! A devlog is a post where a developer talks about and showcases some things happening in the game? What can you add to your dev log?

PERCENTAGES! How much of the artwork is done? How much of this character's route is done?

SNEAK PEEKS AT ARTWORK AND SPRITES!

GIFS! GIRLS LOVE GIFS!

Anything else to showcase your game's content! Posting consistent updates retains and even gains a fan's attention for your work.

RUNNING YOUR TUMBLR

You've joined us, and you've made a Tumblr for your blog! Link it on the itch.io page, so people can come find you after playing your awesome demo!

Do I have to respond to every ask? No. It's your blog. Delete whatever asks you want.

I got a hate comment! What do I do? Delete it and move on. I have a more detailed section on hate below.

I want to interact with [blog]! How do I do that? Reach out to the devs for silly little collabs. If you come onto a developer slightly headstrong, they might feel you are being abrasive or using them for content.

If people make fan content, interact with it! Encourage it! Reblog it. Show your love.

OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS

PROFESSIONALISM IS KEY. These may be pet projects, but you want to appear some level of professional on your actual itch.io page.

Being dismissive of player and fan complaints or criticisms will make you appear childish.

If your game is broken, fix it. I have been told by some amateur developers to ignore game-breaking bugs. It does not make me, a player, want to engage with your content. It seems messy and unfinished.

With the above point, it's 100% okay to have bugs and errors upon release. Every developer and their brood mother has. To decrease these issues, get playtesters. Friends can play your games, spot any errors, and help you point out things that can be improved upon. I recommend having playtesters at every stage of development.

Make sure your game runs before you publish it. Please.

You can still be silly and giddy! There's no reason to not be, especially when you get positive comments! The point of this is to not be outright rude to potential players and fans.

IGNORE HATE COMMENTS. In this case, a hate comment is a statement that contains no constructive criticism and are only here to be insulting or malicious. People are going to leave you with actual piles of dog shit in your ask box. They are trying to provoke you. Giving hate comments any attention, even if you're there to "clap back" proves that they got to you, even if you don't take the hate to heart. They will continue to pester you. Delete any hate comments and ignore them completely. Laugh about them with friends in a private setting, sure.

THINK BEFORE YOU REFERENCE! I know one big thing in this community is adding references to other games in yours, such as plushies of other characters or putting them on posters. The best thing you can do it ask the developer before adding this. How would you feel if some random person you've never met put your character in a video game? Most of us would feel weird and potentially violated. Open communication with devs is awesome. I am usually okay with it as long as someone asks for permission.

As a complete aside, I prefer more tasteful references to other games as opposed to 523482346 plushies and posters. These have been slightly overdone. Why not theme a candy after another game's character? Maybe your characters know each other.

OTHER RESOURCES I RECOMMEND

Devtalk is a server dedicated to independent visual novel creators. You can find jobs, resources, advice, talks, and, like, everything there! Devtalk is super useful. Everyone in there is so cool. They have a really great and comprehensive list of resources that I could not even begin to cover.

Visual Novel Design is a great YouTuber. No other words, check the guy out!

Ren'py and whatever other engine you're using has documentation that's super useful to follow.

Arimia not only has amazing VN resources, especially for marketing, but she also just has? Amazing games that you should check out?

And for a shameless self plug, I'm the lead of Sacred Veins, a collective of devs creating narrative games, whether it be horror, humor, romance, or everything in-between. Come hang out with us!

[drabblesandimagines]

Dove (part four)

Leon Kennedy x female reader Part one. Part two. Part three.

The time for Leon’s next perimeter check comes and goes, yet he remains in place on the sofa, you cuddling into his chest. He knows he could try and shuffle along a little bit, get you to lie down, but he doesn’t.

You must be exhausted, both physically and mentally, to have fallen asleep on him after all. He doesn’t want to risk waking you up when it’s the first time he’s seen you properly relaxed in the last 24 hours. It’d be more awkward if he did try to move and woke you up, too. Plus, if he did successfully pull it off, it’s not the widest of sofas either - what if you rolled off when he was outside and damaged your shoulder even more? You’re already bruised and battered from your encounter with the Lickers and he’ll be damned if he’s gonna let you get hurt again under his watch.

It’s everything to do with that and nothing to do with the fact that he can’t remember when he last held a woman like this, content in his embrace. He’s not a big one-night stand guy – won’t deny he’s had them, but they’re not a preference - so intimate moments like this are few and far between. Besides, you’d asked him for a hug, you’d fell asleep in his arms. It might not be proper, but he’s not overstepped professional boundaries by reassuring a victim in their moment of need.

Just like he totally hadn’t overstepped when he helped you undress last night.

God, when you’d asked for his help with your bra… Memories of awkward fumbles with girlfriends under covers had flashed through his mind, still isn’t sure how he pulled it off one-handed.  

Leon swallows as you unconsciously nuzzle your cheek up against his chest, bringing him back to the present moment. He chides himself for the distraction, shouldn’t be thinking about that when he should be thinking about the job at hand. There’s been no reply from Hunnigan, though he wasn’t expecting one unless there was any sort of development. She’s probably waiting for his full report before she’ll give him a crumb of anything in return.

He looks at the laptop sat open on the coffee table, though it’s long gone to sleep. He was maybe a little ambitious with his timeframe of having it in her inbox by 2000, as now he’s going to have to type it up, listening to the audio, all in the same room as you as he does.

Problem for later, he decides, as is you being asleep on his chest preventing him from doing his perimeter check. His hand remains on the small of your back - keeps you steady against him, whilst he compromises for scrolling round the camera feeds a few times one-handed.

There’s nothing to note visually from his last outing - though he definitely wants to be able to double-check with his own eyes rather than put his full trust in pixels on a 3.5-inch screen. There’s been no motion detected either, so it’ll do.

It’s turning into a nice evening, he muses, warm enough to be out without a jacket. It’s a shame he can’t take you outside for some fresh air, stretch your legs with a walk around the perimeter – after he’d checked it first, of course – and maybe make you feel less like a prisoner. Knows from experience that it won’t be long until the frustration of being restricted to three rooms is going to surface. Always does. You’ve already shown some over the medication being locked up last night.

He also knows how much the restrictions and protocols seem overkill, but if anything were to go wrong on this mission, all his actions are going to be scrutinized under a microscope, discussed at length by a panel who will either sign him off for active duty or accuse him of being a traitor to the good old US of A.

You jerk almost violently on his chest then, nearly clocking him in the chin, your good hand scrunched up in the fabric of his shirt – all tell-tale signs of a bad dream. Leon begins to rub slow circles with his hand on the small of your back, hoping it’ll be soothing enough to stop the dream progressing, perhaps enough to draw you out of that REM state but not enough to wake you up entirely.

He slips his phone back in his pocket as he continues to rub large circles on your back, can’t help but smile as he watches you settle, your face relaxing once more.

Leon closes his eyes, then, relishing the weight of you on his chest. It’s not selfish, he reasons, no, because although those sleeping pills work wonders, they can never replace a true night’s sleep – again, he knows that from bitter experience. It’s enough to shut your brain down for a solid eight hours, but it’s never going to be a restful sleep when it’s synthetic.

Not in the way you’re napping right now, safe in his arms.

God, Kennedy, pull it together – you just met the girl.

Still, doesn’t open his eyes though.

He’s about to drift off himself when you whimper and he swears it breaks his heart. Your grip tightens on his shirt, face twitching once more, now alongside furrowed brows and hitched breaths as you face invisible demons. He strokes your hair with one hand, still rubbing circles on your back with his other but it doesn’t have the same effect this time as your restlessness continues.

“No…” You whimper again, nails digging in his chest from your grip and he admits defeat. He sits up slowly, stills his hand on your back and moves his other to rest lightly on your arm to give the most gentle shake.

“Dove, it’s okay.” Leon says, softly. “You’re all right. It was just a dream.” He moves his head down, in dangerous territory of being headbutted, speaks a little louder in the hopes the movement and his voice will break through your slumber. “I’m here, Dove. You’re safe with me, okay?” Your eyes shoot open and you lift your head off his chest but his reflexes don’t fail him as he moves his head back from the collision. You emit a sharp gasp from your mouth, catching your breath and look at him briefly in alarm, feeling entirely disorientated and confused, heart pounding.

“Hey.” He smiles.

It takes a beat for you to properly gather your bearings – never been a fan of napping during the day, always made you feel worse more than anything. You’re in the safe house, in the living room, with Leon – the kind DSO agent who made you oatmeal and sandwiches for lunch – whose warm palm still is pressed solidly against the small of your back…

“You fell asleep. I… It seemed like you were having a bad dream, so…”

You remembered asking him for a hug, how nice it had felt in his embrace, how you thought it would be fine to close your eyes for just a moment. Afterall, they were so dry and tired from all that silly crying and how nice and warm Leon felt, with your cheek pressed up against his chest.

Yes, you were just going to savour all that for a couple more minutes and then you’d sit up.

But it hadn’t happened that way, waking up whoever knows how long later, holding onto him for dear life.

“I fell asleep… on you.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

His smile turns somewhat bashful. “Yeah.”

You realise then that your hand is flat on his chest, right over his heart – you can feel it pound underneath your fingertips and you snatch it back into your own chest, sitting up poker straight, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Dove. I can add emergency pillow next to the first aid qualification.” He teases, relieved it seems to make you relax a little by the way your shoulders drop. You smile, placing your good hand back on the sofa for balance to shuffle back along. A little reluctantly, Leon brings his hand back to rest on his thigh.

“Do you, er, want to talk about it?”

“Not much to tell.” You shuffle in place again, trying to get comfortable as your injuries begin to ache. “I was being chased… But that’s all I can remember.” You shake your head as if you could shake the uneasy feeling out of it. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long.” Leon shrugs, though he knows exactly how long it was. Doesn’t want to say he let you sleep on him for over 90 minutes because he liked the human contact.

You look up at the TV, not knowing what to say, and see it’s still on at a low volume – the channel unchanged and the house renovation show ongoing. Must be some sort of afternoon marathon.  

“So, I need to do my, er, perimeter check. I won’t be long, but can I get you anything before I go?”

“Can I have the next dose of painkillers?”

Leon checks his watch and frowns - you’re over an hour away from the next dose. Maybe he shouldn’t have let you sleep in that position after all, torso twisted to lie across his chest – the fall down the stairs had to have a done a number of your ribs. “I’m afraid not for another hour or so, Dove. Is the pain really bad?”

“No, I’m just starting to ache a bit. I’ll be all right.”

“We can arrange a call with a medic if the painkillers aren’t bearing up, see if we can get you on something stronger.” He offers, getting to his feet.

Your stomach flips. There it is, that horrible niggle of doubt in the depths. Leon seems sincere enough in his offer – hell, this is the man who prepped your toothbrush for you this morning, made breakfast and lunch, let you sob and then nap all over him. That’s surely not how a government agent who suspects you’re a bioterrorist is going to treat you, yet you can’t bring yourself to fully relax around him, painfully aware that he might be feeding back everything you say or even do to superiors.  

Is this a trick or a test, to see if you’ll take up stronger pain medication after you insisted yesterday that what you were given had been adequate? Oh, you lied about that, did you? Did you lie about your whole statement too, Dove?

“No, that’s not necessary.” You’ve taken too long to reply, so time to try and deflect. “I’m just being a baby.”

“No, you’re not.” He replies, firmly. “Have a think about it, okay? You’ll have been running off adrenaline for a while, might have numbed the real extent of the pain when you were being assessed. Been there a few times myself.”

You nod, unsure of what else to say, still feeling a little awkward in the way you’d woken up.

“Okay, I’m heading outside. See you soon.”

You lean forward and grab the remote control. “Take care.” It comes out before you even think about what you’re saying and you turn up the volume on the TV, as if it could drown out what you’d already said.

Leon smiles as he picks up his duffel bag, slings it over his shoulder – he’s locking it in the garage on his way out. If you’ve noticed he keeps it in his line of sight at all times -besides the time it was behind him but you had been very snug in his arms - you’ve been polite enough not to mention it, or maybe you just don’t want to hear the answer. He wishes he could make the call, but until those above him officially deem you as a victim who needs protection and not a suspect under surveillance instead of the hybrid moniker you’re under, he needs to keep you and the weapons separate.

Like you could do any damage to him with your arm in a sling, bruised, grazed and sore, all whilst on sleeping pills and painkillers for God’s sake. If you were faking all of that, call the Academy cos there’s a new Best Actress in town.

---

Part five.

Masterlist . Requests welcome . Commissions/Ko-Fi

Comments, follows, likes and reblogs make my day!

[danieyells]

Re: Towa's voicelines

@disassociationdive

I can go into that a little bit sure lol NOT SO MUCH CONSPIRACY THEORIES AS OBSERVATIONS BUT LET'S START WITH ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT TOWA.

What do you mean we don't know his blood type.

They run health checks on everyone and you're telling me in the year he's been here they somehow haven't found out? They have everyone else's bloodtypes, firstyears included, but Towa's is unknown?? If anyone else had an unstated blood type it'd be a little less suspicious but like. . . .

Next, his stigma. He controls weather. That's like six powers in practice? I know he has an incantation because he has an audio clip of it in the files, but he uses it exclusively in his head so far and. . .i find it hard to believe he's always reciting it when it responds to his emotions? Like his instinctive response to any minor irritation is to recite his stigma in his head? Maybe that's just me but it seems unlikely?

He's also constantly running around and using it even in casual situations. The only other person who uses their stigma that much is Leo and that's because he's using it to spy on people. Towa just silently changes the weather for fun and because he's been angered or offended or Haru was hurt or Ren was mildly irritating or whatever. He causes whole snowstorms and lightning and rain showers at the drop of a hat. Most people don't even realize he's doing it and just blame the weird weather!

Not to mention that when he was gone for more than a day Jabberwock's nature was suddenly in chaos??? The waters dried up, the sky was dark, he's the only thing keeping that place kind of temperate.

So his control of weather understandably makes anomalies obey him--animals know not to fuck with nature. But in the undersea palace the anomalies didn't know that, he just. . . .

Jin would be jealous at how easily things just do what Towa tells them to. He just MAKES THEM SO INTIMIDATED THEY KNEEL BEFORE HIM AND STAY OUT OF HIS WAY. Young anomalies like Peekaboo and Calamari don't even need him to do anything around them before they feel scared of him--just having him nearby stresses them out sometimes afair? That's not him using his stigma. That's just him. Anomalies are just obedient to him and scared of him. Considering the weather responds to his emotions it's entirely possible the entire island anomaly Darkwick is on is scared of him and just changes patterns if he gets upset to try and get rid of his problems.

Speaking of the undersea palace, why can he smell Haru? Maybe I'm misremembering but even Taiga, the guy who eats people, never seems to suggest he has any scent awareness of them? Also they're underwater, several hallways away??? But he still smells him?????

And he just follows Haru's scent to him, down the halls, under the sea. . . .

Next. . .Towa's total lack of regard for the lives and wellbeing of others. When told that people went missing in a way that says they're almost definitely dead, he was happy. Haru had to tell him, no that's a bad thing. Based on his expression I'm not entirely sure he agrees.

Towa is clearly capable of self-determination. He has no problem whatsoever doing things without instruction. But if he doesn't want to do something he needs to be given an explanation he likes to comply. Even if it means saving the life of someone he cares about. You beg him with tears in your eyes to save everyone and he still thinks about it before deciding he'll do it. Even though he's the one who told you to ask him.

TRY GROVELING HARDER. HE LIKES IT WHEN THEY BEG. it has the feeling of 'i'll grant your wish but you have to wish for it' y'know? like a demon? remember when Taiga showed you his demon impression and did something similar?

Another thing relating to the wellbeing of people he enjoys. . .he adores Haru. He electrocutes animals that even remotely offend Haru let alone hurt him.

Also, he handles Haru with 0 delicacy despite his broken leg.

And when you're in the water and he sees Haru and wants to rescue him he drags you back under the water with 0 warning.

Another thing displayed there and that he mentions in his home screen lines. . .he can see near perfectly in the dark? That water is pitch black, you cannot see Haru down there, but he can.

The last thing is. . .he speak to animals and plants? He already has like three other powers--he can 1. see in the dark; 2. control weather and electricity(even able to use his ability UNDER WATER, making what I think was a cyclone that was so fast and sharp it started to cut apart anything caught in it? May have been astonishingly controlled lightning though. I assume his near-flight jumps are controlling the wind to carry him higher up and he can't also almost fly); and 3. anomalies are so intimidated by him even when he can't electrocute them that they obey him and kneel at his feet!--but on top of that he can also understand any living thing that isn't a human? Like he is the only one who's exhibited the ability to understand what plants and animals say. Haru even knows and says 'you're the only one who can do this, ask the Kraken for help'.

In his voicelines he mentions the tree telling him something about it waiting for a long time and crying. And he cries and hugs the tree too--he's more affected by the emotions of a tree than the wellbeing of his loved ones lmao

The tree must be connected to something important. Of note, the background with this particular tree is called "kibou" in the files. "Kibou" can mean either "hope/wish/aspiration" or "ruse/trick/deception" depending on the kanji used. the positive meaning of 'hope' is more common i think--but I wonder if the double meaning is intentional? maybe i'm reading into it too much.

apparently Towa spends a lot of time on this hill--to the point that he didn't go to the assembly where you were introduced. I assume he spends a lot of time talking to this tree. Maybe the tree knows what's going on too. Towa could be helping by way of the tree. . .but the tree could also be evil. Maybe someday we'll learn. Speaking of him not going to the assembly, when Haru mentions that you were there, Towa acts like he knows this, but Haru says he was on the hill and didn't attend. Towa proceeds to look confused, like it doesn't sound right to him that he wasn't there or wouldn't have had that information. Maybe the tree told him? Maybe he remembers things from other timelines too, like Taiga might???

The one thing that's suspicious but also not thanks to that Taiga's also got an inhuman feature is that his pupils are a non-human shape. They look more like goat or octopus eyes than human eyes(most likely meant to be goat since he eats so many flowers.) But since Taiga's got big pointy teeth for chompin' that may not be an issue. I don't think Taiga's suspicious for having inhuman features, so Towa's eyes don't really make me feel like they're a huge point of suspicion--aside from that they add suspicion when combined with everything else ofc.

SO THE TL;DR REASONS I FIND HIM SUSPICIOUS ARE LARGELY BECAUSE HE HAS AN IMBALANCED AMOUNT OF ABILITIES AND THEY AREN'T EVEN RELATED TO HIS ARTIFACT--AND THOSE ABILITIES ARE RELATED TO NATURE AND ANOMALIES. . .WHICH MAKE ME THINK HE'S NOT ACTUALLY A GHOUL, HE'S MORE OF A NATURAL ENTITY OR A DEMON OR SOMETHING. And perhaps his communication with plants and anomalies and animals is him communicating with who or whatever he's spying for--he might be able to pass along information that way.

A lot of it could be chalked up to mental illness just unique personality of course. But that doesn't explain why he's halfway to being nature incarnate.

Kaito is more believably suspicious imo because he exhibits connection to other aspects of the world in a somewhat suspicious way but like. . .Towa seems imbalanced in terms of power and abilities compared to everyone else. Everybody else gets one power and an artifact. Towa's got like 5, not including the bubble wand. And a lot of them are connected to nature.

However one could argue that his wish was to be closer to nature--and the demon took his ability to speak during the day(and perhaps took most of his empathy) in exchange for the ability to communicate with animals and plants. This is really very likely when you think about it. But it doesn't explain a few other things. Maybe he made multiple pacts or swallowed multiple demons? It'd be nice to learn someday.

Now to be fair!!! Moby, one of your teachers, is a humanoid tentacle horror anomaly who doesn't have human features so his facial expressions have to be portrayed via screen! So it's possible that Towa isn't a ghoul, he's a humanoid anomaly and he's allowed to be with the ghoul students instead and nobody explained that he's not an ex-human like everybody else--nobody seemed surprised by Professor Moby's apperance so 'anomalies as members of society' are probably somewhat normal at least by the time you're a second year. But. . .just. . .seems shady to me. Which is not a complaint i love shady characters and villains lol

BUT YEAH THOSE ARE MY LITTLE OBSERVATIONS ABOUT TOWA THAT MAKE ME SUSPECT THAT HEY MAYBE HE'S NOT HUMAN MAYBE SOMETHING'S UP. But also, thanks to the nature of that things here are anomalous to begin with, it's hard to say that these are for sure something to be suspicious over. Towa could just be insanely powerful. Maybe the demon he made a deal with was high ranking or something. Who knows. I really hope the game lasts long enough for us to find out lmao

[echantedtoon]

Phone Call

(WARNINGS AND DISCLAIMERS!!: First of all, warning for Wally tripping and falling down the stairs. Secondly, Welcome Home and Wally Darling do not belong to me. They belong to partycoffin. This is partially based on the audio someone did of Wally falling down the stairs made by  james.80085 on tiktok. Please support both the original content creators.

This fandom has a grip on me but I don't feel like writing a whole bunch for it since I have other projects so all I'm doing is this simple oneshot with GN reader. Take as platonic or romantic. You're choice. Just know this is based on the idea of a Muppet au which is basically humans live alongside living Puppets.)

Once upon a time-

"...No. That won't work. How many stories have started with 'Once upon a time' anyways? It needs to be original."

The sound of a crumpled up paper soon after hit the wall. 

Once in a land far, far away-

"...Nah. It sounds like the start of a fairytale. And this episode doesn't revolve around any fairytales so an opening like this wouldn't make any sense to start with."

A crumpled wad of paper gracefully flew through the air before bouncing off the opposite wall and landing with a couple thuds until it stopped just a few inches away from the first one. Both of which missed the trash Bin standing no more than a few inches away from them. Surely a waste of both paper and space but right now you couldn't care less. Too busy with trying to write the next episode's darn script. Not that anyone was really giving you any hands to help, even though there was a certain someone who was SUPPOSED to be! That little blueberry pompadour wearing banana was going to be in BIG trouble if he didn't show up soon to go over this script with you!

"Maybe we should start off by the camera zooming into a storybook that opens up?"...You shook your head. "That's just the fairytale start again but a different way. UGH!!" Papers flew off the desk and onto the floor, pens shook, and a thud sound echoed throughout the small office as your head collided into the desk in frustration. "Write us a new start they said. We've already had Wally painting as the opener too many times they said. You're a script writer so it should be easy for you to come up something in a week they said. Wally agreed to help you they said. 'No problem' he said!" Your head lifted up as a scowl presented itself on your face. "Well then where the heck IS he!? He couldn't even have the heart to call first-"

As if the universe was making fun of you, a rather loud sound coming from the right side of your desk rang out. That high pitched RRRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG echoing throughout the small quiet office and  starling you into almost falling out of your chair and onto the floor along with the many small crumpled up papers, but luckily your hands grabbed hold on the desk and stopped you from wobbling and ultimately falling off and onto the floor. Blinking your eyes. ...What the- RRRIIIINNNGGG!!! The ringing came again after a few seconds of silence making your head snap over to the small electronic device set onto the right side of the desk. It went silent when you looked but sure enough two seconds later- RRRRIIIINNNGGG!!! The phone moved with the loud ringing noises.

Someone was calling you.

You blinked again before scowling and your eyes glanced to a clock mounted just above you on the wall. It was nearly noon!! And not only that! Most of the week's gone by without any help!! It made your annoyance grow, even after you grabbed the phone effectively making it stop ringing, and you held it up to your head as normal.

"Y/n's office." You had to restrain yourself from hissing that through your teeth in your annoyance.

"Hel-Lo.~" A male voice cooed from the other side of the phone and you froze upon realization. "Hello, Neighbor.~ Wonderful weather we have today, but I've noticed you've been stuck in that silly stuffy office lately."

....Oh that wise guy-

Your face deadpanned and your grip lightly tightened on the phone. "Gee. I wonder why? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?" A hand gestured at the mess of papers. "The script for the newest episode is due in a few days and you were supposed to come over to help me pick an opening for it!"

"Hm?" The man's voice hummed genuinely confused for a moment before letting out a little gasp of realization. "Oh! So that's what I've forgotten. My apologies! You see most of the week I've had this string wrapped around my finger because I knew I forgot something but I couldn't remember what. It's a good thing Poppy mentioned I should give you a call for whatever reason."

You wanted to facepalm SO badly. "WELL since you remember NOW, WHEN can you free up some time to get here!"

"Um. That might be a little bit of a problem. You see. I've been rehearsing the script we do have-"

"And you've gotten the whole script instead of the opening right?"

"Yes! Gee, you catch on fast. I was so confused on why we didn't just start with the opening, and I discovered because you hadn't written it in yet." Gee. You wondered WHY. "I don't think it's too much of a problem."

"That's because you're not the one who's writing it. I AM."

"Why not just start with someone else?"

Your mind blanked for a moment. "....What?"

"It's simple really. For example just start with...Hmm. Let's say with Howdy bagging groceries and then the camera turns to the door and make it as if the viewer walks out the door and then down the street to where I'll be stationed! I think the kids would love being able to see part of the Neighborhood before the adventure starts."

Your mind still bluescreened as the silence continued on your half of the line and after about seven seconds another hum from the man on the other end came. 

"Hello? Are you still there?"

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? You came up with a good opening in a few seconds, where I've been struggling for the last four days!"

A chuckle from the other end made you flush in both annoyance and embarrassment. "I'm sure you would've come up with something just a good, but I'm glad I could help."

Well..at least you had an idea of what to write now, you just had to write it out and make sure to give a copy to the Director later, and give a mention to Howdy about the use of his store front. With a sigh, you felt some of the annoyance leave your body.

"Well, that's taken cared of at least. But where are you right now? I haven't seen you all day."

"The third floor." You paused. "There was a few new sets being painted and they wanted some insight on them! They all look very beautiful."

"...You could've just come downstairs and taken twenty minutes to help me out with this!," you ended up lightly yelling not that the puppet man seemed too bothered about it really, "I'm literally one floor under you."

"Well I am using the wall phone right next to the stairs," he answered giving a hum. "So you're going with the idea of Howdy's shop?"

"Most likely. It sounds like a good idea."

"Thank you. Oh. Speaking of Howdy's-..A funny thing happened the other day." He continued to ramble on as you sighed. "He had this shipment of apples, so I asked him if I could have a few. He said if I wanted one so bad, I could just drive down to the grocery store since last time I took the whole stack. And I said if you were going to eat all of those apples, you might as well share. Hahaha!''

Despite the annoyance you felt, you couldn't help rolling your eyes and sighing, but smiling afterwards. Puppet humor wasn't the funniest thing in the world to you, but little kids loved his jokes whatever they may be, and it did make you have some form of a small smile on your face.

"Are you smiling?~ I think I feel a smile on the other end of the line," you heard his voice coo and immediately your face burst red in embarrassment.

"What!? No. A-Absolutely not! *ahem* But it was good to finally hear from you. Just be sure next time you don't forget about any important meetings."

"Oh, hey! That also reminds me. I have a date with Jul-"

Unfortunately he never got to finish his sentence because you jumped when what sounded like a wooden thump call from the other side of the line followed by-...A cartoony slip noise?"

"Uh oh-"

"Mr. Darli-"

You also didn't have a chance to answer as a loud BANG from above made you jump from your chair and look up to the ceiling as what sounded like a decently sized object started to noisily fall down the stairs from the third floor AAAAALLLLL the way down to the second floor where you were at. Bang! Bam! Bum! Thud! Crash! And repeat! Meanwhile your ear was assaulted by a pained voice-

"OW- What the-!? AH!! EEEEEEYY-"

And other sputterings as the noises down the stairs above you continued until with a final CRASH noise, you heard a-....Cartoony symbol bang noise? That signaled the end of the assault of noises and then silence came from everywhere, only broken when a low groan of pain exited the phone.

"Mr. Darling! Are you alright?!"

"I-...I think I broke everything," his voice came through the other side of the phone obviously sore from the rough ride down.

You winced and cringed a little bit imagining the descend down. "Would you like me to bring you an ice pack?"

"You..better make it a couple, Sweetheart."

[rosyfingered-moon]

Sejak episode 8

Never did I expect this to become a gay panic episode. In every crossdressing sageuk I've seen (excluding the peerless Sungkyunkwan Scandal) the surrounding cast never seem to suspect the ML of being gay. He's just, like, bromancing really hard (and maybe he feels taken aback by the intensity of his feelings but doesn't really fall in love until her true identity has been revealed, or maybe he secretly knew all along, etc.) But here they're just making a plotline of it?

The way Yi In's eyelids flutter in excitement whenever Mong-woo beats him with yet another cutthroat move...

*the russian voice* through the elegant yelling, of this compelling dispute.... comes the ghastly suspicion.... my opposition's..... a fruit

I like that we get to see how everyone reacts to the rumor because it reveals so much about their characters. Like this asshole, he could just have taunted Myung-ha with the insinuation that he's awfully close with that Kang Mong-woo. But instead he says, "Though the rumor is unsavory, it matters not. He is His Majesty's favorite, after all. I would have done the same." With this deeply unpleasant smile on his face??? LIKE???

Then we have Dong sanggung, immediately wary of the threat of replacement. (The bleakness of it all. The only power she can aspire to is being the king's favorite toy.) But their dynamic is really interesting to me and I hope to learn more about her as we go along.

And the queen, who is relieved. Because of course she would be! If Dong sanggung sinks, she can rise; if the king is blamed for their lack of intimacy, even if it's only a portion of the blame, even if it's only in whispers and stares, then the heaviest burden of her life becomes a little less heavy.

This exchange made me tear up :( That he alone, a child of no near relation, has the decency to come check on her. The way she almost breaks down crying at such a small act of kindness. Poor baby.

This scene was also very lovely! And like, honestly kinda good advice? We've all had the friend who is asking for your opinion on her garbage situationship and you just know that there's nothing you could say that would truly convince her to leave, not yet at least, because she's not going to give up hope until she's broken herself trying.

But I can't help but wonder what Hongjang would say, if she were still here.

Well, fool was I for saying there would be no bodice-ripping in this show.

THE SHRIEK I SHROOK.

What the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK. Even taking these screenshots without audio is making me blush anew. What a godtier kiss. His fury and bewilderment, the way he alternates between closing his eyes to relish it and staring at her in desperate disbelief, the tears clinging to his eyelashes as all the implications hit him, one after the other. She loves him, he killed her, he loves her, he still killed her.

Also can we talk about the insane choice of setting for this scene? WHO APPROVED THIS.

And she just collapses, like her strings have been cut.

[n7punk]

What’s your beef with Spotify?

It's less beef and more just a product I don't like - because that's what Spotify is, a product. They really don't want you to think of it that way, but at the end of the day it's particularly invasive product packaging around the thing you actually want to listen to, and there are dozens of different ways to listen to music. As far as gripes, though, number 1 is that it doesn't really pay its artists for shit and its objectively kind of shitty audio-quality wise (I'm not a snob on this, but depending on your hardware it can be especially crunchy while other things like Youtube sound just fine). Number 2 is how much it spies on you and tracks your data. Number 3 is the ads. Number 4, and the actual reason I will never use it, is that it's the enshittification of media consumption.

I do, actually, have a Spotify account. I used it for all of a day before never logging in again or verifying my email. Spotify forces you to experience music the way it wants you to, with absolutely no benefit aside from cloud syncing cross-platform for your playlists that I don't actually need, and I'm used to the freedom from the dawn of the accessible mp3 era.

Better Kind Of Best Friend is a single. I bought it as part of the entire The Sex Was Good Until It Wasn't album, so it came with the album artwork. I wanted it to have its single artwork - so I changed it. And now, in MusicBee and on my phone, I see the single artwork because it's in the file metadata. Spotify doesn't give you that option. It's a little thing, maybe, except when it isn't, like when a song's cover art is graphic or otherwise upsetting to look at, or just plain doesn't fit it.

Sometimes I don't agree with a song's "official" genre (usually because the entire album classifies the songs one way while they actually span genres). The range of things that are classified as indie rock is insane. Anyway, other times I use the genre more specifically, such as "Dark Pop", which isn't actually a thing but if I played you Dark Pop songs you would understand what I mean. In MusicBee, I can change genres to be whatever I want, which is important for various auto-playlists in filtering.

I also have a custom tag for any sapphic songs that automatically populates my lesbian love auto-playlist as they're defined, and another playlist that automatically adds all music from my custom-defined list of queer artists to the "Gay Life" playlist. When I buy a new Reinaeiry song, it automatically gets added without me having to do anything.

I can't listen to demos or any music that Spotify has lost licensing to on it, which means that if I want a complete playlist with a demo song on it, I have to have all those songs exported anyway, and at that point why am I bothering to split my listening across platforms? Idk if you heard, but Spotify lost licensing to a giant catalogue of Kpop music at one point because one company pulled out, and all those listeners were fucked. I don't have to wait for an artist to upload their shit to Spotify (although right now I am waiting for Reinaeiry to put Too Sweet up for download - pls queen - this is luckily more rare of an occurrence than me seeing "please add this to Spotify" comments is).

I like music I can keep forever, listen to whenever, and do so without ads or paying three figures a year to hear uninterrupted. I'd rather buy one album a month with the Spotify premium money than pay for it. I like creating folder after subfolder worth of an unlimited number of playlists (admittedly idr if Spotify allows this feature. It varies by online listening platforms and I don't bother to track the ones I don't use). I like being able to drag and drop my playlists from MusicBee into iTunes to instantly listen to them on my phone (and thus cross-play isn't a concern for me as long as I remember to synch my phone). I like the feature of being able to instantly and permanently adjust the volume, as well as the beginning and end point, of any single song I chose (super helpful for when certain albums are inexplicably quieter/louder than others or have a stupid incongruous music or dialogue part in them).

If I want to listen to something without actually getting it, then I do it on Youtube, which has a wider music selection with more control. Don't like album art? Find a lyric video upload with a generic nebula background. Weird movie sample at the beginning? Someone might have cut that out in their upload (shoutout to the person who turned DICTATOR into a part 1 and 2 to match the two different mood halves), but otherwise Sponsorblock will skip the non-music segments. The only downside of Youtube versus Spotify is I can't share the playlists without exposing my name, but again I actually create those playlists in MusicBee 99% of the time so I wouldn't be sharing a link anyway.

[pjisskullourful]

𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕕 𝔼𝕟𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙

𝕘𝕒𝕪 𝕖𝕟𝕠𝕦𝕘𝕙 [based during the throuples early days] [the complete series]

 🌈Damiano × Ethan × reader

NSFW   🔥 literally dirrrty adultsonly nastiness, the word jizz is included

° Damiano David/Ethan Torchio/female reader insert  

° “Wait, we’ve gotta warm up and stretch first.” Ethan said. - You blinked at him. “Stretch, but it’s literally waltzing. There’s no lunging or strenuous repetitive movements. I think that you’re still taking this too seriously.” | an informal dance class gets derailed

wordcount:::    6,151

° inspired by a spicy audio ° [ITA]: avida - greedy

“Are you nervous for tomorrow?”

You looked back to where Ethan was standing at the kitchen sink, his hands submerged in the sudsy water. The two of you were in the process of cleaning up after dinner - it was only fair that this responsibility was taken up by you: Damiano cooked and the two of you cleaned. A domestic harmony had been easy to strike between the three of you, even though your relationship was less than a year old, things just naturally fell into place when you were together. At your apartment, cleaning up was as simple as putting dirty crockery in the dishwasher. Extra steps had to be taken when staying overnight in Ethan’s less modern home. But you didn’t complain, any time spent on chores felt less mundane, less taxing when you had either of your boyfriend’s for company.

You were surprised by the look on Ethan’s face, somehow more serious than usual. “What do I have to be nervous about?”

You hadn’t been thinking about your plans for the following morning at all - the commitment of meeting up with your sister's fiancé, Mara, had been pushed to the backburner for the moment. Instead you had been mentally preparing yourself for what his reaction would be when the three of you got back to the season of RuPaul’s Drag Race that you were in the middle of binge-watching. He had never seen season nine, he had no idea that the bubble was about to burst for Valentina, a queen he was quite enamoured with.

“Have you ever taught anyone to dance before, like in a proper way, not just goofing around and showing random moves to Vic?” He asked.

You shrugged, coming to stand alongside him, without making any moves to grab more plates for drying. “I’ve had a little bit of experience. I haven’t exactly run my own class, or anything. But the studio where I learnt, where I took classes for years- when I was out of high school, I would sometimes assist. With the classes of just too many kids for one teacher, we would call it work experience, and they’d give me a glowing reference to attach to my résumé. So I know that it’s not totally out of my depth.

“Besides, all that she wants is to be able to lead Nadia in a waltz. It’s not like Mara is expecting me to turn her into Patrick Swayze with lifts or fierce choreography or anything more than a six-count.” You said. “Waltz is a graceful classic, but it’s also very basic.

“Maybe not as easy as I was on the night we met, but relatively simple.” You said, smiling when you caught his eye.

“Simple enough that you could teach me?”

You melted a little, moving in closer and slipping an arm around his waist. “You want me to teach… but you don’t dance.”

“Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to have a romantic moment where we’re all close and touching. Maybe…”

You couldn’t help yourself, nuzzling into his neck. “Shut up, you’re so cute.”

“What’s this?” Damiano asked, announcing his entrance into the room, now that he was finally done with his shower. “Ethan? Being so cute?”

“It’s more likely than you think…” You agreed.

“Well, we were just talking about how confident she’s feeling about her little class with Mara tomorrow and I wondered if her teaching skills would translate into being able to teach me how to waltz.”

Damiano’s whole face had lit up instantly and he excitedly rushed over to where the two of you were standing. “Can we, oh, can we, please?” He grabbed onto your arm with both hands. “We can be your test-students.”

You looked from one boyfriend to the other, seeing how they were both wearing such genuine smiles. It would have been impossible to not melt, all of your defences weakened by how they were watching you, eyes alight with keen anticipation. They were so eager to hear whatever you had to say, their attention still thrilling to have placed solely upon you.

“Alright. Go get that coffee table out of the middle of the living room, we can practise in there.” You said, earning an excited squeeze from Damiano’s hands and a kiss on the cheek from Ethan.

“What time does class start?” He asked as Damiano left the room just as quickly as he had arrived.

The task of washing the dishes was wrapped up in less than ten minutes, with you and Ethan going in to join Damiano in the living room. Quiet music was playing from the phone in his hands, as he seemingly tried to pick a fitting song.

“Should we get changed, like, into something more appropriate for a dance class?” He asked.

“Yes.” You said, your serious tone of voice making Ethan pause from the process of getting his long hair under control with a bun. “Stripper heels- go put them on.”

Damiano’s eyebrows raised as he looked at you. “Right, because it’s not a waltz if you’re not wearing stripper heels, eh?”

“Exactly.” You said before shaking your head. “Don’t take this too seriously- what you’re wearing is fine and we don’t need music at first. I’ll just count you in for now, and then we’ll add music when you’ve picked the flow of it up.” He silenced his phone and placed it aside. “So, who wants to go first?”

“Wait, we’ve gotta warm up and stretch first.” Ethan said.

You blinked at him. “Stretch, but it’s literally waltzing. There’s no lunging or strenuous repetitive movements. I think that you’re still taking this too seriously.”

“I just don’t want you to pull a muscle or anything…” He said, approaching to the point where you were within his reach. “Just a stretch, or two. At the very least, we should do something to loosen your hips.”

You didn’t resist his touch as his hands went to your hips, even though you were watching him with a sceptical gaze. “Loosen my hips for waltzing? Have you ever actually seen somebody waltz?”

“I think you should listen to him, avida. I mean, look at him, if anyone knows how to warm up properly before a workout- it’s this guy.” Damiano said.

“Let me help you.”

You looked from the mischievous smile on Damiano’s face to the glimmer in Ethan’s eyes. “You’re not gonna let this go, are ya?”

“No. Just a couple of stretches, and then I promise I will let you totally take over and teach how you want.” Ethan said.

“Alright.”

“Well, get on the floor.”

The authority in his tone saw you bending down without question. He clarified for you to lie down on your back, and as you did so, you became aware of how keenly they were both watching you.

Then he got down on the floor with you, sitting by your feet. “Okay, so put the soles of your feet together, bend your knees and push them far apart.” Your legs stretched out, but bent, it was unnatural, but ultimately your legs held firm, instead of shaking. “Yep, that’s perfect. Does that feel okay?”

“Mm-hmm, it’s fine.” You nodded as your eyes locked with his.

“I’m gonna put my hands here, okay?” He asked, his hands going to both of your knees. “And hold you in place, loosening those hips up real nice.”

“You know, for someone that swears he does not dance, I’m finding it quite curious that you would know these kinds of stretches, specifically to prep for dancing.” You said.

He nodded in Damiano’s direction. “Somebody had to help that one when he was learning to pole dance. You can’t even imagine the bitching and moaning that was coming from him.”

You looked over to where Damiano was sitting on the ground, off to the side of Ethan. He shrugged. “I think my complaints were justified. It was consistently the worst, most painful leg workout, like every day was leg day, but my personal trainer was the Devil. But it was worth it in the end, it got you interested, sweet thing.”

“Is it okay if I push a little?” Ethan asked.

“Yep, that’s fine.” You said. “So the two of you were doing stretches like this on a daily basis? Yep, I’m sure that was always purely about fitness…”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are you trying to imply here, honey?” Damiano asked, moving over closer. “Are you suggesting that things must have gotten sexual ‘cause Ethan was being treated to a very intimate view? Much like the absolutely delicious view that I’m enjoying right now.”

You had noticed Ethan’s eyes moving briefly down to your cunt a few times during the process. But, as was his typical style - Damiano cut to the point, not spending any time on subtlety. He reached an arm out, his fingers caressing at the top of your thigh, close enough to your crotch that you were soon feeling a heat rising in your cheeks.

You couldn’t hold the giggle back for long, feeling ticklish and sensitive in this area.

Ethan acted as if he was still focused on the task at hand. “I think that’s opening your hips up nicely.”

He gently pushed your knees some more, getting them almost to the floor. The pull on your muscles reminded you of dancing, but everything else occupying your thoughts wanted to drag your mind in a very different direction. Damiano took his hand off of your thigh, but that didn’t mean you instantly stopped blushing.

“Okay.” Ethan said as he released your knees, but you kept them at a distance. He relocated his hands down to your ankles. “How about this one?”

You trusted him, your legs moving as he guided. He stretched your legs until your knees were no longer bent. Then he was easing your ankles in opposite directions, creating a large gap between your thighs. His hands went to your calves, supporting you here as he got you close to doing the splits.

“Does that hurt?” He asked after seeing a different look come onto your face.

“No, it’s just totally unnecessary.” You said, almost laughing again.

“I think it’s necessary.” Damiano said. “In fact, I don’t think you do this position enough.”

You responded to this by presenting one of your middle fingers to him.

The tension in so many of your leg muscles was starting to get to you. “Alright, I think I’m stretched enough. I’m sufficiently loosened up and definitely prepared to fuckin’ waltz.”

“Waltz?” Damiano repeated with an appropriate amount of surprise in his voice.

Ethan let go of your legs. You relaxed them, taking them to a more natural position. But before you could get entirely comfortable, he was distracting you by putting his hands to the waistband of your pants. He began to pull, bringing them down.

“Ethan?” You asked, half-laughing.

He glanced up at you, but didn’t stop what he was doing, uncovering your thighs and knees. You didn’t do anything to disrupt this process, even though it was coming up quicker than you had anticipated.

“Ethan?” You repeated when his attention went to your panties. You were wondering if he intended to do it right here on the floor - the way that Damiano was looking, you thought he would be in favour of this.

Ethan got the pants and underwear off of your body, tossing the clothing aside without any consideration for where they landed. He returned his hands to your legs, caressing the bare skin. You could feel an eager heat pooling in your cunt as each of your boyfriends looked you over with hungry eyes.

Ethan was the first to act on this, lowering himself down until his face was resting between your thighs. You sharply inhaled when his eyes left your face, going to your pussy. He greeted this area with tender kisses, his lips lingering against your labia majora. You watched the top of his head as your heart got to fluttering.

He experienced the warm skin with his lips, gradually moving further down. At your entrance, he pushed his tongue forward, earning an excited whine from you. He didn’t push inside, instead just getting a taste of your cunt before dragging his tongue up. Between your labia, his tongue swiped all the way up, until he got to your clit.

You grabbed for where Damiano’s hand was holding onto your leg and you squeezed his fingers, prompting him to move a little closer. He watched you, seeing the involuntary reactions that unfolded as Ethan started to lavish attention upon your clitoris. Sensitivities were springing to life all through you from the pleasure of his tongue resting on your hood.

Using the tip of his tongue, he started to draw circles around your clit. You could feel more blood pumping into this very concentrated area and you let your head rock back, resting against the carpet.

His tongue worked consistently in these swirls, bumping and manipulating your clit. You tilted your pelvis and squeezed Damiano’s hand a little firmer in response to this build-up. Your legs were filled with a new kind of tension, lifting from the floor to get closer to Ethan. Your thighs moved closer to his head, ready to lock him into place as your desires grew more powerful.

You were moaning as you arched your back. His hands moved up to your ass, firmly gripping as he sought to lift you up a little, getting more of your pussy in his face. You welcomed the increased pressure this brought, your free hand going to his head, moving across the smoothed-back hair.

Damiano leaned down, coming closer to you as he licked his lips. You brushed your nose against his before kissing him. The intensity was there at once, telling you that he had been enjoying what he had been seeing. His hands travelled up the side of your body as he leaned more of his body into you.

All the while, you were feeling yourself getting closer as Ethan kept his tongue at your clit. When he sucked the hood between his lips, you moaned and the sound was muffled by Damiano’s mouth. At this increased pleasure, your jaw grew slack and he took advantage of this, his tongue invading your mouth.

They drew the desires out of you, goosebumps raising up all over your body. With the hood of your clit in his mouth, Ethan rubbed his tongue all over it. These sensations spread so much deeper than the surface and soon you were seeing (and feeling) fireworks behind your eyes. More needy whines were captured by Damiano’s mouth on yours.

Ethan’s mouth released from your clit, slightly dialling back the intensity. But you weren’t ready to relax as he kept his hands firmly grasping your butt. You could still feel the heat coursing through your veins as Damiano’s tongue massaged the roof of your mouth.

Ethan laid the flat of his tongue against your hood, letting the tight bundle of nerves pulse as you anticipated his next move. At the same time, Damiano placed his hand over your breast. His fingers explored over what could be felt with no bra beneath your thin T-shirt. Your nipple was perked up and ready for his attention.

Between his thumb and forefinger, he pinched the stiff peak, delighting you with a new spike of arousal. While he held onto the nipple, Ethan began to stroke his tongue up-and-down on your clit. He was nudging you closer to that edge with his consistent lapping.

He set into a determined rhythm, working that pressure exactly as you needed it. Your thighs pressed to either side of his head, squeezing as you began to move your hips. You attempted to match his rhythm, pumping your hips in time to the strokes of his tongue.

You wrapped an arm around Damiano, clinging to him as all of this intensity started to get to you. And it was making you ravenous - you couldn’t kiss him hard enough, you couldn’t ride Ethan’s tongue quick enough.

“Oh my God.” It came out in a choked sob when you tore your mouth off of Damiano.

He moved his lips to your throat, giving you a greater sense that you were floating. You kept your hips in motion, too full of desperate energy to possibly be still right now. As Ethan continued to bob his head with your movements, you wondered if his fingers were going to make indents in your ass cheeks, fiercely attached to you.

You were chasing the climax, wanting to reach the moment when all of these lovely sensations were married together. Your eyes were squeezed shut as your system was rushed by so much stimulation.

“Baby, oh baby, yes…” You moaned as your hips wildly bucked into Ethan’s face.

With your muscles tensed, you reached that point of perfection and promptly fell apart in Damiano’s arms. Your thighs gave one last squeeze around Ethan’s head before releasing, twitching as they relaxed down.

He eased off slightly, giving your clitoris quick kisses as you began coming to terms with the peak you had just reached. You flinched and struggled for breath. His hands let go of your butt and you were aware of more time between his contact on your clitoral hood.

“Do you want me to apologise for hijacking your dance class?” He asked as he began to lean away, out of the space between your thighs.

You laughed, still feeling dazzled by your climax. “I don’t care.” You looked down at him, reaching for his cheek. “I want you to fuck me.”

“What did I just do?” He asked, appearing a little confused.

“No, that was phenomenal, but I want you to go get a condom so you can fuck me properly.”

This statement didn’t prompt any follow-up questions. He got up on his feet and swiftly left the room, leaving you alone with Damiano. You turned to him, your lips meeting in a tender kiss.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous.” He said, peppering your mouth with fast kisses. “Seeing you like that, hearing all of your sexy sounds- it got me so hard.”

You grinned and secured another kiss from him. “Show me.”

He manoeuvred his hips, adjusting so that you could look down his body and see his crotch. You saw the fabric of his sweatpants stretched by his stiff dick. It was an appetising sight, it made you want to do more than kiss.

“Show me properly.” You said.

He didn’t hesitate, grabbing the waistband of both his pants and underwear to pull them down enough for his cock to come out. This was a definite improvement as your neediness started to grow again.

“Show me closer.” You said.

You saw a smile on his face as he started to move, taking on a far superior position. On his knees, he walked up to your shoulder. You watched his dick getting closer to your face and you licked your lips. You were thrilled when he didn’t need any further instruction, somehow knowing exactly what you wanted and moving to straddle your face.

You wrapped a hand around his stiff length, steadying him as you lifted your head. You placed a kiss to his tip, your eyes locked with his. You savoured the look in his eyes, feeling this was something you had earned - there was only one other person that could get that look.

“Fuck…” He quietly moaned as you let your lips part, bringing the crown of his cock in.

His hand went to the top of your head, affectionately rubbing you here as you sucked on this first inch of his dick a little. You brought your tongue forward, watching his reaction as you massaged the end of his dick with it.

Then you relaxed your jaw and fully extended your tongue out, over your bottom lip. He smiled and rocked his hips back, positioning the shaft on your awaiting tongue. He rolled his hips forward again, pushing the head up your tongue before gently moving back. He wet the underside of his length like this, moving at the pace he desired. You heard his deep exhales as you were tasting more of him.

“Well I’m glad you guys didn’t get bored without me.” Ethan commented to announce his return to the living room.

Damiano didn’t quit working himself on your tongue, just glancing over his shoulder at your boyfriend. “Blame avida, it was all her idea.”

“Of course it was.” Ethan said. Even though your view of him was entirely blocked, you could hear that he was getting closer to where you lay. “She’s too greedy for her own good.” You felt the warmth from his body as he sat down by your legs again. “Having just one hole filled simply isn’t enough, is it?”

“Uh-uh.” You replied, keeping your tongue as still as possible for Damiano.

Overdramatically, Ethan sighed out your name. “What are we going to do with you?”

“I figured that right now we would fuck her.” Damiano said.

You were feeling Ethan’s hands on your legs before you heard him speak again. “Makes sense.”

Damiano caressed your forehead as he looked down at you. “You can tap out anytime you need to.” Instead of disrupting his current activity by trying to talk, you communicated your understanding by showing him a thumbs up. “Good girl.”

Ethan was easing your thighs apart, holding your legs up with his hands under your knees. He moved himself into this available space and soon you were feeling skin-on-skin as he lined himself up. He leaned his body weight into you.

You felt your labia majora pushing apart as he slid his cock into this warm area. For the moment he was avoiding your hole, in favour of exploring what was on the surface. He moved slowly, stroking himself against your pussy. This served to bring your attention back to this area and he soon had you realising just how sensitive your pussy was. When his tip rubbed against your clit, your eyes fluttered shut and you keenly arched your back. You closed your lips around Damiano, ready to sink deeper into all of this.

Ethan drew himself back over your swollen pussy, repositioning until you were feeling pressure at your entrance. You heard how quickly his breath was coming in as he gently began to bury into your pussy. He didn’t rush, giving you time to adjust as he slowly sought a greater depth.

Inside of your mouth, Damiano was throbbing. You rubbed your tongue all over his shaft as he shifted his weight on top of you, no longer sweetly stroking your head.

Keeping your lips set in place, you began to bob your head on his cock, working the shaft up-and-down. Your lips were slicked for him as you explored your current range of movement. At present, he possessed enough restraint to hold his hips still, allowing you to set the pace. You knew it wouldn’t take long for him to get to a place of overwhelming you with his lust, but for now you were building.

Braced on his knees, Ethan invested in some motion as well. He began to jerk into you and your walls excitedly fluttered with his movements. You were feeling that keen heat spreading through your body again as you worked your thigh muscles, trying to fall into his rhythm.

As you were meeting his rocks, you tried to match your timing on Damiano to this. It was all falling into place, that synergy the three of you could share without words.

Ethan held your thighs apart, keeping your legs in a firm grip as he steadily increased his pacing. Each of his thrusts were tender, never taking you to a place where it felt like more than you could take. Instead he was gently working you up as you felt his dick twitching between your sensitive walls.

Hollowing your cheeks around Damiano earned you his loudest noise yet, an excited whimper. He put his hand back to your head, gripping some of your hair between his fingers.

“Do you wanna know what thought I just-... oh, I can’t get this idea out of my head.” He said and you opened your eyes to look up at him again. “Thinking about it is driving me wild, baby.” You blinked at him, wondering how you could encourage him with just a look. “I’m gonna tell it to you and then I’m gonna pull out for just a sec’ so you can tell me what you think, okay?

“Okay. I wanna give you a fuckin’ pearl necklace, and then watch him eat that off of you.” He stopped his movements. “Don’t you think that would be so, so sexy?” He pulled his hips back, emptying your mouth.

You took a deep breath as you thought this proposal over. “Yeah. I do think-... it’s just that-... well, I’ve never done- had that done to me before, so…”

“That’s okay.” He said, yet to catch his breath. “But do you want to just try it with me? And maybe you’ll really like it. If not, we literally never have to do it again, ever. All you have to do is take your top off and lay there, I’ll make sure it all gets cleaned off of you, okay?”

“Okay.” You said, well and truly curious for this new experience. “But shouldn’t you see what he thinks of it too?”

“Oh, right.” He said and glanced over his shoulder at Ethan. “Are you down for cleaning up something I leave on our girlfriend?”

“Sure, I think a pearl necklace would really suit her.” He said.

“Yes. Good boy.” Damiano said, he was beaming as he moved off of you. “And good girl.”

You put your hands to the bottom of your shirt as you began to sit up. In an instant, he was grabbing you, both hands on your face as he pulled you in for a kiss. You felt his energy rush at you, absolutely intoxicating. You pulled your shirt off, genuinely eager to be rid of this last item of clothing. He gave you some more kisses before you had the chance to lay back down.

“Are you comfortable like that?” He asked before mounting you again. “Do you need me to get you a pillow?”

“No, I’m good, I’m happy.” You said.

“Happy to suck cock.” He said as he resumed his position above your face.

“Happy sucking this one.”

He stroked your cheek, smiling as you opened your mouth for him. His tip slid down your tongue until you could wrap your lips around him. He continued to watch as you started working your tongue against him, massaging all over his shaft.

“Look at that look on your face, you really are happy sucking cock, aren’t you?” He asked. “That face is just so cute, can I fuck it? Can I fuck your face, avida?” You raised your hand to show him your thumb sticking straight up. “I can? Oh good…”

He straightened his spine and shifted his body weight, getting his knees in the right positions. You were ready when he started to pump his hips, you moved your head with him as you kept your lips in place.

Ethan easily slid back into your wet cunt, filling the space between your thighs again. He came in closer and you rocked your hips into him.

It was Damiano who set the tempo, thrusting into the warmth of your mouth again-and-again. Ethan began to follow this and you shut your eyes, sinking into the flow because you knew it could take you higher.

Then Ethan was getting faster, seeking something quicker as he held your legs up. His heavy breathing underscored the near-constant whimpering coming from Damiano. You couldn’t help making some sounds of your own in response to the pressure that came with Ethan moving in deeper, your moans thoroughly garbled by Damiano’s cock.

Before he could hit that perfect spot inside of you, Ethan pulled out. It felt like it was happening too soon.

But swiftly he was providing you with a substitute - pushing his cock in to rest alongside your clitoris again. Your labia majora hugged to him and you could feel how much he was throbbing, which was reciprocated by your needy pussy. His fingers remained clamped onto your legs.

While he was taking this breather, you concentrated your energy on Damiano. He was getting close to gagging you with every buck of his hips, but he seemingly always knew when to stop. You ignored the drool leaking from the corners of your mouth, this could be dealt with later - mess didn’t particularly worry you at present.

With your mouth still so full, you were whining when Ethan sank back into you. At once he strived to find his pacing. He was moving with less restraint, his hips energetically snapping into your butt.

When he found your sweet spot, it made your world quake. And the intensity was immediately ratcheted up by him placing his thumb over your clitoral hood. The pleasure rushed you so fast that you were left stunned.

You could feel him swelling inside of you. Your heart launched into your throat as the prospect of coming together dawned on you, your lust interweaving. You knew how close he was, at the edge with you.

There was nothing smooth about his final thrusts - his hips unrhythmically jerking and stuttering as the climax began to steal his strength. But it was enough to get him the whole way in, nestled against your sweet spot where the all-mighty clenching of your walls was enough to spell his end. He fell apart before you.

But you were so close that your release was captured seconds later, to the sounds of his breathy whimpers. You forgot about keeping your mouth tight around Damiano as you got so thoroughly lost in your own ecstasy. The orgasm blocked out everything else momentarily and all that you were aware of was the feeling that your body was glowing.

You had stars still dancing before your eyes as the world trickled back into your consciousness. You realised that Ethan remained inside of you, but he had ceased his thrusting and his grip on your legs had relaxed. The next thing you recognised was how Damiano had pulled back a little, currently his tip rested on your lips. This gave you a chance to catch your breath as his fingers ran through your hair.

“Are you okay?” He asked as your eyes focused on him. “You look a little spaced out. We can stop for a sec’ if you need-”

You had lifted your head from the floor so that you could suck an inch or so of his wet dick into your mouth. “I was promised a necklace.” You could feel your second wind coming into you, the orgasm enlivening you as you craved to give him a similar bliss.

He smiled down at you. “And you deserve it.” He eased his hips forward again. “Yes you fuckin’ do.”

“You can tap out if you need to.” Ethan said, his hand softly stroking your hip as Damiano gradually filled your mouth again.

You secured your lips around him as he began to reclaim his pacing. He locked into what he wanted, his eyes shutting as his pumps came in faster. You bobbed your head with him, wanting to give him the perfect friction that he needed.

“Yes, baby.” He gasped as you sucked your cheeks in around him.

The threat of being gagged didn’t come back. He withdrew about halfway, concentrating the stimulations towards his head. As he pumped with this portion, you took to swirling your tongue around the swollen tip. His ongoing movements were keeping you from accomplishing anything consistent, but your lapping was enough. You could feel how he was starting to leak.

His breath was coming in heavily when he pulled out, a hand wrapping around his shaft. His voice was whiny and quiet as he spoke. "Oh yes, yes, yes, I'm coming." He hastily stroked, the head of his dick pointing beneath your chin. "Are you ready for it?"

"Yeah." You said, squirming a little in your anticipation. Your eyes darted from his face to his cock, you wanted to see the look on his face, but you also wanted to see the cum shooting out. You were eager for it all. "I want it, I really want it, Daddy."

His hand kept going on his cock. "I'm gonna give it to you, I'm gonna- guh-gonna… fuck, fuck!"

The hot, thick jizz was hitting your clavicle before his jerking concluded. He watched what he was doing, happily moaning as more of your skin was coated. The majority landed towards the centre of your chest, with some shared off to the right and only a droplet or two on the left side.

He released his cock and began to move off of you. You could see his chest was rapidly rising-and-falling as he looked down at you with a shine in his eyes. His dry hand stroked the side of your face as he leaned down, kissing you.

“It couldn’t possibly look any more beautiful.” He whispered. “Thank you, babe.”

“Maybe one day I can return the favour.” You said.

He perked up at that. “Fuck yes, can we?”

Ethan repositioned on top of you, coming in closer to survey Damiano’s handiwork. “You didn’t want to give her earrings too?”

Damiano laid down on the carpet, rolled over to keep watching the two of you. “Oops. Maybe next time I’ll remember that.”

“Earrings?” You repeated, looking from one boyfriend to the other. “Pearl earrings? No way. You are making that up.”

“He’s really not.” Damiano said.

Ethan was bowing his head down to your chest. “That’s a discussion for a different night, my darlings.”

He laid down a kiss that lingered, with his lips parting. Feeling his tongue slowly stroking across your skin prompted a moan from you before you could stop yourself. You wrapped an arm around his shoulders, your eyelids fluttering shut as you sank into this slower pace of sensuality. It was the perfect chaser to the primal flurry the three of you had gotten lost in. This was a chance for you to catch your breath, even as your heart continued to flutter.

“Do you like how that tastes?” Damiano asked.

Ethan kept his lips very close to your skin as he answered. “You know I do, Daddy.”

He continued to slowly drag his lips and tongue across your skin. When you opened your eyes, you saw the wide grin on Damiano’s face and you had a feeling that his fantasy was playing out just as he had desired.

Ethan moaned as he wrapped an arm around you. “Babe, you’re still so tight.”

“Yeah, that probably has something to do with the huge dong inside me.” You said, making Damiano laugh.

“Oh, please do not say dong.” Ethan said. “My point is- I’m really sensitive and you’re really tight, you should probably be careful.”

“Right.”

“Or I could take it out.”

You shook your head as you trailed your fingertips down his back. “No, don’t- don’t pull out yet.” He met your eye and you knew that he understood what you weren’t able to say.

“Do you two have any idea how sexy you are?” Damiano asked. “I’m gonna think about this so much, like so much. I’ll probably never be able to see a regular pearl necklace without getting a tingle ever again.”

“I’m glad we didn’t let you down.” You said.

“You never do.” He said, coming in to kiss you. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You said.

“And you…” He stroked a hand down the nape of Ethan’s neck. “God, I love you too.”

Ethan lifted his head slightly. “I love you and I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Damiano stayed watching, enthralled by every lick and kiss. After doing what seemed like history’s most thorough cleaning job, Ethan pulled back. It was decided that you should have a shower.

He told you before he started to pull out. As he did so, he gave you some tender kisses, bringing you a sense of closure.

He decided that you shouldn’t have to walk to the bathroom. You were smiling as he lifted you off of the ground, carrying you out of the room.

His shower wouldn’t accommodate more than one body, so this would be a solo activity. He helped you get the temperature right.

“That’s just like how it went when you would help him stretch before the pole, isn’t it?” You asked.

He looked at you with a smile. “Pretty much.”

»»————-　♡　————-««  

🌈 read more of this series!!!

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[opera-ghost]

thought this needed to be shared on its own since the sweeney team have decided to edge us with releasing the cast album

this is from the second night of previews, february 28th. i gifted the full audio here, and shared a clip of the final sequence here as well

(more notes on the clip + the production under the cut)

after the verse about the beadle, annaleigh ashford attempts to swing onto the table and misses twice, before succeeding as the audience cheers. it was really funny in the moment and played into the vibe of the song as both ashford and groban continued to crack up. this seemed to happen on more than one night during previews from what i've read, which had me suspecting that it was a planned break-in a la the music man revival. but outside of previews i haven't heard of this happening again, so they could very well have just had difficulty with this bit during the first few shows. either way, the audience couldn't get enough of it. it was just amazing to hear this whole sequence live after only ever watching the movie and concerts (where the audience volume is significantly reduced). there was just the most contagious laughter at all the right moments, and it makes me really upset in hindsight that this number was butchered so much in the movie

so much to say about ashford and groban's performances in general. they clearly have so much fun with these roles and they do this particular number such justice, in my opinion. their visual comedy is just on a whole other level, and it really let the material shine along with their vocals. some people have criticized ashford for her accent/general characterization of mrs. lovett, but i'm so obsessed with what she's brought to the role. her lovett skews younger and, to me, she offers a mix of the iconic actresses who have taken a stab at the character before. others have had things to say against groban being cast as sweeney, but i personally enjoyed him very much, and he's of course at the top of his game vocally. this production plays things pretty straight and doesn't do anything super imaginative with the staging, but it really lets the actors performances shine

as a general note for the whole show, maria bilbao absolutely kills it as johanna, john rapson as the beadle makes parlor songs into one of my favorite bits of the show, and i want to print a little picture of nicholas christopher's pirelli and keep it in my wallet. gaten mattarazo is a great tobias, ruthie ann miles's beggar woman is as entertaining as she is soul-crushing. though he's since departed, jordan fisher had amazing chemistry with maria bilbao and his anthony was very sweet. jamie jackson as judge turpin was everything you could want out of that character, though i really really would've loved to see mea culpa here. i think the judge in this production especially feels a bit empty without it

this revival makes the weird choice to remove the factory whistle, which really takes away from a lot of the drama and overall makes it feel less sweeney-esque. although, i did read that they were maybe having technical issues during previews and added it back in later? but i watched/listened to some bits after opening and didn't hear it, so... still must be noted

despite some general criticisms i'm just so obsessed with this show, it's amazing to have a full staging of it on broadway once again and the 26-piece orchestra still has me in a chokehold. i highly recommend seeing it if you can!

[talenlee]

June 2024 Wrapup!

That’s it, Pride’s over. We’re done with any need to be queer because we obviously defeated the forces of not queer.

Hey how do all those dudes who are convinced they’re straight think their sexuality handles being attracted to nonbinary people? Like, nonbinary people can look like anything, presentation is a performance and everything, but if you believe in inherent qualities of genders, seeing a nonbinary person who’s hot has to be a problem right?

(oh who are we kidding, they pretend nonbinary people don’t exist. But if you do accept nonbinary people exist, you might be less straight than you think.)

Alright, let’s look at what articles came up in the Game Pile this month!

Gay Sauna: The Board Game, where we talked about the acceptable boundaries of genre mechanisms.

Arcade Spirits, where I made a video retelling my experiences of dealing with a game that I shouldn’t call a visual novel, because someone out there will get annoyed at an imperfect cladistic categorisation of game genres

Signalis, a game that oozes style but also told me to stop playing it, so I did

3 Indie TTRPGs, with Feathers, For the Dungeon and We Saved The World Once in a video

If you think the video on Feathers, For The Dungeon and We Saved The World Once was a bit ropy, yep! It got made very quick and close to the deadline because it was very difficult to make. Cooking these games down to entirely positive feedback without talking more about things I find personally interesting was hard enough, which is why the first seven minutes of the video are about problems with how we talk about indie TTRPGs.

Also, a thing I was really delighted by was getting to play Loom with Fox for the first time (part 1, part 2)!

Then there was this month’s Story Pile, about which I was way more enthusiastic!

Nimona, which is a great movie for kids,

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, which is a great anime, for slightly older kids!

Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess And The Genius Young Lady, which is a mid anime, for slightly older kids still!

Bound, which is, uh, it’s not for kids

What else happened this month that I’m proud of?

Hm.

Hmmm.

This is a surprising one to say because normally I can think of articles that I want you to read in a sort of ‘well why haven’t you looked at this.’ But I’m in a bad mood right now and it’s colouring things about how I look at my own writing. My article on LIGMA is tainted by knowing how little of the greater context of the area I can communicate. My article about What Disgusts Jod got a response from a Locked Tomb fan that seemed to imply that actually, Jod wasn’t bi or pansexual, because a guy can have a threesome with a man and a woman and people will still try and pretend bisexuality doesn’t exist. My article about Tieflings was probably the thing I’m the most proud of this month, in the idea of the kind of writing I like doing, and I think my article on Faces For Skins is important? At least I avoided another breakdown article about how badly I feel Pride culture connects to or relates to me, though maybe that just shows up in the work in general.

There’s this month’s shirt design:

How hard is the Barbie aesthetic to replicate? With lookalike fonts it’s shockingly easy. I note that this one specifically is a drop shadow and not a 3d semblance, as you can see on the bottoms of the ls. Hey, do you want this on a sticker? Go for it!

In terms of real world events, June is jam packed. It’s the end of the Autumn Semester for me, as a tutor for one. This semester, I took on a lot of marking work, which I like to do, but which also meant that I looked at 118 asignments this month, and 60 of them had a 5 minute audio visual component. That’s five hours of student material to just watch. It ain’t nothing, and it adds up over time.

It’s also a time with four major family birthdays in them, which means I have to find ways and times to attend to physical events. This is not a problem, because I love my family but it sure makes me mindful of just how long it takes me to recover from that to do, y’know, things with myself like write for the blog. Marking periods take time out of the blog work.

The subject matter of the month is also less of a freebie than you might think because I feel like some things are too repetitive – I don’t imagine I’m going to find a third Transformers character to write about next year, for example. There’s also the way that February and June kinda blur together – I’m very fond of talking about queer media in February since that’s one of the most fun kinds of smoochy media I like.

I aim to keep the queued posts for this blog up to 50, so every day if I add a post, it goes to 51 and dips back down to 50. I also try to make sure I’m four weeks ahead on the video channels. This month, as I write this, I am one week ahead on the video, and the queue is down to 45. I am frustrated! But I am doing things to overcome that, and in the coming weeks, I don’t have to grapple with a theme!

I haven’t been getting to bed at good times. This month has featured multiple days where I get to bed at 4 in the morning, one even at 5. This is bad and I hate it. I hate it especially because it takes a long time to recover from it, to get back to sleeping at even the modestly more sensible time of midnight to one AM. I also haven’t been cooking as much as I want to — even modest resistance means that suddenly dinner is some microwaved oats and sultanas, with a splash of milk.

I think I may even be missing one of my June goals for Magic The Gathering: Arena, which isn’t exactly important, but it is a bit of a pisser. The aim was to hit gold tier in limited, which at this point I have… a few hours to do, and I’m still in Silver Tier. That’s not a big deal but it is a bummer.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[walker-extended-universe]

4x09 Review

"A History of Horrors and Other Tales" was an interesting title for a relatively lighthearted episode, but I'm sure Walker will remedy that next week.

This episode was a lot of mystery and set up for next week with very little actual meat to it. That didn't make it any less interesting though and there is still plenty to talk about.

I'm going to split my review into what happened at work and what happened at home. Let's dive into it.

After a delightful opening montage, we get a short scene between Trey and Cassie as they get ready for the day. They've both moved on to the next round of interviews for the lieutenant position. This comes up later in the episode, with them discussing what the position would entail and what it would mean to them to be chosen for it. James also assures them that the position will be different than what it was before, with him wanting more of a partner out of the role than a "ghost" in the office.

Side note: that particular comment from James does make me really want the choice to be Cordell but I really don't think the show will take that route.

Once they've settled in the office, they realise the office is very empty. Which leads into James' concerning announcement: the DPS isn't happy with their progress and they're considering handing the Jackal case up the ladder to the FBI. If they don't get a major breakthrough by the 6pm press conference today, they'll be kicked off.

This kicks them all into high gear, determined not just to solve the case, but to keep it in their wheelhouse. While Trey and Cassie focus on the overall caseboard, Cordell hones in on one specific file. After a bit, he suggests they take a break for a bit and meet up later after they've all gotten some fresh air. He also makes an excuse about having something else to do before disappearing for most of the rest of the episode.

Side note: I loved the audio effect of Cordell not really listening to anything the rest of the team is saying but I really wish we knew more of what he was doing all day.

After many hours of going over the case a million times, Cassie gets an idea. What if instead of trying to find a common thread between the victims by looking at their similiarities, they focus on the few outliers and see why they were chosen. One of the victims was the only non-parent in the group, but there is a sealed lawsuit against her. Maybe that will hold the answers.

A few hours later, we find out it does- One of the children in her at-home daycare drowned in a pool and she was sued over it. This is enough to cement the connection between all the victims: parents or caretakers that could be seen as negligent or abusive. While I'm not sure how this gets them closer to narrowing down their suspects, it's good enough for the DPS to let them keep the case, at least for now.

Side note: I loved Cassie and Trey welcoming James back onto the case but I would've loved to see what kind of press release they could come up with.

After this, Cordell finally returns to see they did a full day's work without him. While he's happy, he does seem distracted and Cassie pulls him aside for a serious talk. She knows he wasn't at the Side Step because of Geri and she's worried about him going rogue and getting himself in trouble. Someone could get hurt. Someone besides himself. He bristles at her and Geri talking behind his back but placates her with a promise that he won't do anything crazy. he then promptly leaves the office without saying goodbye- only to be stopped by James asking for his notebook back. Cordell tries to sidestep it but James can clearly see it in his messenger back so he has to hand it over.

After James leaves him to prep for the press conference, Cordell pulls out his phone to confirm a motel reservation and heads off on his own, once again.

With that excitement out of the way, let's talk about things on the Home front.

In good news: Geri is back!

In bad news: Cordell is too busy spiralling after a serial killer to be a good listener.

But the show quickly moves on from that and throws us back into two equally important plotlines: Stella and August looking for the necklace and Bonham and Abby's retirement debate.

I wanna cover the retirement debate first because it's short and also not my favorite.

Once again, the show lets us know that Bonham and Abby have very different ideas of what their retirement should look like, though oddly they were both inspired by their experiences during their delayed honeymoon.

Bonham was inspired to buy a boat and create a fully relaxing experience for himself and Abby and let the kids join every now and then. He's come to appreciate the lulls between the busy seasons at the ranch and he wants the rest of his life to be a nice, long lull.

Abby, on the other hand, connected strongly with an older woman who was operating a small shop in Italy. These two women are both finally a point in their lives when they can focus on themselves and what they want and what Abby wants is to go all in with Ben and their wedding planning/venue business.

Unfortunately, they both seem to be very bad at talking about this and nothing really gets resolved except for them both putting Liam firmly in the middle of this issue.

Back to the important issues: Stella's impending doom.

We start of with Stella and August trying to make a game plan to ensure Joanna doesn't bring harm to Stella or anyone else in the family. Unfortunately, the only thing they have to go on is a cryptic note Hoyt left to Geri five years ago. August puts together some obvious clues and deduces Hoyt must've hid the necklace somewhere in the fireplace at the Walker ranch. Stella happily latches on to this idea and they get to work.

Side note: I love that they have the letters from Cordell, even if they never get read. It just seems right that they kept them.

Unfortunately, Geri comes home right as August is showing Stella how to look for fingerprints. Stella distracts Geri while August keeps investigating the fireplace, but its unfortunately a bust.

Oblivious to what's going on, Geri starts trying to mend the mess that Cordell made at the end of the last episode she was in. She doesn't want to step on anyone's toes or cause any problems for them. Fortunately, Stella and August love her and they especially love how happy she makes their dad.

They use this as a segue to talk about how concerned they've been about Cordell lately and how many questions they have about what it was like Before (aka five years ago when everything happened). Though Geri is easily able to sway them off the topic of Cordell's letters, they get her onto the subject of Hoyt and his childhood. This is where she shares some interesting information- that Hoyt watched their home be stripped of value due to a debt his mother had. It was settled with a family heirloom taken by the sheriff's office.

This gets Stella and August thinking and they go back upstairs to do some "calculus". Stella decides to do some cross-referencing with the Rawlins name and a sheriff's auction they found. During that search, we find out that Joanna is actually a Rawlins, potentially Hoyt's mother. This explains a lot about what's been going on lately, but it doesn't get them any closer to finding the necklace.

With time winding down, August decides it's time to finally let a real adult in on all this. Stella resists the idea, still confident that she can handle it, but August isn't buying it. They're both scared and they need help.

August goes downstairs and helps Geri clean the kitchen. While they work, August reveals the full depth of his worry for both Cordell and Stella: he thinks they're both landing themselves in life threatening danger. Geri is immediately concerned at the mention of Stella and asks him what he means; August says he wants to call Uncle Liam first.

Side note: I love the side-by-side comparison between Stella being like Cordell and August being like Emily. Just... Parallels.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Stella is pondering over the new information and Hoyt's letter. She puts together some details from the more cryptic areas of the letter and all signs seem to point at Joanna's official address, which may very well be Hoyt's childhood home. With this, she excitedly texts Sadie and rushes downstairs- only to be faced with an intervention.

Geri and Liam are living up to their co-parenting roles, with Geri taking a gentler approach in communicating their worry and Liam taking a more angry/disciplinarian approach. Stella, still not wanting to accept help, makes an excuse about needing some time to think and they let her go upstairs.....

Where she decides to jump out of the window and run away, determined to handle this mess on her own.

With an excellent editing sequence of Cordell and Stella both running off on their own, and everyone else unaware of their plans, the episode comes to an end.

Once again, Walker leaves us waiting for next week's episode with a lot of questions. What was Cordell doing while everyone else was in the office? Why did he sneak away to a motel room? Is the necklace really hidden in the old Rawlins home? If so, why didn't Joanna already find it? How is Stella going to get out of this? Will August be grounded until he leaves for the military for keeping this whole mess a secret? Will James and Kelly get to enjoy some time in Mexico by the end of this?

Hopefully we'll get some answers next week. See y'all there!

[o-uncle-newt]

Cabin Pressure Advent Day 23: Wokingham

WOKINGHAMMMMMMMM!

I absolutely love everything about this episode. Literally everything. It's just basically perfect.

It's also, like Vaduz, an episode that would never, ever, EVER have happened in S1. I mean, S1 had a dude literally die on the plane and "it "what to do" was turned into a comedy routine... this is a much more, Idunno, humanist approach, I guess. It's hilarious, but it takes its humor from things other than the actual medical situation itself.

But even beyond that- would S1 Douglas have played along when Carolyn said that he cried when confronted by the bird strike in St Petersburg? Would he have even put a pause on the game? Would he have even shown up? Almost definitely not. The only constant, of course, is Arthur, who would have been equally willing to show up to keep Martin's mother busy in any season you can name. Lovely, lovely Arthur, and what an absolutely perfect scene by the way.

Now, there's the meta way of looking at it where people are like "I appreciated it when JF was writing a darker and more cynical show," which a) I disagree with factually (I think there were always hints of what the show would become from the beginning- I mean, as far back as Abu Dhabi, Douglas helped Martin out with the match) and b) I disagree with as a matter of taste (the heartwarming episodes are GREAT). But I have to hope that the meta people at least concede that the development FROM S1 to S4 in terms of the very different ways that people behave is extremely consistent with the character development. Douglas and Carolyn have both made some strides in the way that they relate to Martin that allow them to go run interference for him, but at the same time Martin has grown to become the kind of person who they mind less running interference for. He's mellowed, he's started to be less hung up on his rank for the most part, he's less obsessed with his self image. S1 Douglas would have never done it- but S1 Martin would have given him little reason to, and we've seen that change pretty organically.

It also helps, obviously, that Douglas and Carolyn know exactly what they're dealing with. Some of it, maybe, is seeing how Martin (and, to be honest, Caitlin!) ended up that way, with Simon to cut him down to size- and, as we've heard, his dad as well back when he was alive. (Incidentally, I meant to mention this in Uskerty but I found the fact that Martin has worn his dad's signet ring since the funeral to be both really sweet and just... gah. Emotional.) I feel like we've also all, at some point, met people who are, if not Simons themselves, have Simonistic qualities, so to speak. Carolyn and Douglas, as people who love to put on performances like this and have a bit of a proprietary feeling about Martin (in an "only we get to tease him" kind of way), presumably did it at least partly for the fun of it!

That said, this episode would not have been what it could have been without Wendy. Prunella Scales is amazing, and it's worth noting that (as JF mentioned in a podcast interview I heard once) she was in the early stages of dementia and, according to JF, was not always with it offstage but was just absolutely astonishing as soon as they started performing. She plays every note so perfectly, and adds a really interesting note of, well, momness (or I guess I should say mumness) that is really easy to identify with and also a VERY striking contrast to Carolyn, both for better and, occasionally, for worse- Carolyn would have never said anything remotely like "maybe Simon knows best" lol.

All in all, just really really good fun, hilarious, well plotted, all the usual... oh, and with another amazing audio humor joke with the doctor asking about the costume party. Just perfect.

Important question though: how on earth in this whole brag-off with Simon did Martin never slip that he's dating the freaking Princess of Liechtenstein?! How?!?! I'm not going to call it a plot hole because that's not how these things work, but I can imagine that he had to REALLY hold himself back from blurting it out.

[onestepbackwards]

MissingNo Anon here again. The Bigfoot comparison was the exact idea I had in mind.

However, I had a few new ideas that MissingNo would do the stream. It would turn the stream from a hard survival, slice of life to a flat out debated horror nightmare. The horror isn’t gore or dark history, or the supernatural ghost Pokémon that’s only directed towards the streamer.

MissingNo is super attentive to the viewers of the stream and consistently monitors whatever they say. No one knows why or how, and no one gets any concrete answers.

Arceus doesn’t even know what MissingNo is, and as a result, the Pokémon glitches the dimensional Wi-Fi as well as the stream itself. The colors invert, the screen in split into 16th, audio is increased to the maximum, the streams buffers, the stream just crashes, or static takes over.

Sometimes the text to speech robot is replaced with deep and speedy murmurs. It read the dialogue exactly how the donor wanted to sound, but it’s so quiet and deep it’s extremely hard to hear.

The streamer does care about the stream, but also cares about their Pokémon. Even without MissingNo out of its ball it glitches the stream, but the streamer just can’t let it go! What kind of trainer ditched their Pokémon just because it’s annoying? Not a good one.

Occasionally, MissingNo is the one to greet the livestream, usually taking it over when their trainer is sleeping. It types to the chat oftentimes spouting gibberish in 3 forms.

1:ALHDOSB£{*{^}+]¥OSKABSOBDO8292&¥91+[^{+€~*\=_¥. Alphabet spam that makes no sense.

2: “How is IsIngo, Where are you now, JUMP OFF JUMP, SHINY SHINY RAPIDASH, I think you forgot something behind the waterfall.” Text-donations sentences taken, cut, and sewn together to form something.

3: “But it failed, but it Missed! Missed me!!” Standard Pokébattle dialogue mis-mashed together.

All while MissingNo becomes better at stringing in texts, the streamer looks more and more exhausted, and just confused. It cares for its Pokémon a lot, maybe even more so than the stream…but choosing one tears them apart, leaving just an anxious trainer.

MissingNo is a lot of work that defies the laws of physics, and it’s heavily debated biology provides little answer in sight.

All while MissingNo messages are getting more concerning. The sentences they create often are extremely confusing, misleading the viewers. This creates a debate over what it’s saying, is it a threat, a warning of impending doom, lost history about its kind, the creation of the universe?, or is it making fun of the viewers telling them they missed something that doesn’t exist!

Eventually, the streamer removes MissingNo from their team, but before they can do so the Pokéball that contained it broke a day afterwards. Its mystery is left unsolved, and their presence being as reliable as the pictures of its existence online. It’s out there, and it’s real, but what it really is, how it exists, and what it could do never have a set answer.

All debates just and confusion just leads to exhaustion on all spectrums. It left mysteriously just as it came.

Ooohhh 👀👀

Hear me out, MissingNo recognizes it was causing exhaustion, so it left of its own free will.

But it still follows the streamer around. In rare instances, in less than a second, sometimes the viewers catch MissingNo in the background of a stream.

Behind a tree, in a lake, flickering in existence briefly-

It unsettles everyone watching, many people unsure if it means well. Many people grow worried for you, since it’s obviously stalking you.

Sometimes it still even starts a stream when you are sleeping. This time though, it always freaks your viewers out since they know its not on your team anymore.

It doesn’t stay long. No more than 3 minutes at most. But its scary, mixes of garbled music and voices come out of everyone’s speakers.

Sometimes the streams are just it staring at your sleeping form. Others are random places in the wild.

Emmet nearly had a heart attack when one stream was just of Ingo sleeping with garbled text appearing on screen, seemingly begging for help.

You are non the wiser until the next day, feeling a bit more exhausted than normal. Your chat is relieved, but fearful for you.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

The Trainee, episode 4:

1. The genres of it all!!! So fun, not only because they’re so fun and cheesy with the over-the-top romance and spy and body-swap, but because they were used for the purpose of deepening characters! Like, of course Pie lives inside of a narrative that involves super high stakes and strategizing with little trust in others. Ba-Mhee’s was obvious, but I’ll get back to it in a moment. And Pah’s body-swap is simply hilarious but it also shows how a) he connects so easily with others and b) these interns really are super fresh faces in this office that the employees don’t necessarily have strong relationships with yet, which gives us the question of whether that means these interns are going to be treated as dispensable or with respect and potential even though people don’t fully know who they are yet or what they’re capable of.

2. The production on this episode was incredible!!! Watch how many cuts, pans, and zooms happen as Ba-Mhee races to seduce Jane! It was all so clean and paced so well for the comedic beats. Also the color coordination during the split-screens in the calls was gorgeous (the colors in general on this show are so vivid, giving a comedic feel without ever feeling campy, which I find impressive)

3. And then the music!!! There’s a reason they cue us in to the idea of listening to multiple parts through the headphones and split screens! (You even get a moment of audio feedback when Tae talks while riding the motorbike, to remind you how important sound and sound quality is! It’s also the reason Ba-Mhee realizes he’s not wearing a helmet) They set up the genre’s so obviously, but the scoring that they use for them is what carries it through the rest of the episode. First, they bring the scoring of those genre scenes back-up as comedic sound cues when Pah insults them later. Then, the drums and upright bass followed by the strings and electric guitar from the spy theme start scoring immediately as the plan gets underway, letting us know how, despite being dismissed, Pie’s planning and genre are still a part of this team effort. Then vocals strike up when Ba-Mhee needs to play her role with Jane. Vocals were only a part of the music from her romance scene. But I lost it when instead of bringing in a sitar like the music she imagined, they throw in a kazoo as she’s forced to go down the slide to make it in time, altering her genre from straight romance into romantic comedy at best 🤣

4. I also just wanna give some kudos to Ba-Mhee and Piploy for finally getting to start to blossom in this episode. I was cackling so hard at her facial expressions.

And her timing was so spot on for the comedy. Excited to see her character get to develop, and I think that’s the point that we’re supposed to see in her romantic fantasy—how helpless she sees herself as, when in actuality she’s the active one always trying to help her man. It will be interesting to see how she gets to grow and recognize her strengths and put them into her career world. Already we saw her actually do a job because there were emergencies that she felt responsible for and Tae wasn’t in the editing room for her to fawn over instead! Also just excited for her to get to do more comedic stuff like this that’s less about her being clingy lol

5. And that feminist empowerment brings us to the sexual harassment stuff, which was cool to see the show attempting to discuss its occurrence in the industry even if I’m not sure that I feel it was a totally successful way to depict it in terms of the show maybe replicating some of that sexual harassment with the visuals. However, I think they probably showed something more close to reality than an ideal situation. It was stark but meaningful. It also gives room for them to develop this issue further in the series towards something more positive and gives room for the Pie and Ba-Mhee to develop in how they understand and deal with the problem itself and the feelings that living in a world saturated by misogyny in media, workplaces, and everyday life have harbored in them. The fact that these two were the ones whose fantasies we got to see into is especially meaningful with this in mind.

6. It must’ve been nice for Gun to have time off lololol. But actually, loving this as a workplace comedy first and foremost and a QL second, just because they’re doing the first part soooo well. But bring on the workplace romances, and I can’t wait for the episode when we get to see how HR at a production company works because everyone has to disclose their new relationships so HR has to reassign chains of command 🤣🤣🤣

[cozzzynook]

do ya have any aus on how prowlbee met and fell in love?

They actually meet underground.

Its brief and its Bee who remembers Prowl first but he doesn’t say anything.

They originally met at a red stop district in the pits beneath Cybertron. Directly under the governing capital.

Prowl was there getting intel for his own personal use while also avoiding the elite guard for dodging the draft.

Prowl was on the run when he hid inside a booth where a small mini bot with alert and fearful door wings were stone still as they pressed against the electric cyber bars meant to keep outsiders from taking who was inside.

Prowl hadn’t seen Bee’s face but Bee saw his.

He remembers how attractive the mech looked completely focused on staying hidden while being so exposed. He found it kind of cute and funny looking back on it but in that moment he was too shocked by the cyber bots sudden appearance to do more than cover his intake and exposed breast mesh.

Prowl didn’t spare more than a klik looking at Bee before he simply went back the way he came in and kept going. All Prowl had cared about was the fact he was silent and didn’t alarm anyone to his whereabouts. For that the cyber ninja was grateful.

The second time they met Prowl took notice of Bee first.

He was hiding behind a of large boulders watching the repair crew work on cleaning a space bridge. He’d recently lost Yoketron and was wandering without a purpose.

His spark hurt deeply at the loss and guilt consumed him every waking solar cycle and yet looking at the yellow mini who helped the large green bot repair the space bridge, soothed his troubled processor in a way he didn’t know possible.

It was one of the reasons he agreed to come along when Optimus offered him a place on the team.

Of course he was closed off and stand offish even to the yellow mini that captivated his attention, though, he was less stand offish with the mecha he learned was called Bumblebee.

Any time the mini asked him to join team bonding he would accept in silence. He’d never do more than stand there and say a few words when he felt like it but he did join.

He even made a point to greet the yellow mini when he felt him near.

He wasn’t a fan of the yellow mini’s pranks but even he could admit they made him smirk a little when no bot was looking.

Prowl didn’t understand why he had such a growing affection for the mini. Maybe it was how carefree he seemed, how he was so full of life, so easily excited and ready to explore. Always lending a helpful servo even if he could be an annoying little pest, he never meant any harm.

Prowl found himself looking forward to late lunar cycles where Bumblebee would make a delicious cup of fuel and share with him. When it was just the two of them up, Prowl meditated and Bumblebee played a hologame with audio connectors in his audios.

They spent alone time together almost every lunar cycle and when Megatron came aboard their ship Prowl remembers the internal terror that almost frizzled his circuits when he saw Bumblebee bump into Megatrons pede.

The relief he felt seeing Bumblebee online from stasis after crash landing on the planet called Earth was so immense he actually wrapped an arm around Bumblebees hip struts. He played it off as trying to help him exit the stasis pod but the look on Ratchets face plates said otherwise.

Bumblebee knew then Prowl felt something for him and when things calmed down enough after settling into their new base turned home, he brought it up.

Prowl was so flustered and awkward it made Bumblebee smile. He teased Prowl so much that lunar cycle the cyber ninja almost kicked him out. But that night they shared a berth watching the stars from inside Prowls room.

Bumblebee’s door wings haven’t stopped fluttering in happiness yet.

-

As always, Free Palestine 🇵🇸 Sudan 🇸🇩 Congo 🇨🇩 Tigray, Haiti 🇭🇹 & Yemen 🇾🇪 boycott Christmas & speak up on the genocides America & Israel are committing.