#(the quality is butchered otherwise)

[nabaath-areng]

Hopletar ur gräsets rosiga bädd sin prydnad och små behag,

[ghcstao3]

somehow, drunk one night, soap and gaz get onto the topic of gay awakenings, and soap recounts how his was just so out of the blue and so mundane that he just has to remember it, even after all these years.

he’d been fifteen, stuck in that teenager’s anxious, self-conscious mindset, especially concerning his sexuality. one summer, his family takes a trip to visit relatives in manchester, and while on the hunt for quality food to make for dinner, soap had gotten dragged into a butcher’s shop because he really had no say otherwise—and that’s when and where he figured everything out.

the tall boy behind the counter, obviously a few years older than soap at the time, had immediately caught soap’s eye. he couldn’t stop staring, head over heels in that juvenile sort of crush way, and in debating whether the thoughts churning in his head were wants to be him or be with him, that’s how soap figures out he likes men.

so imagine soap’s surprise when—after plenty of hardship and slowly falling for his lieutenant—he discovers that it was ghost, of all people, all those years ago, who had been the reason soap was able to figure out his sexuality. all this time, and all it had taken was ghost to pull off his mask once for soap’s memory to resurface.

funny how the world works.

(and not so funny when he reveals this information to ghost. it’s going to be held over soap’s head forever.)

[crazy-lazy-elder-sims]

remember my project "turn forgotten hollow into a vampire night life district"

well after taking alil break i went in and finalized the exterior of the buildings and i love them let me share them with you guys aaah ( i will make official posts for each building with lore once i get the interiors done) tumblr butchers the preview quality so to view HQ images open the image

so first up the biggest and oldest exclusive invite only : Club Fang

next up is a very well known club among the goths and alternatives built in the 80's : COVVIN ( get it its both coven and coffin hehe )

next is : The LOVE XHURCH! one of of the newest additions a love club (iykyk )

then the mysterious castle on the hill! rumor has it its not a club but super exclusive parties happen there and you would have to know a guy that knows a guy that knows the owner in order to get in otherwise dont even dream about it

and lastly the brand new :Club Haven! the newest competition in town owned by the Vatore siblings its fairly new but very exclusive and hard to get into but if you are looking for something new and fresh this is the "safe haven" for you

im waiting on tool to update so i can fix up the street but im gonna start on their interiors soon!

[telestoapologist]

uh. ok? apparently they never uploaded.

woe, bad color edits that only appeal to ME be upon ye

ok I just posted like two pics in one post of sav, my internet isn’t working, so if you’re suddenly barraged by endless pics, i’m so fucking sorry

[lauras-happy-place]

I experimented with fur. I— might need to practice it more. But otherwise I think I made my boy look handsome c:

Click for better quality I think, cuz Tumblr butchers most of my images…

[perpetualproductions]

Just watched EP 7 of The Boys (S4).

(spoilers. Obv.)

Jesus Christ. Things are getting proper serious. Lol. Like, I know Eric has already said on multiple occasions that the end of season 4 isn't gonna be good (not as in quality or anything but as in the state of that world). If you don't know, he's described it as "what would happen if trump was elected". And Jesus, idk about you but personally, that sounds terrifying. So yeah, I know the good guys aren't gonna win (hardly ever do). In fact, the bad guys will actually be winning this time. I mean, we're going full fascist police state. Mass hysteria, thought police, internment camps. Truly terrible thing. So yeah, I'm scared, to say the least, for all the characters I like in this world. And the end of S4 is leading directly into S2 of Gen V, so yeah, this is gonna be full dystopia, I fear.

Either way, as much as this is meant to be a satire and a flip on the superhero genre as a whole, I need some hope here, lol. Some light at the end of this tunnel, for the sake of everyone. This world has been terrible at every turn, and I understand that it's a commentary on our own. A mirror. But it's slowly becoming a straight up replica on how our own world is falling apart. Great. Awesome. How about we end The Boys on a note of hope? Season 5 is the last season. It's putting an end to the main story of Butcher vs. Homelander. (Personally, I think it needs to end with both of them dead). But yeah, I think it should also end in a world that isn't actively burning, but the ruins that are left. Something to build from. Hope for a genuinely better world. It's gonna be hard and take a long time, but it's still possible. Ya know?

Idk, I'm rambling. Literally just finished the episode and it had me thinking too much, lol. This is just a thought dump/ vent of some sort. Just cause I know the finale is gonna be depressing as fuck. Trying to mentally prepare here, lol.

Otherwise, great episodes. Made me feel things and think things and that may as well be the goal at the end, lol.

(why so many lols? I use humor to cope. Lol.)

Have a good day people. Hold on to hope. Especially when you feel like there isn't any.

[crimsoncold]

Current thoughts on HOTD

(i.e. the disappointment, the choice not to hate watch the show, and my continued appreciation for the fandom itself)

So I'm admittedly done with the show itself... I can tolerate quite a bit of lackluster writing when I love the concept or certain characters enough- seriously I watched all of the original 9 seasons of the x files (+ the films) even when it had pretty much abandoned the monster of the week format I loved, got extremely convoluted in terms of its plot/conspiracies, and most of the original cast wasn't even around anymore- but sometimes a show declines in quality so much I'm too discouraged to want to continue watching.

S1 already had issues but the inconsistencies in plot/messages/characterization and the strange changes writer's have made to the source material in S2 all sort of converged to make a show that is ultimately not just generally disappointing but now is outright unimpressive and unwatchable (side note i feel so bad for the cast they're working their ass off and the writer's are just giving them literal garbage).

I'm just not a person who really enjoys hate watching stuff? Like no judgement if you want to continue watching or if you do choose to hate watch- do what makes you happy- it's just not something I personally would choose to spend my time on- if a show doesn't even interest me to begin with or nothing about a show makes me happy anymore I'm not going to watch it. (With many of the better shows out there getting unfortunately canceled so quickly I'd rather spend my time watching enjoyable shows while they are still around- I know I'm just one viewer and likely I make zero difference in the scheme of things but I just don't want to be part of a viewership that encourages studios to cancel well written but less popular shows and continue with the poorer quality shows because hate/outrage inspired so much viewership... I think it's just that this business practice pisses me off enough that I don't want to be a part of it or reminded of it)

So for HOTD I'm not personally continuing with the show I'm just going to rely on the braver souls in this fandom to show me how crazy things get - at this point it feels like for my sanity there is nothing left to do but laugh at how bad these showrunners are ruining their story/characters and otherwise just move on and watch other things.

When it comes to fandom side of things well I'll quote myself from a different hotd post for a moment..."disappointing or poorly written shows are not without their appeal for participating in fandom (i.e. making, viewing, or sharing the art, writing, metas, or other content inspired by the show) particularly when there is a handful of interesting characters (looking at you book/S1 HOTD's team green) that fans want to rescue from the terrible writing/butchering by the showrunners ... sometimes it is even one of the most appealing sort of set ups for fandom to take over and fix things."

So I will absolutely continue to appreciate the general efforts of HOTD fandom (writers, artists, gif makers, etc.) and I will continue to seek out/like/reblog/comment on fan works as well as the many well thought out/eloquent metas and write ups fans put out about this show.

To paraphrase once again from one of my other hotd post "The juxtaposition between how underwhelming and juvenile the showrunner's storytelling choices are compared to how eloquently fans interpret, analyze, deconstruct, criticize or even defend the show and it's characters is absolutely wild...a not insignificant amount of hotd fandom puts in more time, effort, and thought into hotd than ANY of the showrunners/writers."

While I was admittedly intrigued by select characters of hotd my desire and decision to participate in hotd fandom really came down to the amazing efforts of fans who analyzed the show, wrote incredible metas on it's characters, and who made their own transformative stories and art based on hotd.

So in conclusion I'm done with watching the show, I hate everything the showrunners are choosing to do (the audience deserved a better story/show), I feel so bad for the cast and wish the characters hadn't been massacred by these writers (Alicent, Aemond, Helaena, Aegon, and the rest of team green all deserved better writing, i.e. consistent and coherent characterization or you know getting time on screen/together in general, all characters deserved better than being reduced to props for this strange pro targ/pro Rhaenyra storyline the showrunners have made up, hell even Rhaenyra herself deserved better writing),

I will continue to think about the "what ifs" that come up around this ... (what this story and these characters could have become in the hands of better writers) and I will always still appreciate/comment on and reblog fandom efforts themselves (whether you continue to participate in hotd fandom or are done with it just know that even though the writer's suck and the show has just gotten worse and worse, and the few character's we liked are getting destroyed by the writing, I still admire everybody I encountered in the little niche of the hotd fandom I have participated and appreciate what you all contribute to hotd fandom.

AND I will continue my own little additions to said fandom-i still have hotd inspired art coming soon and while I'm done with the show itself I intend to steal away the shiny things I liked from hotd (certain intriguing characters and the possibilities that could have existed if this had been adapated better) and continue to enjoy them while I ignore the rest of the nonsense the showrunners have created.

- Crimson Cold

[antianakin]

Maybe I'm being a bit nit-picky but I guess it as kinda odd Ahsoka is constantly getting more and more powerful whenever the plot demands it. The most recent one being able to see the past from the starman. I forgot the exact name of the ability but it was introduced as not only something very rare but also being a burden on the users. I wouldn't really mind Ahsoka being super powerful, but I wish we got more build up because otherwise it's just very Mary Sue-ish. And really I hope they didn't neglect Ezra's character and abilities in favor of making Ahsoka the Most Powerful™.

I think you're talking about psychometry and how it feels like Ahsoka's starting to be able to use that power. Previous characters who have had it are most notably Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis, and yeah, generally it's considered a power that only a very few are sort-of born with and it's a skill that can be very painful if not honed. Ahsoka has never EVER been one of those characters who has had psychometry, either in TCW or in Rebels.

It's hard to tell whether the show is going for her using psychometry specifically or if they're just... really stretching what regular Force users can do. Because we know that they CAN pick up impressions from things, strong emotions and the like. Anakin and Ahsoka can feel the pain and screams of the people who died during the Temple bombing, for example. But what she does on the show, where she's able to pick up a specific image/memory by touching something, might've been super useful in that particular moment and she doesn't use it at all.

As far as I know, psychometry isn't a skill one can just "learn" if they get strong enough, you're either born with it or you aren't. But I would've said the same has always been true for Force sensitivity in general - you're either born with it or you aren't - and this show has already chosen to throw THAT out the window with Sabine (and possibly Hera, too) so the idea that they might be willing to decide psychometry is a thing someone can just learn isn't exactly outside the realm of possibility here. They haven't CALLED it psychometry on the show yet, but that doesn't mean that it isn't fairly obviously doing the exact same thing that we all know to be psychometry if you're familiar with the skill via Quinlan's stories or the recent video games with Cal.

Ahsoka HAS been dictated as very powerful from very early on, in fairness. There's an episode where Anakin notes in front of the Council that she's "advanced for her age" and they make a big deal out of how she's pretty young to be assigned as a padawan. So she IS supposed to be more powerful than the norm, usually, but psychometry is such a specific skill to have and at no point in any of her other appearances has she ever shown the ability to use it in the way she's been doing on this show.

I don't think that's nit-picky at all, personally, but I'm told that I'm a fairly nit-picky person, so what do I know. It does frustrate me, too, that this show is playing fast and loose with Star Wars worldbuilding just to suit Ahsoka's storyline. Sabine being a Jedi, the butchering of the Rebels characters, Ahsoka's overpowered qualities, etc. All of it is done so that they can tell a very specific story for Ahsoka without any care to how it breaks previously established lore and plot points.

It's one of the things I like the LEAST about this show and that's saying something because there's a LOT that I dislike very much about this show.

[anulithots]

I accidentally did this with low brightness so the colors are wrong.... I'll fix it in a second but here it is:

Just anuli:

Fixed.

The quality gets butchered more and more every time.

kajsdljfkladsj

welp. More Anuli art attempts...

I might just go back to doing visual novels.

The dearest, most wonderous people, otherwise known as the lotff tag list:

@waitingforthesunrise @sm-writes-chaos @holdmyteaplease @full-on-sam

@osbob-the-existent @awleeofficial

@clearcloudlesssky @gummybugg @sleepy-vix @starryeyeddarlings

@sea-dwelling-wizard @snowpoet123

lmk if you'd like to be added or removed <3 🌿

[cursedvibes]

Watching The Boys (just started S2) and omg how is Butcher more annoying than Homelander. You can really tell with him that he's from a 90s comic book, right down to his name. Typical generic British Broody Anti Hero Out For Vengeance For His (not so) Dead Wife. Dude acts like everyone has to bend out of shape to accommodate his wishes and only his pain is really valid, everyone else's problems are just there to serve him. He gets criticised for it and I think those qualities are quite interesting on someone like Homelander, but Homelander isn't really supposed to appear cool. I also couldn't care less about revenge stories and the grouchy characters that come with it. I can respect what Butcher wants to accomplish, but he's being very annoying in the way he goes about it and that's the worst thing a character can be.

Like the show otherwise so far and a lot of the characters are great. Frenchie, Annie, Hughie and Kimiko are my favourites so far and I really want to find out more about Black Noir. He seems interesting and kinda cute.

[ask-artsy-oncie]

It fucking kills me hearing the way Richard Williams talked about Thief and the Cobbler. I mean it's not like I don't have criticisms for the movie (on a fundamental level, not just the Miramax cut), but at the same time, as an artist, as an animator, it's something else to hear him say that he felt as though he had mastered 2D animation (which I would absolutely argue that he had) and that it was time to make his masterpiece.

This was his masterpiece. His magnum opus. It was meant to showcase everything he and his crew were capable of. And to this day, well beyond his death, it remains unfinished and otherwise butchered because of the nature of the animation industry. This movie could have absolutely been finished properly under Miramax's funding if it hadn't been filled with caveats of making it marketable to children when it was never meant to be.

Someone's masterpiece was literally destroyed because the west doesn't respect animation as a genuine medium. It's not enough that a fantastic work of art can be made, art that is made has to be marketable.

Animation as an artform is a slave to its own cost. If it weren't so dependent on money from producers who care MUCH more about a return than funding a quality piece of work, then I could only imagine how much more beautiful the western animation industry would be.

[endsupes]

Indie Billy Butcher from The Boys Amazon series (possible small comic influence) . Non-selective and open to AU, OC, and crossovers. Discord given to mutuals only. Personals do not interact.  Rules under readmore.( Sideblog @riplander )

Rules and Notes

First of all, thank you for visiting this page.  Even if you only skim this, I’ll love you forever.  Most of these rules are pretty basic, common sense stuff, but I would really appreciate it if you read them.  I know it’s long, but I’m just trying to make sure no one is offended or uncomfortable.  I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.  Bear with me.  I’ll try to bold the basics.

            — the basics.

I have a few verses to choose from, and I’ll probably place you in the one that will most easily fit with your character’s canon unless otherwise specified.

Butcher isn’t always the most pleasant person. Please know that anything mean said is not a reflection of the mun’s feelings.  IC =/= OOC.

Don’t god-mod.

OC and Au friendly, but please have an about page so I can gauge whether our characters will be able to interact.

Memes and opens are free game – anyone can send one or respond to one.  However, I may not respond for some reason or another: it may be in violation of one of my other rules, or due to external factors.  If you’re worried that I missed something, feel free to come to me about it, but please don’t constantly badger me for replies.  It’s rude.

I reserve the right to refuse to roleplay, especially if I’m uncomfortable.

DO NOT under any circumstances try to bring me into out of character drama.  If you have a problem with me, contact me privately or just unfollow.  Vague blogging, callout posts and the like are annoying, and I ask that you would tag them.  This is something I will unfollow over if I so please.

            — on selectivity. 

I will be selective with my threads and who I interact with.  I would love to interact with everyone, but I’m very busy with school and other blogs, and I don’t want to overload myself.  If this bothers you, feel free to unfollow.  If you have any questions about whether I have time, feel free to jump into my ask.

Also, I am far more likely to RP with mutuals. That’s not to say I won’t RP with those I don’t follow or those who won’t follow me, there may be exceptions. But it is far more likely.  That being said: if I follow you, I want to write with you.  Probably a lot. I’m just too shy to say anything because I’m a weenie pissbaby.

Starter calls, unless otherwise specified, are for mutuals only.

            — on content.

I’m 20+, so mature content is cool with me.   NSFW and triggering content will be present on this blog, but it will also be tagged in the following manner: n.s.f.w., tw:

As for smut: first of all, I will not smut with anyone under the age of 18.  Don’t ask me to; the answer will be no.  And just in general, don’t come to me looking for smut.  I’m not terribly good at writing it, so it’s very unlikely that it will occur on this blog.  I need to be pretty comfortable with someone to smut with them.  If by some miracle a thread is looking like it’s going to get smutty, feel free to hop into my ask and talk to me about it.  We’ll figure something out.

In relation to that, please do not send me overtly sexual memes if we have not interacted.  Kissing memes are fine, but I tend to get uncomfortable with anything beyond that.  Please respect this.

            — on replies.

I’m an adaptive roleplayer, meaning I’ll likely respond in a manner similar to yours.  If you format, I’ll format.  If you don’t, I won’t.  That sort of thing.  I also try to match length with my replies, but some days I struggle.  If you’re ever unhappy with the quality or length of a reply, please let me know and I’ll do my best to fix it.

I don’t always get to things right away.  I’m notorious for avoiding drafts, and especially right now, I’m pretty busy with schoolwork.  However, sometimes I’ll reply at the speed of light.  It’s really varied, and I’m sorry about that.

Sometimes, I’ll drop things that’ve been in my drafts for too long, or things that I feel aren’t going anywhere.  If you think I’ve dropped/missed/lost something that you wish to continue, come to me politely and we can talk about it.

            — on shipping.

I’m admittedly kind of a ship-whore.  If there are sparks, I likely ship it.  I ship Butcher/Chemistry, but again, it’s rather unlikely that Butcher will engage in a sexual or even a romantic relationship.  Them’s the breaks.  BroTPs are great though.  Also, I’m only human: I sometimes play favorites with my ships.  Sorry.

Please please please DO NOT force a ship on me.  It makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I will not hesitate to unfollow or even block you.  I will try to politely let you know if I feel that our characters do/do not have chemistry.

            — on credit.

Most icons, art and edits are made by myself, and are usually tagged as #my art or #my edits. Otherwise, I do not own anything!

          — on the mun.

My name is Élise, I’m 20+, living in Midwest America, EST.  Feel free to contact me via ask at any time. I love talking to you guys! Discord is available to mutuals upon request – again, I reserve the right to refuse to give these for whatever reason.  I have no triggers, so as long as you talk to me prior to introducing something triggering to a thread, I’ll be cool with it. Just talk to me about it beforehand and I should be fine, but if I’m not feeling it, please respect that.

That’s about it.  Thanks so much for reading these.  Smooches! <3

[turtlemagnum]

side note but i looked through the progarchives stuff for proto-prog and expected something deeply interesting and experimental but it was just like, deep purple and the beatles. and like, i like deep purple and think that the beatles were good for their time, it's just that i expected something more... interesting. and i guess i've just gotta check my own expectations here, because it is "proto" and not like the whole ass genre, and i can definitely see their stuff being revolutionary who's less versed in Weird Fuckin Tunes like i am (hell, i remember thinking deep purple was the coolest shit on earth in middle school), but damn dude y'know. i will admit, i still occasionally pop on machine head (or at least a few songs off of it), so i'm not coming at this as a hater of classical, more normal rock or anything. but god is the stuff that came after so much better, like holy shit dude

i think one of the greatest strengths of prog to me is also one of its greatest weaknesses to other people, which is to say its complexity. the intricacies of a well defined prog song are fantastic for people like me who almost exclusively listen to music with headphones, but i've definitely noticed that on speakers (especially lower fidelity speakers like what a normal car or restaurant is likely to have), a lot of that complexity is just... gone, reduced to white noise essentially. i still remember being amazed that 21st century schizoid man came on in a bar i frequent, a bar that mostly plays pop, country, and more normal classic rock. and then i was amazed at how horribly the speakers at this place butchered a song that i otherwise love. and i think that a significant part of why simpler stuff so often is more popular is because it's easier to make it sound good on shitty hardware.

like, i once heard come on eileen on my grandparents shitty car speakers and wanted to listen to it with my headphones when i got home. and straight up? it sounded better with the lower quality presentation, without the blown-out bombast of the shitty car speakers i remember it sounding so god damn stripped down. it's genuinely impressive how different of a listening experience it is. and to be fair it could very well just be a matter of different mixes, but i'd be willing to bet it was in fact just the hardware, y'know?

[allsaiint]

↠ doom slayer/reader

↠ word count: 2800

↠ masterlist | next chapter

↠ description: when you wake up, you have no memory of what’s happened, and you’re forced to run from a multitude of threats without understanding.

↠ warnings: gratuitous butchering of canon | reader has physcial description for specific plot reasons but is otherwise neutral | mentions of blood, gore, and violence | slayer tries to shoot reader upon first meeting

↠ author’s notes: yes this is a doom fic in the year of our lord 2022. if you refuse to read the warnings and comment on how i didn’t follow canon, i reserve the right to call you a non-reading buffoon. this was written in third person originally and is not beta read, and was only lightly edited before posting it. it will be posted on ao3 for easier viewing but, due to outside links keeping things from showing up in tags, it will be linked on the masterlist.

You, upon waking up, could hardly recall what had occurred. You had been running, based on the way you were sprawled out on the floor, but for what reason, you were unsure. The lights overhead were flickering, illuminating the letters ‘Lazarus Laboratory’ stenciled in paint on a metal wall. Beneath it were the letters UAC. You were in a corridor, you quickly realized, in a secret facility owned by the Union Aerospace Corporation. Your knees hurt where you had fallen, worse than the ache that seemed to permeate the rest of you. There was a fiery sort of pain in your head which you assumed could be blamed on your fall, the same one that must have knocked you out.

It still remained to be discovered what had knocked you out but, given the static buzz of electricity flickering further down, the red glow of the emergency lights, and the utter lack of people, you found it safe enough to assume it had been nothing good. it was a task, getting to your feet. You pressed your hand to your forehead, wincing when you pulled it away and found it slick with red. The moments after standing were dangerous, the room spinning with such force that it almost toppled you again. bile rose up, burned your throat, and you had to lean against the wall to retch what there was in your stomach onto the metal floor. 

That was the same time that you realized that something was off, something more than the obvious “whatever was currently happening within the facility”. Frowning, you examined your nails, pulling at one. They were longer than you recalled, black in color even though they had been clean before— you were pretty sure. UAC rules dictated no polish, hair dye, or jewelry were allowed in the Mars base because it was unprofessional. There was also an odd quality to the color of your skin, but it was hard for you to be sure with the poor lighting.

Still frowning, you chose to carry on, wondering where everyone could be. There was no use in worrying about something so frivolous when some major catastrophe had obviously occurred. You were forced to weave between fallen lights and parts of the ceiling, toppled crates and exposed electrical wires. There was an odd sort of calm as you took in the carnage around yourself, like your mind refused to process what you were seeing with real clarity even though it knew whatever had happened, you had been lucky to survive it.

In the relative darkness, it was hard to know just where you were in the labs. They were a maze at the best of times for a new Tier 3 employees, and in the dark disarray now, it was impossible even for you. Glancing around, though, you thought you might be near the service elevator up to the Advanced Research Complex. Just as top secret but less secretive than the Lazarus scientists, the ARC was the only way to the surface of Mars from the labs. Part of it was functionality; the other was for secrecy.

Just as you hit the elevator, the mechanical announcer’s voice came over the intercom. It was much clearer than you would have expected given the state of everything else, announcing that the lift was already on the way down. Something unfurled at the base of your spine as it came into view, slithering up to wrap around your lungs, freezing the air within them. Where the dread came from, you were unsure, but it was instinctual. It told you to run, that whatever was coming was worse even than whatever you might find topside.

Your steps backwards were too slow— you tripped over something and hit the floor hard, pain lancing from the elbow you landed on up into your shoulder. The elevator came to a smooth, silent stop, and the doors opened to reveal a massive man in complete and heavy looking green armor. In his arms was one of the UAC’s combat shotguns, carried by the general security guards that patrolled the complex.

It leveled at you in an instant, even before he stepped out of the elevator. More pain, sharp and searing, erupted in your temples. Electricity shorted your brain out as a voice hissed the words doom slayer. It was enough to kickstart you into motion and, faster than you thought possible, you sprinted headlong back the way you had come. Everything you had carefully weaved through before was hurtled on this pass, well aware of the heavy stomp of metal boots trying to close in on you from behind. The whispered words tickled something in the recesses of your memories, something to do with the labs— Pierce, Hayden?

You came to a sliding stop in front of an automatic door, which took precious seconds to open. The decision to duck was reflexive following the rack and slide of the shotgun, but it saved your life. Pellets slammed into the door in a wide spray and, as a second rack followed, you scuttled through into the next corridor.

You heard something clatter and crash at your back— something heavy hitting the floor. That was what you heard first, until something much, much heavier shook the floor— from in front of you. The noise you made when you looked up was unusual, the shrill cry of a startled bird after it was shot from the sky. That was what you felt like as a creature approached, slow and lumbering but steady. It was massive, skin missing around its stomach and its broad neck. Even without eyes, it knew you were there, its slit nostrils flaring with a deep breath. It seemed to you that you hovered in a limbo of sorts with it, with the sense that the Knight was unsure of what to make of you even though it should have torn you limb from limb already.

As it was, you were stuck between a rock and a hard place, just shy of literally. From all that you knew of the slayer, he was not much better than the demons he hunted with such vicious passion that it left him blind to everything else. The Hell Knight was an obvious danger, and there was no room for you to escape.

In less time than it felt to you, a quick burst of rifle fire broke the stalemate. Your own shriek was drowned out by the Knight’s and, enraged, it leapt over you, right into your other problem. You threw your arms over your head out of reflex, as if that would stop you being crushed by either heavyweight. The ground shook for a third time following yet another weight landing on it, and the sound of more, now continuous, automatic rifle fire tore through your delicate eardrums.

There was a distinct ringing in the room now, compounding the roars of not one Hell Knight, but two. In tow of the second were a slew of Imps and a handful of Revenants. The distraction allowed you, once you had scrambled out of the way, to realize that all of the demons were ignoring you in favor of the Slayer. That in itself was good, but there was more to it than that. It was more than just disregarding you. They would look at you for a handful of seconds as the first Knight had done before moving onto their primary concern. You were nowhere near the threat that the Slayer was to them, but that failed to explain why they acted as though you were not even worth taking out.

The moment a Cyber Mancubus showed up was also the moment when you decided it was high and well past time for you to make yourself scarce. The floors further down were rigged with an external power source in case of a facility wide failure, and that was where you felt it most prudent to head. You could find out what had happened— how and why demons were running amok in the laboratory first and foremost. Memories were starting to return to you, of rituals and experiments being performed on willing UAC employees, the results of those rituals and experiments, and something Pierce— Dr. Olivia Pierce, lead researcher in the labs— coined “Lazarus waves”. What it all meant was still hazy, but you hoped that it would all become clear with a little help.

Given that you were a head engineer and not a researcher, you were one of a handful of employees that knew how to bypass the security lockout caused by the demons. If what was said about the Slayer was true, then it would cause him no more anger than he already felt if you slipped out and locked the door behind you again. You saw no issue and felt no guilt, in keeping him occupied with the demons for awhile. After all, it was his sole purpose in life.

The corridor you entered was empty, devoid of life save for what was already dead and coating the walls or made up the blood sacrifices that littered every corner. Olivia, from what you could remember, had cared little for how or where rituals were performed, just that they were performed. It had been her belief that that was how they kept the energy flowing, by keeping their hellish new overlords pleased. There had been, you knew, a handful of employees that opposed Olivia’s views. You had the obscure feeling that you had been one of them. That, or your wiped memories had returned the disgust for the carnage splattered everywhere that you should have had.

You were at war with yourself as you made your way down to the next floor, torn between running before the Slayer could catch up and taking your time to avoid any unnecessary run-ins with stray demons. It was still worth mulling over the way they had overlooked you before, and you continued to wonder if that had been due to the Slayer’s presence or not. There remained a nagging suspicion that it was more than that, but to discover for sure, you would need to face a demon without him around. Self-preservation was, for obvious reasons, stronger than your curiosity.

Most of the facility had locked down after the demons swarmed it, but it was what you and the other engineers termed a “loose lockdown”, which meant that with the right clearance, areas could still be opened again. You had clearance that was just below Olivia herself, which let you into everything aside from her private office. There had been some concern about the engineers having such power, and it had been taken into consideration right up until several employees lost their lives when access to their lab had resulted in a complete breakdown of the fire suppression system. After that, it was at the discretion of the head engineers— yourself, a woman named Tonilia, and a man named Nate— who was allowed into what offices and laboratories. 

You still had yet to run into any demons, and bypassed the lock on the elevator unimpeded. As expected, the next floor down was brightly lit, save what lights were shattered. There was half of a body pinned to the wall above the elevator doors, and the blood that dripped down to your cheek made yours curdle. Following the drag marks on the floor led you into a Dr. Neilson’s office, where you found the other half pulled halfway into a vent in the ceiling.

You wrinkled your nose at the sight, then turned your attention down to the desk. It was splattered with yet more blood, was made up of more candles than anything else, with a pentacle carved into the wax covered surface. There was no sign of the doctor, who was decidedly not the corpse in the vent and over the elevator, and you turned, intending to leave.

Upon catching sight of something moving, however, you stumbled backwards, away from what you thought was a demon. Slipping in a pool of blood, you went down hard for a second time, and cursed the renewed ache in your shoulder. You were lucky you had yet to break anything. 

When nothing came after, no Imp jumped out at you and no Possessed came around the corner, you stood up once again. At first, you thought the demon was still there, just on the other side of a window. It was staring at you with vivid yellow eyes that, to your imagination, almost glowed. There was no malice in them, just a fear that reflected your own, that turned to confusion when yours did—

“No way,” you breathed, moving closer. The demon did the same, matching you step for step until you were all but nose to nose in the mirror. “There’s no way. There’s no way—”

But the demon shook its head when you did, white hair that was once a more natural color bouncing with the motion. It accentuated the twisting horns that you now sported, bandy black things a half a foot long sprouted from the top of your head. Where you had blamed the lights for the odd shade of red your skin had turned, it turned out that you had, in fact, not been imagining it. It also explained the long nails you now sported, just shy of being claws.

When you started to hyperventilate, so did the demon, and when you collapsed, it disappeared as well, presumably hitting the floor at the same time you did. It explained why the Slayer had been so prepared to gun you down, and perhaps why the demons had been so confused before moving on from you. What you were unable to understand was why you had turned into this, when everyone else had turned into Possessed. There had been some speculation, based on the results of some tests performed, that some humans were capable of becoming more than the mindless, shambling husks that most turned into when exposed to Lazarus waves. That was a memory that came back to you when you stood up and faced yourself again, though it did you little good. No one had come up with anything concrete before all hell broke loose, and now there was no one who could look into it left.

There was no time at present to dwell on it, at any rate, not if you wanted to find what answers you could. There was, you were determined to make yourself believe, a possibility that there was knowledge on what had happened to you that they had just not seen fit to share with anyone else. 

It was with renewed but meager confidence that you skirted past the first group of demons you encountered. It was a handful of Possessed, standing stock still in the middle of the room with the next elevator down. The design of the complex was meant to contain an outbreak if one should occur, each floor with their own elevator up or down in order to seal them off as needed, rather than shut down the whole facility. The Possessed, when you stepped out of the corridor, made a collective grumbling noise, heads snapping forward where they had been staring up at the ceiling. They turned to you as one, took a few shambling steps, then stopped. All continued to regard you with eyeless sockets and a sense of malevolence that you might have been imagining. 

Stepping past the first, you flinched at the way its teeth clacked, jaw snapping like it knew that there was something wrong with you. There certainly was something wrong with you, but it let you pass, as did the next, and the next. When you hit the button for the elevator, you turned to look at what were once humans, UAC employees, and found that they had also turned to face you. The curious part of you had to wonder what, if anything, could make them hostile towards you. You were disinclined to test any theories you could come up with but, considering how the larger demons were often quite violent with one another and the lessers, you figured it would take little effort.

The elevator came to a stop behind you with a quiet ding, and the doors slid open with a quiet swoop. With your eyes still fixed on the Possessed in case they changed their minds, you backed into the lift in a careful shuffle, well aware that your arms could only take so much more abuse. 

The worst, you found once the doors had closed, was that you had the corpse of an imp as unwanted company on the ride down.

You wondered, with a mild sense of nausea, if you should be grateful that was all.

↠  masterlist | next chapter

[pfhwrittes]

Hi P!

It’s me again the Mr Blobby anon 😬 thank you for braving the buried trauma to answer my silly ask.

I had another thought about what kind of music the boys might’ve listened to in their formative years. I know everyone and their grandmother was listening to Oasis and The Smiths back then and stuff like The Stone Roses and The Verve made it across the pond to us too, but I was wondering if there were any deep cuts that were big locally that maybe the rest of the world wouldn’t really know about?

On a more serious note - I’m writing a fic about the boys and I think I’ve mostly managed to not butcher Soap’s accent and colloquialisms too bad, but I struggle with the rest of them. I feel like I should be writing more of Ghost and Price’s accent but I just don’t know how. With Gaz it’s easier since his accent isn’t as pronounced, but then comes the job of using the right regional slang for everyone and that just sends me into and overwhelming spiral of despair because there’s just so many different regional accents in such a small area 😵‍💫

Do you have any tips or resources for figuring it all out?

p.s. sorry for being the most longest winded anon in the world 🫣

p.p.s. thank you again for all your Brit picking ♡

hi anon! (i'm not calling you mr blobby anon, that just seems mean!) i'm glad my horrified shrieking about mr blobby was entertaining!

i'm going to pop my reply under a read more because i know i'm about to get really long winded!

first up music. personally i have a sneaky headcanon that soap has a secret fondness for tinchy stryder and n-dubz, price is big into the buzzcocks, gaz still loves labrinth and tinie tempah and ghost has a secret fondness for stereophonics.

but as for hidden treasures? paolo nutini, the libertines, razorlight, leona lewis, birdy, professor green, jack johnson, the wombats, snow patrol, emeli sandé, rudimental, the ting-tings, dido, jess glynne.

hopefully amongst my little list there's some artists you haven't heard of before!

now onto the meaty bit, the bit i was immediately excited about discussing with you. i'm going to break it down what you said so i can dedicate proper paragraphs to each character!

"I think I’ve mostly managed to not butcher Soap’s accent and colloquialisms too bad..."

i have 100% faith that you'll be fine with soap's accent. just remember that soap speaks Scots (which is a recognised language) as well as english. an in-game example of this was when he said "away an' boil yer heid!". personally i find listening to clips of Still Game (a glaswegian based scottish sitcom) really helps me to get my ear in for soap's speech patterns BUT remember that it isn't actually confirmed where exactly soap was born and raised in scotland so there is leeway.

just remember don't go too mad with adding Scots words or phrases, a few indications of soap's accent is fine but don't get too heavy handed otherwise it'll be nearly unreadable.

"I feel like I should be writing more of Ghost and Price’s accent but I just don’t know how."

i can completely understand the difficulty with this one!

so canonically ghost is from manchester, however to my ear there isn't much of a manc accent going on when he speaks in-game (which is a crying shame in my opinion)! take a listen to jamie tartt from Ted Lasso to get an idea of what a manc accent sounds like. notably, the -g off -ing sounds are missing and there's a nasal quality (which i LOVE) to the way he says "you" and "me" that sounds more like "ya" and "meh" to my ear.

this link from the university of manchester has some common slang terms used around manchester that might be helpful too!

as for price, according to the CoD wiki he's from herefordshire but his accent has definitely been flattened out to sound more like Received Pronunciation (RP). herefordshire has definitely got a very interesting accent because of where it is geographically in the UK so it has welsh borders, gloucester and west midlands influences to it. my only recommendation for price is to listen to his voice lines and watch the playthroughs (sorry!) to get an idea of his speech patterns.

however, if you wanted to make me very happy you could definitely sprinkle in some of barry sloane's scouse accent (apologies for the link, it's VERY cringey) but don't feel that you have to!

"With Gaz it’s easier since his accent isn’t as pronounced..."

this is actually really interesting to me because gaz sounds SO much like a londoner to my ears (i think i spoke to someone before about gaz's accent and i think i said it was either south london or west london).

as for slang for gaz? i can only recommend that you find some clips of Love Island UK to hear some of the slang phrases he'd use OR listen to the recon by fire mission to get your ear in for his speech patterns (also a very good resource for price's accent too).

i hope my break down of accents and slang has helped just a little bit but if you have any more questions for me i'm more than happy to help! 💜

[crusherthedoctor]

Why are you not interested in Castlevania? Why are you afraid of darker fiction? Why are you afraid of analysis?

1. I can decide for myself what I'm interested in. I have nothing against Castlevania (and again, I sympathise with its fans in light of it getting butchered), it's just not my thing. It really isn't any more complicated than that.

2. Just because most of my tastes tend to be on the cartoony side (Sonic, Crash, Spyro...) doesn't mean I can't stomach darker stuff, nevermind that some of said franchises also have their own darker qualities anyway. I can stomach gore/edge/etc just fine, I'm not sensitive to it, and I'm NOT one of those moral crusaders who take issue with those kind of works because they or their fans are "problematic". They just... tend to not interest me, that's really all there is to it. (Well, that and because people who go "this is better and smarter than whatever you like because ~it makes you think~" tend to rub me the wrong way with how up their own arse they can get. If there's one thing that leaves me sour very quickly, it's being patronized or antagonized before I've even said anything.)

3. Preferring to be concise instead of meandering =/= I'm scared away by analysis. I analyse characters, stories, etc all the time lol. I only make longer posts of the sort when it's pretty much unavoidable and to be expected from the outset, like my Sweet or Shite reviews. Otherwise, I'm simply not the kind of person who can bust out 30 paragraphs per post out of the blue all day every day. I've got shit to do (Stellar doesn't write itself...), and even beside that, what I have to say isn't any less valid than that of other people just because it tends to be laconic.