#Graffiti Gang Collection

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP Fic Idea: New Management

It starts off small, in controlled, barely noticeable areas of Gotham.

Over days, the litter and trash vanish, the sidewalks are washed and cleaned, and even building yards long since abandoned are trimmed. No one notices at first because Gotham is so used to ignoring how dirty everything is until Poison Ivy makes a public announcement thanking the person who cleaned up Gotham's parks.

You know, while she was tearing up that one street with her vine monster.

After the Bats had her locked away pending a trial, they stopped to look around and realized, yes, someone had been cleaning house. No one really knows who, but things have started to change. Streetlights are replaced, graffiti is painted over, and cracked windows are fixed. It's a nice thought, but all this had the gangs up in arms, especially when their tagging disappeared.

To control the goodie-two-shoes, a few gangs burn down a few local parks- mostly the ones near or around Crime Alley- and they also loot the smaller businesses. It's a warning that the mystery housekeeper should be reminded of their station, but- well, it's all for nothing because, like magic, the following night, the damage is repaired and somehow better than before.

What's crazy is the water change. Everyone notices that right away.

Gotham's water system was just as corrupted and descriptive as its class system. If you were one of the elites- your water was clean and crisp- if you were one of the poor- your water was practically tar with how contaminated it was. Anyone in between got a fifty-fifty chance of drinkable water, depending on what side of the city they lived on.

It became an identifier, really. Depending on how often you were seen at stores buying bottled water, people could tell how well off your family was.

That's why, on a random Wednesday, Gotham lost their collective mind that the entire water system was fixed. Regardless of class, every household had clear, scent-free water from the tabs.

The few who wandered outside trying to figure out what in the world was happening were left stunned at the sight of Gotham's surrounding bodies of water.

They were clean.

All the rivers, the harbors, the silly little fountains found around Old Gotham- everything. It was safe to swim in them now. That was just wrong.

"What's happening?" Jason growls, crouching at one of Wayne Manor's main windows. His eyes are barely visible over the edge, allowing him to peek out into the yard, but he must not be fully visible, lest he become a target.

"I don't know," Tim hisses, taking a similar position on the second floor. He grips the communicator with a white-knuckle grip, trying his best to ground himself. "I just don't know. There are no witnesses, no evidence, no clues whatsoever on who's doing this to the city!"

"I don't like this!"

"No one does, Jason," Bruce intervenes; the accompanying sound of keys typing is familiar background noise. He's still in the cave, attempting to run through all reports of horrified Gothamites on social media, trying to find a pattern. "Babs? Do you have any new updates?"

"No!" She hisses, her typing sounding far more aggressive. "I can't find anything on those responsible. Nothing on the internet, nothing on public camera feeds, and nothing on rumors through dark web chats. It's like I'm trying to track a ghost!"

"This isn't natural, B," Steph cuts in. She's hiding in her bedroom closet, voice low in case her mom hears. After they realize some new lunatic is running loose in Gotham, her mom calls her back home to barricade them. If they had a bomb shelter, they would have been in it long ago.

"It's worse than we think," Duke huffs. He's somewhere near the top floor, having chosen a higher vantage point, hoping his meta powers would spot someone coming towards the manor. "I think I see glimpses of blue in the sky. If this continues at this rate, we'll have a clear blue sky in about two hours."

Multiple gasps of horror are heard throughout the communication lines. Bruce starts to type faster, barking orders for everyone to remain where they are and not go gather information. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

Damian stands with a confused Cass, Dick, and Alfred. The only bats not originated from Gotham, so while they can claim to have years in the city, none of them truly know. "I do not understand. Is this not beneficial to Gotham?"

"It may be too much at once, Master Damian." The Bulter tells him carefully. He only speaks that slowly when Alfred thinks of every word before saying it. "Whoever is behind this must not be from Gotham. If they were, they know that people would lose their collective minds upon the improvements."

"But who could be responsible?" Cass asks, watching Jason duck and army crawl to a new window once some sunlight manages to break through the clouds where he was originally hiding.

"I wish I knew Miss Cass."

Meanwhile, Danny Fenton leans back in his computer chair in a dimension of hope and a skip away. He laces his fingers together, bending them until satisfying cracks are heard. It was a productive hour of work, but he thinks now that his virtual city had cleaner water, his NPCs should start healing and developing better.

He was suspicious of Madam Gotham—a new ghost that appeared within his territory of the Ghost Zone—but after a quick conversation, he decided to befriend her. Danny is glad he did, seeing as she was in danger of fading away. Her core had suffered severe damage due to denying her obsession for so long.

Danny could do nothing for her. Madam Gotham needed professional help that only certain Yetis could offer. Although the Yetis usually turned away anyone not of their kind, with Danny backing her up, they had been willing to take in Madam Gotham.

She had been stubborn, though, refusing to get help because she was too busy playing her silly little game. The computer she played it on was unique to her realm and could not withstand the cold temeture of the Far Frozen. Danny was literally watching her melt—a horrific reminder of Dani and her siblings' disabling—before he could take it anymore.

Only after agreeing to watch her video game did she decide to be moved to the Far Frozen to receive medical treatment. Now, Danny never really liked those farming simulator games, but this was different in the sense that the city was already there.

His job was to further develop the city into a utopia. It was interesting to learn what modern issues the city had and how he could make decisions based on point costs on what to fix.

He gained points from making his citizens happier, supporting the Bats—the city's defenders—or choosing to develop options that significantly raised the value of his city.

It was rather addicting, really. He could see how Madam Gotham got so sucked in, even though it didn't really have much action for him to make. Mostly, he would let his citizens react to his new choices and use his points to delete trash and gunk.

There were some side quests he liked to work on, too, like helping certain citizens with drug addiction, depression, anxiety, or anger issues. Danny has no idea why Madam Gotham allowed so many to develop so badly, so every day, he would give them all one good luck point to brighten their days.

He had three full tabs of characters, a brief explanation of their lives, and whatever issues Danny could make them go through. He would tackle the number of homeless youth next by fixing up the city's affordable housing and infrastructure.

It was a bit narcissistic of Madam Gotham to name her game town "Gotham City," but it's better than any name Danny could have come up with.

[vixensbrainrotts]

Tokyo revengers headcanons

Content: Tr headcanons

Content warnings: None I hope, please let me know if there are any!

Vixen's two cents: I’ve been wanting to dump all my headcanons somewhere for a while now so here! I don’t think that these are all, but I’m gonna make a second post about any further headcanons I have. Also, i apologize for not including everyone here, ill make sure to include them next time. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please tell me about it! Don’t be afraid to send me requests either, I’d love to write most anything (I’m uncreative sometimes)! Oh also, what are some of your headcanons? Do you agree with any of mine? I’ll link the part two once i figure out how to do that lol

(VOLUME II)

Kokonoi who is genuinely so bothered by bugs you won’t believe it. He has to leave the room as soon as he sees the „threat“, and fast.

Izana who curses loudly on Filipino whenever he accidentally hurts himself. You can hear him shout from across the whole house when he bumps himself on a corner.

Chifiyu who has a passion for graffiti. He loves tagging and wild styling and spraying elaborate throwup-styles on walls on Toman turf.

Inui who is colorblind, which is really unfortunate because he has an interest in fashion and styles. He relies on Koko for the greater part, but has recently discovered apps that identify color, which has vastly improved his personal style and allowed him to take on more challenging shades.

The Katawa twins who have an honestly really impressive Pokémon card collection and often play against each other to pass time. The amount they have spent on it is sorta concerning and more often than not stop by the little magazine store to buy another pack to "improve their decks" before gang meetings.

Hakkai who has a distinct dislike for the color orange but keeps finding himself surrounded it. He hates it but the walls in his room are orange. He could puke because his favorite faux-fur-coat is a darker orange. There’s no reasoner doesn’t like the color but something about it makes his skin crawl.

Hanma who is German/Russian and makes sure everyone knows it. He is proud of his heritage and will often use German and Russian idioms when conversating. It’s all fun and games till he starts swearing in his mother tongues during fights, bashing in his opponent’s skulls whilst cursing in a foreign, very aggressive manner.

Nahoya and Souya who work like devils in the kitchen. It’s a perfect tandem in between them, they somehow always know what the other wants and needs. If Nahoya needs a hand in opening the oven, Souya’s doing a 360 no look opening. If Souya’s hands are messy from kneading the dough, Nahoya automatically turns on the tap for hand washing. Twin telepathy is real and they’re the number one proof.

Mucho who can’t do shit in terms of math. You need him busy? Ask him for 7x9 and he’ll be unresponsive for the next 3-5 minutes. It’s really frustrating to him because he genuinely puts in so much effort to understand the formulas, but the numbers simply don’t click in his brain.

Smiley who got the smiley piercing the moment he found out about it. It’s really impressively healed and works so well on his face. Some even say that his smile has gotten wider ever since he got it. He also has a poorly healed nose stud on the left side that he only keeps in for sentimental value. He got it in the seventh grade during school and he got his ass whooped when he came back home with it.

Kisaki who unintentionally practices calligraphy because he writes exclusively in cursive. All of his notebooks look fake because all the letters look identical and everything is evenly spaced. The highlighter girlies in his classes wish death upon him on a daily.

Rindou who’s cracked at Chemistry for no reason. He doesn’t even have to try, it’s like the formulas unfold in front of him and the laws and rules just make sense. He can’t even explain it but ask him anything, and I mean anything he can give you the right answer. Just don’t ask him to be your lab partner. He has a nasty history of breaking test tubes.

Kakucho who knows how to dress. Like really know how to dress. Anywhere, anytime he’s looking like a Pinterest board. He doesn’t really try or occupy himself with things fashion, but he just looks so good and coordinated all the time. He thought it was natural to know what looks good or not, so he’s sometimes a bit perplexed by the things that his peers wear. He tries to be nice when he tells them it doesn’t work, but comes across a little brash because it frustrates him.

Kazutora who has unnaturally sharp canines. Like, it’s kinda scary sometimes because they poke out of his mouth even when it’s closed. He’ll commonly run his tongue over them when he’s bored, poking and prodding at them to check if they’re still sharp. It’s one of the features of his face he really does like.

Mitsuya who gossips like a Girl. He lives for drama and tea (silently) and due to his club being occupied by mostly girls, he’s surrounded by it constantly. The girls talk and talk and talk and he eats it up. The scary part is that he remembers nearly every part of it, so he knows so much. He’ll never share it with anyone but likes to know what’s happening. Sometimes he even correctly predicts scandals due to background knowledge.

Leading from the last one, Mitsuya who has a deep voice. One that rumbles softly when he speaks and sounds like the ocean when he laughs. It’s a killer during after-noon classes when he has to present or read something cause it has such a calming effect. He’s put multiple of his classmates asleep accidentally.

Draken who know just the tiniest bit about sowing from helping out in Mistuya’s workshop. He knows how to close a seam, he knows how to sew a button and he knows how to patch a hole and that’s it. He’s lowkey proud of it though.

[y2klostandfound]

Review - Jet Set Radio Future on Evolution Magazine Vol.3 (Videogame Magazine) (Italy, 2002)

Translation in English:

(Page 54-55)

DISTRIBUTION - INFOGRAMES

GENRE: ACTION PLAYERS: 1-4 MANUFACTURER: SEGA DEVELOPER: SMILEBIT FORMAT:XBOX MEDIA: DVD-ROM

The concept of love, roller skates and a can of spray paint...

Almost two years ago, Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast revolutionized the concept of modern video games. It wasn't a sequel, it wasn't a third-person adventure, it couldn't benefit from a character of attraction like Sonic but, despite everything, we were facing a great game. To tell the truth, it wasn't even easy to classify it in a precise genre; Jet Set Radio was an action game, but it had one feature that was increasingly difficult to find in this industry; the originality. Too bad that for most everything has gone unnoticed for the simple fact of running on Dreamcast. Fortunately, the European launch of the Xbox has resurrected a franchise deserving of the attention of the mass (yes: I said mass) of gamers.

The scenario of the action is a futuristic Tokyo of 2024, in which we will dart around with our "fireblade" model skates at high speed, drawing graffiti on the walls and performing acrobatic evolutions on all plausible and "grindable" surfaces. The aim of the mission, in the role of the young skater Yoyo, will be to recruit new members for our gang (after having regularly defeated them) and fight the terrible Rokkaku, a corporation that keeps the city on fire and acts with the complicity of the police local. This will chase us with any means, including tanks and helicopters! The whole adventure will be narrated by Professor K, a rebel DJ at the head of the transgressive private radio Jet Set. After passing the tutorial, disguised as the first level of the game, and having made the acquaintance of Gum and Corn (already present in the Dreamcast version ) we will be ready to dive into the most eclectic and fun challenge of our new career as writers: painting the walls of the city! And it's a real blast running around Tokyo, especially thanks to the beauty of the levels, some of which are truly jaw-dropping. Local traffic, crows perched on the roofs of houses, people in modern clothes who run away when they see us, everything has been created with particular attention to the refinement of detail. Unlike the first episode, in which the graffiti was created through complex rotations of the analog stick, now it is sufficient to press the R key (or the X and Y keys if you are in the air); understandable choice, if you take into account the fact that most of the graffiti you will have to do during the race. Jet Set Radio Future, in fact, is faster and more adrenaline-pumping than the prequel, and the emphasis was placed by Smilebit more on the stunts to be performed with skates than on the drawing of the graffiti. Precisely for this reason, to try to reach the most hidden areas to paint, we will have to learn how best to exploit the livery of our skates to slide (grind) on the most unusual surfaces (telephone wires, railings, stairs and lamp posts) and increase the thrust of our jumps. Furthermore, after collecting ten cans of spray paint, we will be able to activate the turbo boost, useful for having a greater thrust during the stunt phase. This effect is emphasized by the Xbox hardware through a spectacular screen deformation, which lets the gamer's jaw sink a few feet.

If all this were not enough, know that by continuing in the missions we will be able to select new characters, each with their own personal characteristics, from a rich roster that includes twenty-one skaters. JSRF is not only great playability: the originality and immediacy of the gameplay are accompanied by an equally valid technical realization. Graphically, Jet Set is one of the best titles to appear on Xbox so far, if not the best. The three-dimensional engine behind the Sega production is entirely in cel shading: although the environment is entirely polygonal, the less trained eye has the impression of watching and playing a real cartoon. The large number of moving objects on the screen at the same time immediately catches the eye; but the much-discussed slowdowns are very few and, certainly, not such as to negatively affect the gameplay.

The richness of details is astonishing: not only will you be "inundated" by polygons wherever you turn, but also the variety and resolution of the textures are incredible. The whole game is full of touches of class: lighting effects, lens flare used at best, stylistic traits designed to give greater dynamism and speed to the evolution of the characters, very vast and decidedly "alive" environments. And all of this shoots at an almost constant 60fps! Fortunately, Xbox Pai owners weren't penalized by the conversion: JSRF makes use of the 60 hertz mode, the image is full screen, without annoying black bars, and all the dialogues have been subtitled in Italian.

The audio part is no less impressive, with a soundtrack that mixes songs from the Japan and U.S.A versions of Jet Set Radio and adds new ones. The opening track made by Hideki Naganuma (The Concept Of Love) is already an editorial catchphrase, and we wouldn't be surprised if you started humming it habitually, too. If you own a Hi-Fi system with Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding, be sure to plug in Xbox and savor the sweet panning of Jet Set Radio Future. If you do not yet own it, you may be satisfied with the more classic stereo mode.

“...the originality and immediacy of the gameplay are accompanied by an equally valid technical realization.”

Some elements of the three-dimensional environments can be destroyed.

The characters are made up of polygons in Cel Shading and animated in a fluid way.

(Page 56)

THREE CHEERFUL GUYS OUT OF THEIR MINDS

JET SET RADIO FUTURE SOUNDTRACK

The Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack includes a tracklist created by artists from the American hip hop scene. The Latch Brothers, a group formed by three nice composers (Mike D, Tick and Wag), wrote and composed five tracks of the soundtrack of the title Smilebit. The chosen style varies from rock to hip hop, passing through electronic music that gives the title a greater futuristic atmosphere. In addition, the Latch Brothers have remixed the songs from the prequel (which we recall were played by the likes of Bran Van 3000, The Prunes and BS 2000), resulting in an almost unprecedented musical accompaniment. To top it all off, there are some "extended versions" by other musicians on the defunct Grand Royal label: Bis, Cibo Matto, Scapegoat Wax and Russel Simins. WaveMaster's Hideki has also left his mark on the Xbox version of JSR: by him the opening track "The Concept Of Love". A track that has already entered the Evolution charts ...

The Latch Brothers discuss with Smilebit the possibility of composing some tracks of the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack.

After an elaborate discussion, the proposal is accepted! In exchange for three copies of the game, the Latch Brothers will produce five unreleased tracks and the remix of those from the last edition. Of course, the final compensation was quite different....

(Page 57)

On the longevity side, Jet Set Radio has some ups and downs: although finishing the game the first time will not engage you for more than 10-15 hours in total, the Sega title is not the classic product that, once completed, you abandon altogether. In addition to the aforementioned characters to unlock, we will have the opportunity to "learn" new graffiti as well as to create new and customized ones. In this way, we will be able to unleash our artistic talent and daub virtual walls with only the limit of our creativity. In addition, multiplayer ensures (if you have friends to play with) a good number of additional hours of gameplay. There are five modes available, supporting up to four players: City Rush, a real speed race; Tagger's Tag, in which the goal is to "tag" your opponent first with spray paint; Graffiti Wars, the "graffiti war," in fact, where the winner will be the player who manages to cover as many walls as possible with their graffiti (you can even draw over each other's graffiti), Flag, a nice variation of the "capture the flag" seen in titles with pronounced shoot-em-up ambitions, and, finally, Ball Hog, a race through the chosen level in the company of a ball that we won't have to let get out of our hands.

The latter mode is even more fun when played "cooperatively" together with a partner to whom you can pass the sphere!

Looking for flaws in a title like Jet Set Radio Future leads one to first analyze the framing system: often, in fact, the virtual camera, in the grip of the speed at which your "skater" travels, tends to lose sight of the centrality of the scene. Other times you will have to move on very narrow surfaces, and, at times, the too-close view will be the cause of easy and deleterious falls. Although in the long run this slight flaw can be frustrating, it will be possible, at any point in the game, to bring the virtual camera view back perfectly behind our backs by simply squeezing the left trigger of the pad (somewhat as happens in Capcom's Maximo). It is actually likely that you will still make it through all the levels without too much trouble.

The difficulty, on the other hand, could and should have been calibrated in a more thoughtful way: overall, Jet Set Radio Future is quite simple to complete and, in some points, it is boring having to repeat the same situation too many times; just think of the fight with the boss of the last level: to get to the platform where he awaits you and to be able to face him, we could take more time than the actual fight requires. Also, the streamlined nature of the graffiti certainly doesn't add to the hostility of the missions. In any case, these are minor flaws, which in no way affect Jet Set Radio Future as a must for anyone with an Xbox and looking for a fast-paced and fun game, but also exceptional to watch and... to listen to! And if you loved the prequel on Dreamcast, you really can't miss it: JSRF is worth at least double its parent! - Ornella Lepre 

“... the Sega title is not the classic product that, once completed, is completely abandoned.”

This is the amazing screen warping effect you will witness when you activate the turbo charge

The dialogues are all subtitled in Italian and help to better understand the story.

CONTROL BOX - XBOX

PLUS:

- Breathtaking graphics that are smooth and full of classy touches - Original and funny - Excellent Pal conversion - Numerous multiplayer modes

MINUS:

- Framing system not always perfect - Simplified graffiti system - Long-lived but not infinite

GRAPHICS - 9

PLAYABILITY - 9

LONGEVITY - 7

SOUND - 8

GLOBAL - 8

An original title, fun to play, beautiful to look at and full of touches of class. A must for new Xbox owners

[misslavenderlady]

My Baby Bats 💜🦇

This post is in honor of @hypocriticaltypwriter and her own baby bats. This part is about The Lost Boys themselves. There will be a part two with Michael and Star!

So some of you know I love the Sims 4. Back in 2022 I made The Lost Boys in the game because ya girl is obsessed. I also made:

The Emersons

Star and Laddie

Max

Thorn and Nanook

The Frog Brothers

The cave

Grandpa's House

The comic book store

The boardwalk

And....I just so happened to put myself in the game with them. There was no official "story" at first. I just wanted to smooch my boys so bad, and seeing as I don't have any digital art programs (I used to draw but I'm sooooo rusty), the Sims was the perfect way to go about it. 🥰

My sim self had a daughter with each of the boys (because I too wanted to have a gang of Lost Girls lol). I named each girl after the actor their fathers play.

Pictures and story below~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David's Daughter - Kira (the closest I could get to Kiefer)

She admires her father more than anything in the world. She wants to be a good leader and an even better protector of her sisters. Kira never backs down from a fight, often having moments in childhood where she beat up bullies that were harassing her sisters. But she doesn't use her brawn though. She's as smart as a whip, using patience and strategy to navigate life. Always studying her surroundings and knowing what to say or do for her next step. She's a mysterious girl and never reveals what she's thinking or feeling. As far as Kira is concerned, she needs to be on her guard should something happen to her father and she needs to take over as head vampire. That being said, she's very sensitive deep down, and is incredibly close to her parents, never wanting to be away from them for too long. The anxiety overwhelms her. David worries about the pressure she puts on herself.

Dwayne's Daughter - Billie

Billie is a gentle and kind girl. She's quite shy, often keeping to herself whenever she's around someone outside of the family. As a little girl, she would often hide behind her father, too scared to even say hi to new people. Dwayne was incredibly patient with her, and eventually found a way for her to socialize without getting out of her comfort zone. He introduced her to animals and wildlife in the Santa Carla mountains, showing her the hidden beauties of the world. She loves animals so much, and likes to spend time caring for stray cats and dogs she sees on the streets. Billie also inherited her mother's love of writing, and enjoys poetry most. It helps her navigate life and the feelings she has.

Marko's Daughter - Alex

A little artist like her father, Alex has an eye for the most fascinating curiosities around her. She's a jack of all trades, enjoying everything from photography, to sketching, to painting, to jewelry making. She has so many ideas, and her dad is more than happy to support her vision. She's also a little troublemaker like Marko, often going out to spray graffiti on the walls of various Santa Carla buildings. She's not afraid of causing some mischief if it means expressing herself. Alex also has a fondness of spooky stuff. She has a crystal ball, a collection of candles, tarot cards, and has a planchet earring that she uses whenever she wants to break out the ouija board. She's loves playing fun, witchy games with her sisters during sleepovers. Stuff like Bloody Mary and Light as a Feather, Stuff as a board.

Paul's Daughter - Brooke

Oh she's definitely her father's daughter. Brooke is a little wild child, always eager for an adventure. She's got plenty of energy to burn, dancing and running and jumping off furniture. She loves to stay up late and play video games or have dance parties with her sisters. Above all, her biggest passion is music. Growing up she listened to her father play guitar a lot, and immediately got inspired. He was more than happy to teach her, and ever since then, she's had a dream of becoming a rock star. She's got the energy and the beautiful singing voice for it after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are some pics of the baby bats:

I'm gonna reblog this post with more baby bat pics from when the girls were little. Stay tuned!

[miloscat]

[Review] Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (PS5)

Jet Set Radio Future 2 is here, and it's all I ever wanted.

When Team Reptile made Lethal League and—more precisely—its sequel, they did an excellent job capturing the feel and aesthetic of Sega's Jet Set Radio games in a new genre. Now they've only gone and bloody done it - made an actual Jet Set Radio homage game, and it's an absolute stunner! Specifically, this is a pitch-perfect pastiche of Jet Set Radio Future, acting as a sequel to the 2002 classic in all but name, and since that particular instalment is a personal favourite of mine, I couldn't be happier.

BRC seems to deeply understand what was great about JSRF and then faithfully and lovingly recreates it, with some new ideas and refinements to boot. In case you need catching up, it's a sort of urban street punk adventure: you get around, grind, and trick on inline skates, tag graffiti all over, contest with rival gangs, and avoid the overzealous police force. The world is colourful and detailed but a bit low-poly with a cel-shaded filter, and levels are set up as huge skatepark playgrounds. All the while a soundtrack of fresh beats including hip-hop, house, and electropop accompanies you.

In BRC the structure of story-related tasks broken up by exploration returns, the levels full of collectibles to give you new colour schemes, music tracks, graffiti designs, etc. as well as just setpieces to "platform" around. A fast-travel system helps you get between areas, some of which replay the hits of JSRF while others explore new territory like a mall complex or industrial oil rig; the setting of New Amsterdam nods to the developer's Dutch origin but in practice it feels like it would easily fit in Tokyo-to (disclaimer, I have never visited The Netherlands). In addition to skates you have skateboards and BMX, each one having slightly different manoeuvrability plus the chance to open certain doors in the game world: for example, a skateboard can trick on fire hydrants to get elevated to a handful of secret areas. This gives more of a reason to have different ones on hand but can feel like an arbitrary passkey check.

Movement is aided by the new boost pack mechanic, which gives you an enormously useful air-dash. A boost meter gives you some speed but can also freshen up trick combos and extend your manual, while it's refilled by tricking (like in Sonic Rush), so doing these cool lines and combos feeds back into movement in a satisfying way. Cans have been done away with entirely so you can tag at any time without worry, and graffiti minigames have actually been brought back from the original JSR, except here they're super quick and snappy, and your inputs determine which of your unlocked tags goes up which keeps the visuals fresh.

A handy new feature is the flip-phone menu (reminiscent of The Arcane Kids' vaguely JSR-esque Zineth). It's great for flavour but also lets you get tips from teammates or contact new recruits, check out your range of graffiti designs and how to write them, consult a persistent minimap while highlighting tag spots, or change the currently playing music. And speaking of the soundtrack, it's sublime, a heady mix and perfect tonal accompaniment that even includes three tracks from the funky uncle himself Hideki Naganuma (much like Hover before it)... and if you ask me they're some of his best.

Another way BRC expands slightly on JSRF's template is a bit more emphasis on plot, with a central mystery revolving around recently-decapitated protagonist Red, his new cyberhead, and his connections to the previous top dogs in the city's counterculture. This framing fumbles at times, but it gives more purpose to your interactions with other rudies and conflicts with the cops, and interstitial sequences between chapters lets the game reinterpret JSRF's surreal climax in a dream context.

I've been eagerly awaiting this game and as a big fan of JSRF it didn't disappoint. BRC takes everything I loved about that (now slightly creaky and inaccessible) game and gives it a fresh coat of paint. I've seen people gripe about the price and playtime but both are about on par with the game that it styles itself as a love letter to, so it would be disingenuous of me to complain about either. Better by far to celebrate what an awesome achievement this game is in recapturing a unique classic while brilliantly modernising it. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk reminds me why I love video games.

[notyour-valentine]

Congrats on your celebration. I loved LOVED Don't forget to smile so could you do some headcanons for modern Tommy and please write a part two! Thanks boo

modern!Tommy Shelby ~ General Headcanons

[Celebration] [Celebration Masterlist] [Masterlist]

Warning: Mention of violence, drug use

I don't see Tommy going to war., at least not with the army. There was no need to conscript soldiers, and he is not the type of person to choose the army for a career path. I'd see Arthur and maybe even John doing that, but I'm not sure about them either. 

However, I see them getting their 'warfare' experience from UK gang wars 

Even so, they aren't as traumatised as they are in the show, even if they are still struggling because of the life they live and so Tommy would have retained some of his pre!war persona and we would see more of his cheeky side.

Modern!Tommy still loves horses and would have wanted to work with them and maybe become a professional equestrian but he sees the mistreatment of horses and becomes an activist in his youth (not necessarily animal rights in general, but horses rights)

And by activist, I mean slashing tyres, spraying graffiti, causing mayhem at the races as a teenager. That's how he met Greta and where he learns a lot of oganizing and sabotating skills

I still think the family would start with illegal gambling but on football games and not horse races

Tommy's expansion would be to start fixing boxing matches and MMA fights to make money while getting legal licences. They also take over strip clubs (and absolutely weed out human trafficking thanks to Polly's and Lizzie's input)

Within years he makes them the UKs gambling monopoly but also runs all those online casinos, betting apps etc (you know- the ones with the annoying ads) which takes them global

I still see him involved with trade and shipping and maybe manufacturing too but more in regards to technology and development. And of course, they are in the drugs business

They are UFC shareholders as well as all other MMA and boxing governing bodies and absolutely keep fixing fights. They also fix football matches and sponsor an F1 team (I want to say RedBull based on the Seb era but who knows?)

He is also hugely involved in real estate and housing

This Tommy would not get involved in active politics, even if he loses his mind over current, especially UK politics (when Brexit hits, he can't fathom the stupidity, the damages to his business and economy, and the general government incompetence)

Instead, he focuses on activism, like funding school lunches for poor children through their foundation 

The 21st century is still classit but not as much as in the 20s, so he has more movement there. There would be far more discrimination in regards to his Irish Traveller background 

The expansion to the US is far earlier. 

Modern!Tommy is just as overworked as canon!Tommy if not more so due to the constant availability of our time so he still smokes, takes drugs and a lot of sleeping pills. 

He does not have any social media and lives completely off the grid, not even a newspaper interview, which makes him a phenomenon, a ghost and an icon for the crypto bros. 

He has a vintage car and motorcycle collection but his biggest treasure is a large horse ranch in the middle of nowhere where he keeps close to a hundred horses, either older horses or former race horses, which he keeps buying up. It's a gigantic facility and is absolutely not profitable (apart for a bit of money laundering) but giving the horses a calm place where they are well taken care of (kind of like a retirement home for horses) is his passion project.

Modern!Tommy has tattoo sleeves, definitely, but he would rather walk on broken glass before he puts on a SmartWatch or drinks a green smoothie

His lockscreen is either a childhood picture of him and Ada on a horse or just a black screen

Bonus fact:

On at least one occasion he has definitely shot his Tablet during a stressful day because the "Sorry- I didn't quite catch that" came at the wrong moment. 

Thank you so much for participating in my celebration - I hope you like what I've written for you! I'll have to see about that Part 2. I know a lot of people like that story but I have a lot of other WIPs in the works, but it won't be forgotten

If you want to join in, click here to find out everything you need to know!

~

Taglist

Overall

@lilyrachelcassidy @jyessaminereads @chlorrox @watercolorskyy @books-livre @quarterpastmidnight  @lilyevanswhore  @polishcrazyone  @zablife  @just-a-harmless-patato  @stevie75 @flyingjosephine-blog @runnning-outof-time @cillmequick @babayaga67 @alex-in-the-wilderness @butterfly-skinnylegend

Tommy

@knowledgefulbutterfly @babayaga67 @signorellisantichrist 

@lespendy @geeksareunique @look-at-the-soul

[queen-of-writing-bad-things]

Henry Danger Reader Insert | Captain Man x Reader: SEASON 1

Episode 24: Henry & the Bad Girl, Part 1

~Junk-N-Stuff~

It had been a tough time for Swellview's crimefighters lately. The police and Captain Man had been plagued by a pesky criminal gang know, as 'The Wall Dogs', who found their kicks in defacing countless buildings, statues and other structures around the city. They were relentless, annoying and slippery, which was making Ray's life extra difficult.

The large man was sat upstairs in the store, (y/n) by his side as per usual, and they were both studying some images of the graffiti done by the gang. Their most recent hit had been on the library and the desperate police had even offered a $10,000 reward for the gang's capture. The sight of their work made Ray wretch, so the woman rubbed his back soothingly.

"Take it easy. I can look at them if you don't want to." She told him, taking a second to admire his jazzy shirt. It was one of her favourites, probably because of how it stretched over his broad shoulders and revealed the way his biceps flexed under the smooth skin on his arms.

"No, no, I can do this." He grunted, flicking through more of the photos. He had a lot of hate for these guys and their crimes made him sick to his stomach. He kept groaning even as Henry and Charlotte entered the shop, his stressed mood making him angrily check his watch as they smiled at him and (y/n).

"You guys are late for work." He snapped at the confused teens, who were barely late. 

"It's only 3:31," Henry said, checking on his phone just in case they had made some mistake.

"We're one minute late," Charlotte told him, puzzled as to why he was so tetchy.

"Yeah. You know how much crime can happen in one minute?" Ray asked them.

"No."

"How much?" The teens replied in tentative voices, not wanting to upset him further. (y/n) sighed as she followed him over to where the kids were standing; she knew he was frustrated with himself and the lack of The Wall Dog's capture, but that didn't mean he should take out his anger on Henry and Charlotte.

"Literally none." The woman answered, trying to keep a lid on his temper.

"But none of us are going to rest till we catch these dang Wall Dogs." The man growled. (y/n) could agree with that, these assholes were ruining the town with their 'art' and she wanted them to face justice.

"Okay, chill out," Henry told Ray, not seeing why he was getting so worked up. They had gone up against loads of irritating criminals before, why was he letting the Wall Dogs get to him?

"It's just a graffiti gang," Charlotte added, the kids walking to the back so they could ditch their backpacks.

"Oh god, don't set him off again." (y/n) muttered to them, as Ray began to titter next to her. Yeah, she wanted him to catch them, but she'd heard enough of his moaning and complaining over the past couple of days. 

"Yeah. And graffiti is a crime." Rau seethed.

"Are you okay?" Charlotte asked him timidly, seeing that he was upset about the gang.

"Because we don't get why you're this upset about graffiti," Henry explained for the two of them and the young woman put her hand on Ray's shoulder as he tensed up. She had watched his body language, picking up his tell-tale signs of sadness and seeing him so stressed made her upset too.

"Do you wanna know? Do you?" The superhero turned away with pained eyes, not wanting them all to see his weakness, especially (y/n). It would only make her worry and he tried to limit her sources of anxiety as much as possible. 

"I don't know." Charlotte stuttered, feeling like she stumbled onto a sore point.

"I really don't care either way." Henry shrugged. He was less attuned to picking up on other people's feelings, but Ray ignored his tone and started his story.

"It was thirty years ago. It was long before I was indestructible. Oh, that day." He whispered, tears collecting the corners of his eyes as he remembered that fateful day. 

~Flashback~

"Yay. Yay. What a great day this is." A four-year-old Ray exclaimed as he ran around his yard with a hobby horse, a huge grin etched on his face. His shirt flapped behind him, the vibrant pattern of the same splendour of his shirts as an adult. 

His fun was interrupted as a group of mean, older-looking kids kicked open the gate and waltzed up to him.

"Hey. What's up?" The ringleader said, his face twisted into a sneer as he looked at all of Ray's toys scattered across the grass. 

"Oh, hi. My name's Ray. Do you guys wanna play?" The soon-to-be superhero smiled cutely, but his toothy grin made no difference to the gang's stern glares.

"We want to play." The leader hissed, as his friends snatched the hobby horse from Ray's little hands and threw it into the bushes. They restrained the poor kid, who cried out as they treated him so cruelly.

"Do his playhouse!" The meanest kid ordered his friends and they began to spray paint on his pride and joy. It was a gift from his father and it was her favourite thing to play in. Seeing it defaced and ruined broke his little heart.

"No! Not my playhouse! No! Don't! NO GRAFFITI!" He shouted at them, watching helplessly as they continued to paint crude symbols and words on the plastic.

"This is something I'll never forget!!!" He cried out and the destruction of his playhouse became a key point in his childhood, cementing his hatred of The Wall Dogs and their graffiti forever.

~End of flashback~

Ray finished his story, (y/n) hugging his back with her arms around his waist. The story always made her upset. She'd heard it a million times and he always worded it the same, which had gotten a little boring after seven years, but the emotion was still there. Hearing about little Ray's anguish made her heart break and she wished she had been born a few years earlier so she could have stopped it.

"I never forgot it." He said sadly, his hands stroking the arms that had encircled his waist. She was always there to comfort him as he was for her and it warmed his insides to know that she cared so much for him. If only he knew the extent her care for him went.

"Okay, well, don't worry, man. We'll find the Wall Dogs and we'll stop them." Henry reassured his boss as he took a seat on the little couch in the store. He pulled (y/n) onto his knee, craving the scent of her shampoo since it was like a safety blanket for him. It meant that she was close and he wasn't alone, so he relished its fruity fragrance.

"But they say there's a bunch of them. How are we gonna stop them all?" Charlotte quizzed, knowing that rounding up an entire posse of artistic criminals who all had each other's backs was going to be an enormous task.

"Easy. You wanna kill a snake, what do you do?" (y/n) looked at the kids, a devious plan forming in her head. She was trying to ignore the way Ray was nuzzling her hair since the smell of his cologne and hot breath on her ear was making her dizzy. His nose brushed the curve of her ear and her hair stood on end as she held in a delicate whimper. 

'Children in the room, best friend behind you!' She blinked, her screaming mind being the complete opposite of her calm face.

"Get a shotgun." Charlotte nodded, thinking that if she came face to face with one of the slippery reptiles, she'd not take any chances.

"No, jeez." (y/n) frowned, standing up from Ray's lap and looking at the kids. The large man stayed behind her, choosing to wrap his arms around her tummy so she'd stay near him. He was feeling particularly clingy and he couldn't help but rest his chin on her head.

"I meant, to stop the whole gang, we just have to capture the leader of the gang. Y'know, go for the head?" She hinted and they all nodded as they finally understood her. Charlotte gave her a minuscule smirk, nodding subtly at how Ray wouldn't leave her alone and the older girl flushed slightly.

"Yeah. Let's go." She nodded at Charlotte, untangling herself and stepping away from the needy man. Ready to get to work, the females walked to the elevator together, leaving Ray and Henry to chat amongst themselves for a few moments. 

"So, uh...you getting cosy with (y/n) there?" Henry mentioned to his boss, a knowing smirk working its way onto his face. He had seen the way Ray hugged her and nestled into her neck, how the man didn't notice her pleased shivers blew his mind. 

"What?" Ray asked, not seeing how intimate the two of them had been. That was normal for them, the true sentiment was dulled by their fear of rejection and a life of loneliness. 

"You guys are so gross." The boy shrivelled his face up, thinking about how lovey-dovey the couple were.

"We are not!" His boss exclaimed, a blush creeping up past his collar as the words sunk. He couldn't help it if the young woman was so damn irresistible.

"Dude, you're disgusting." Henry teased, walking away from Ray so he could follow the girls downstairs.

"We're just friends!" Ray spluttered, but it was the same excuse as always and it was starting to wear Henry and everyone else down.

"Lies!" Henry laughed, knowing that as much as Ray denied it, he was completely in love with his helper and she was utterly devoted to him.

~Down in the Man Cave~

"There." (y/n) turned the PearPad around so the teens could see. It had taken her a few minutes to find the right villain and she couldn't help but notice as she searched the databank, Ray was keeping a respectable distance between the two. It stung her a little bit and she wondered if something had happened whilst she had made the trip down with Charlotte and he was with Henry. 

"Yikes." The dark-haired girl cringed, looking at a man with a top hat and mask. He definitely had strong bad guy vibes and he gave Charlotte the creeps.

"Who's that?" Henry asked, squinting as he studied the criminal.

"Van Del. Watch," Ray growled and swiped the video onto the computer's monitor so they could watch it clearly. He had taken Henry's words to heart, thinking that he was invading (y/n)'s space too much and probably freaking her out by his nuzzling and wandering hands, so he decided to take a step back from all his cuddling. He didn't want to leave her soothing arms, but he would rather suffer on his own than be the source of her discomfort, even though she could never be unhappy in his embrace.

"I am Van Del, pack leader of the Wall Dogs. We are not criminals. We are not animals." The villain onscreen said, making the adults scoff in bemusement. 

"Could've fooled me, asshole." (y/n) muttered, folding her arms to replace the ones that were previously around her. They were no substitute, but they'd do; she'd survived years of pining so far, loneliness was a familiar enemy.

"We are artists. And these...these are are our weapons of artistic destruction. Prepare to be sprayed." The man said ominously, a can of spray paint poised to spray the camera lens, but his speech was interrupted by another, more motherly, voice.

"Vanny! You left your wet laundry in the washing machine!" The voice yelled, irritating Van Del.

"I'll move it in a minute, mom!" He shouted back, annoyed that his big moment was ruined by his mother's scolding.

"Edit that part out." He sighed, looking behind the camera as (y/n) paused the video.

"All right, we know he has a mother and a lazy editor," Henry commented, his observations not really helping their investigation. This was going to be a long process.

~Later that night~

Ray and Henry had been staking out the Big Putts golf course for over two hours, their eyes peeled for any sign of the Wall Dogs. Choosing to hide behind the golf ball washer, they peered through their night vision goggles for any sign of criminal activity, but so far there was nothing.

"I don't think the Wall Dogs are coming here," Henry said to Ray, who was leaning over the hedgerow and taking a sip from his large soda.

"Schwoz said they are." The superhero replied, slurping his drink so he could get the caffeine he sorely needed to stay awake.

"Come on, it's after 2:00AM. Let's go." Henry complained, feeling fed up with the whole thing. 

"No, until those disgusting Wall Dogs show up here and we catch them, neither one of us leaves this spot." Captain Man told his sidekick firmly, but he was starting to feel the effects of the vast quantity of soda he'd drunk.

"Now, wait here. I gotta go pee." Ray added, waddling off to use any bathroom he could find, much to Henry's annoyance.

"You just said we can't leave this spot." The boy reminded him, but he really should've learnt by now that Ray Manchester just makes stuff up as he goes along. 

"I've had a gallon of soda. What goes in must come out." The man whined, his voice strained as he crossed his legs.

"Ugh, now I know why you have (y/n) as a babysitter." Henry joked to himself, but Ray had already left in search of the nearest place he could pee. Feeling bored, he put his gloved hand in front of his goggles and began to use it as a hand puppet.

"Braw! I'm the hand monster, grrrr!" He giggled, his childish actions taking his mind off the dull, yet perilous task he faced alone.

"Ah, it's fun to pretend." Kid Danger sighed, but his relaxed moment was quickly cut short as he heard voices coming from across the golf course. He ducked down into the shadows and watched as the Wall Cogs crept across the lawn. 

"Hey, come on. Let's tag the windmill." One of them said, all of the criminals agreeing. They each took out a can of spray paint and began to deface the large windmill on one of the holes. 

Sneaking out of his hiding place, Henry stepped out into the light, intent on catching the scum and bringing them to justice.

"Freeze, Wall Dogs!" He yelled at them, trying to be intimidating. They all halted, their fingers poised on their canister's nozzles.

"All right, now, I only have this one pair of handcuffs, but Captain Man's gonna be back in a second and he has more handcuffs. So, until he gets here—Hey, wait! Hey, hey, hey!l" Oh poor Henry, the poor kid really should've waited for his larger, more powerful, more experienced boss. He didn't stand a chance against the whole group and he was quickly swarmed by them. 

"Ha! Gotta, dude!" He managed to pull one to the ground and yank off their mask, but to his surprise/delight, it wasn't some rough and tumble guy, it was a very pretty girl.

"Woah, you're a girl dog." He breathed out in shock as the cute teen squared up to him.

"Thanks for noticing. Get 'im, Reeko!" She yelled in a distraction attempt, trying to take him down with a kick, but Henry was stronger and he managed to wrestle her onto the grass. Twisting her arm behind her back and locking his arm around her neck, he tried to immobilise her, but the girl was strong for her size.

"Let me go!" She yelled, her energy being sapped by the minute as she struggled against the teen superhero.

"Where's Van Del?" Henry grunted, as she escaped his grasp and they engaged in a heated fight.

"Who's Van Del?" The girl feigned ignorance, knowing that loose lips sink ships.

"You know, your leader," Henry said, trying to keep up with her blows.

"Never heard of him." Girl Dog replied, smirking at how she'd never tell Kid Danger her secrets.

"Oh, don't lie. You guys have been running around all over Swellview messing up buildings. Now, put your hands behind your back." Henry ordered her, his grip on her wrist like iron. The only question on his mind was, where the hell was Ray?

"Ugh. You're such a Herbert." The girl complained, hating how law-abiding he was.

"I am not a Herbert! What is a Herbert?" Henry gasped, resenting that she'd even suggest that even though he didn't understand what it meant.

"A dork. Someone who's lame. Someone who doesn't understand what the Wall Dogs stand for, which is artistic defiance. Herbert!" She snapped at him, baring her teeth in an animalistic snarl.

"Or maybe, you're just a punk who runs around town at night, wearing your dark clothes and dumb mask. Spray-painting stupid stuff because you're a loser." He countered in a harsher tone. He felt shocked at how strong his words were and his heart sank to his stomach when the girl began to sob at his words. Oh, shit, he made a girl cry. 

"All right. Oh, I'm sorry, no. I didn't mean what I said. Okay, hey..." Henry thought he'd really screwed up and he inched towards the girl to calm her down. However, when his fingertips touch her jacket, the girl flipped his wrists behind his back and put his handcuffs on him. Henry struggled as she locked him to the ball washer, smirking as she secured him in place.

"Dang it!" The boy exclaimed, knowing he had let his guard down stupidly. How would he explain this to Captain Man?

"So, I got to go now. Try not to miss me too much. Or this handcuff key." She smirked at him, tossing the key away into a nearby pond.

"This isn't over! You can run now, but sooner or later, I'm gonna find you." Henry told her, his hands writhing against the handcuffs in an attempt to get free, but without the key, it was futile. (y/n) and Schwoz had designed them specifically so they'd be nearly impossible to wriggle out of.

"Well, I'll make it easy for you. Meet me tomorrow night, midnight, right under the Swellview sign. Come alone." She said in a sultry voice, making Henry gulp silently.

"Alone?" Hey, what are you—No, you better not, please don't—" Kid Danger stuttered as the girl moved towards him and placed a soft kiss on his lips. Well, that had never happened before. 

"Isn't that more fun than fighting with me?" She teased him, looking very pleased with herself.

"No! Maybe. Kid of, I can't be sure unless you do it again." Even though she was the enemy, Henry was still a teen boy and teen boys like kissing girls, so he threw all morals outta the window for this girl.

"Maybe I will tomorrow night if you come alone." She insisted, hoping he'd fall for her honey trap. If she could get Kid Danger on the Wall Dogs' side, then Captain Man would be no problem for the gang.

"But I..." Girl or job? Girl or doing the right thing? It was a dilemma and Henry couldn't choose between his heart or his head.

"Bye, Herbert!" The girl said goodbye to him and ran off into the night. Typically, Ray jogged over just as the last criminal got away and Henry groaned. He was gonna be in so much trouble.

"Hey." Ray greeted his sidekick, feeling so much better now he didn't have a gallon of soda in his bladder.

"Hey," Henry replied timidly.

"I'm done peeing." The man smiled as if he'd accomplished some great feat. If only he knew Henry had let all the Wall Dogs get away, had kissed one of them and was going to meet her tomorrow night, he wouldn't be smiling then.

~The Man Cave~

So, not even the great Captain Man had the strength or knowledge to free Henry from the handcuffs. No key meant no freedom, so the man had had to cut through the ball washer and carry it all the way back to their headquarters so Charlotte and (y/n) could figure out a way to free him. 

"Will you guys hurry up and get these handcuffs off of me? I've had an itch for an hour and I can't scratch it," The boy said in a snappy tone, feeling achy after being in the same position for so long.

"Where's your itch?" Charlotte asked as she, (y/n) and Ray walked over to the kid so they could help him out.

"We'll scratch it for you," Ray told him, prepared to do anything to stop his complaining.

"Eh, I don't think you wanna do that," Henry replied, making them all cringe in disgust.

"Oh my god, you're an animal." (y/n) frowned at him, to which Henry only responded with an eye roll.

"Hey, give me one of my gumballs." He said to Ray and the man clumsily shoved one into the boy's mouth so he could get out of his icky uniform. He wiped his hand on Henry's shoulder as he looked at his best friend.

"Let me guess, you want me to try and pick the lock?" She knew that he had no clue how to help his sidekick, so she sighed and walked over to her toolkit so she could find something suitable for the job. Henry took the opportunity to turn back into his civilian self, breathing a sigh of relief at how much more comfortable he felt.

"Okay, try to unlock me." He said to the waiting girls, Charlotte having decided to learn from the best in the art of picking a lock. 

"Y'know, I don't understand you." Ray suddenly spoke up as they began to fiddle with the lock. 

"What I'd do?" Henry glared at his boss, feeling too tired to receive a scolding.

"You let all the Wall Dogs get away." The large man said, making (y/n) peer around the boy's body so she could see him.

"You can't say anything, you were off peeing, god knows where" She sassed him, but quickly returned to her work as Charlotte made a small breakthrough.

"Hey, I caught one. Till she tricked me and handcuffed me to this ball washer." Henry complained, but his words intrigued the females behind him.

"She?" Charlotte asked, stepping back from the lock for a moment as her friend stopped working. 

"You never said she was a girl." (y/n) pointed out, watching Ray's face frown in thought. She had a bad feeling about this.

"Well, she was. And she was really tough. And pretty, she had these...eyes...and this face." Henry slipped into a dreamy smile as (y/n) shared an amused look with Ray. Ah, young love...

"She had eyes and a face?" The man sassed his sidekick, thinking that he'd let himself get distracted.

"Well, at least we have a description of her." Charlotte jumped in, as the young woman next to her looked at Henry's flushing face. Wait a minute. She noticed something funny about him, something off, hold on...

"Why you looking at me?" Henry gulped nervously as the woman studied him, Ray coming over to look too. Sadly, he wasn't as observant as her and it would take her pointing out the subtle difference for him to see.

"What's on your lips?" She asked, recognising that they seemed a little too shiny and soft for Henry's lips. The boy paled as he suddenly felt very, very small.

"I don't know. Lip skin?" He stuttered, but (y/n) wasn't stupid and she could see through lies when she needed to. She ran her thumb across the boy's bottom lip and she didn't need to be a genius to know what it was. 

"Well, it's sticky, strawberry-scented and exactly like this lipgloss that pretty much every girl in Swellview is wearing right now." The young woman held up her own tube of strawberry cheesecake shine, knowing that if she was to compare its contents to the substance on Henry's lips, it would be a perfect, chemical match.

Ray looked at her in disbelief. He had loved seeing her soft lips all dewy and honey-like, it made him want to see if they really did taste like real strawberries as they said in the commercial, but now he felt sick to his stomach. If that's a girl lipgloss and it's on Henry, oh my god...

"Did you kiss that girl Wall Dog?" The superhero asked in a squeaky, hurt voice. His sidekick and the enemy? No!

"No!" He replied, making them sigh in relief, but the moment was short-lived.

"She kissed me." He added on the end and everyone groaned in annoyance, especially Ray.

"What?" The boy looked at his boss, wondering what the big deal was.

"You let your guard down and you let a criminal escape because the criminal happened to be a pretty girl?" Ray exclaimed in shock, thinking about how the kid could've been so careless. 

"An extremely pretty girl." Henry clarified as (y/n) and Charlotte finally cracked the lock. The boy sighed and rubbed his wrists as he straightened up.

"And that is how you get a dumb boy outta some handcuffs." The woman told Charlotte, swallowing when she saw her best friend's devastated face.

"Ray, I'm sorry. I really did try to catch the Wall Dogs." Henry reassured him, but (y/n) could tell that it didn't carry a lot of water.

"All right, I just wish we had more information," Ray said, letting his anger calm down before he could lose his temper.

"Like where their hideout is or where they're gonna strike next." (y/n) said with him as he refrained from pulling her into him, wanting to stay 'professional' like he thought she wanted. She wondered why he seemed so distant from her, thinking that he was upset with her.

"Did the girl that kissed you say anything that could help us find them?" Charlotte quizzed Henry.

"Or find her?" Ray added, folding his arms so they seemed less empty since they couldn't find the person they loved to hold most.

'Meet me tomorrow night, midnight, right under the Swellview sign. Come alone.' Henry remembered the girl's words, and he knew he had a choice to make. See her again (and kiss her again) or take her and the Wall Dogs, down. 

"No, she didn't say anything." He lied, his voice wavering as the words slipped out. He wanted to feel those lips on his again, so he couldn't help but lie to his friends, even if he was betraying them and his moral compass.

"Really? 'Cause, it looked like you were thinking about something." Ray told him, ignoring the way his skin tingled as (y/n)'s arm brushed his.

"Yeah, I smell bullshit." She looked at Henry suspiciously, sensing that he wasn't telling them something.

"What were you thinking about?" Charlotte asked, making the boy flounder for an answer. 

"Pizza." The kid answered lamely, making them look at him weirdly. Henry just shrugged and wandered over to the auto-snacked to get some of the cheesy Italian food, but his friends were still very suspicious.

"He's lying." (y/n) stood on her tiptoes and whispered Ray in Ray's ear. He shivered at the contact but kept his cool and he analysed his sidekick's body language.

"Yeah." He replied, knowing that something was coming and it left a unnerved feeling settle in his stomach. 

~The next night, midnight, behind the Swellview sign~

Henry just couldn't help it. He had to kiss that girl again, he just had to. She was intoxicating, her bad girl persona drew him to her like iron to a magnet. Donning his Kid Danger costume, he had made his way up the hazardous and gruelling mountain on which the Swellview sign was illuminated.

"Hey! Hello? Uh, girl?" Henry called out into the night, after jumping down from a rock with a thud.

"Uh, here, girl dog." He tried, whistling like you would for a puppy. It was not his best idea, given the fact he was trying to find a pretty girl, not a dog.

But, it seemed to work, as a figure, clothed in black, did several black flips and cartwheels up to the superhero, shocking Henry at how she chose to make her entrance.

"You know, you could've just walked up to me." He told her, thinking that all her flips and spins were a bit of an overkill.

"You came here alone, right?" The female Wall Dog asked him, looking around the surrounding shrubbery and mountainside to see if Captain Man or the cops were waiting to pounce.

"Yeah, I'm alone," Henry replied, which made her smirk.

"Good to know." She smiled, leaning in for a kiss, but Henry wanted to play a little hard to get first.

"Hey, I don't even know your name." He said, leaning back despite his yearning for her touch.

"Then why don't you guess? Here's a hint. It's Veronika." The girl told him, making the boy suspect that being teasing and playful was part of her personality.

"That's a pretty specific hint, Veronika." Henry smiled, glad that he could finally put a name to her lovely face. With the boy asking no more questions, Veronika leaned in, and they shared a sweet kiss. When she pulled back, she threw a can of spray paint into Henry's hand, which greatly confused the kid. She didn't expect him to....did she?

"What's this for?" He asked although he had a sneaking suspicion of what she wanted him to do. Grabbing his wrist, she pulled him over to the large glowing sign behind them.

"Let's go to work on the Swellview Sign." She said, shaking her can in preparation.

"What? No! Are you crazy?" He stopped her before she could do any damage, terrified of the consequences if Ray, (y/n) or Charlotte found out what he had done. He'd already withheld information from them, lied to them, sneaked out under their noses and now this? Oh, hell no.

"Are you really going to be a Herbert?" Veronika asked him in an annoyed voice.

"I am not a Herbert. This sign is the property of our city, and I'm not gonna let you do something illegal to it." He scolded her, but she really didn't care.

"Oh, you think that just because something is illegal means it's wrong?" She stated, clearly having different beliefs to the crime-fighting teen.

"Well, yeah," Henry replied.

"I'm an artist. The Wall Dogs are artists. Don't you like artists?" She ran her fingers up his chest in a teasing manner, hoping to use his teenage hormones against him.

"Sure. But why should everyone in Swellview be forced to look at your art?" He asked, gesturing to the huge sign that looked over Swellview for everyone to see.

"Why am I forced to look at giant billboards advertising things I don't want to buy?" Like diapers and lawyers?" She pointed out, even though her argument was really the same. Advertisements were meant to be in the places they were and they weren't being done against the owner's consent.

"Maybe some lawyers need diapers. I don't know." Henry said, sighing at how frustrating their argument was.

"Maybe we should just kiss again." He suggested, preferring the idea to them arguing over who was right and who was wrong. They kissed again, but Veronika pulled back with a frown on her face as the whir of a helicopter flew over them.

"A police helicopter? You called the cops on me?" The girl looked at Henry with a mix of terror and betrayal, but Henry looked just as surprised as she did.

"No, I did." A new voice entered the conversation, a voice belonging to none other than Captain Man.

"Captain Man?" Henry looked at his boss in shock.

"You said you came alone!" Veronika cried at her crush, thinking she had been set up.

"I thought I did. How'd you find me?" He replied, looking back and forth between the two like he was choosing between his heart and his head.

"I think you know that I have a very smart helper. She helped me follow you. Then I hid in those bushes and watched you two kiss." Ray revealed, having tracked his sidekick through the city with the help of (y/n)'s expertise. God, he loved her.

"I know that sounds weird, but it's my job." He added on the end to stress that he wasn't some weirdo that spied kids from the bushes.

"Captain Man, look! We're up here! We're in the helicopter!" A voice yelled over the police helicopter's megaphone, even though it was pretty obvious that the cops had arrived, what with the noise, lights and wind.

"I know!" Ray snapped, hating how incompetent Swellview's police force were.

"You shouldn't have come here..." Henry glared at Ray, tensing his muscles as he prepared to battle with his boss. Yes, battle.

"And you shouldn't have lied to me. One of us has to protect the city from trash like her." The older man replied, pointing an angry finger at the boy. He glanced at Veronika, his eyes brimming with hate and anger.

"All right, don't call her trash. Or...or I'll call (y/n) scum!" Henry spat, infuriated how rude and offensive Ray was being to the girl he fancied.

"Trash!" Ray bellowed at the Wall Dog, Henry's words about the woman he loved fuelling his temper like logs on a fire.

"She's not trash! And you're not taking her anywhere...old man." Henry insulted Ray with one of the worst things he could have said. The man was extremely touchy about his age, probably because he was getting on a bit, and he was still no closer to the life he had envisioned as a younger man. Married to (y/n), kids with (y/n), a house with (y/n), just anything but the lonely existence he was putting up with now.

"How dare you. You know I'm sensitive about my age." Ray hissed at his sidekick, the boy knowing all of his secret heartache on how he thought he would die alone, (not that (y/n) would ever leave him).

"By the way, I'm only 34." Ray quickly mentioned to Veronika, just in case the girl thought he was like 50 years old or something.

"Now, She's going to jail." Captain Man pushed past Kid Danger and took out his handcuffs so he could take her in. He grabbed her wrist and tried to force the cuffs on her, enraging Henry.

"Get off of me!" Veronika yelped as Captain Man clasped her hand with an intense grip, her crush surging forward to come between the two.

"Leave her alone," Henry shouted, smacking Ray's hand and pulling him into a shoulder throw in an impressive feat of strength. Henry panted as his boss stood up and dusted himself off, shaking from both his rage and his disbelief at what his sidekick, his friend had just done.

"That was not okay." He growled before Henry charged at him with a battle cry and tackled him. They pushed backwards and forwards as they struggled to outmatch each other's weight and strength, but Ray won in terms of muscle density, so he threw the boy to the floor with a grunt. Quickly getting to his feet, Henry tried to kick Ray, but the seasoned fighter grabbed his boot and used that leverage to pin the boy back to the ground. The police and Veronika watched in astonishment as the superhero duo wrestled in the dirt.

Getting back up, they gasped for air and threw several punches before Ray grabbed Henry's arm and picked him up in a fireman's life, chucking him onto a boulder. The rock's harsh surface made Henry's bones ache and he groaned in pain for a second as Veronika jumped onto Ray's back, not being able to bear the sight of the kid in pain. After the shock of the surprise attacked drained away, Ray swiftly wriggled free from her clutches and slapped her away with minuscule swipes, not wanting to fight the girl and injure her too badly.

Returning to his brawl with Henry, Ray clambered onto the boulder and engaged in a heated struggle as both males competed to topple the other one off the side. Henry blocked one of Ray's lunches and seeing that the superhero was distracted, Veronika grabbed the heel of his boot, allowing the teen boy above her to push Ray down the mountainside. The kids looked at each other in shock, their adrenaline still rushing through their veins.

"I'm okay!" Captain Man's weak voice could be heard as he fell down the mountain, letting Henry know that he wasn't injured or anything. Of course, he wasn't, he was indestructible and that fact allowed Henry to safely continue their devious plan. 

"You just pushed Captain Man down a mountain." Veronika gasped to Henry, her voice wobbling as she took in what had just happened.

"Well, I couldn't just let him take you to jail. Come on, we gotta go." Henry told her, getting down from the huge rock and leading her by the hand so they could flee the scene.

"But the helicopter has lights. They'll follow us" The girl pointed out to him. Even the Swellview police weren't so bad they couldn't track two criminals with their searchlight.

"Not if I put out their lights," Henry replied, smirking as he took out his remote. He felt a small pinch of guilt in his heart as he continued to hear Ray's grunts as the man began to hit the ground. He'd be okay, but man, it had to hurt.

The boy fired a laser at the helicopter, but his eyes were fixed on Veronika in an attempt to be cool and aloof, but of course, his cockiness meant that he missed completely.

"Ha! Missed us!" The police officer yelled at him gleefully, causing Henry's cheeks to burn in embarrassment.

"Maybe you should aim." The pretty Wall Dog advised him, caring less about how cool he looked and more about them getting out of there. Taking her advice, Henry looked at the searchlight on the helicopter and fired another laser, this time hitting his target dead-centre.

"Ah! He got it! Fly away!" The police officer growled over his tannoy and the cops backed off, leaving the teens alone on the mountainside.

"So, how does it feel being bad?" Veronika smirked at Henry, glad that she had turned him to the dark side.

"Feels gooooood." Kid Danger told her, the pair of them sharing a kiss before running off into the night, leaving Henry's allegiance and morality behind.

~Back in the Man Cave, some time later~ It had been a very long, anxious wait for (y/n) as she waited nervously for Ray to return. It was never good for anyone to sit and wait for news on whether their friend had really turned traitor, but for her, it was agonising. The last she had heard from her best friend was that he had confirmed Henry's location atop the mountain, but she hadn't received any contact since. Her worry had started to set into her bones, she twiddled her thumbs and bounced her knee in an attempt to distract herself from letting her mind wander. 

'He's not dead, he's fine, Henry's fine, you're fine, everything's good.' She told herself, trying to get it into her head that the superhero duo would return with the news that the Wall Dogs had been captured. But her hopes were tarnished as a tube came down with a lone figure, Ray, who was dusty, battered and downright fed up.

"Holy shit, what happened? Where's Henry? Are you okay?" She ran over to him, helping him to the couch as the questions tumbled past her lips. She had learned from experience that asking loads of questions as soon as he got back never ended well, him being exhausted from kicking ass, but she couldn't help it. The lack of his sidekick made it painfully obvious to her that something had gone wrong.

"He's not here." He groaned, accepting a glass of water that she had prepared beforehand. He felt like crap, despite his lack of physical injuries and his knowledge that his plan was going swimmingly. It didn't sit right with him that (y/n) had to be left into the dark from their schemes, but he knew it was strictly a Captain Man and Kid Danger problem, so he continued the lie.

"Please tell me he went home and the Wall Dogs are in jail." She said in a small voice, a small shred of hope peeking through her despair.

"No. He, uh...he and that Wall Dog girl through me down the mountain and got away." He sighed, trying to make his voice seem as depressed as he could. His heart broke as he watched a tear slid down her cheek, the bitter taste of betrayal sitting on her tongue.

"He went...with her...and you...mountain." She couldn't comprehend that the sweet, helpful, considerate, funny, good-as-gold Henry Hart that she knew would turn on Ray, turn on everything they had worked together to fight against, just for some crush he had on a girl.

"Don't worry. I can handle it." He reassured her, seeing how she fell apart at the thought of Henry becoming a Wall Dog. He felt terrible; he knew that she loved that kid like he was her brother, she had told him her secrets, her feelings, her beliefs, her knowledge and now he had left, for what?

"So he's betrayed us. After all this, he's joined them." He wasn't sure if she was talking to him or herself at this point, her reaction being much more severe than he ever could have expected.

"In the morning, we're gonna find them," Ray told her, his warms hands holding hers as if they were the only thing keeping her on the ground.

"I suppose you and Charlotte will need help." She laughed bitterly, hating the ironic idea that she would have to hunt down the boy she had trained with the same skills she would utilise. 

"You're my helper, sweetheart, I always need you." He whispered into her hair, letting her head fall to his shoulder. Personal space be damned, he needed her as much as she needed him, they were each other's lifelines and they would track Henry Hart until the ends of the earth, always together.

[isthisokey]

What if Khaotung was in Not Me.

I saw an edit shared on Twitter, and it got me thinking of how it could have been. These are just thoughts I decided to write down, nothing developed.

My first thought was what if Dan wasn’t the artist behind the graffiti? What if it was Khaotung’s character, let’s call him Tin (idk, I suck at names) and Dan was actually investigating and following him around but always ending up missing him and bumping into Yok. Yok, who only got interested in Dan because of his art, it spoke to him and he felt connected to it so when he saw Dan that night at Tawi’s place, laying on the floor surrounded by smoke he assumed he was the artist and then ended up bumping into him more than once every time a new piece was created. Dan after the fire played along cause he was more interested in what Yok and his gang were doing than in revealing the artist behind the political art.

One day, Yok goes to his art class as usual, he meets Tin for the first time.

Tin sitting in the middle of the art studio, naked. The model for today’s class. Yok and the rest of his class start drawing. Yok draws every detail he can see, even his tattoos, some of which seem a little familiar.

Yok notices Tin staring at him. They lock eyes... Yok collects himself and carries on drawing, while Tin continues to admire Yok.

Class ends, and before Yok leaves the studio, Tin approaches him. They have a chat, and they agree to go eat somewhere to continue their conversation. Yok picks the place, and he explains to Tin that he likes the place not just for the food but for the art. They sit at the table, which is right next to the graffiti painted by none other than Yok’s favorite artist. He takes out his phone and takes a photo. Tin smiles and looks at him. Yok gets flustered, explains that he likes the artist and his art, and starts rambling about everything he knows.

Tin just stares, a small smile forming on his face, and then Yok lets it slip that he knows who the artist is. He lets it slip. Something about Tin made him want to confess his deepest, darkest secrets. It’s his eyes. Tin looks confused. What do you mean you know him?

Yok gets flustered, laughs it off, and tells him to forget about it. Tin doesn’t want to push it, but somehow he gets another piece of information, just that they met during a fire.

Fast forward a bit. Yok gets a message from Tin with just coordinates of a location. He goes. He walks into an abandoned building. He finds a room covered in art. There's a bed. What is this place? The art, that's...

"I was worried you'd get lost... or not even show up" Tin appears behind him, "What is this?" Yok points at the art..."that's..." Tin says nothing, he comes closer to Yok and hands him a wallet Confused, Yok opens it and finds Dan’s ID and... "what the...a cop?”

Tin tells him all about Dan and that he is the real artist. Yok is disgusted immediately… a cop? He was hanging around a fucking cop?

[readyforevolution]

Who Built the Egyptian Pyramids? Not Slaves

Pyramid workers were paid locals. Yet historical narratives and Hollywood films have made many believe the Jews built the pyramids while enslaved in Egypt.

By Eric Betz Feb 1, 2021

There’s no end to conspiracy theories about who built the pyramids. Frequently they involve ancient aliens, lizard people, the Freemasons, or an advanced civilization that used forgotten technology. Scientists have tried and failed to combat these baseless ideas. But there is another misconception about pyramid construction that’s plagued Egyptian scholars for centuries: Slaves did not build the pyramids.

The best evidence suggests that pyramid workers were locals who were paid for their services and ate extremely well. We know this because archaeologists have found their tombs and other signs of the lives they lived.

The Lives of Pyramid Workers

In 1990, a number of humble gravesites for pyramid workers were found a surprisingly short distance from the tombs of the pharaohs. Inside, archaeologists discovered all the necessary goods that pyramid workers would need to navigate passage to the afterlife — basic kindnesses unlikely to have been afforded common slaves.

But that’s not all. Archaeologists have also spent years excavating a sprawling complex thought to have been a part-time home for thousands of workers. The site is called Heit el-Ghurab, and it was also likely part of a larger port city along the Nile River where food and supplies for the pyramid workers, as well as pyramid construction materials, were imported from across the region. Inside the rubble of Heit el-Ghurab, they found evidence for large barracks where as many as 1,600 or more workers could have slept together. And archaeologists also uncovered extensive remains from the many meals they ate, including abundant bread and huge quantities of meat, like cattle, goat, sheep and fish.

These workers’ graffiti can also be found all over the buildings they created. The marks, written in Egyptian, were hidden on blocks inside the pyramids and were never meant to be seen. They record the names of various work gangs, including “the Drunkards of Menkaure” and “the Followers of the Powerful White Crown of Khufu.” (Both gangs were named after the respective pharaohs of their day.) Other marks signify towns and regions in Egypt. A few seem to function as mascots that represent a division of workers, and they feature images of animals such as ibises.

Together, these hieroglyphics give archaeologists hints about where the workers came from, what their lives were like, and who they worked for. Nowhere have archaeologists found signs of slavery or foreign workers. Meanwhile, there is ample evidence of labor tax collection throughout ancient Egypt. That’s led some researchers to suggest workers might have rotated through tours of construction, like a form of national service. However, it’s also unclear if that means the workers were coerced.

Hollywood Myths of Egypt

So why do so many people think the Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves? The Greek historian Herodotus seems to have been the first to suggest that was the case. Herodotus has sometimes been called the “father of history.” Other times he's been dubbed the “father of lies.” He claimed to have toured Egypt and wrote that the pyramids were built by slaves. But Herodotus actually lived thousands of years after the fact.

Another obvious origin of the slave idea comes from the longstanding Judeo-Christian narrative that the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, as conveyed by the story of Moses in the book of Exodus.

Hollywood took the idea and ran with it. Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments films — originally released in 1923 and then reshot in 1956 — depicted a tale of the Israelites enslaved and forced to construct great buildings for the pharaohs. And as recently as 2014, the Ridley Scott movie Exodus: Gods and Kings depicted Christian Bale as Moses freeing the Jews from slavery as they built the pyramids. Egypt banned the film, citing “historical inaccuracies,” and its people have repeatedly spoken out against Hollywood movies that repeat Biblical narratives about Jewish people building Egyptian cities. Even the 1998 Dreamworks animated film, The Prince of Egypt, earned significant criticism for its depictions of Moses and Jewish slaves forced into construction projects.

In fact, archaeologists have never found evidence for the Biblical tales that the Israeli people were imprisoned in Egypt. And even if the Jewish people were imprisoned in Egypt, it’s extremely unlikely that they would have built the pyramids. The last pyramid, the so-called Pyramid of Ahmose, was built roughly 3,500 years ago. That’s hundreds of years before historians think the Israeli people first appeared. It’s also centuries before the oldest known Egyptian reference to the Jews on the Victory Stele of Merneptah.

So, while archaeologists still have much to learn about the people who built the pyramids and how the work was organized and executed, it is easy to throw out this basic misconception. The pyramids were built by Egyptians.

[soulmuppet]

Get started in your sad space cowboy journey with this collection of eight short pamphlet adventures for Orbital Blues from various writers!

While the adventures are designed as one shots, each one takes part in a different location in the same star-system, so they can be pieced together into a longer campaign.

This fantastic collection features a range of amazing talent from a variety of creators all illustrated by Orbital Blues co-creator Joshua Clark!

The Ground Forgets The Garden by Alyssa Ridley: Eight years ago, a workers co-op attacked a corperate grain ship, and crashlanded on the toxic planet of Gentiana to form an agrarian commune. Now the Kettani Agricultural are back, and want you to get their ship back from these "pirates".

Hard Vacuum, Cold Feet by Connor Shearwood: Articulated Spacetime are building a miniaturised Van Keer gate, and their last attempt blew up an entire planet. The scientist responsible was blamed and exiled when she tried to stop the project, and now she's turned to you. She's scrounged enough credits together to make it worth your while to steal the prototype before they can test it again.

They Laurel The Graves Of The Dead by Gareth Hanrahan: The leviathan wreck of the warship Charon slouches on her long, slow orbit, but ecades later, Charon has found a new purpose. The warship’s forward medical bay escaped the salvage team’s claws and has  become an independent, semi-legal hospital where outlaws and other settlers of the fringe can receive high-tech medical treatment. Sure, it’s a radioactive ex-warship tumbling slowly towards inevitable doom, but if you’ve got nowhere else to go – the Charon Hospice’s waiting for you.

Hardsuit Holdup b Jess Levine: As sunset fell on the great corporate war, so, too, did it fall on robotics manufacturer, corporate dynasty, and “family business” Hartwell Circuitech. Rumors claim the deceased Hartwells hid their fortune on a startrain, now wandering endlessly through the vacuum. In a stroke of luck, a contact sent you a tip that the Hartwell Limited would soon stop in the nearby Prospect Belt, but the airlock only opens for a select few, so you’ll need to cut a stranger in on the job. Pick your partner, board the barge, and you might just bring home the bounty.

Nameless, Aimless by Kayla Dice: In this pissant star system, somewhere between dead end planet número uno and dead end planet número dos there lies a reef of asteroids that Olageleo once made into a town. The metals mostly dried up, just enough that Olageleo pulled out, leaving two deadly gangs, both alike in notoriety and severity. It does seem to be a situation waiting for some strangers to come along and knock the whole thing over.

Timawa Graffiti by Makaptag: An abandoned resort world overwrought by gigantic trees, where there is only one port. The planet became too expensive to maintain, and has been left behind by the corp to die. Our Outlaws must travel through a terraformed pleasure forest to find an ancient mechanical relic, the last service robot of the resort. 

We Built This City on .repeat() by Nathan Blades: Out here, they build cities made of sand. Metropolis Technologies send out their Architect Robots to reconstitute empty plots into buildings and roads. The first few cities were closely supervised, but as the demand for resorts increased, MetroTech shifted to dumping a squad of robots in the middle of nowhere, enlisting staff for the soon-to be shops, and leaving them to it. You must seize the means of construction.

Voidlock Tombstone by Zachary Cox: A Hasugian Void Cavalier, the Dread Interloper, has crashed in the asteroid fields around Kassar IV. With the hull split in two by the failure of its Van Keer drive and its crew killed by spatial warping, it slowly vents atmosphere into the cold dark. You're not the first fool with an inkling that there might be something worth salvaging on this state-of-the-art warship. Pray you can make it out alive, before the Outlaw gold rush begins or Hasugian themselves turn up to claim this billion-credit corpse.

[zebee-nyx]

CalmWriMo Day 18

[11/18/2023]

Update!

Cozy day at home. Feels like it's been forever since I've had a light day like this to just chill out. Honestly spent more time than I prob should've just listening to youtube and playing minecraft for the first time in awhile. ('0.0) But also worked on writing stuff! So the day wasn't entirely lost to my gaming addiction lol. Did some more character interview things, cause at this point it's fun and helps me figure out the characters! Also did some work on the prologue, but agh, def not getting it done this weekend. It is mostly drafted aside from one weird gap in the middle that I need to plug with a paragraph. (-.-) Going to do that tmr then take a break from that for a week to freshen the mind a touch before going back and doing editing and what not. In the mean time gonna start the drafting for the first part of the story! Which is a mix of exciting and harrowing. [got no idea what I'm doing aside from a vaguely outlined plan lol, way more adjusted to worldbuilding and characters than I am on plot stuff…. Something I need to work on but know the most common way of learning is to completely flub it and I really don’t want to flub it lol… rambling, sorry!]

Progress:

2 Hour Writing Goal: ✅

Blurb: [see below]

Self Care:

Food: ✅

Hydration: ✅

Sleep: ❌[somehow managed to fall asleep while reading a webtoon... half woke up about an hour later to finish reading before actually getting to sleep lol]

Reading: ✅

Blurb: The Undercity

The "Undercity" is the term used to describe the more densely populated and neglected sectors of Neocago City. These regions are mostly located around the southern and outer western parts of the city. Aside from a few scattered and walled off corporate run neighborhoods surrounding factories and other corporate properties the undercity is a lawless place. Buildings are fused as they were haphazardly built atop one another in a completely unplanned way to accommodate rapid unfettered urbanization over the last few decades. Many of these buildings have prefabricated rooms at their core that have been buried by whatever construction materials were available.

Roofed alleyways are covered in trash that will never be collected. The pathways between buildings are almost always wet from a mix of rainwater and water from leaky pipes draining through the various layers of buildings above. Random cables feeding down from rooftop solar panels hang above the streets, following along the paths in thick bundles. People often simply splice into the cables to syphon off power for their businesses or homes as they need forming webs of wires chaotically stretching around over streets and alleys. Many narrow ground level streets are lined with neon signs advertising small local businesses. Some streets have become de facto "retrofitted" into public markets that have street vendor carts. While not necessarily on every surface possible, graffiti isn't uncommon.

Most places around the undercity fall with in the territories of one gang or another who for their credit often try to maintain some level of order and basic essential public services. Services such as shifting garbage away from the local area, "protection", and extinguishing the occasional fire. For the most part security firms [basically privately owned cops for hire, more on this some other time] are absent so nearly everyone in the undercity is armed in some way in the likely event they need to defend themselves. Although typically if one just keeps there head down and doesn't start anything they are relatively safe.

As one travels nearer toward the edge of Neocago the undercity becomes less developed, less populated, and less livable overall with some sections being more or less abandoned. In these places the borders between what is the undercity and the junkyards surrounding the city begin to blur. Sparsely hidden away in the more abandoned areas are indoor gardens that grow food kept away from prying eyes that may attempt to steal meals as well as valuable plants. Some places in these border areas have become mysterious dead zones where few who enter are ever seen nor heard from again.

The population of the undercity is mostly laborers, service industry workers, "service" workers, or unemployed with some small local shop owners sprinkled around. Near universally however, everyone has their vice. This part of the city has also become somewhat attractive to lower level runners, who often thrive in the absence of security firms and high need for people to do odd jobs.

In more developed regions of the undercity buildings are even built over roads which causes an intresting little phenomenon. These areas don't get sunlight and as a result have become immune to the fact that the sun is indeed a deadly laser. Following this little quirk these portions of the undercity usually never sleep and are always a bustling place of foot traffic and commerce.

In essence the undercity is nearly around sixteen million minds all working in their own interests, often intersecting and conflicting with others as there is little overall organized coordination. The aesthetics of this region are heavily governed by that as millions of little self serving adjustments are made to the environment each day.

[WOOOO!!! Love me some worldbuilding! lol (>v<) For the next week the blurbs will be about different areas in and around Neocago and honestly I'm going to have an absolute blast writing about it all! (^.^) Anyways and always, hope you are having a lovely day, peace (^V^)v]

[vinkumakkara]

i was looking at this graffiti at the Brotherhood safehouse and like... three crosses/graves - Victor and the Lopez brothers... the wolf using their resting place as its prowling grounds, their questionable legacy living on as the BH’s collective fursona... i wonder why the Carnales-Brotherhood connection wasn’t emphasized more when it’s everywhere in the imagery (and even the name). the Carnales cross is right in the middle of the BH symbol, Maero has it tattooed on his chest in the final game, and it was even more obvious in his old concept art

it was a “tattoo thing” after all, between Maero, his dad and Victor (not even the Lopez brothers themselves). there’s definitely some kinda “fall from grace” theme going on here i think - at least in the eyes of actual ex-Carnales - one that probably was supposed to mirror the Saints (maybe vs the VKs even?) in some way but it was left pretty obscured and vague. the connection isn’t mentioned in the manual or the rulebook - the latter of which just vaguely refers to the BH members as the “cast-outs and dredges of Stilwater’s slums” - which i think makes it extra mysterious. it feels like such a major aspect of the identity of the Brotherhood and yet it apparently never made its way into any kinda finalized promo/supplemental reading material like press kits etc. hidden in plain sight, only vaguely referred to in throwaway lines by people like Luz or Maero himself - which i think is the point probably, it was only ever of any deep personal importance to Maero himself and not the gang as a whole

[hinatastinygiant]

2 | Graffiti-Covered Walls

Pairing: Mikey x Fem!Reader

Undercover Masterlist

Weary from your busy day, you crawl into bed hoping that sleep would grant you a bit of peace from the world's harshness. As your eyelids grow heavy, a familiar darkness engulfs you, transporting you to a place where reality blurs and your emotions run wild. When your dream begins to unfold- its colors swirling like watercolors on a canvas- haunting memories emerge like ghosts from the past trying to stir a whirlwind of sadness, fear, and anger within you.

Taiju's residence stands as a shining symbol of his power and influence in his gang, the Black Dragons. Right in the heart of the city's underworld, the huge building grabbed the attention with its size and intimidating presence from all who walked by. 

The exterior exuded an aura of danger with graffiti-covered walls and boarded-up windows hinting at an explosive existence within. The entrance, always guarded by huge burly men, served as a gateway to a place where rules were always dictated by strength and loyalty. The heavy iron door, adorned with intricate engravings, gave an air of secrecy, hiding the inner workings of Taiju's world. 

Inside, the lavishness of the residence stood in complete contrast to the exterior. Beautiful chandeliers cast a warm glow over the polished marble floors, reflecting the wealth collected through illicit means. Gold mirrors adorn the walls, reflecting back the distorted images of a twisted reality. Beautiful, expensive furniture invites guests to sink into the comfort while engaging in secret meetings and whispers echo in hushed tones, cautious words exchanged between those who were allies or potential adversaries.

The air is heavy with the scent of cigars and the presence of power while the atmosphere is laced with an undercurrent of tension- an unspoken reminder of the violence that permeates every corner of the residence. For this is a place where fear mingles with ambition, where your brother holds court over his domain. The walls hear witness to the unspeakable acts and hide the echoes of abuse lingering.

To you, it was a golden cage, trapping you within its confines.

Standing before you, your twin brother paces back and forth, his sharp gaze piercing the air with anger and frustration. His presence exudes power, his leadership with the notorious gang granting him an air of invincibility but behind his facade of influence and wealth, the true nature of your family's life unravels- a life tainted by abuse and violence.

The argument you were having with him escalated, the tension thickening with each passing moment. Taiju's voice booms across the room, his words like venomous arrows aimed straight at your head. But you stand your ground, not ready to give in to him this time like you've done in the past.

"Taiju, this has to stop," you say with a steady voice. "We can't continue living like this. You are tearing this family apart!"

"So what?" Taiju's face twists into that of rage, his clenched fists trembling at his sides. "You think you can just walk away? Abandon your own family?" he spits, his words laced with venom.

Fear mixed with determination courses through your body as you face your abuser head-on. The love for your two younger siblings fuels your courage, as they always have, pushing you to protect them no matter what. "I can't let you hurt them anymore," you say. "We deserve better. Yuzuha, Hakkai, and I deserve better."

Leaving is the only way to break free from the vicious cycle that has trapped you with him for the past eighteen years and every word you say solidifies your decision even more. It was a difficult decision, you've thought about it for years, but deep down you know it's right.

As your argument reaches its climax, Taiju's anger erupts into a violent outburst. He lunges towards you, his hand raised, ready to strike. But in that moment, instead of standing there to take it like you usually do, for your younger sister and brother's sake, you turn around and quickly grab Yuzuha and Hakkai's hands and walk off. The resounding thud shook the room as Taiju's fist collided with the wall, leaving a shattered picture frame in its wake.

"Enough!" you shout. "We're leaving right now."

Without packing your things, you begin to lead Yuzuha and Hakkai out of the mansion, leaving behind your life of privilege and pain. The chill of the outside world embraces your skin, a complete contrast to the suffocating atmosphere you just left behind.

As the three of you walk hand in hand you can't help but feel a mixture of apprehension and relief. You could see doubt flicker in Yuzuha's eyes, too, uncertainty clouding her features. She then turns to you, her voice tinged with worry.

"Y/N?" she calls to you. "Was that really the right decision? I mean, we left there with none of our stuff..."

You pause for a moment, gazing into her eyes. Yeah, it might've been smart to grab a few of your things before you walked out, but you can't go back now. "Yeah," you then tell her. "We're taking control of our own lives, this is good for us. We'll be okay."

Hakkai, observant of your hesitation, squeezes your hand. "Thank you, Y/N," he whispers, his voice barely above a breath. "Thank you for giving us that chance to get out of there."

You smile softly as the city stretches out before you like a symbol of infinite possibilities. No longer are you chained to that prison you left behind. You are free. With determination coursing through your veins.

Days quickly turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. The three of you form a tightly knit bond as a shield against the adversities of the world. And together, you navigate through the challenges of finding a place to live, employment, and rebuilding your lives from scratch.

In the small apartment you now call home, the walls whisper stories of survival. It may not be grand or opulent like your former mansion, but it held a comfort that none of Taiju's money could buy. Each worn piece of furniture and crack in the paint serves as a reminder of the battles you had fought together and the strength that kept you going.

Late at night, the three of you gather around the worn-out couch, your siblings' faces illuminated by the glow of a single lamp. Conversations meandered from memories of the past to dreams of the future. Yuzuha, with her everpresent optimism, shared tales of her ambitions while Hakkai, with a newfound glimmer in his eyes, talked about how excited he was to go to college in a few years and the dreams he dared to chase.

As you listened to their hopes and dreams, a sense of pride welled inside of you. Despite the hardships and scars you carried, you have created a safe environment where love and support could thrive, shielding your siblings from the traumas of their past. And in their eyes, you can see the reflection of your own courage.

In that small, humble space, you vowed to yourself that you'd always protect the two of them- to be the pillar of strength they needed. No matter what challenges lay ahead, you were always determined to overcome them together.

Undercover Masterlist

[aronarchy]

No, Antifa is not the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis

Comparisons between [people] fighting against fascism and tiki-torch wielding anti-Semites are absurd—and dangerous.

Andrew Mitrovica 14 Sep 2017

[image ID: Counter demonstrators clash with white supremacists at the entrance to Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, US. Photograph credits: Steve Helber, Associated Press. /end image ID]

Recently, a fresh pathogen, which poses an urgent threat to public safety and discourse, has appeared suddenly on the political landscape. A batch of “liberals,” saddled with fragile sensibilities, have warned that liberty and lives are being threatened by ordinary, largely anonymous people seized with the duty to confront the ignorance and hate that Hurricane Donald and his abominable acolytes brandish routinely with impunity.

Predictably, the historically illiterate, ubiquitous members of the right-wing commentariat in America and beyond have attempted to tar the Antifa (anti-fascists) for resisting, and, if need be, defending itself against, the delinquents that march en masse at night with torches and mow down innocents in daylight with automobiles.

It’s an old trick: to negate real evil by manufacturing a phantom villain as a convenient foil or facile distraction.

Regrettably, but not surprisingly, this transparent rhetorical slight of hand is magnified repeatedly by an amnesiac establishment media that habitually finds and amplifies moral and intellectual equivalences where none exist.

In their attacks on the Antifa, these “liberals” have joined a pack of conservatives who—apart from accusing anti-fascists of fascism—howl on TV and elsewhere that climate change is a pan-scientific hoax, that Saddam Hussein certainly possessed weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq will eventually be “liberated,” and that Trump will indeed make America “great again.”

Given their unconscionable record, isn’t it about time these charlatans were disqualified permanently from passing judgment on the motives and conduct of others since they forfeited long ago any claim to enjoy any measure of seriousness or subtlety.

Of course, the legion of unrepentant hucksters and their enablers will never recognise, let alone acknowledge, their complicity in trafficking in such calamitous lies and disastrous designs.

So, instead of taking up perpetual residence in pundit purgatory, they have been rewarded with an unfettered licence on “elite” media to continue to defame people who were on the right of history and decency yesterday and are on the right side of history and decency today.

Women like Danuta Danielsson, the Polish-Swedish daughter of a Holocaust survivor who famously swatted her handbag at a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads strutting through a square in Vaxjo, Sweden in 1985.

I challenge the smear merchants to impugn Danielsson and desecrate the memory of the anguish her family endured at the homicidal hands of Nazis by describing her and, in particular, her remembrance-fuelled, spontaneous act, as the personification of fascism.

The same challenge applies to Irmela Mensah-Schramm, a 70-year-old anti-fascist who has devoted the past 31 years to defacing neo-Nazi graffiti and propaganda in public spaces principally across Germany.

Mensah-Schramm’s act of resistance landed her in court, where she was fined for “vandalism” and ordered to stop. Her reply: she’s not going to stop, nor pay the fine.

These days, it’s fashionable among the predominately white, male liberal intelligentsia to join the hysterical assault on the Antifa by insisting that, in effect, Danielsson’s and Menash-Schramm’s “violent” “law-breaking” must be condemned, rather than applauded, because it mirrors the malignant modus operandi of the fascists they defied.

This is absurd.

Even a cursory understanding of recent history reveals that individual and collective acts of resistance by progressive forces have traditionally been the target of these generic, hyperbolic attacks which are designed to delegitimise legitimate protest and marginalise the protesters.

From the 1960s “freedom riders” through to Occupy Wall Street, and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and Black Lives Matter movements, the same tired polemicists have employed the same tired polemics to try to deflect attention and guilt from the oppressors onto the oppressed.

Words and phrases like: “outsiders,” “agitators,” “provocateurs,” “Crypto-Marxists or fascists,” “bent on mayhem and violence” are the decades-old, cliched staples of this pedantic lot.

Liberals pining for a bucolic anti-fascist campaign will quibble in vain because while the vast majority of anti-fascists are peaceable, they will always be reduced to an ugly caricature by rabid reactionaries who customarily point an accusatory finger at everyone but themselves.

Still, in a windy, densely worded column dripping with condescension, one prominent liberal writer not only castigated the Antifa for squandering its “moral authority,” but claimed—without offering an ounce of empirical evidence in support—that neo-Nazis are “victims” of the exploitative corporate state too, thus requiring our sympathy and consideration.

Intended or not, this astonishing logic—such as it is—resembles Trump’s rambling, semi-coherent assertion that “many sides” were responsible for the violence that took Heather Heyer’s life in Charlottesville, Virginia in early August and that among the army of tiki-torch wielding anti-Semites were some misunderstood “fine people.”

Neo-Nazis are not “fine people,” nor are they “victims.” They are, aptly put, scum. There must be no equivocation, no obfuscation, no shading on this score from any quarter, at any time, for any reason.

To do otherwise is to provide succour to the philosophical descendants of genocidal murderers, who, given the opportunity, would relish enslaving and, once again, executing, wholesale, Jews, Muslims, Roma, homosexuals, the infirm, other vulnerable minorities and, yes, liberals.

Richard Spencer and his verminous brethren are, no doubt, chortling at the profoundly preposterous but increasingly popular media-propelled construct that the Antifa is as pathological as the fascists it reviles.

These are bizarre and dangerous times.

[kammartinez]

By Luis Alberto Urrea

I was born in Tijuana and spent much of my boyhood in a neighborhood — “colonia,” in TJ-speak — called Independencia. There was an ersatz European-style castle at one end of our street, a tamed bear living at the bottom of the hill, a madman next door who regularly got drunk and shot his pistola at the moon, and a yard with bananas and a tall old pomegranate tree. Sounds tropical. Sounds like Gabriel García Márquez. Doesn’t sound on the surface like the deadly desert, like the frightening shadow land of crooked policías and narco hit men.

The borderlands are the most interesting book in the world, being rewritten every day. Currently, I can attest that much of that contested region, from coast to coast, is alive with tourists seeking good food and cheap medical care, a developing street scene of boutiques and gourmet eateries, baristas and art galleries, vivid music and literary movements, ballet companies and symphonic concerts and, in my hometown, the best street tacos on earth.

The Mexican cultural journalist Jaime Cháidez Bonilla recently wrote this on Twitter (I’ve translated from his Spanish): “I like it when evening falls over Tijuana, a poetic act. A city so defamed, a city so generous.” I dare say most people don’t think of any border city, on either side of the wall, as generous. I have been fortunate enough to write about Tijuana and the border for many years, and of course I have read a library’s worth of other authors wrestling with the region. My favorite border pop song is by Nortec Collective (more on them below), and it’s called “Tijuana Makes Me Happy.” Yeah — the border makes me happy. A tip: Expect the unexpected.

I need to pause here in recognition that immigration is the relentless theme of this area and this era. But I do not believe that immigration stories are a subset of the literature of the borderlands: Though there is some cross-pollination, I believe immigration literature is a genre of its own, deserving of its own spotlight. I do not include it here.

What books and authors should I take with me?

One grand feature of border culture is the lure of a bargain. For decades, the clarion call of cheap muffler (“mofle”) shops drew tourists south; now, it’s cheap dentures and Viagra. So let us offer a one-stop classic, the anthology “Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti From La Frontera.” Edited by Tijuana’s greatest literary son, Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, along with El Paso’s late, great Bobby Byrd and his son John William Byrd, this wild anthology covers the good, the bad and the ugly. Many of the greatest border thinkers and writers are contained within its covers: Charles Bowden, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sam Quinones, Juan Villoro and Doug Peacock (model for the infamous hero of Edward Abbey’s novel “The Monkey Wrench Gang”), among others. Funky, funny, literary, angry — it will show you things you may have wondered about and things you might not have imagined.

What writers or books will help me feel the spirit of this place?

Even if you do not read poetry, the borderlands require it. In a place both lush and austere, alien and homey, full of symphonies of languages and accents, smells and sounds, silence and raucous music, nothing can touch the experience of being there like poetry. It is not a coincidence that most of the writers on my list are also poets. They will transport you.

Ofelia Zepeda, a 1999 MacArthur fellow, is a Tohono O’odham poet of such elegant and exact rhetoric, such integrity of culture and vision, that you miss her quiet genius at your own risk. She gave the songs of the Tohono O’odham back to the land. Come to the chapels of her books “Ocean Power: Poems From the Desert” and “Where Clouds Are Formed.”

I highly recommend a book that gives me endless delight as a reader and endless inspiration as a writer: Harry Polkinhorn and Mark Weiss’s seminal anthology “Across the Line/Al Otro Lado.” It covers the broad and surprising corpus of Baja California’s poetry, from Indigenous chants to postmodern epics, and it includes works that reflect the flavored cross-genre/cross-cultural/cross-border adventures the writers foresee in the distance of this decade.

Arizona’s first poet laureate, Alberto Ríos, born in Nogales, Ariz., is a true writer of the borderlands. Though all of his poetry books are excellent, “A Small Story About the Sky” remains my favorite. However, of particular interest for this list is “Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir.”

No one is better positioned to affect this literature than Natalie Diaz, the director of the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and a self-described “language activist,” Diaz is brilliant and powerful, and you need to read both “When My Brother Was an Aztec” and “Postcolonial Love Poem.”

Finally, the wizard, the curandero, the presidente: Juan Felipe Herrera. A former U.S. poet laureate and son of migrant farmworkers. My homeboy from Barrio Logan in San Diego. His selected poems in “Half of the World in Light” are a magical mystery tour, not only along the border but through the universe. Herrera is a kind of psychedelic drug and he will make you see visions. His voice is the distillation of all of our journeys.

What novels will transport me?

Borderlands authors are many. One of the best and most authentic is Denise Chávez. Her milieu is the often overlooked southern New Mexico and West Texas world of frontera families, and the tall tales that flourish there. She is the queen of the generation that surged in the 1980s and beyond — a strong feminist voice free of cant and bursting with delight. Her novel “Loving Pedro Infante” will begin your Chávez collection, and you won’t want to stop. Another groundbreaker is the poet and novelist Ana Castillo and her border classic “So Far From God.” Both of these writers tell the stories of women on the American side of the line in vivid color, in many tones and in both languages.

I also highly recommend anything by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. His “Aristotle and Dante” young adult novels are immensely popular, but I regard his poetry with helpless envy. Start with his story collection “Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,” which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and his poetry collection “Elegies in Blue.”

What audiobook would make for good company while I walk around?

The oldest, most venerable literary tradition along the borderline is oral. I didn’t start out reading books: I sat at the feet of old women telling ghost stories and fanciful family histories (and recounting dyspeptic gossip about other relatives). They were my first lit professors.

In my opinion, rather than audiobooks, you should listen to the music of the border, because it will be easier to absorb and you can dance to it. Every song is a novel or a book of poems, because the borderlands don’t talk: They sing. Music transcends and leaps over border walls like wild doves. Two of the best musical portraitists of this world are Lila Downs and Nortec Collective. Downs’s “The Border” is an elegant and lively album that paints indelible portraits with depth and wit. And her album “Shake Away” is a wild ride through the sounds and tales that we will never see on a tour bus or a beach holiday. (Suggested track: “Minimum Wage.”) For dance lovers and electronica fans, the Nortec Collective duo has created a hybrid of techno music that absorbs and transforms traditional instrumentation and themes into a rollicking dance music of joy and, yes, generosity. There are few bands that spawn a huge cultural and literary movement, but Nortec has opened gates for creativity in literature, theater, dance and visual art throughout the region and across the world that are constantly bearing fruit.

I must also recommend Los Lobos from Los Angeles, Calexico from Tucson, Ariz., and two wildly rollicking bands from Monterrey, Mexico: El Gran Silencio and Jumbo.

Anything I should add to my bookshelf?

For literate thrills and occasional chills, turn to Rubén Degollado (“The Family Izquierdo” and “Throw”). A splendid collection by Oscar Cásares, “Brownsville,” gives the inside scoop on a place in Texas that you may not think of without an author’s guidance. And Sergio Troncoso is such a beloved writer of the borderlands, there is a public library branch named for him in El Paso. His “A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son” is simply brilliant.

Luis Alberto Urrea’s Borderland Reading List

“Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti From La Frontera,” edited by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, Bobby Byrd and John William Byrd

“Ocean Power: Poems From the Desert” and “Where Clouds Are Formed,” Ofelia Zepeda

“Across the Line/Al Otro Lado,” edited by Harry Polkinhorn and Mark Weiss

“A Small Story About the Sky” and “Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir,” Alberto Ríos

“When My Brother Was an Aztec” and “Postcolonial Love Poem,” Natalie Diaz

“Half of the World in Light,” Juan Felipe Herrera

“Loving Pedro Infante,” Denise Chávez

“So Far From God,” Ana Castillo

“Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club” and “Elegies in Blue,” Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“The Family Izquierdo” and “Throw,” Rubén Degollado

“Brownsville,” Oscar Cásares

“A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son,” Sergio Troncoso

[audre-falrose]

13, 25 and/or 30 on the oc questionnaire?

(p.s. I'm working on your ask too! Thank you sm for asking ;w;)

13. Do I have any troublemaker ocs?

I have plenty cuz thats apparently one of my "types."

Unnamed tenticle girl loves being a lil lewd (help me name her?)

Still haven't done artwork of her but Mac is the badass tattoo artist who's an ex biker gang member. Loves making graffiti on the sides of various buildings.

And one last example is Vex. The flirty sort of student council president thats also got telekinesis. (Still gotta finish the sketch and more of her story but I wanna make a comic/webtoon of her at some point)

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something ect?)

I would use my self insert but that'd be too easy so...

(I need to get more artwork of them done ik ik...) anyway I tried making lisa an assistant for the library. She loves drawing and singing (but is very shy about both) She a lil shorter than I am but other than that it's close enough

30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection?

Oh look, a Love Live oc!! One I haven't touched in like forever but yeah! She would never admit it, but she has almost an entire closet of stuffed animals she's owned since she was little.