#( to consume everything that is. to consume pax. for it to be their body. )

[endawn]

thinking more about hunger trying to re-possess pax again and -

[mr-camhed]

Name: Maspectra

Age: 4.77 million years

Gender: none(formerly male, modified out)

Faction: Decepticon(formerly)

Assigned Forces: Decepticon military command(formerly)

Role: Strategist and analyst

Motto: "everything is connected, you just need to find The right string. "

Personality: Maspectra is a Machine of logic. Not to The level of obsession and stoicism like Shockwave, but to an obsessive compulsive and uptightness that some(many) cons would find annoying as it tries to dig into the very root of anything no matter It's a lighthearted joke, something requiring urgent decision or actually needs to dig deep. But at The same time, Maspectra can be the only one to sniff out anything ulterior behind everything, even if it might be late for it.

Alternate mode: a black full size sedan similar to The Willard Elegant in GTA San Andreas

Appearance: Maspectra is around 6 meters tall and has a transformation scheme similar to that of TFP Vehicons, and his head and chestpiece resembles that of the Super Tactical Droids of star Wars series, including The three photoreceptors, but Maspectra's head is more squared with a proper neck, and its third eye blinks as he speaks. Maspectra's robot mode has a main color scheme of black and gray with gold accent on The face and silver stripes on The body, and a damaged Decepticon badge on his left shoulder.

Weaponry: Maspectra has average strength but superior intelligence. In vehicle mode, Maspectra can achieve a top speed of 150mph, and has a surprisingly nimble handling and 500kg of cargo capacity. In robot mode, Maspectra's photoreceptors are Capable of many functions such as heat vision, X Ray vision, ballistic calculation, action predictions, etc. He can also use his third photoreceptor to project small hologram pictures and speaks using both his own voice module and pieces of voice recordings from others. Maspectra is also equipped with a repeating energy blaster pistol for self defenses.

Character Biography: Maspectra of Helex was a cold constructed that was built for accounting in governmental departments. However, he was rendered obsolete soon afterwards and was rendered unemployed. However, using his connections, he quickly joined The criminal underworld and began working for prominent crime families and corrupted Senators. However, he was captured when one of his connection named Algorithmaster was caught by his colleague which escalated into a massive sting operation led by Orion pax which ended up with him being one of The fall bots for The crime lords and Senators involved and behind the Institute Conspiracy and sent to prison where he was given a chance of reduced sentencing by getting bodily modifications which are experimental and might be dangerous, which he accepted. And by The time of The Kaon riots, Maspectra has became unrecognizable from his original Appearances. Around The same time, he has been secretly working for the burgeoning Decepticon movement, which he would join soon after and be a member of until The Nemesis' disastrous pursuit of The Ark and The subsequent Decepticon warlords' power struggle during which he finally became disillusioned of the organization.

Weakness: Maspectra's calculation is very energy consuming, and prone to overheat which can hamper his efficiency of calculation which his obsessive compulsion was unfortunately a massive factor and problem for it.

Commentary: I originally wrote this Character for someone else's story of a ship of wacky Characters going on fun adventures(yes, it was during The early days of MTMTE) and i thought it would be funnier if an extremely uptight and tense Character was roped into it more or less against its will.

[bemyhcro]

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓: i'm not leaving you.  𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: paxton's apartment, commoratio alley. 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒: closed for lavender brown ( @hoggleswart )

"then don't." it's one of the few statements that holds conviction, juxtaposed by the lack of eye contact as they follow the stretch of their feline companion - bored of paxton's lack of confidence and daily chatter of nonsense, of course. their was a war happening inside of paxton's body, one set of child soldiers pulling them free of the darkness that threatens to consume their very being, the dark mark printed in their blood crying out for each and every death pax was complacent in. paxton was sick of death. sick of feeling powerless. sick of being a rat. lavender was their anchor, the person to pull them back from each and every paranoia-fuelling fog in their mind and the self-destructive actions that could cause the downfall of their very being. arms stay at their side, a tremble along flesh as paxton fears asking too much from a girl whom has given them everything - their paths may be the same, but their endings may be different. "stay . . ." finally, paxton lowers their head to rest in the crook of lavender's neck and shoulder, breathing her in as words whisper again. "stay."

[igobythenameheisenger]

The Platform, personal film review Skip or Stream? Stream!! 8.5/10 This film’s premiere on Netflix perfectly coincides with the time it’s more relevant— these months going on with the pandemic. Prescript— It’s not some film you can watch with snacks on. At least I lost my appetite. The Platform is a sci-fi/thriller concept/metaphor film (like parasite but as open as Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! when it comes to story telling, it goes beyond imagination to get the message across). Only this time, it’s satirized. It’s about the separation of classes, the rampant inequality of our modern life. Through its metaphors, the film introduces the floors as people’s classes. A tray of food is provided for all but it comes from the top, all the way down where of course, the masses at the late bottom of the building has no more food left because people on the upper floors consumed every bit of it. What they’re only left with is each other and hunger, which ultimately leads to violence. What’s interesting here is how the film tells us that there is more than enough food (say money, land, rights) to go around down to the lower floors, but overconsumption easily rules people when they know everything has a deadline (monthly switching of random floors). The pace was not as speedy as Uncut Gems but it took all the time it needed to get the feelings right in your skin. I just panted a bit on the change of mood it brought me though— humor, disgust, terror, relief (sometimes?), and back to terror, and most especially, hopelessness. The finale was left open. Even when it was conclusive that they somehow succeeded— it didn’t really show what actually happened. I think ultimately because in reality, we aren’t there yet. They didn’t show how because there was nothing to show. But what I got about the child being the message was because, people (even the admins) didn’t believe there could possibly be a 16 y.o. below anywhere in the platform - esp someone that was alive and well-fed in the bottom most floor. That it was even possible for that kid to be alive (and innocent and uncorrupt) amidst all the chaos and everybody believing they need violence to survive. And what they did with the child wasn’t shown in the ending, because that’s what we’re supposed to really solve. The film embodies the current class differences and if there was a solution to this, we would’ve figured it out already. But there’s not (hence not shown). And up to date, we’re still jammed (with the pandemic coming into picture, the hoarding, the VIP testings— this is apropos now more than ever). The ending was put there not for us to understand or interpret, but so WE could actually think of a solution, so we could search for that little girl in this cruel society, and only then we would be able to satisfy the closing of the film. It wasn’t a closing with meaning, it was blank “how” we needed to answer ourselves.
Deep diving to the story— you can skip this if you’re not in for SPOILERS. The protagonist, Goreng volunteered to be imprisoned inside a vertical tower with 333 floors (it’s not easy to imagine since it’s architecturally impossible in the real world), where the only source of food is coming from a platform— some sort of block of cement coming from floor 0 down to floor 333 (funny how x2 per pax is 666). The platform is packed with delicious cuisine (which were specifically favorites of the people who came/brought in as prisoners— yes, I said came in because there were actually volunteers that wanted in so they could get something in return, like a diploma). Once a day it lowers through the layers of the tower allowing the inmates of each floor (2 pax each level) to get their fill. You get the point— those at the top get to stuff their cheeks with as much food as they can, and those at the bottom left with shattered glasses and empty bowls and plates. But the interesting thing here is, every month, the inmates are drugged and taken to a new floor, randomly picked. First month you could be starving at the bottom, and the next month— who knows, you could be the ones stepping on freshly baked cakes— worst is if you belong to 100+ floors down, where there’s absolutely no food left. So with each floor having 2 inmates and nothing to eat, what do we make of that? It’s a complete transparency of the current situation (I’d say in our country but it’s all over the world ESP today)— those at the top has nothing to worry about, while the bottom tenants eat each other alive. And the fact that everything has a deadline forcing each individual to take as much as they can, while it’s there. Sounds familiar? (Toilet paper, masks, alcohol, ring any bells?) Eventually, Goreng, being an idealist, wanted to destroy the way the system works by giving everyone only the part of the food they need. It was revealed by one of his floormates that the food was actually enough for all floors even when it doesn’t seem like it. And that’s only because people at the top couldn’t stop their greed about consuming so much more than they need, leaving people below starving and violent. Baharat, his floormate is also an idealist and wanted to climb to top most floor by asking the tenants above them to grab his rope. It gets complicated when they even started asking him a lot of things including who his God is (religion conflicts) and said they’d help him and instead, shits on his face when he tries to climb. Realizing they don’t have a chance at the people above, Goreng and Baharat decided they could work together into Goreng’s original goal, feeding everyone fairly by getting into the platform (with very good intentions) as it descends each floor. They were also planning to go up with it to send a message, like a rebellion as it ascends every after it reaches all the floors. This starts off okay but ultimately becomes gore when they start to see floors where people have already engaged in murder and cannibalism for survival’s sake. This stains their innocence and leads them to kill other tenants off for survival as well. There’s this one character— mother, who was seemingly looking for her lost boy by going down the platform every once in a while, but dies in the latter part of the film. The child however, who turns out to be a girl btw, meets Goreng in the end, at the 333rd floor. It’s unclear how and why the child is down there esp when one of the tenants specifically said they weren’t letting 16 years old and under in the facility. It seems that the mother’s repeated descent on the platform wasn’t an attempt to find her child, but to ensure the food reached the bottom floor to feed and protect her child by keeping her there. When they realized she was the one they should send up as a clear message (not sure about this but I think is— she’s the message that there doesn’t have to be violence? Because she was pure? Unharmed, innocent, and even healthy, despite being at the last floor. And something that nobody believes is possible— both the fact that there’s a child in a facility and that her being there without violence to survive, that’s why she was the right message?) like in real life? She was the symbol that we don’t all have to be like this to each other to survive, I wasn’t sure if they were talking about hope but I think (and hope) so? And it was also then I realized, it’s on us to understand and figure out how to get her? How to get “the message” across and change the system? Hence, why it was open ended and what happened wasn’t shown at the end, because there was no really knowing what happened to something that isn’t happening yet— irl. It was the shoe’s way of shoeing its audience that hey, this is possible if only we all cooperate. There doesn’t have to be violence and dead bodies, if we learn to give we can beat the system. And not showing how the system took her in the end is a hint that we haven’t gotten there yet, and that’s for us to figure out. Also my take on the mother was pretty much how I see it in Mother! movie— she was really mother earth preserving hope. And with people’s greed and selfishness, she was eventually murdered brutally. And in our case, she is being treated that way now, sadly. We’re all almost like Goreng, who finds out how the system works and tries to fight it but is being hopelessly corrupted in the process. Those at the top never even consider giving up excesses and just know how to take and take as much, and the bottom masses are too busy surviving to even consider reason— no matter what that meant. If this isn’t the greatest interpretation of how the world works, I don’t know what is.

[skidblast]

The Villains of Transformers.

This seems like a basic non-question. We got Unicron as the world-ending threat, and various incarnations of Megatron doing the rest of the job to keep the threat going. However, there is another angle to it.

Often we hear the phrase “write what you know”. Which seems simple enough, that you got experience with something that you can write it pretty true. But what does one know about mechanical aliens that have been fighting a war for 4 million years?

But the various writers of the Transformers franchise throughout the years have written what they know. There is an overarching threat in each one of the transformers incarnations that is different from the Megatron the Tyrant or the Planet-eating Unicron. It’s more like background noise, providing the constant that is happening, a crutch when writing.

Unfortunately I won’t be touching on Japanese produced media, I haven’t studied the history of Japan to know the nuanced details of culture background noise or incidental historic events to comment on Headmaster, Victory, RID2001, Unicron Trilogy and any other that I have missed.

I will also skip the Marvel, Dreamwave and FunPub comics/media as I’ve not read them. Cyberverse and the second IDW release are skipped as they are pretty recent additions. Rescue Bots and Rescue Bots Academy is skipped as well due to simplicity.

The main theme of the G1 cartoon is energy shortage. Cybertron is out of Energon, they flee Cybertron to find more energy. The Decepticons set up base on Earth because the humans have begun to harness the energy of their planet, allowing easy access to said energy and to ship it home.

This doesn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, most people have heard of the precursor in passing. The time when cars were lined up at the gas stations.

1979 was a bad shock for the oil market. Iran revolted, causing oil production to shrink a bit and caused panic, which in turned caused the prices of oil to rise dramatically. This was also the year where the Three Mile Island Accident happened, so people got vary of nuclear power. Gas rationing was discussed, and in some states actually implemented. Then recession hit in the wake of this.

The effects of the oil crisis and the following recession were still felt, so a cartoon about an energy crisis was very easy to write.

Beast Wars is an odd one to analyse. It came as the Transformers franchise was dying, and Hasbro was desperate to reinvent Transformers for the new kids. The appeal of cars turning into robots was no longer around, but making them animals was the push Hasbro needed to refresh the Transformers.

So we end up with the beginning basically rehashing the Transformers cartoon, but when the overarching plot hits, when the threads get revealed after a whole season of basically filler, we find the inspiration that the writers had. This time, it is not energy crisis, in 1996 we had put that behind us.

We have Megatron leading a team trying to restore the Decepticons as rightful rulers via time travel. We then discover he had actually gone against the so-called Tripredacus Council, the fractured Predacon Alliance who were biding their time and see the usefulness of what Megatron is trying to accomplish. In order to gain more power without breaking the peace made with the Pax Cybertronia, they use secret agents and secret police.

This is very familiar to a lot of people who haven’t seen Beast Wars or heard of it. This is Russia.

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and with that the Cold War ended. Peace was had. But as Russia threw off the communism ties from them, the ruling body still needed to exert control over the nation, and to broaden their influence beyond their borders. Russia went from Communism to Mafia-like control, using secret police, subtle threats and various other shady things. People saw what was going on, and with the new fear they were facing, they made it known in the media.

Beast Machines is a bit easier to figure out compared to its predecessor. It’s mostly because the message of Beast Machines resonates strongly today. 

Beast Machines came shortly after Beast Wars, as the toyline was trying to go away from the purely animal transformers and going for more mechanical look. But how do you really bridge those together?

At the tail end of the 80ies, environmentalism was on the rise. There was an undercurrent of that happening in Beast Wars, but in Beast Machines it had much more weight to it. With Megatron wanting to stamp out any biological influences from Cybertron, ready to eradicate any traces of it and mass-producing purely mechanical beings to repopulate Cybertron. While Optimus Primal was embracing the biological side of it, becoming sort of a guru through the Oracle.

The rise of industrialism is frightening prospect, seeing the nature retreat into near nothingness, and seeing the callousness of the industry just ignore it completely in favour for profits. But there was no denying that industrialism was there to stay, so while it is the main fear of the series, the message of the series was not to abolish it but to tame it, not let it out of control and make sure that the environment was put on equal grounds to it.

Animated is a strong reboot like Beast Wars was, coming at the same time as the Michael Bay films. Japanese production had taken over after Beast Machines finished, but Hasbro sought to retake the American market with media that they controlled. Importing Anime and dubbing it was all and good, but if they had complete control, they would have better chance to make it appeal to the market they wanted, the Western one.

It’s 2007. Following 9/11 the USA goes to war. And it is still going, with a certain hopelessness attached to it as people are getting more and more jaded by it. But most people never really felt the impact, only heard about it. There was no draft, there was no conscription. People joined the military, and those who came back came back either just a little bit off, or really suffering, and couldn’t get proper help.

Transformers Animated touches on civilians being basically forced into the war, against foes that were thought to be defeated long ago. It touches on the hardship of those civilians as they are part of it, feeling both the elation of being thought as heroes, and feeling the terror of the situation that they are in. A highlight of this is the episode Thrill of the Hunt, which came rather early, and touched on themes that are not common to see in media aimed at children, looking at Ratchet going too far, and suffering from some form of PTSD as well.

While the actual war had never visited the US or the spacebridge repair crew, the impact of it was felt on them, with all the horrors that entails.

Transformers Animated and first Michael Bay Transformers film came out on the same year. Yet the themes of the film series is far from what Animated did. One part of it is that Hollywood movies are more constricted as they have to appeal to a whole lot of audience in order to gain any return from the production cost. So everything is analysed in detail, making sure that nothing would alienate the vast majority of the Western World. We are in fact seeing it more obviously as China is growing stronger as a consumer market for Hollywood movies, and we see how the movies are made to appeal to that market as well.

So doing a commentary on the Afghanistan war like Transformers Animated did was out of the question. But it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a fear in the movie like in anything else.

Technology is on rapid rise. The rule of CPU power doubling every 18 months was still holding. New technology comes before anyone can really adapt to what had been introduced not so long ago.

The fear in the Michael Bay films is the rampancy of technology. We have severely advanced alien race make contact, and in fact made most of the technology based on one of them, found at the turn of the previous century. Technology that wasn’t even fully understood, that people thought they could easily control. But it goes out of control.

This concept is called Technological Singularity, where technology eventually becomes uncontrollable and we get swept up in the wake of it, having to deal with the new reality that we are no longer the masters of the world we are in. Grey Goo is one of the better known representation of this idea. Another is the idea of an overlord AI that either seeks to exterminate humanity, rule it with iron fist, or simply think of humans as we think of ants, insignificant.

IDW Publishing was on the scene two years earlier, in 2005. However given how long the first G1 iteration of it ran it gets mentioned after TFA and the movies due to that, allowing for Aligned continuity to come after it.

While TFA showed how the Afghanistan War impacted US citizens, who had not really experienced being at war while being so interconnected with the world and able to receive so much information, the IDW comics went for the other angle, the other fear that ruled in the USA at that time.

9/11. The fear of terrorism happening, the fear of foreign infiltration. The Decepticons had a plan on how the infiltration happened, every step of it planned, making sure that they could make the residents of the planet do most of the work of disrupting the peace, making it easy for them to swoop in and destroy the rest.

While things didn’t go as planned as the Autobots intervened pretty early, the Decepticons went public on full force, taking over New York City and almost dropped an atomic bomb on it. The connection to 9/11 is pretty hard to miss.

And then Phase 2 hits. James Roberts becomes one of the more interesting writers in the series. And this is where things go slightly off. James Roberts is more of a writer that knows what he’s writing about, instead of being influenced by current events.

And James Roberts has made known he has major interest in politics as he worked with politicians before picking up the pen for IDW Publishing. Write what you know, and James Roberts know politics, and political history.

In Phase 2 there is increased focus on the actual motivations behind the war. While Megatron Origins did go into how Megatron became the leader of the Deceptioncs, it was James Roberts that made it into the communism reflection that it became in the comics. It isn’t really some overarching fear in the background of the comics, it’s known quantity woven into the narrative of the comic.

Transformers Prime came in 2010, after Transformers Animated, seeking to remove the stylised aesthetics of the former toyline and try to be more like the movies.

And it wasn’t the only thing it changed. What was changed as well was the work that was actually put behind the actual lore of the series, making a true production bible that was used not for just the TV series but the accompanying video games as well, War For Cybertron and Fall Of Cybertron. And there was also a clear message along with that, this was a new continuity, new setting. Aligned, seeking to mesh together all the good from the various franchises into one good package.

But with all that background done on it, it’s easy to point out how Megatron went from a revolutionary to a tyrant and that would be about that. But it is not that simple.

What colors Transformers Prime is subtle and easily overlooked. In 2007 we experienced a dire financial crisis. Unemployment shot up, investments plummeted, there was no good safety net for people and a lot of them fell through the cracks. But these things are hard to really put into a show like this without it being explicitly about it. But there is another side effect of the recession that wasn’t that apparent in 2010, is more obvious now, but with the Transformers lore from the 1984 cartoon being similar, it blends into the usual Transformers noise.

Refugees.

Optimus Prime and his small team are simply refugees. Cybertron did run out of fuel, but the plots of harvesting energon and fighting over resources is more rehashing of the old cartoon plots. The focus is more on the Autobot team as they deal with being literal aliens in the US, escaping the tyranny that they fled. How they are treated by the locals, how they deal with the isolation of being in a culture different from theirs. They simply try to survive. Like how most people hit by the recession felt.

Robots in Disguise was released after Transformers Prime, going away from the expensive production and to more cheaper look. But with the so-called Aligned continuty having been a strong reboot of the “TV cartoons” series, Hasbro was in no hurry to abandon it, making Robots in Disguise a sequel to Transformers Prime.

Though with the war over, a new kind of threat had to be made. And Steeljaw steps into the role, not only as the main antagonist of the series, but as the representation of the fear theme of the series.

What isn’t really that obvious in Robots in Disguise is just how powerful Steeljaw is. Steeljaw isn’t just some generic Decepticon villain who escapes just so they can reuse his model instead of having to create even more Decepticons. He has fighting prowess, he is able to outwit the Bumblebee team. And the most dangerous weapons he has are his personality and voice.

Steeljaw is able to talk himself out of trouble. He has major ambitions, he knows what to do in order to recruit others. He wants power and respect, and if left unchecked, he will have it. And he knows that if there is some that he can’t convince, he can fight, and he will fight dirty.

Steeljaw represents a fear that people have experienced for a long time, but it wasn’t until recently that it really put into the spotlight. He is the abuser, the person in power that will make your life miserable. He antagonises Bumblebee and his team by causing them trouble, drive them off their safe haven of Earth and later drives them from their safe space, forcing them to go on the run. He finds power by leading a pack of Decepticons, then later by allying himself to the new council until he realises that he will not achieve his goals with him.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this massive post of mine.

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Ajax: Fidget Spinners X

         The next part of the fight was kinda gross. There were a lot of feathers, some brain goo, some monster miscellaneous bits. Pax would not recommend eating while watching reruns of the fight on Hephaestus’ reality TV show.

         Pax now understood why it was preferable for monsters to dust immediately. The demigods tried not to kill many monsters at Camp Othrys—a “fish are friends, not food” mentality. He had only seen a handful of monsters get killed. Axel tried to protect him from seeing a lot of violence (even though Pax argued endlessly that nothing would be as brutal as the fatalities in Mortal Kombat). There were rumors about monsters that didn’t dust immediately.

         Pax could now verify that it was disgusting.

         When Axel called for Pax to come on top of Prometheus’ rock, Pax wanted to request two Ziploc bags to slip over his hands.

         Lou Ellen giggled. “These might work better,” she said, withdrawing some latex gloves from a pocket.

         “Ah, ever prepared to handle corpses,” Pax said.

         “Vital to a Witch’s Survival Kit,” she said. “Alabaster says it is always prudent to be prepared.”

         Pax wanted to ask if she wanted to keep one for her hand. In their excitement of Axel’s victory (and the ensuing gross out afterwards), she forgot to keep it tucked under her armpit. When Pax glanced at the stump, he could see that the skin around the edges had blacken and wither inward, towards the bone.

         Everything smelled like it was rotting down here, but Pax got a whiff that smelled particularly of eau de roadkill.

         Pax wanted to keep both of them from panicking and cheer her up. “At least, if it becomes permanent, we can get you a cool pirate hook,” he said.

         Lou Ellen didn’t giggle. She looked away and tucked her stump back under her armpit.

         Pax paused in scaling the rock. He frowned, trying again. “I’m sure it’ll smell better if you air it out a bit. Body odor plus rotting corpse. Not a good smell to lure my brother—”

         “You can’t tell Axel,” Lou Ellen said.

         That scared Pax. Lou Ellen only would only say that if there was of a permanent problem.

         “It was more important for us to save Prometheus while we were down here. Then we wouldn’t need to take another trip and avoid Hades. Prometheus will be really important to the war effort, and your brother really looks up to him…” Lou Ellen trailed off, seeming unable to convince herself it was worth it now that she could join a gangrene gang.

         Pax almost sputtered. “Please tell me you did NOT fall head over—” He gestured violently towards her stump. “—hand hard enough for Axel that you sacrificed a limb so he could go fanboy at someone in Tartarus!” Pax could barely handle Axel being courageous and stupid and that was Axel’s modus operandi. The witches were supposed to be reliably clever and focused on self-preservation—like sane people.

         Lou Ellen’s face went flush. She didn’t look embarrassed, just sad. “I—I knew I might lose it as soon as I did the spell wrong, when I left my hand with Jack. But I knew my invisibility spell wouldn’t hold on you if we got far away. I had to come back for you and Axel.”

         When Pax thought about it, how Lou Ellen’s invisibility spell let them trick Hades and how her cotton ball conjuring saved them from splatting onto Tartarus’s unforgiving ground, Pax realized that they would have probably died without her. Considering everything Lou Ellen had done in the last day and how much magic Pax had seen her cast at once, she was probably depleted. Had her hand been rotting since the beginning and she been hiding it with what little incantation she had left before summoning all those cotton balls?

         There was only one thing that Pax could think to do: he pulled Lou Ellen into a hug. “The Pax family owes you a hand for the big one you gave us,” he said, trying not to let his voice tremble.

         She released one sob into his shoulder. Despite the reek of rot, Pax felt comforted by her scent. It was similar to Alabaster’s, faintly herb-like under the sweat and grime. “Just promise me that your brother will take me on a date after this,” she choked.

         “That is definitely a thing within my power to promise,” Pax said, petting her tangled black curls. “Think about it: we’ll be able to guilt Axel into anything for months—”

         “Ajax! Still need your help up here!” Axel’s voice called down.

         Lou Ellen grabbed Pax’s shoulder with her good hand. “You can’t tell him,” she whispered, “I’ve only got minutes before the spell can’t be reversed, and there’s no point in spending that time panicking.”

         Pax wanted to disagree. He rather liked the idea of panicking. Leaning back to examine her face, he could see the resolution in those green eyes. She didn’t want to spend the last few minutes panicking when they there was no obvious way to save her hand.

         “Ajax, I can tell you two are whispering down there. Plan pranks later. I need you up here!” Axel voice drifted down again.

         “I’ll give you something that’ll leave you bald for months,” she said, the tears now dried up. Her threat came with a forced giggle.

         Pax choked back his own tears. “You wouldn’t do that. My hair is a trademark. I’m a mascot for Camp Othrys—”

         She shoved him towards the boulder with her good hand. Lou Ellen snatched up the latex gloves that they had dropped when he hugged her.

         Pax had completely forgotten the blood on the rock. He swallowed, slipped on the gloves, and turned to climb, hoping Lou Ellen’s stump wasn’t completely consumed by rot by the time he came back down.

 Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed—well, as much as you can enjoy Tartarus. Also, last week, I lied. Now, you can stay tuned to meet Rocky!

[selanaris]

What if on Archa 7 Optimus told Sentinel to leave and tried to rescue Elita but ended up getting caught in the explosion and loses his memory while Elita becomes Blackarachnia! They get found by the Decepticons and Optimus renames himself Orion Pax. Orion becomes Megatron's apprentice and lover while BA is still his best friend. BA feels guilty about Optimus having amnesia while she's mad at Sentinel for leaving them behind... 💔

Optimus watched as Elita one fell into the cavern, Sentinel tried to jump down to get her, but Optimus held him back. "We can't just leave her behind!" Sentinel yelled to Optimus.

"I'm, not, Sentinel." Optimus said sternly making sure he had his attention, "I'm going to get Elita, if I'm not back in ten clicks you have to leave." Sentinel was about to protest, "Promise me! Promise me..." Optimus said and Sentinel nodded and waited at the top of the cliff as Optimus grappled down to grab Elita.

He found her fighting a group of those Arachnid creatures, she turned to Optimus and gasped, "You came back!"

"Yes, and we don't have much time!" He stopped her and kicked one of the spiders attacking her, "Sentinel is waiting up top for us, we need to leave now!" He yelled and left no room to argue or question. Then the ground started to shake again and rock began to fall. This distraction allowed a spider to knock Optimus back against a pile of energon cubes, right as a large rock fell on him, and the energon, causing an explosion.

Elita screamed as she saw Optimus get strucked by the rubble and consumed by the explosion. She needed to think fast and did the only thing she knew, download. All that could be heard were her screams. It was beyond 10 clicks, Sentinel even waited 30 clicks before keeping the promise he made to Optimus and running back to the ship with his optics closed and leaking, this was all his fault, his friends were dead, and he killed them by bringing them to this place, he would continue to tell himself everyday on.

A jour later, Elita had woken up but things were different, she was different, she looked around for Optimus in a panic. She ran to where she last saw him and saw pieces of him laying all over the ground scattered. A leg, an arm, his servo, an audial fin, a tire, and more. She prayed there was something to save. Luckily the rock that landed on him protected his spark and his processor from exploding into dust, but not without damage.

Many stellar cycles later, Blackarachnia and Orion Pax havr become important factors to the decepticon cause. Blackarachnia was one of the lead scientists, even creating a triple changer from a seeker, and Orion Pax became Megatron's apprentice, some would even call him an heir.

Orion held no memories from before he woke up, many of his body parts are not even his own, they were parts stolen from bots of the same mold, the different colored paints was the only way to see that they didn't belong to him. Blackarachnia was glad to have her friend back, safe and sound as she plotted revenge to the one who betrayed them. She told Orion everyday on how the horrible Sentinel tried to murder them in cold energon. Orion believed everything, but not just from her.

Blackarachnia started to question things the day Orion was put in charge of a outer autobot mining colony, filled with innocents and a few guards. "All guards are taken care of Pax sir! All that's left is the workers and their families. Your orders?" A decepticon lackey asked him as Blackarachnia stood to the side. She has seen his cold optics, she denys it everytime she sees them, but those are not the optics' of her friend.

"Gather the civilians to the town center, take any and all supplies and valuables, then burn the place. I want it nothing more than a pile of smelted metal, buildings, land, bots. I want nothing left." Orion said with the voice and resolve of steel. Blackarachnia held her intake open and stared at Orion in horror. She finally saw the truth, this was her fault. her friend was dead, and she killed him by bring him to this place.

[bytesnbolts]

☠️ which of the 7 deadly sins my muse would be and why

The Sins:

Pride [The excessive belief in one’s own abilities] 

Wraith [ To spurn love and opt for fury]

Lust [ craving for the pleasures of the body]

Gluttony [the desire to consume more than what one requires]

Greed [desire for material wealth/gain, ignoring spirituality]

Sloth [ the avoidance of physical/spiritual work]

Envy [the desire for what others have]

Our sinners:

Nanostorm

Envy - Everyone else seems to live so freely, without fear of themselves. They can’t live like that. It’s too great a risk. If only they could change who they were…

Nitroxide

Pride - She always knows what to do! She can fix everything and anything! She always can, no exceptions!

Solar Pax

Sloth - There’s just so many romance novels that need to be read! How could he possibly do any work?

Powerhouse

Envy - Why does Nan always choose patrolling over hanging out with her? Why does Nan go to Requiem when they have a problem instead of letting her help them through it? Why do others think she can’t handle information? She’s not a newbuild!

Sloth - Why do boring paperwork when you could be doing something fun?!

Starprowler

Wraith -  COME BACK HERE! SHE’S NOT DONE WITH YOU!

Pride - Her instincts are never wrong! She’s the best officer you’ll ever meet!

Nightsiren

Lust - the world is full of experiences for one to explore: to get into fights, to taste delicacies, to be touched by and to touch others, to change everything about yourself, to try something just once or/and let it consume you.

Gluttony - Nightsiren wants it all; don’t let them miss anything before they go offline!

Pride - What’d you just say about them? You want to go!? Meet them in the Pit! They’ll stain the sand with your energon!

Shamble

Pride - He doesn’t need your help; he can take care of himself, and he’s not crying!

Envy - Why did he have to lose so much? He doesn’t want anyone else to lose so much, but why did he have to?

Crux

Pride - He knows he’s the best artist and medic out there, and he’s gorgeous. The universe revolves around Crux.

Gluttony - Give him that fame, that glory, that recognition that he deserves.

Flux

Pride - They and their twin are the best artist and medics in the universe. They’re the new best thing since cubed energon across all rating systems. How dare you say otherwise!

Gluttony - Give them unbridled freedom! Let nothing hold them back!

Requiem

Pride - He’s handsome; he knows and exploits it. His choices are nearly never wrong. How dare you insult him!

Gluttony - His emptiness must be filled, no matter the cost. He will consume until it is satisfied.

Fireball

Greed - If she was a rich femme, she’d have all the shanix/credits in the universe, if she was a wealthy femme. Plus that nice sub-machine gun you’re holding. Oh, your ship too. Also, that swanky pent-habsuite she deserves.

Gluttony - Fireball is never satisfied with what she has; she’s always hungry for more. She’s like a reactor, always needing something to consume. More power! More wealth! More! More! More!

Envy - WHY DO THOSE SKIDPLATES GET ALL THIS AND SHE DOESN’T!?!? THEY’RE NOT WORKING THEIR SERVOS TO THE CABLING OUT IN THESE STREETS!!!

Pride - Pha, you thought you could talk to her? Her? Keep your recharge defrags to yourself.

Wraith - Oh, she’s not disappointed, just very very pissed. It’s business and personal.

Dealbreaker

Lust - Why hello there gorgeous! Is your lap taken? ;)

Sloth - No, he doesn’t remember being told to clean the Enforcer; he spent the last four orns reading Ao3 and listening to earth music.

Gluttony - CONSUME ALL THE EARTHLY MEDIA!

[aurimeanswind]

Back Again—Sunday Chats—7/8/18

Welcome Back!

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and I wanted to open up with a bit of a litany of excuses as to why that is! I know when you’re just on the outside looking in its hard to know exactly why I haven’t been posting these or asking questions, or really anything on Sundays. It’s a combination of things.

First of all, the last two Sundays I have not been home to write up Sunday Chats. Three weeks ago I was in Cuba! Well, technically I was at Key West, the day before I’d go to Cuba, on a cruise ship. Most importantly, the only internet access I had was through the data on my cell phone, and so I couldn’t really post Sunday Chats. In theory, I could solicit questions via my phone, I could write it up offline, and then go on and post it when I’d get home the following Wednesday, but I really didn’t want to because it was honestly a genuine vacation for me. I wanted to kind of check out and try and not be online so much. Of course, I failed a little bit in this regard, I was checking Twitter ravenously any time I had an internet connection, because I have a problem. For the most part, when I was off on my cruise with my mom and my brothers three weeks ago, I was without an internet connection, and it was a little nice, but also a little stressful.

The week before that, it was E3! We were living in the Microsoft/Bethesda press conferences! I was going to write something that day but honestly between the post shows and just consuming E3 I honestly did not have time. I’ve done like, reaction write ups in the past, but I was a bit more down to live in the moment this go around.

Then I was in San Francisco! It was the day after Kinda Funny Prom, which was lovely, we’ll get to that in a bit, but that Sunday I was seeing a movie with Barrett Courtney, my sweet boy, and was just exhausted after KFP and everything then. I had stayed up way too late the night before talking games and eating pizza. I had a great time, but I was still pretty checked out.

The Sunday between those two, I was completely exhausted. Honestly? I’m still exhausted. The best thing, I think, to alleviate my normal “post-con depression” type thing I get after a Kinda Funny Live event and seeing all my friends is taking another, separate vacation just beforehand. I had barely enough time to stay at home and just sit on my couch and play video games before suddenly being whisked off to San Francisco. So getting home, I am just so happy to be home, to be sleeping in my pitch-black room on my comfy foam mattress. To lay on my couch and play whatever video game I want (which mostly has been Tales of Vesperia... again) and just... relax. Ya know what I mean? I just want to relax. I’m a solitary person. I’ve talked many a-time before on here, but I just love to be alone a lot. And I just want to be alone sometimes, especially after several back-to-back socially exhausting experiences.

And that’s a big part about why I’ve been so crappy about doing Sunday Chats consistently. Even before this last month of vacations I’ve been very touch and go about SC. Now that I have fully transitioned into being a full time employee, I work a lot more than my body is used to, even if I am four months into my new role at my job. It’s a lot for me. And I’m barely keeping up with my IP work of being an editor there. And that’s, I think, more important, because I am making decisions and a team is relying on me for that.

I essentially circle around two days off a week, Wednesday and Sunday, and so I work Thursday-Friday-Saturday, plus I have the podcast on Friday nights. Without getting too into the details, Saturdays at my job take quite a toll. Like, a lot on me, so just making it to Sunday, I’ve genuinely forgotten completely about Sunday Chats because I am sleeping in and resting and just trying to get my bearings. I know it’s not much of an excuse, but I’m hoping to turn Sundays into equally as productive days as they are relaxing. It’s just about finding that balance.

As per usual, my trip to San Francisco was motivational in some ways, so I feel inspired to continue to work harder and do more now that I’m home, and hopefully that can last me until PAX West in a couple months.

But that’s generally where the status of Sunday Chats is. As a big update, while not going into effect quite yet (maybe not even for months) but Sunday Chats will soon transition to be a full feature on IrrationalPassions.com. I think it’s a natural transition and it makes sense. It’ll still be available and accessible to all, but I want to play around with some format ideas I have, and I think it makes sense to be there since it is, predominantly, about video games, as it always kind of was. I want to have these heartfelt chats there, because I think as the “editor-in-chief” of the site, it helps build a rapport with the audience of that site which seems to grow every month.

Now that’s all done, let’s get to the editorial!

My Feelings and Emotions in San Francisco

I like this title because it’s just all about the feels. As many frequent Sunday Chats readers would know, depression is just slowly becoming one and the same with me. Like two amorphous blobs just close enough to each other that they become one. Like slime enemies from Dungeons & Dragons that just jell together on spiritual and self-hatred-like level.

So I’ve been through a rough like... 2018 to be honest. And so being in a place where I was just genuinely surrounded by affection and good vibes was really, really moving for me. I put out a twitter thread about the feeling which I think encapsulates most of what I’d want to say, and you can read that here.

But a big thing is how being in SF has proven to be a huge opportunity for me in the past: a time to “schmooze” as some people say, and talk to people, make connections, market yourself, or just meet as many people as you can and spread “the brand” as much as possible. And honestly, I just wasn’t here for that this year. I’ve gotten to a very, maybe even regressive place in my life, where I’d rather not get out there and try and be at the center of things and meet as many folks as possible. There were certainly several folks I had never met before that I wanted to meet, but for the most part I spent that time focusing on more intimate interactions with specific people.

A lot of this manifested in folks I’ve admired for a great long while, and that’s the fellows at OK Beast. I got to have a real heart to heart with Ian Preschel, someone I just haven’t been as close to for whatever dozen reasons that usually amount to time, and understand him better as a person. I got to have an emotional moment with Moises, someone I admire so goddamn much and for some reason keeps saying I’m the reason he started writing. I got to spitball ideas with Alex Van Aken, my fellow Alex-in-Arms, and share the wonders of running a business Slack with Blessing. They’re people I just genuinely look up to and inspire me legitimately every day, and I’m excited and hopeful to collaborate with them in the future. I have nothing but love for all of them, including Brandon, wherever he is out there.

I got to spend a ton of time with Barrett and Alyssa, my hosts, and Jacob Bryant who was also rooming with me at their place. They’re just family to me. Enough said.

I got to spend a huge chunk of time with Nicole Humphrey and Cameron Abbott, two very special friends to me, and for reasons I’d rather not put on blast here, it was very important to me that this time was worked into my trip, and I’m so glad it was.

Those dense, meaningful interactions are what I live for. It’s literally why I started the show Get Acquainted (new episodes coming soon I promise!) and they were the highlights of the weekend. I won’t list them all here, but suffice to say on a personal level this trip was very important to me, rather than on a “business level” which it has been for me in the past.

Thank you all for being open to wasting your time with me, I’ll be forever grateful.

ONTO GAMES.

What’s On Tap

Hollow Knight

I HAVEN’T TALKED ABOUT THIS GAME ON SUNDAY CHATS AT ALL YET AND IT’S INCREDIBLE OMG.

I love this game.

Final game time was 42h and 7m, and all of it was excellent. Well... Not all of it, there were a couple very frustrating bosses. But most of it was excellent.

One of the best Metroidvanias ever made. Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid, Ori and the Blind Forest, Hollow Knight, and Metroid Prime are the best of the genre full stop. It sits proudly in that number.

Don’t think. Play it.

Unless you really don’t like hard games, because it’s very difficult, but crazy rewarding!

Ys VIII

I just got this pretty recently and am only about four or so hours in, and so far it’s just a wonderful delight.

Compared to the demo I played a great many months ago on PS4, the Switch version does take quite the graphical hit, especially if you have a hangup about anti-aliasing. There are a LOT of jaggies to be seen here

BUT, I think performance wise it’s still very solid. Some hitches here and there, but during combat it’s generally smooth, and that’s what’s most important.

Very good. Recommended.

Captain Spirit

Honestly, there is too much to say here. Don’t hesitate, go play this. I do not care if you’re like Jurge Cruz (social media editor at IP) and are dead inside and don’t like Captain Spirit. It’s free. Go play it.

Nuff. Said.

More thoughts coming soon.

Questions

Remember you can tweet me your questions by looking for my tweet with #SundayChats in it on Sunday afternoons, and you can be a part of this write up! Much love to everyone who always shows up (I’m looking at you Brandon Gann! <3)!

Goddammit Tyler you keep asking me wrestling shit and you know I hate wrestling...

Uhh...

What if I just showed up and was Noctis?

Originally posted by ffxvcaps

A great many things! Event wise, I’m very excited about PAX West. Assuming I can still make it, which I should be able to, it’ll be a blast.

Plus there are new shows and new things coming from IP soon that I am just hyped for.

But let’s be honest with each other? Okay? Let’s all be real here?

Motherfucking Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition.

‘Nuff said.

My favorite Romantic Comedy of All Time just so happens to also be my favorite movie of all time, Silver Linings Playbook.

It is, in my humble opinion, a perfect film. It is the only movie I have watched over 10 times.

It’s very important to me, and while it may seem dumb to many of you, it told me that even fucked up bad people like me can find love in both themselves and others. And I really needed to hear that when that movie found its way to me in 2013.

Good LORD am I the WORST to ask about this. Well, first, Jamie. It was a goddamn pleasure meeting you at prom.

I mean, look at us:

I was very drunk and I’m so sorry.

But on a real level, a few things.

First, I did this horrible thing where I wrote everyday for almost three years straight and that was just a self-made torture and I have to keep myself in shape motivationally speaking or else I’ll have to do that again. And that sounds torturous. But as far as building strong habits I think that did help a lot. I mean, Sunday Chats is a direct by product of that, and I think generally people seem to like SC.

Second, I spend a lot of my brain energy trying not to worry about shit I have zero control over. If I misread a text and think someone hates me for whatever reason, which I do pretty much on a daily basis, I’m either going to text them back and ask, or do nothing, and if I’ve decided to do nothing, then I don’t get to be upset about it. If someone is doing some wack shit, I’m either gonna keep talking to them, or nah. Just do it, and everything else, well there is nothing you can do about it. Usually. But my depressed-adled and crazy-ass garbage brain still spends many an hour worrying about things I have no control over. But I’ll say this, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at it. Skill comes with time and age.

Third, I think finding someone on relatively equal footing as you but maybe doing something better or more interesting or just simply different than you can really be motivational. It’s easy to get demotivated by someone else’s success, but words I try and hold onto every goddamn day are “someone else’s success does not equate to your failure”.

I hope that helps!

I have not had a lot this year, unfortunately. Avengers was great? I looooved Ant Man and the Wasp! Adored it. Just saw it yesterday (on Sunday, actually!) and it was phenomenal.

But outside of that I don’t have much. It’s crazy to say that in a year where a new JK Rowling Harry Potter movie is coming out, but Johnny Depp is in that movie and he is fucking human trash and for some reason WB is letting him just waltz around like he hasn’t done horrific things. 

But anyway, I’d very much like to see Fireworks, from the same folks what made Your Name, but the dub wasn’t playing anytime I could see it this past weekend. :(

Maybe if it goes up on streaming soon (which I’m hopeful it will) I can see it.

Outside of that, I got nothing.

As someone who actively dislikes breakfast and most breakfast food, this is tricky for me to answer. I know your whole breakfast fetish Quin, so I won’t shit on you here, but I guess it’d just be a simple bagel (everything bagel. or poppy seed, depending on my mood) or maybe pancakes/waffles.

My thing is waffles/pancakes aren’t breakfast food, they’re anytime food. Or 1am food.

I have traveled a lot yes, but it’s been to a lot of the same places over and over again unfortunately. Not that that’s necessarily bad, but it’s been a lot of SF, Boston, etc, etc. 

Having just gone to Cuba, I finally have a passport! So it’s time.

It’s time Japan. I’m coming to you.

And hopefully Ireland too. But those trips will likely have to wait a bit and be very far from one another.

ISLAND BOY!

Well, that is a nightmare scenario for me, because I’d definitely die very quickly. BUT. If I had to choose.

First up would be Bentley from Sly Cooper, because he is a big needy nerd like me and would want to get the hell out of there ASAP just as much as I do, and he could make like, a series of small helicopters out of coconuts or some shit.

SECONDLY.... Hrmm.... harder choice.

There is a really great joke here about choosing Fi from Skyward Sword because maybe she could just DOUSE our way to a better situation, heaven knows...

But I’m mostly above that.

I’d say Cappy from Mairo Odyssey just because I just looked at my Cappy hat and it’d be fun to just capture turtles and crabs and stuff on the island. Not Bentley, he’d consider that an invasion of privacy.

I don’t know if YOU should get Detroit, but I absolutely love it. I’d say read Logan Wilkinson’s excellent review of the game, available here:

http://irrationalpassions.com/detroit-become-human-review/

He liked one relationship in that game a lot more than I did, but generally we’re on the same page with it. I love the game, and if Heavy Rain did anything for you then I think Detroit is better in just about every way.

I’ll say this: it’s not like 2018 has been BANGERs for me, but after 2017, where two of my new favorite games EVER came out (Breath of the Wild and Persona 5) it’s just so impossible to follow that up. That being said, I’m medium to high excited about MANY games this fall: Spyro, Tomb Raider, Valkyria Chronicles, AC Odyssey, Life is Strange S2, Code Vein, Darksiders 3, and Smash Bros. That’s a whole lot in just three short months to eat up like some yummy yummy candy.

So while I think he first half of 2018 has been pretty great, mostly because of Hollow Knight, but also Ni No Kuni 2, Celeste, Yakuza 6, and Moonlighter, its still been good. It’s been a big one for me to reconnect with my indie darlings. And that’s big for me.

I hope that helps!

Checklist

It’s been a while eh?

Well here are some recs!

“The Short But Chilling ‘Captain Spirit’ Weaponizes Empathy Against You” - Patrick Klepek - Waypoint.

I have barely read this but everything about it jives with me. Another one to check out only after you’ve played Captain Spirit, which I assume all of you are going to do, because it’s free, and because I asked you so nicely to do so.

The Music of Persona 4 Golden - Blessing Adeoye - OKBeast.com

I mean, it’s about arguably the best video game soundtrack of all time, from one of the best music-takers in games, that just so happens to be on my favorite video game of all time. What do you want? Go watch.

OK Beast Podcast Episode 100 - OKBeast.com

I’ve found myself far more into OKBP since they merged OKB and PPR into one show. Here is their 100th episode, where they decided to rank the best 100 video games ever. For some reason.

Like, what if on Ep 400 of IPP we ranked the top 400 video games of all time? Fuck that.

Love those boys.

That’s it. That’s all she wrote. Or rather, that’s all I wrote. Sorry this posted Monday, I hadn’t checked my work schedule for a minute and then I saw at like, 8:30pm I had to open today and that means I have to wake up at 6am and I figured I should be responsible and get a full night’s sleep. Still didn’t fall asleep until about 10:30am, but I wrote some of this last night.

I’m rambling.

I love you all.

Do me a favor though?

Keep it real.

[sometimesiwritetoo]

Tales of Carbuncle Farm - Chapter 2

Chapters: 2/?

Pairing: Noctis/Prompto/Luna

Rating: T for inappropriate humor

Warnings: None

Summary: Luna, Noctis, and Prompto may not have thought whole "let's run away" plan all the way through. But either way they had a farm, some seeds, and no where else to go so they might as well try to make Stardew Valley their new home. 

Check it out over on AO3!

Luna and Prompto woke up early a few weeks after moving in to find that the parsnips had finally grown. They immediately got to work pulling each individual parsnip from the ground and tossing them into their bags. At first the work was nice and she felt fine, but she quickly felt a shooting down her back as she bent and pulled parsnips from the small patch. The sun was just peeking over the horizon when they started and it had quickly risen high in the sky when they’d finished, and neither of them took a break. Once finished they dumped each and every parsnip into the bin for their Mayor to collect that night. It was only then that Noctis chose to wake up and head outside.

“Whoa, what happened to the plants?” Noctis asked while standing near the tilled dirt.

“We harvested the vegetables.” Prompto emphasised the dreaded v-word. “You know farmers are supposed to get up early, right?”

“Does it matter? I mean, do the parsnips really care if they come out of the ground at twelve instead of six?”

“You will when you get a sunburn on your entire face.”

“The sun can’t hurt me.” Noctis said dismissively.

Luna saw Prompto roll his eyes, and she did have to agree that it was fairly bold thing to say. The only person to burn faster than her was Noctis. Prompto was the only one she wouldn’t neg about sunscreen, but that was because he actually tanned. She would’ve pointed this fact of Noctis’ inferior genetics if the mailman hadn’t walked up their farm. Noctis ran to collect the mail and complete his first task of the day.

They watched Noctis thank the mailman, then carefully open the letter so he didn’t rip the envelope. He glanced over it for all of ten seconds before running towards them.

Noctis didn’t say anything about the contents of the letter. He came up and planted a hard kiss, that felt more like a headbutt, right on her forehead. He did the same to Prompto’s chin before racing off with a: “Gotta do something important I’ll make us a lot of money, byyyyyeeeee!”

He’d raced off the farm without any other explanation.

“...What was that about?” Prompto asked her.

“I don’t know, he’s your boyfriend.”

“Why does he have to be my boyfriend? Why can’t he be yours?”

“Prompto I am a hard working farmer, I have no time for relationship,” She dramatically flipped her hair over her shoulder, “My work is all I have.”

They took turns taking a shower, which was a fixture not actually in their home. Instead a tall, wooden box had been installed on the back of the house and a hook up installed above it to hold the hose up. When they arrived there hadn’t even been a curtain, and she insisted that they all take the bus a town over to purchase one and some soap. She quickly scrubbed the grime off her body then laid out under the sun while Prompto showered so her hair dried.

After all of that they were both very ready for lunch so they headed into town for another meal at the saloon. Gus’ evening menu had a little more to choose from, but she did miss home cooked meals. Being limited to a select number of items was a little depressing, and she had wanted to learn how to cook. And eating out all the time rather than consuming their own produce was growing expensive.

“We should go ask Robin about her upgrades,” She swirled her fry in a little cup of ranch. The ribeye sandwich it came with had been good, but she’d ideally not eat it for quite a while.

“I doubt we can afford one right now.” He replied.

“Well we can find out what we need right? We can ask her if she can build a kitchen.”

“You planning on cooking often Luna?”

“You planning on having that salad every day for the rest of your life, Prompto?”

He pushed the tomato through the oil and vinegar. “Fair point.”

They paid their tab then made the rather long trek up the mountain towards where Robin’s cabin was supposed to be. There wasn’t an address, almost none of the residents of Pelican Town had addresses, so she was certain they had gotten lost several times. This made finding her house a welcome surprise.

Robin’s house was large and beautiful, which Luna expected from a carpenter. In the front a young man in black was working on his motorcycle. He didn’t acknowledge either of them so they let themselves through the door that had an open sign hung on the doorknob.

“Welcome!” Robin chimed. She set down the tools she was using to whittle at a small statue. “Have a nice walk up?”

“Yes, it was very scenic.” She replied. “We were wondering what kind of improvements you’d designed for our home?”

“Looking to upgrade?” Robin ducked under the counter then returned with a big binder. She flipped through until she found the label with their address then opened it up to the first extension. “This is what I was thinking. A modest kitchen with a nice, big window. I noticed you didn’t have either with your current blueprints.”

“Ooooo.” Luna didn’t know much about blueprints, but she loved the sound of a kitchen and a window that was big and clean.More room, a freshly made food, sunlight coming through in the morning. It was so nice of Robin to put all this work in already to help them decide on buying it. “How much?”

“14,500 gold.” Robin replied. “But if you give me 450 planks of wood I will take off 4,500 gold.”

“Oh.” She thought back on the parsnips they’d harvested. There was no way those few parsnips would be worth that much.

“Thank you ma’am.” Prompto said. “We’ll call you if we decide to go with that.”

“Okay, have a nice walk down.”

It was a long, sullen trek back down the mountain. Prompto wrapped his arm around her shoulder half of the walk down, but it did little to comfort her. They’d worked hard, and she hadn’t expected to just be handed everything, but they were so far away from that expansion it felt like they would never get there.

“That was nice of her, to have a quote ready for us.” She said in an attempt to lift her own spirits.

“It sure was.” Prompto didn’t sound convinced of that, but she ignored it and focused on walking down towards town.

They picked up sandwiches, two salami and a meatball, for dinner then headed home expecting Noctis to be back, but when they arrived he wasn’t there. They waited until six before deciding to start on their dinner without him then snuggled under the bed covers to watch a kids show on the public network.

There were no sign of Noctis until nine at night when he arrived proudly carrying three freshly caught fish. The fish were so freshly caught that they dripped fish-water-juice on the almost cleaned floor.

“Hey guys, guess what I got!” Noctis announced.

“Where did you go?” Prompto asked.

“I went fishing with Willy! He gave me a line and showed me a nice spot outside of his shop!”

“You went fishing the entire day?” She demanded. Noctis seemed to catch on to his faux pax, and backed away when she jumped out of bed and stalked over towards him. “You just leave without telling us to laze the day away? That’s low Noctis!”

“I didn’t laze the day away Luna!” He held the three fish out to her like an offering. She refused to take it. “I caught us dinner, I thought you liked fish?”

She sighed. It was hard to accuse Noctis of any wrong doing since he didn’t have a mean bone in his body, there were too many stupid bones in his body for there to be room.. “We can’t eat them Noctis. We don’t have a kitchen.”

“We could eat them as is. It’ll be like a caveman sashimi.”

Prompto reached over and took the fish from Noctis’ hand, “How about we leave them in the box for Mayor Creeper to take?”

“Prompto we can’t just leave a bunch of fish in a regular box. They’ll smell.” Noctis protested.

“Well then the mayor can’t miss ‘em.” Prompto headed outside and laid the three down into the box next to the parsnips. He came back inside and wiped his fishy hands on a random towel.

“I swear Prompto if we wake up to rotting fish corpses in there I’m making you clean it.” Noctis protested.

They piled into bed that night same as every night. Noctis fell asleep first and his snoring kept her from sleeping for a good twenty minutes, but she was slowly becoming used to it. In the morning she was the second one up, coming to right as Prompto was pulling on a pair of socks to check the mail.

A pile of gold was left in the mailbox right next to the receipt. There was a handful of gold left for the parsnips and another smaller pile of gold for the fish Noctis had caught. The total was significantly more than what she expected for a few parsnips and some tiny fish.

“Should we branch out? Get some cauliflower?” She asked. Luna didn’t know if it would be beneficial at all to branch out or if they should stick to what worked.

“Yeah we should branch out. We should also start thinking about making preserves jars and stuff. Maybe when we have enough money we can buy the supplies?”

They threw back ideas, but there were few avenues she felt comfortable enough taking up. She didn’t think she could take care of animals nor did they have the means of cooking and selling food. The conversation soon took a negative turn, however, when they arrived at Pierre’s to see it closed.

“Closed on wednesdays,” Prompto sighed, “Guess we’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“What should we do until then?”

“I dunno. Explore town?”

“I suppose. I’m going to go up north then, I thought I saw a park.”

“Okay, I wanted to look through the forest near the farm. Let’s meet back at the farm at three okay?”

They synced watches before heading out. She took a leisurely stroll up towards the park, which was more like a play area next to a decrepit, old building. A decrepit, old building that Mayor Lewis was standing outside of. She tried to hang back towards the playground and not disturb him.

“Ah, farmer Luna. Funny to see you here.” He said.

So much for that. “Nice to see you too Mayor Lewis. What brings you out here?”

“Just contemplating this old building. JojaMart wants to purchase it, but I’ve forbidden it unless they get one more membership card holder.”

“Okay…” That was an odd stipulation, but she figured her had his reasons. “Why not spruce it up if you don’t want to sell it?”

“Don’t have the money.” He complained. “This used to be the town community center, it’s where all people of Pelican Town could come to if they needed work or resources. Now it’s a pile of wood. Would you like to come inside?”

“Sure.” She said reluctantly.

The insides weren’t much better than the outsides. The windows were covered in gunk and half of the floor was too dangerous to walk on from the splinters and nails. In the corner an old fish tank was too dangerous to go near due to the shattered glass littering the floor surrounding it. But none of that caught the Mayor’s eye quite like the small dirt hut in the other corner.

“Hmm, what is this...? I guess the kids snuck their way in. I’m going to have to update the newsletter so parents can warn their kids to stay away.”

Luna thought that was a very smart idea, she truly did, but she got distracted when a tiny, green apple poofed into existence behind the mayor. The mayor caught on to where her eyes were focusing on, but when he turned to look it disappeared.

“What are you looking at?”

“Oh, uh, I thought I saw something,” She tugged at the end of her hair, embarrassed.

“Don’t worry, this place is probably infested with rats,” He walked turned his back to check under a piece of floorboard for the supposed rat, therefor missing the second apple that popped up just behind him.

“Ah!” She yelled which made the mayor jump. He straightened up and scanned the floor, but by then the apple was once again gone.

“Saw another one did you.” He laughed, “Ah, I suppose that’s a good reason to leave. Wouldn’t want you to get ill from spending your time in this eyesore.”

Lewis left quickly, but she made some pitiful excuse to stick around so she could find those creatures again. The main room got a thorough picking over, then the pantry and the crafts room. She nearly died after she tripped while searching in the management office and the basement was too dark to see anything. None of these rooms revealed a magically appearing apple, but she did find a small, gold scroll in one of the rooms. The writing was strange, and she couldn’t decipher it so she kept it in the spot she found it. After some more fruitless searching she left and decided to try and forget about it all.

It was eleven when she arrived back home. WIth nothing to do until her boyfriends came back she chose to chop down a few trees, smash some rocks, and make an attempt at a preserves jar. They’d found the simple blueprint under the bed, but it took being creeped out in an old community center for her to attempt building one.

She worked on it until three when Prompto arrived just as she was finishing up the top. It wasn’t the most beautiful jar, but it stayed together when she picked it up and set it down.

“Niiiice.” Prompto said. “You actually made one. We should buy some stuff that would make good preserves.”

“Do you think people would purchase pickled cauliflower?” She joked.

“Rich people will pay out the nose for artisanal stuff Luna. We’ll just need to put organic, fair-trade in front of it.”

She wanted to rebut that, but she suddenly found that she couldn’t. Her last meal in Tenebrae before sneaking away had been non-gmo, organic rhubarb jam on whole wheat waffles with hand squeezed orange juice. She never thought that all of that stuff could’ve been made by a couple of incompetent farmers aiming to make more on their produce, but she supposed that half of the joy of running away was finding out something new.

“Let’s try to make more of these.” He continued. “Maybe make a keg or two too?”

“Sure.” It was at this point that she wanted to tell Prompto about the walking apples, but she held off. It was probably just her imagination. They had better things to worry about.

“Saw Noctis down at the river. He’s having a lot of fun fishing all day.” Prompto said as they headed on inside to watch the T.V.

“He’s gonna come back when he starts getting lonely. Or ask us to come down and watch him fish.”

“Probably. We’ll tag team it. Just sit behind him and grunt when he talks so he doesn’t know it.”

They laid in bed and watched Livin’ Off the Land until they both felt tired. It was an hour long special on how to build a scarecrow that Luna genuinely found interesting. She took mental notes then fell asleep very early afterwards.

The next day there only major source of income was Noctis’ fishing. It was a little lighter than the day before since Noctis didn’t catch a catfish, or really any fish of note, but for Luna the cash wasn’t nearly as interested as the mysterious letter she got in the mail.

I heard of your encounter the other day. Come to my tower if you wish to learn about these creatures further.

Wizard

Luna contemplated throwing the letter away and ignoring it. She did not want to go to some strange man’s home to talk about hallucinations. Unfortunately, she was a sensible person who knew better than to ignore something so strange.

“Guys.” She said. Prompto was counting how much they had while Noctis sat at the table trying to wake up. Neither of them turned to her but she knew she had their attention. “Yesterday in the community center I saw little creatures. I thought I was imagining them but this man says I wasn’t. Would you go with me to speak with him?”

Noctis looked very confused. “Uhm… when did you go to the community center?”

“Yesterday while you were fishing.”

“Oh…”

“Will you go or not?”

“We’ll go with you.” Prompto said, using that voice that he tended to use when he was trying to prevent her and Noctis from spiraling into a long debate as their political background dictated. “We should get new seeds planted first before things get too hot.”

All three of them quickly made the walk down to Pierre’s store. His daughter, Abigail, was up helping shelve seeds, but they didn’t stick around to chat too long. After filling up a bag with parsnips, potato, and kale seeds they headed back to the farm to plant each and every one in similarly long rows. The row closest to their home was full of potatoes then kale and finally parsnips. They watered each row with their broken watering cans until Prompto felt they were finished. At a quarter past noon they left their farm and traveled down through the forest to The Wizard’s home.

He hadn’t given any directions, but Prompto had explored the area the day before and knew where the tower was. It wasn’t too far of a walk for them, so they arrived quickly without getting lost.

They knocked twice, and when there was no answer Prompto suggested they leave. But then Noctis turned the handle to find it unlocked and after some debate they both convinced Prompto to enter.

The inside was not as dark or creepy as they expected. It was instead brightly lit with beautiful, hardwood floors and tall ceilings. A circle was carved into the floor at one end and a T.V stood near a wall. At the back there was a long bookshelf with a door in the center separating it into too. And in the center of it all stood The Wizard.

“So you got my letter.” He dramatically announced. “I am M. Rasmodius also known as The Wizard, Seeker of the arcane truths, mediary between the physical and ethereal, master of the seven elementals, keeper of the sacred cha-... nevermind.”

“Hello Mr. Rasmodius.” She replied nervously. The man was strange looking with a long robe and a big pointy hat. The outfit was so garish and chitzy that she thought the man was either tricking them or crazy.

“I have long foreseen your arrival.” He said. “Here let me show you something.”

Rasmodius waved his arms twice towards a circle engraved in the floor nearby. A flash of light and then the image of one of the creatures she saw was projected just a few feet away.

“Behold! You’ve seen one of these before.”

“Yes! See guys, that’s what I saw.”

“That’s not an apple that’s a blob Lu.” Noctis said.

“It looks kinda cute though.” Prompto said.

“They call themselves the Junimos.” The Wizard interrupted. “A race of nature spirits, they, unfortunately, refuse to speak with me.” He waved his arms and the image disappeared. “I don’t know why they’ve made their home in the center, but you have no reason to fear them.”

“You weren’t able to read the scroll either?” She asked.

“What scroll…?” Prompto muttered.

The Wizard seemed confused by this too. “There was a scroll? I will have to investigate this myself.”

In a flash of light he was gone, leaving them alone in his home.

“... Luna I think we should leave.” Prompto said. “This is freaky and I thought we all ran away to get away from stuff like this?”

“Yeah, we sh-...”

The front door opened and closed, The Wizard was back. They all immediately shut their mouths.

“I found the scroll you spoke of.” He said. “It was an obscure language, but I managed to decipher it. It read: We the Junimo are happy to aid you. In return we ask for gifts of the valley. If you are one with the forest then you will see the true nature of the scroll.”

“Cool.” Noctis said. “I guess we need to, like, go camping…”

“It is not so simple…” The Wizard began pacing across his apartment. “One with the forest…. Hmm.”

He approached his cauldron. “My cauldron bubbles with items of the forest can you smell it?”

“You bet we can.” Prompto said. “But I’m not going to drink that.”

“You must drink this. Let the essence of the forest permeate your body.” The Wizard filled a cup with the green juice and handed it to her.

Luna had major doubt about this, but one of the benefits of her bloodline was that she could expunge corruption from herself and others. If it was poisoned then she’d easily be able to save herself and her boyfriends. So she closed her eyes and took a big gulp.

It tasted bitter and earthy, which was at least what she expected. She handed it off to Noctis who quickly took a sip to get it over with before shoving the glass into Prompto’s hands.

“Luna please don’t make me drink this.”

“Prompto!”

He looked as if he were about to cry, but he soldiered on by plugging his nose and downed a mouthful. His skin took on a green hue after the fact, but he kept the contents down.

“Go forth and right what’s wrong.” The Wizard said before teleporting them all to his front porch. A quick test of the door showed that it was locked.

They were halfway home when the silence was finally broken.

“I can’t believe you made me drink some crazy dude’s protein smoothie.” Prompto complained.

“If we can figure out what these creatures want then it’s all worth it right?” She said.

Prompto didn’t look convinced. “It better, especially since I’m probably going to have the runs after this.”

[endawn]

but no pax really has a hard time after adamant if he was brought into the fade. he also!! doesn’t remember much after hitting solid ground in the fade. that’s when hunger starts to take hold / gather strength. he remembers doubling over in pain as he tries to fight back against the demon and how it felt like his body was turning inside out. how he clutched his sides so tight he dug into the leather of his armor as if he could possibly try to physically hold the demon back or keep himself from splitting open. his screams ringing in his own ears ( hunger’s laughter ). how he could feel his bones start to snap and pop, twisting and bending. skin ripping. a sudden numbing lull before being dragged into a consuming ocean of black ichor within his own mind. being devoured, drowning in it. he’d fight his way to the surface to see glimpses of his companions faces and hear broken voices only to get drawn under again. he’s terrified of the ocean and hunger specifically used this tactic to keep pax from finding any focus to anchor himself with. almost like how envy traps the inquisitor in their own mind if they go the templar path. only, pax didn’t have cole to help out. hunger relinquished control ( albeit not entirely willingly but nightmare was the bigger threat and they needed the crew to get out of that part of the fade ) only after stepping back into adamant. leaving pax a crumpled heap in front of the remaining wardens and inquisition soldiers. that’s where his memory picks back up. though, his body feels so wrong!! when he reverts back, his body no longer fits into place. joints out of sockets, muscles feel/are ripped, bones mangled, skin torn. skin feels raw; tender. yes, he recovers exceptionally fast due to his healing factor but it takes longer for everything to feel like it is where it’s supposed to be. his body doesn’t recognize itself as a whole; fragmented pieces trying to find where they belong. sometimes he can work everything back in place, sometimes it sorts itself out. it takes time. and that’s physically. mentally? he feels so much guilt and shame over it. not being strong enough to hold hunger back. almost killing and eating his companions; friends. lover. they finally saw him for the monster he truly is.

[friendlyphantom]

SeptiScape Review

Last night I finally got around to playing Septiscape, which is a JSE fan game I heard about on GameJolt. I managed to finish the whole thing, and I would like to share my thoughts and feelings on the game. Since this review will be containing SPOILERS, the review proper will be under the page break. For those of you that have not played it and intend to, I suggest you do so now before you read my review. If you have already finished playing it, or are not interesting in playing it, feel free to read on.

 First, let’s start off with the game’s premise. The story is that Jack’s egos live inside his mind, in a fictional world. Here, the characters have their own lives and personalities, but aren’t necessarily the same as they are presented in Jack’s videos. Anyways, Anti ends up turning evil after being given a special serum by Dr. Schneeplestein, and proceeds to corrupt the other egos, take over Jack’s body, and imprison Jack within his mind. Thankfully, Chase saves Jack and the two team up with the other egos to set things right.

The game deals with a lot of personal stuff, like self-doubt, insecurity, and so on. Needless to say, this isn’t a game for the lighthearted. That said, if you can deal with this kind of stuff, it is a pretty fun RPG. You get to play as Jack, Chase, Henrik, Jackieboy Man, and Marvin. They all get unique moves and classes – for example, Dr. Schneep serves as the team’s white mage, and can heal teammates as well as poison enemies.

Now to get into what I liked, what I didn’t like, and what was just baffled me.

 What I liked: The game overall was pretty good! I love all the references to the video games Jack has played. I liked how Chad the Puppet appeared as the merchant, and how items like Banana Milk and Pineapple on Pizza appeared as consumables. It really showed how much attention the game’s developers put into making this game. The part with the “To Be continued” meme was hilarious, and I couldn’t help but laugh when it showed up.

 I also liked that saving with Gerald allowed you to restore your MP and HP. It really came in handy when I was level grinding, not to mention the different flavour texts for Gerald were cute.

 Overall, the music rocked. I especially liked the creepy music when we were in the Overwatch building, which is BTW, my fav level in the game.

 The gameplay itself was awesome. I don’t have any complaints about the mechanics of the game. I thought they were easy to understand and use. The puzzles weren’t too hard. Overall, the game was fun to play.

 What I didn’t like: TBH, I thought Jack’s characterization was a bit off in this game. In the game, Jack’s problem that he keeps trying to push the “evil” label onto Anti (despite the fact it was made clear he got corrupted) and keeps pushing his ideas of what the egos are like despite the fact it’s clear they are their own people in the mindscape. This part had me scratching my head here, because in one of Jack’s videos, he said that while he did have his own head cannons for each of the egos, he didn’t want to share too much, because he knew the fans each had their own interpretation of the characters and didn’t want to take that away from them. It just seemed not like him to act that way in the game. It might also have to do we the fact that I finished playing The Boss earlier this month, which I thought did a better job of getting Jack’s personality right.

 Another thing I had issues with – after you defeat Angus you get a choice which either nets you the good ending or the bad ending. I admittedly got thrown for a loop here - because the wording in the game was vague, I ended up getting the bad ending at first, by mistake. I didn’t realize choosing the “Defend Yourself” option would get me the bad ending, since I thought Jack would just block Angus’ attack, not kill him. Maybe I was just being obtuse here, but I really would have appreciated it if the choices had been worded more clearly.

What confused me: So the big twist is that Anti actually used to be Angus before being forgotten by Jack, and turned into Anti and forgot his old identity or merged with Anti to save himself. I am not really sure which one. But there is also a good Anti and a bad Anti, which are the good and bad halves of Anti/Angus, which doesn’t clear things up. I might have to replay the end part again to clarify if they were always the same person or not.

 The game also states the reason the plot all started was because Angus absorbed the “bad” part of Anti into him – so if he had absorbed the “good” half, would nothing had happened, or would the evil half go running amok in the mindscape causing havoc?

Also, the games states Angus “died” because Jack forgot about him, but seeing how there are still fans that still remember him, and make fan works out of him, shouldn’t that have been enough to save him? The game did state that egos needed to be remembered by the fans as well, so I thought that would have done something.

Also, how did Jack not recognize Robbie? He discussed Robbie at Pax once, when talking about how the fans made egos out of everything. Also, when you consider how popular Robbie is online, Jack not recognizing him really doesn’t make sense at all.

 Overall, I would give the game 3.5 stars out of five. It was a good game, but like I said, there were things I thought needed improving. I am not sure if I will play the game again, but if I do, it will be awhile before I replay it. I do admit however, that when the sequel comes out, I do plan on playing it.

[askbittyerror]

Character list

Bitties:

Current Shop Residents

Error- Error Bitty. Likes chocolate and is gay for Jay. May or may not let you pet him. Has essentially adopted Pax. Adoptable. Description More accurate appearance

Jay- Winged Underswap Sans Bitty, otherwise known as a Baby Bird bitty. Is Luke’s brother. Likes meat and is gay for Error. Will let you pet him. Taller than Error. Adoptable. Appearance and description. 

Luke- Bat winged Underswap Papyrus Bitty, otherwise known as a Little Devil. Is Jay’s brother. Like cherries and is dating Zack. Will let you pet him. Appearance

Zack- Underfell Sans Bitty, otherwise known as an Edgy. Likes peppers and is dating Luke. Will let you pet him, but may bite you a bit.

Ink- Ink bitty. Flamboyant Memelord. Loves pets and any kind of affection. Adoptable. Appearance and Description. Bonus. Important information.

Paladin- Dreamswap Dream Bitty. Is confused and angered by most things. Is totally gay for Bard. Adoptable. Appearance and Description and bonus

Magnus- Dreamswap Nightmare Bitty. Salty. Adoptable Appearance and Description

Rogue- Dreamswap Blueberry Bitty. Tiny evil gremlin. Currently crashed so hard his entire personality has been rewritten. Adoptable. Appearance and description

Fresh- Winged Fresh Bitty. Rogue’s buddy. Appearance Parasitic appearance

Nightshade- Corrupted Nightmare Bitty. Generally grumpy. Probably won’t bite unless provoked but will break your fingers if you get too grabby. Appearance

Thistle: Dream Sans Bitty. Less of a beacon of positivity and more of a puddle of indifference. 100% done with everything ever. Brother and partner of Nightshade. Appearance

Gryph: Winged Undertale Sans Bitty. Was once possessed by Fresh. Jay’s father. Has children with Ghost.

Drake: Bat winged Undertale Papyrus Bitty. Gryph’s brother. Appearance and injuries.

Jack: A Blueberror. Not actually a bitty, just a small swap sans that was blueberrored the canon way. Appearance

Bitties owned by Anya

Char: Fireroyal grillbitty. Catlike. Guards the store and Is mated to Anya. Will let you pet him.

Rammy: A Underswap Asgore bitty. Lives in and cares for the garden outside the center.

Ex: A Cross Lust bitty. Suffering from an eating disorder and likes to dress up. Appearance

Marble: Ghost’s daughter. An adult, but rather small for her age. Brought back from the dead by M!A. Feisty, curious and fascinated by new things. Appearance

Void: A unique bitty. Very childish, naive and impressionable. Likes strawberries. Appearance

Argo: A outertale Sans merbitty. Appearance

Bitties Owned by Zo

Pale: Pale bitty. Consumes creative works for emotions. Entirely dead inside. Appearance

Bard- Dreamswap Ink Bitty. Salty Memelord. Gay for Paladin. Appearance

Aria: Error and Jay’s Daughter. Appearance (child, now grown)

Bitties owned by Dame

Piccolo- Underfell Papyrus Merbitty. Likes gardening. Is mated to Viola. Appearance

Viola- Swapfell Sans Merbitty. Loves jewelry and being spoiled. Bites. Is mated to Piccolo. Non-binary, prefers male pronouns. Appearance

Hemlock- Horror Sans Bitty.  May full on bite, may just nibble. Don’t touch his head. Appearance

Zenith- A Crystal-souled Paladin bitty. Appearance

Bitties owned by Durva

Freya: Undertale Toriel Bitty. Oftentimes the only thing keeping Durva from ripping your throat out. A therapy bitty.

Bitties owned by Moose

Bear: Four foot tall Blaster Error from the times of the Aztecs. Skeleton form

Prey: Fresh Parasite with a preference for large Nightmare bitties. Appearance

Storm: About two and a half feet of Corrupted Nightmare. Appearance

Moon: Four inches of Uncorrupted Nightmare. Star’s brother.

Star: Four inches of Dream. Moon’s brother.

Jam: Fresh bitty with a preference for smaller bitties.

BItties “owned” by Huitzi

Dawn/Dusk: A unusual Dream bitty. Dawns Appearance

Finley: A blind Dream. From the Village.

Lucas: A deaf Dream. From the Village.

Oreo- A Magnus. Has a dead brother named Hershey. Appearance From the Village.

Arthur: A Dream bitty. Experiences frequent hallucinations. Appearance FRom the Village.

Temper: A Corrupted NIghtmare. Arthur’s brother.

Bitties owned by miscellaneous people

Group 1

Elisus (Eli)- Dreamswap Cross Bitty. Protective of Pax. Reference

Pax- Dreamswap Error Bitty. Easily spooked. Love pets and cuddles. Appearance

Template: Template Sans Bitty. Excitable boy. Let him know before touching him. Appearance

Group 2

Mercury: A slighty short corrupted Nightmare. Appearance Bonus and size reference (top left, Jabber 7 inches tall for scale)

Domino: A corrupted Nightmare with a blob of white on his cheek. From the Village.

Licorice: A corrupted Nightmare who is more purple than teal. From the Village.

Jabber: Nex’s brother. An uncorrupted Nightmare. Headshot. Full body sans circlet (on bottom left) From the Village.

Gold: Mercury’s brother. A very small Paladin. 

Beryl: A baby blue. Was Gold and Mercury’s caregiver for a long time and is considered a older sibling.

Group 3

(all grown, only child appearances drawn at this time)

Sunset and Starlight: Two headed Snake-Bird bitty. Daughters of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Mist: Snake-Bird bitty. Daughter of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Jubilee, Catalin and Camelot: Snake-bird triplets. Sons of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Tropic: Snake-Bird bitty. Likes to yell. Daughter of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Capri and Cameo: Snake-Bird twins. Paladin adores them. Cameo likes to climb. Son and Daughter of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Calico: Snake-Bird bitty. Easily startled. Daughter of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Opal: Snake-Bird bitty. Loves hugs and protects Calico. Son of Ghost and Gryph. Appearance

Harlequin: Snake-Bird bitty. Like throwing things/being thrown SAFELY. Daughter of Gryph and Ghost. Appearance

Joshua: Old host of Cheddar. A blank bitty tainted by Fresh magic. Ghost cares for him. Appearance

Group ?

Bubble: A bara baby blue. About the size of a teddy bear. Cuddly.

Moira: Undertale Undyne Bitty. Aggressively affectionate.

Bitties Adopted out of the shop by their Asker

Sometimesanartdragon

Lavender: Gaster Blaster Underswap Sans Bitty. Mel’s original brother. Brought back from the dead. Skeleton Appearance Blaster Appearance

Mel- Underswap Papyrus Bitty. Formerly known as Honey. Has a very negative past with Rogue and is a reformed Asshole. Had a horrific head wound and symptoms of a TBI. Relearning many things.  Appearance and Injury

Dusty- Dusttale Sans Lamia Bitty. Likes bitter foods and eating small live animals. Loves being pet. Venomous. Appearance

Ghost- Dusttale Papyrus Lamia Bitty. Likes fruit gummies. Is terrified of touch. Non-venomous. His skull is cracked, he’s missing his left arm and two fingers on his right hand. Is mated to Gryph and has children. Appearance and Bonus

Blake (named Anon)

Nex: A dream bitty. Reanimated. From the Village. Appearance (on bottom right) 

Seven: A mated pair fused into one Blaster bitty. 

Stray Bitties

Sweet: Fresh’s daughter. A young parasite. Emotionless and currently possessing a blank. Appearance

Cheddar: Fresh’s son. A young parasite. Emotionless and currently possessing a blank. Brought back by M!A after being tortured to death by Rogue. Appearance

Mar: A Reaper Sans bitty. Has a passion for necromancy and is just a little bit demented. Don’t ask where he gets his supplies. Appearance

Atemba: Once human, was executed and resurrected into a bitty body. Mar’s previous owner and Momma.

Geno: Geno bitty. Salty, doesn’t trust biggies. Appearance

Periwinkle: Crystal-souled Corrupted Nightmare bitty. Zenith’s brother. Appearance

Bitties from Dame’s Rehabilitation Center

Aimi: A Frisk bitty. They/them. Appearance

Roo: A Horrortale Papyrus Bitty. Appearance

Darling: An Asriel bitty. Very sweet unless someone tries to leave his side. Appearance

Meatball: A Sansy. An alcoholic and generally apathetic. Appearance

Gil: A Dust Lust Sans. Kind of an ass. A naturally born lust, is on experimental treatments to cure or at least suppress his condition. But as a side effect, instead of getting horny, he just gets angry.

Missy: A very chipper Chara. Speaks dog. (from the Village) Appearance

Min: A very brave Chara. (from the Village)

Blink: A rather tall Chara. (from the Village)

Once bitties

Huitzilopochtli (Huitzi): A ten foot four Paladin who was convinced he was a god reborn. Has since been rehabilitated. From the time of the Aztecs and over five-hundred years old. Has accumulated enough power to be considered something beyond a bitty. Appearance. Proof the mun is thirsty. 

Alternate Multiverse Folk

Flare- Much older Huitzi from another multiverse. Very big (can go from 384ft to 32ft to 7ft) and very powerful. Heavily unstable, functionally immortal with an absurd amount of LOVE and determination. Appearance

Umbra- Human Nightmare, Flare’s adopted son. Very weak

Morris- A big old pile of what the fuck that basically amounts to several million errors shoved into a weird goop sack and shaken around by a batshit Ink for roughly five-hundred years. Bonded to Mo. Eldritch monstrosity. Consists of several groupings of souls working as one cohesive being.

Parts of Morris

Green- 

Biggies (full sized monsters, humans, askers, etc.):

Moose: Dame’s Adopted son. Current owner of the shop. Entirely composed of anxiety.

Anya (Underswap Zoteara): Fluffy dog monster. Owned the adoption center. Appearance

Zo (Undertale Zoteara): Fluffy dog monster. Anya’s Undertale counterpart. Owns Ink, Paladin, Magnus and Template. Was in the royal guard before the barrier fell. Head-shot Appearance, Full body appearance

Dame (Swapfell Zoteara): Fluffy dog monster. Owns Nightshade and Hemlock. Runs a bitty rescue organization, loves children and controls most of the city. Some of her other business practices are… Questionable. Has a fondness for poisons. Appearance

Durva (Underfell Zoteara): Fluffy dog monster. More scruffy than anything. Knows people. Owns Freya.

Ochi: Currently bitty sized deer. Responsible for many, many bitty deaths and is a generally terrible person. Appearance

Gael: Ochi’s brother-in-law. Single father and generally dead inside.

Mēsti: Human, helps out Dame sometimes.

Assorted:

Bitey: Female Pirahna. Viola’s pet. 

Kai: Male ferret. Pax’s buddy.

Kevin: Male chick. Pax’s buddy.

Crayon: Female Leopard Gecko. Pax’s buddy.

K: Male squirrel. Error’s buddy.

If you want to find out more about a specific character, search for their name and ‘info’ on the blog. Example: ‘Rogue Info’ 

[captainbaneberry]

Maaaan but I've gotten really bad at this.... tfp megop, obsession/resistance? 🙇 also you can shoot something back at me, I WILL MAKE AN ATTEMPT.

You don’t need to write me anything in return! :D Experimented with this one a little bit–on the angsty side, takes place after episode… God, I don’t remember. The episode where Optimus gets amnesia. This isn’t nearly as smutty, but there is still smut, so!

Deffo got inspiration from Colors by Hasley for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGulAZnnTKA

Megatron realizes, with a sinking feeling like his spark dropping into acid, that this is it. There are no do-overs. There are no third chances. As Orion Pax–Optimus–regains his memories, the Autobot leader looks at Megatron with hatred so raw and powerful it shoots down his backstrut and temporarily immobilizes him. His own rage suddenly gone, nothing but emptiness and sadness, because this had always been too good to be true.

There were more than tactical reasons Megatron chose to keep Optimus alive. No, he was Orion again. Orion Pax, a young librarian, a surprisingly intelligent but equally naive mech with a bleeding spark. Megatron ripped out that spark, again and again, but somehow it feels like Optimus had his under his boot now. For information, for data, for leverage over the Autobots–for pitiful, despicable nostalgia, for feelings he long thought lost but resurfaced the moment he looked in Optimus’s eyes and knew–this was it. Another chance.

But things are always too good to be true. Megatron has learned this the hard way, all of his life. You cannot except the world to be fair. You fight and claw and tear and destroy everything until it’s yours. Nothing is ever truly given.

Orion Pax once was, Megatron knows. Orion who once loved Megatronus, and didn’t see him as a monster–as lower class, war-mongering filth only good for fighting and entertaining the privileged. He gave Megatronus his love freely–and Megatronus, for the first time of many, ripped it apart.

Megatron watches in his stunned silence as Optimus escapes with his teammates. Noises turn shallow, buzzing around him, colors blur and bleed into something dim and dark and ashen gray. He hears the Vehicons, asking what they want their Master to do, ready to throw themselves into the line of fire at his word. But their voices, too, are distant, as is the past that had been forcefully dragged into the present, if only for a short time.

Images flash through Megatron’s CPU. Memories; their sounds, their colors, he can see and hear perfectly. Like they’re happening right in front of him, all new and unknown. All of these memories recycle in a matter of seconds, but inside the loneliness of his mind, they last what feels like hours.

The first time Megatronus took Orion to bed. He never wanted to be gentle in his life–not until Orion. But he tried, and for the most part, he succeeded. Orion venting and quivering in his arms as he thrust inside his needy channel. It fit so perfectly–it’s so cliche, he remembers thinking, but it’s true. It’s all true. So are the songs, so are the butterflies, so are all those pesky reminders of being deeply in love with someone you’re practically always walking on air.

Orion assures him he doesn’t need to hold back, not so much. He’s not fragile, he reminds Megatronus with a soft laugh and smile. He can handle pressure, and he’s not afraid of Megatronus breaking him.

What a horrible mistake.

Megatronus believed Orion was telling the truth. Love blinds a person, so they say, so Orion–who once looked so small and meek and humble when they first met and shook hands–is now imposing, powerful, strong in his own ways that Megatronus knows he can never quite be. Not in the same way; not on the same wavelength.

This is dangerous, Megatronus thinks, blue optics wide as he scans the pliant body beneath him, this can kill me. He can kill me.

Well, not quite yet. Orion, no, but Optimus was most definitely trying.

A new memory. Kissing, something deep and sensual, something that twists and turns in Megatronus’s tanks. Orion’s smaller mouth, his adorable tongue; he tries not to bite, and when he does, Orion just smirks, lips curving against his, and playfully scolds him. Later he would bite back. It’s a lovely view of Iacon, but Orion preoccupies most of his attention; the way the smaller bot wiggles in his lap as he fucks him on his fingers. He can take quite a lot, Megatronus finds, and it only makes him hungrier.

This moment could last forever. That would be okay.

Orion shudders as he overloads on his fingers. He has such an adorable little cry when he climaxes. Megatronus thinks about it late at night in his shabby excuse for shelter, optics powered off and stroking himself to completion. Orion follows him into his fantasies and his dreams, and Megatronus sometimes wakes startled.

This is dangerous.

Megatronus liked dangerous. But only if the odds were with him. Orion has an amazing poker face, and what feels like a nice hand of cards.

Up against the alley wall, Orion biting down on his hand to stifle the noises. There’s a group of people only twenty or so feet away. He’s embarrassed, but my goodness, how wet he is. Megatronus teases him, his deep voice tickling the back of his neck; one hand braced to the wall, another on Orion’s hip. Fucking him hard, making sure every thrust gradually broke down Orion’s barriers until he eventually overloaded screaming his name for the whole damn city to hear.

Megatronus, victorious, turning to the crowds of fans screaming and cheering in the stadium seats. He has his hands in the air, he’s laughing, triumphant, and the people can’t get enough. He spots Orion in his usual seat, always close to the arena but never close enough to risk getting hit with energon or spilled fluids. Even sandwiched and surrounded by howling and jumping fans, the little glitch is fondling himself. He looks calm, but Megatronus can tell–the flushed optics, the way his shoulders stiffen, how he bites and chews his bottom lip. One hand between his legs, moving ever so slightly, and how many fingers is he using? All of them? He’s probably so desperate–five fingers isn’t enough. Orion sinks forward, mouthing something–I need you, and Megatronus laughs because isn’t this wonderful, isn’t this beautiful? The world is all his.

The last time they interface is days before their fall. It’s quiet, it’s quick, it’s awful. They’re both harboring darkness, secrets and visible disappointments. They’re pulling apart at the seams, and neither will stand down. Orion knows the violence growing inside Megatronus will soon consume him. Megatronus knows Orion’s oversized spark will be his undoing. But neither expected to be the one to take the other out–Megatronus would gladly die in the battlefield, win or lose. Orion would gladly die defending innocent lives who didn’t even know his name, and most likely wouldn’t care after some time had passed.

“I’m so tired,” Megatronus grumbles, sitting on the edge of the slab.

“Me too,” Orion murmurs, perched on the other end of the bed. Backs facing one another.

“We can’t go back to sleep.”

“Not anymore, no.”

That’s a lie. Orion slept and he woke, so many years later, and Megatronus is not the Megatronus he quite remembers or thought he knew. But he’s awake now, and Megatron intends to keep him awake. Even if it means blinding him in darkness.

Too good to be true. The world catches up to Megatron and he screams. He’s going to kill Optimus Prime, he decides. Optimus took Orion from him, and now he knows, definitely and forever, Megatron will never get him back.

[un-enfant-immature]

Amid mounting concerns around vaping cannabis, entrepreneurs say regulators need to step up

As a concerns over the safety of vaping products for cannabis sweeps across the country, executives in the industry are passing the buck to regulators to come up with a solution.

The need for national regulation touches everything from how to bank cannabis businesses to how to manage the distribution of cannabis products, but the pain is most acute as vaping related illnesses sweep the United States.

To date, the CDC has recorded roughly 1,080 lung injury cases associated with using e-cigarette, or vaping products in 48 states and 1 U.S. territory. According to the agency, 18 deaths have been confirmed in 15 states, so far. And most of those patients report a history of using THC-containing products.

“I want the CDC and the regulatory bodies that are actually looking into the case to kind of investigate those causes and come back,” said Bharat Vasan, the former chief executive officer at Pax Labs, a marijuana vaporizer manufacturer,  speaking onstage at Disrupt San Francisco 2019. Vasan declined to address whether Pax Labs products could be considered 100% safe. “I think that’s a good question for the company,” said the former chief executive who had worked for Pax for over a year.

Both Vasan, who now runs a consumer and cannabis focused investment firm, Yellow Dog Ventures, and Eaze and Wayv founder Keith McCarty, think that more regulation would fuel growth and provide more stability for a market that’s already the fastest growing industry in the United States.

“It’s like the final stage of prohibition,” says Vasan. “It’s ending but it’s ending state by state by state for cannabis.”

New bills like the SAFE Act, which recently passed the House of Representatives, would allow national banks to work with cannabis companies. The lack of access to appropriate financial services has been one source of friction in the U.S. cannabis industry. Although it hasn’t stopped any number of entrepreneurs like Vasan, McCarty and others from launching businesses to serve the industry.

Still, it’s a bit of a scary time for many executives in the industry. Bruce Linton was ousted at Canopy Growth, and chief operating officer Ben Cook and General Counsel Lisa Sergi Trager, resigned from MedMen Enterprises. And there’s still a potentially toxic cloud of vapor hanging over the industry in the form of additives and chemicals that have been linked to wave of lung illnesses that swept through the country over the past year, according to the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control. From

Despite the headwinds for vaping, America is clearly becoming cannabis country. “It still happens to be the fastest growing industry in the world,” McCarty said. And even though venture capital investors can’t invest into the industry directly, the ancillary services, products,  and logistic requirements to build a fully functioning, mature industry, represents a significant opportunity for entrepreneurs.

“The market and the population is saying through sentiment that we want this,” said McCarty “[And] this industry continues to move in the right direction… up and to the right.”

At the same time, McCarty also sees the need for more government regulation to move the industry fully into the realm of legitimate, regulated enterprises and rid cannabis of the grey and black market operators that have far more freedom to sell harmful products, thanks to their under-the-table operations.

“We have three times as many illicit dispensaries as we do ones that are legal in the state of California,” says McCarty. “And what the voters voted in is safe access. Safe access is about availability of access points to be able to receive and consume cannabis based on the law and regulations.”

Ultimately, McCarty sees the support for the continuing integration of cannabis products as legal medical and recreational options as something that should have bi-partisan support.

“Our government should be looking at voter sentiment and the population . . . is overwhelmingly in support of cannabis  . . .well beyond that for medical and even for for recreational . . . so it’s probably one of the… only items on the agenda, too, that is bipartisan, like truly supported by parties,” McCarty says. “I’m talking about putting money towards schools, books, education as opposed to all the illicit things that we’re trying to break away from, like the illicit sale of things that you know that may be harming people from a health and wellness perspective.”

[thatonegirrl16]

The Awakening of A̴n͜t̫̞̹͉i̡

Okay soo hi friends! I wrote a thing and I’m pretty proud of it, and I wanted to share it with you guys. It’s basically the story of how Anti came to be in Jack’s life, starting last year (2016), and going through Halloween, the Detention series, and PAX East (2017). I hope you guys enjoy it!

PART 1

April 13th, 2016

“But thank you guys so much for watching! If you liked it, PUNCH that like button in the face, LIKE A BOSS. And high fives all around…*whapish* *whapish* But thank you guys and I will see all you dudes…IN THE NEXT VIDEO!”

Jack leaned back in his chair, and let out a relieved sigh. It was 4:00 am, he realized. He hoped his loud yelling and screaming hadn’t woken up the neighbors. Foam padding can only do so much.

It had been a long day of recording. Prepping for PAX East is exhausting; it isn’t easy to record and edit four videos every day. He’d started looking for an editor, but no one so far had seemed quite right for the job.

Jack started shutting everything down so he could head downstairs for bed. As much as he hated sleep, he sure was excited to get into bed tonight. He was exhausted. His exhaustion left him a bit on edge and well, irritable, to say the least. Which, for someone as upbeat and joyful as Jack, isn’t often the case. He tried to avoid any negativity at all costs, as it made him uncomfortable and self-conscious about himself.

He began walking downstairs, when the lights started flickering. “Strange,” he thought, but didn’t really think twice about it. He was too tired to really care. All he could think about was his bed. His warm, comfortable bed, with Signe already asleep in it.

He got downstairs and headed into the bathroom. As he walked past the mirror, he noticed…something. “The fuck??” He looked in the mirror once more. It took all his willpower to not scream. His reflection was…glaring back at him, as if it were judging his every move. And while it resembled him, it obviously wasn’t him. This version of himself seemed to defy all laws. It was like Jack was watching a screen, as the figure would occasionally glitch. It’s eyes were pitch black, as if they themselves had consumed darkness.

After a few seconds, the bathroom lights started flickering rapidly. Before he could process what was happening, Jack’s body was thrown back against the wall, and pain like he had never experienced before surged through him. He couldn’t scream, or move. He couldn’t do anything but lay up against the wall, enduring a horrific pain that he couldn’t describe other than as if his own body was tearing itself apart.

And then it stopped, as if nothing had happened. There were no longer any traces of pain, or any signs that it had occurred in the first place. He shakily stood up, feeling tears roll down his face. He took a deep breath and looked in the mirror and…there was only his reflection, his normal reflection.

What the hell just happened? He couldn’t have hallucinated that, right? He was pretty tired, but can a person hallucinate…whatever the hell he just experienced? He sat on the edge of the bathtub and tried to calm down. He was surprised that Signe didn’t wake up after everything that just happened, if it even really happened. She was only one room over. Then again, he couldn’t really scream out for help.

He took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom to head to bed. He curled up beside Signe for comfort, and tried to fall asleep. His mind couldn’t stop thinking about the horrors he just experienced. It was too bizarre to even begin to contemplate. Eventually, exhaustion won over, and Jack finally was able to doze off.

So yeah! I’ll be posting the other parts soon, maybe one or two later tonight. PLEASE let me know what you guys think! I love feedback, whether it be good or bad! I can’t wait to share the rest of the story with you guys!

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8