#I’m going to see about modding his face to be closer to the original design

[baronessofmischief]

Bad news for Star Wars action figure enjoyers because I just got the 3.75” Cad Bane figure and while this is what he looks like from the front—

… This is, unfortunately, what he looks like from the back.

They overlooked how things would appear at different angles and gave the guy with the most distinct and intimidating cowboy silhouette the most unflattering sculpt of a duster caboose I’ve ever seen

[cut-content-contest]

Moonjumper

The jist of his character is that he is the corpse of a prince, and his two rivals are the princes ghost and the princes ex. The 3 fuckers want to rule over the same area so competition. Also moonjumper I think only appears on the horizon, meaning he is the only 2d character in a 3d game which is pretty dope.

They were a cut character that was originally supposed to be pretty important, but all we got was gamefiles of vague information, a flat character model, a bit of dialogue, and some music. That hasn't stopped many different and wildly unique headcanons, designs, and stories from taking shape from the original scraps of this one axed character.

The third area/chapter in the game had a much different story in its concept stage, and even though the level was designed enough to be playable for a demo, the devs decided to simplify the story for that area from three central characters to one and a half. Originally, he was a prince that met with a terrible fate at the hands of his obsessively jealous princess, and he somehow got trapped on the horizon without any memories of his original life, instead going mad. He was going to offer information about the area to help to the protagonist, though he really wants to manipulate and control her and everyone else into being unable to leave the area. Mj's backstory was ultimately given to the new central character, Snatcher (who also existed but got a bit of a personality shift with his new spotlight), his musical theme (and somewhat his design) repurposed for the game's item dealer, and MJ himself was removed from the game. Bits of the original story are still scattered around (a spectral body outline on the wall, a face painted in the attic of an icy manor, the scrapped explorable area that still exists out of bounds in the final version of the game, a broken tower), but the character only exists in mods, fanworks, and the concept artist for the original level fleshing out his ideas in art. He has a lot of speculation about his full backstory, abilities, and role, but there's very little sources to have anything beyond theories.

okay. so. let me give you the basis of a hat in time's third (or second during the time moonjumper still existed) chapter. evil ghost guy steals the protag's soul and makes her do shit for him and along the way you can get Lore on why he's a ghost and turns out Another ghost-like entity that you encounter in the chapter killed him while they were both Alive. its more detailed than that but that is Not the point. ok. ghost guy who steals your soul. his name is snatcher. ghost guy who Killed snatcher. her name is vanessa. Where does moonjumper come in you may be asking. well. ORIGINALLY moonjumper was in snatcher's place. but! snatcher also existed in the game at the same time as moonjumper- just with a different backstory. eventually, moonjumper was scrapped, and snatcher filled that role. there are So many things involving moonjumper that got just outright removed because of this. However. there are also things that Didnt get removed that are still in the game that can be traced back to moonjumper, mostly through his design being different from snatchers- moonjumper's design is much, much more closer to the design of moonjumper/snatcher while he was still alive opposed to snatcher, who is just a purple ghost noodle. but even then, their human design and moonjumper's design still have quite a few differences. many people in the fandom/fan community of a hat in time like to try and incorporate moonjumper back into the story, and everyone's different takes are always fun to see :)

He was originally to be the remains of the prince, and was to haunt (and I believe attempt to take over) Subcon Forest. I’m pretty sure he was scrapped because a) there would have been too much going on in that one region and b) Snatcher was the spirit of the prince and in charge of the forest, so maybe they decided it was a little weird to have two characters come from the same dead guy. Also he would 100% have been a tumblr sexyman

Moonjumper is a cut character from A Hat In Time. Originally, they were going to live in Subcon Forest, and have puppetmaster motifs. He was also going to be the prince killed by Vanessa. The motifs and being killed by Vanessa were instead given to Snatcher, my little scrunkle doo.

Apparently originally there were supposed to be three characters for the Subcon Forest level, Moonjumper was supposed to be the Prince in the original story, but was later replaced with the Snatcher, who wasn't the Prince in original story. He still had NPC files on the full release of the game, but it wasn't a model, rather just 2D image with particle effects

He was a scrapped antagonist for the level of Subcon forest! Moon Jumper was scrapped due to the Snatcher being the main character for subcon forest, and not having room for subplots. Early developer commentary states that the Moon Jumper was stuck in the horizon and that his role throughout the level of Subcon forest was to get Hat Kid to join him in the horizon.

wiki link: https://ahatintime.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Jumper video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor-oR5ti9E showing off the NPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krHXy8afF74

Yosuke romance route

persona 4 has got this friendship/romance mechanic called "social links" which is basically just 10 events that you can choose to gradually level up for each sociable character in the game where you raise your relationships with said characters, which gives you various in-game boosts. most of the women in the game are able to be romanced. however, there is cut dialogue which implies that at some point, one of the male characters was meant to be a romance option as well! yosuke hanamura, the main character's best friend, has cut dialogue for his social link rank 10 event which is voiced (VOICED!! IN ENGLISH AND JAPANESE!! WHILE PEOPLE HAVE DENIED THIS SINCE THE ENGLISH VOICE LINES HAVE HIM SAYING "I LIKE YOU," IN THE JAPANESE VOICE LINES, HE IS EXPLICITLY CONFESSING TO YOU I'M PRETTY SURE!!) that implies that there was at some point going to be an option to romance him. it's assumed that this was cut somewhere later in development due to the lines being voice acted, though i believe that the reason this was cut has not been confirmed yet (though, seeing as how persona 4 was made in the 2000s....... you can probably just guess why lol)

there were unreleased voice lines that showed what was supposed to be a gay route for Persona 4 (there ARE Japanese lines for this as well, and the way in which the "I like you" part is said is the Japanese version of confessing to someone you have a crush on) and a lot of fans do agree that the protagonist is best paired with Yosuke for character development purposes, but it was probably scrapped because of homophobia 😭

Exactly what it says. Was likely scrapped because Atlus are COWARDS who didn't wanna give us the gay romance we deserved. It would have been so cute though I'm forever pissed it was scrapped...

We know it was programmed it. Yosuke is the only male character with dialogue flags, meaning you can fail his social link. The only other characters with these flags are the female love interests. Yosuke also has recorded, in both English and Japanese, final confession lines, something unique to max rank romance social links. This means it was likely scrapped very late in development. As the game also covers (badly) gender and sexuality, we can hypothesize that Yosuke's character arc was supposed to be overcoming internalized homophobia. Instead he just kinda stays "jokingly" homophobic and never grows past it.

The player would have been able to enter a romantic relationship with the character Yosuke Hanamura— text and voice lines for this option still exist within the game, and can be activated via modding. They even have proper translations, and the English versions of the lines are voiced as well, implying that the cut was made rather far into development. While this is a sad loss in its own right, it also has devastating implications in regards to the original state of other pieces of LGBT+ representation which may have also been scrapped and/or heavily modified to appear. For example, Kanji’s attraction to men and Naoto’s gender situation were both downplayed and/or walked back in the final version of the game, but it’s highly likely that Yukiko’s arc was originally intended to include more bisexual overtones, and arguments can be made for Rise’s arc being meant to center on the struggle to come to some sort of terms with her own sexuality and presentation in an industry that keeps such a tight hold on those aspects of its workers lives.

throughout the entirety of persona 4 (+golden), yosuke is portrayed to be the best friend of the protag, but also extremely homophobic towards another male character who was hinted at being gay (before atlus fucked that narrative up too). his social link hints at him having a crush on the protag, and he was intended to have a romantic route just like the female characters, but that was cut (not sure why). the whole game is about embracing the truth, including your hidden sides that you are ashamed to show to others, and having yosuke come to terms with his repressed homosexuality (& realizing that he has internalized homophobia) would have fit perfectly within that theme, but atlus said fuck that shit and cut that entire romance out. the cut dialogue can easily be found on youtube. the thing with this being cut out is that without the romance and coming to terms with his homosexuality, the only thing left of yosuke is being very homophobic. no one condems yosuke for what he says to the other male character, and it is never addressed beyond mere gags or jokes. it's horrible to sit through and honestly it was such a missed opportunity. it's such an issue that people have made a mod implementing a romantic route for yosuke just because of this. every day i mourn thinking of what could have been

This game explores many queer themes, but lacks any explicit queer relationships. The fact that file scrapers and modders discovered an unused voice line for one of the male characters that implies a romance option for him was cut from the final game makes queer fans feel let down, regardless of how groundbreaking the other queer plot points were at the time of release. It's speculated that it was cut because devs or localizers thought that it would be too much queer content in one game, and that it would affect sales and create too much controversy. I, however, believe that anyone who manages to get through the mandatory gay sauna dungeon would have had no stones to throw about an optional mlm romance.

The first party member in Persona 4, Yosuke Hanamura, was originally going to be a viable romantic partner once the player got far enough into his Social Link. This was removed rather late in development, as voiced lines for a scene where he and the protagonist begin dating were recorded in both Japanese and English. To this day, Persona 2: Innocent Sin remains the only Persona game where the protagonist can enter a gay relationship with another boy.

In this game you can choose to romance several people. There is cut voiced dialogue for a romance route for Yosuke, the main character's best friend, but in the final game he is not a romanceable character. Some are of the opinion that taking out the romance option for Yosuke removes the complexity from his character.

https://gamerant.com/persona-4-golden-mod-yosuke-romance/

[danganronpedits-archived]

Hello! Could I please have a kin matchup with characters from DR1, SDR2, DRV3 and BNHA? Thank you! I am a very mixed person. When I'm out talking to people in public it's very obvious that I have nothing to say and that I don't want to be there. I'm a complete hopeless romantic and can catch romantic feelings quite easily. I'm a lot more talkative when I talk to people online and I always laugh at the dumbest things. I love the color pink and lovecore in general. I'm also quite insecure- haha

you can absolutely have a matchup!! hehe,, you sound really neat, i’d like to talk with you myself anon... only if you’re okay with that of course!! your kin matchup can be found under the cut, thank you for requesting!! i’m sorry that it took a bit for me to write this one,,

oh, also... i want to clarify something before we start. i was originally going to make peko pekoyama your second dr kin assignment, and i still agree with that. it’s just that writing out the explanation was rather energy sapping,,, it’s not your fault at all, but i hope you understand!!! i can definitely add it on if you’d like though, anon!

-mod tsu (mikan shift)

first off, from danganronpa: goodbye despair, i match you with...

hajime hinata!

this matchup contains spoilers for super danganronpa 2! please proceed with caution, if it’s not too much trouble! i was kind of torn between him and himiko, actually...! but i think you’re a bit closer to hajime! i think that hajime is... very mixed. there are times when he can come off as cynical or even cold, and times when he’s very genuine and determined. these sides of him don’t clash together, but rather make up him as a whole... and i think you’re a little similar, anon! maybe you have traits that don’t really seem like they fit together... but you make them work! i think that unless hajime is close to others, he can struggle to fit into the conversation at times. this is especially clear at the beginning of sdr2, when everyone is just relaxing on the beach, not really seeing them randomly being there as a big deal- but hajime is more hesitant and concerned about their circumstances... plus, this is especially clear in despair arc around the ultimates. he’s very much taken aback by the main course students as well as staff, and... during those scenes it doesn’t exactly seem like he dislikes the interaction. however, it does seem like he’s uncomfortable,, maybe you can relate to that haha. you also seem a little serious, anon! not to assume that you don’t have a sense of humour... but there may be times when you take a joke too seriously. um, if that’s true,, there’s no shame in that haha.. in general... your typing just had a really similar vibe to him, though it may be closer with the hajime at the end of sdr2! i know that’s a bit of a weird, intuition-based point, but... the two of you seem a little awkward, but you have good intentions and it seems like both of you are... rather motivated people. at least, when it comes to the things you really want,, i admire that !! in hajime’s specific case, you may feel a little jealous of people who can do things outside of your comfort zone really easily,, for example i don’t think hajime is very insecure in his ability to study- but people like peko or fuyuhiko, who have talents that are rather niche, i think he would kind of be in awe of how... not normal they are. and you just kind of... strike me in a similar way! sorry if this doesn’t make much sense haha.

while we’re not super sure on how much hajime gets crushes on other people... we can speculate in a way? other characters like monokuma and nagito have compared him to a tsundere, and he’s specifically said to be romantically inexperienced. i don’t think this inherently means he doesn’t have crushes on other people,, it’s implied that he’s interested in chiaki, as well as komahina being... um, a popular ship. a lot of hajime’s feelings about the sdr2 cast are left up to interpretation, and he can technically have feelings for all of them in the bonus mode. at least, that’s how i interpret it,, point is i think that he can have many crushes.. depending on how you see him, haha. sorry that it’s not too conclusive but, in general, i think that while he may be a little uncomfortable with it, hajime may also be a sort of ‘hopeless romantic’ in that... if he sees it as being the best for his friends, he’d also be willing to play a matchmaker !! i think that hajime, without the border of being face-to-face, would be a lot more willing to talk online. in a chatroom, i think he would be more prone to rambling on about something. hehe.. i kind of see him as someone who can accidentally send essays when he texts. i’m just guessing.. but maybe you do that too. hehe, it’s um... maybe a little too literal of me, but i think hajime does laugh at... absurd situations. it’s nice how in a lighter conversation with fuyuhiko, the two are able to just... laugh and have a good time together. i bring this up because... it’s because those smiles are from fuyuhiko suggesting that hajime’s the ultimate counselor. i like their banter a lot, and maybe there are silly inside jokes like this between you and your friends too !! um, lastly.. while i don’t know exactly what your insecurities are, i think that hajime is rather insecure..! he’s visibly upset about the fact that he doesn’t have a talent, and i’d say his seriousness partially comes from this. he does strongly dream of talent, and he puts a strong emphasis on being busy and studying ingame- i’d say that this can make up his seriousness in a way? like, he takes things very seriously in order to learn from them the most. ah, but back to insecurities!! hajime does see himself as inferior to main course students like chiaki and even chisa,, and whenever other people point out his talentless-ness, it is a very sore spot for him. he gets somewhat defensive, and mostly doesn’t know how to react... you may kind of short-circuit like this too, whenever someone hits a sore spot for you..!

and lastly, from boku no hero academia, i match you with...

mashirao ojiro!

okay, so...! i realise that he’s kind of a minor character, so we don’t know much about him. however, from what we do know, i think he suits you well! like always, you had a similar kind of vibe to him in your ask. he would definitely be the type to use proper grammar in my eyes... and the two of you just have similar word choice imo!! second off, mashirao is kind of... mixed or in the middle, in terms of personality. he seems to get along with denki, a guy who’s definitely up there in eccentricity. maybe your friend group is rather versatile... like hajime, the two seem to be able to get along with many kinds of people. more specifically, they’re able to handle the oddities and ‘quirks’(haha. funny bnha joke) of their other classmates/friends. ah, but that’s off topic! so sorry .. i think that mashirao does kind of struggle in conversation, as he tends to not really like the spotlight, and other students describe him as sheepish or bashful. i think that despite his calm demeanor, he would shy away from conversations, especially ones where he has to play a large part- and i think that’s the most important part of him not really ‘liking’ to have in-person talks with other people. the two of you may be able to hold up something one-on-one, with one of your friends... but with a group of people, you’d just blend into the background. maybe that ‘mixed’-ness can make you feel like you don’t have much to say, too... i don’t think he really tries to hide this/can hide this either, like you. i think that the two of you are generally friendly and trustworthy, and maybe you both have plenty of loose acquaintances, the way that mashirao is on generally good terms with all of his classmates. i think that it’s easy for people to have a high view of you, but maybe not know you too closely or deeply. you seem generally nice!!!

...please excuse this second half being really short. like hajime, we don’t really know his status on crushes,, but i honestly headcanon him as bi due to him having... ‘softer’ friendships with other people, if that makes sense? not that that inherently means attraction... i just think that he could be very interested in and enjoy other people, leading to crushing of varying intensity. he kind of has a pink... vibe to him if that makes sense? ghgghgh we’re not sure about what colours he likes, but he seems to have a lot of lighter ones in his overall design and outfits... maybe a baby pink would fall under that! i think he would also be a lot more talkative online. um, my explanation for this is very similar to hajime’s. he may not feel such a strong need to be polite or accommodating through a screen! though i think he still would be out of respect. mashirao also seems like the type to find the more strange antics of his classmates funny... once again, he seems rather close to denki, and is described as a “straight man”(like, composed or deadpan in contrast to their more eccentric partner). maybe you’re also the type to go along, but have a more level head as things get ~weird~. lastly, like hajime, mashirao does seem rather insecure. he doesn’t really get why he got into UA with a quirk “like his”. he’s rather humble and doesn’t like to accept results he feels like he doesn’t deserve. in fact, he even dropped out of the sports festival because he felt as though he didn’t properly earn his placement in it. maybe you’d be more or less active in voicing this than he is, but the two of you generally have underestimating your own abilities in common. at least, that’s what i gathered, haha.

-

you all know what time it is, hehe... from dr, you also remind me very strongly of peko pekoyama, and somewhat of mukuro ikusaba, himiko yumeno, mahiru koizumi, toko fukawa, and kazuichi souda. from bnha you also remind me somewhat strongly of fumikage tokoyami, ibara shiozaki, and kyoka jirou, as well as lightly of toru hagakure and shoto todoroki !!

i hope this helped you out anon!! thank you again for requesting,, if you need anything about this changed or edited please let me know!! i’m happy to edit this, it’s not a bother at all... getting requests kind of makes my day, hehe..

[slade-neko]

My History with The Sims

I don’t typically like to talk about personal things here, but I felt the need to write this up for myself to remember my journey through the Sims games. I thought I’d go ahead and post it publicly if anyone was curious or wanted to read it. This might get a bit lengthy, so I’ll keep it all under a “keep reading” note.

First off, I just wanted to say, I personally never saw myself as a “simblr.” I created a tumblr a long time ago to post about things I like; video games, anime, and music. The Sims games just happen to be a series of video games that I like to play a lot, so I post about it. I’m not really into the whole Sims community thing. I’m honestly prefer to keep to myself and do my own thing.

I never played a Sims game as a kid. I don’t even know if I knew what they were until one weekend while my best friend from school (still best friend today) was staying over and had brought his laptop with The Sims 3 on it and was wanting to show me the game. This was sometime after The Sims 3 launched in 2009, I was in 8th grade (maybe?) Anyways, point is we made ourselves as sims and played around in the game. My brother and I are huge fans of games where you can create characters in and I thought it was so funny seeing all the wacky stuff you could do in it and control these little characters’ lives in this game. At the time I didn’t have a PC remotely good enough to play modern PC games, so getting the game was out of the question for me. Eventually I got it on its console release in 2010. Oh the console Sims 3... it was different. My brother and I adored it for what it was, but we weren’t idiots. We could tell how different the game was on its limited console counterpart. It was not the same game as the PC version. The PC version of Sims 3 was always something I wanted, but never knew when I’d get it.

Towards the end of 2010 I got my first “gaming PC.” Predominately to play games like Half-Life 2, Garry’s Mod, and Fallout: New Vegas (with mods.) 

It wasn’t until December of 2012 when I got Sims 3 with its Supernatural Expansion after watching Anthony and Ian from Smosh play it during one of their Lunchtime with Smosh videos. I was like, “Oh! Sims 3, I remember that game. I should get it and play it now that I have a PC!”

This was it! I finally had Sims 3 on PC and it finally set in. My brother and I went crazy over this game it was so much fun! We started by making ourselves and closest friends as sims and eventually began making sims of our favorite characters. This was huge for us. With all the control Sims 3 had to offer it was like making the perfect world filled with all our favorite people and characters. We created video game characters like Mario, Luigi, the Left 4 Dead survivors, and then anime and cartoon characters, and then even real life people like funny Youtubers like Smosh. Some of them were pretty bad looking... but my brother and I didn’t care. To us, they were the characters living out their crazy lives in this virtual world surrounded by all these other characters. I always made the comparison that it was like some big ultimate fan fiction, but actually being able to live it out.

As time went on, we continued playing and nurturing our Sims 3 game. I began downloading CC for our sims game. I’d browse CC and find something that looked closer to a character’s design and think “Ooo, this would be perfect for so-and-so!” We also got better and better at making sims’ faces and improving upon their designs. Our sims were constantly metamorphosing into newer and better versions of themselves. My brother and I had put so much time and work into them it became our hobby and it was very rewarding to see them improve with all the time and effort we would put into them. I was so proud of our sims I made a DeviantART profile, so I could post and share pictures of the characters my brother and I had created in Sims. Originally I was nervous posting pictures of our sims online, but I was filled with joy when I began getting nice comments from people complimenting them and such positive feedback from others. I was so happy with my sims and having other people tell me they were good too just felt very rewarding to me. I had begun to make it a habit to upload pictures of the sims I had made and it was a fun thing for me to do. My sims and pictures were honestly pretty bad looking back, but at the time I really enjoyed them.

I got the point where I needed more for my sims, so I learned how to do some modding. This was probably around mid 2013 when I began learning little things at first like texture edits on clothing. Some time into 2014 I started making bigger things like meshes. They weren’t really good, but they were something. This was a big step in the direction I was wanting for myself and my creations. It really opened my eyes to the endless possibilities and offered me so much freedom. No longer was I bound to the laws of “I’ll have to use whatever I can find.” I was able to improve so many of my sims with mods I could create myself. 

We spent about 2 and half years playing Sims 3 then in 2014 Sims 4 launched. I was ecstatic to have a new Sims game! I had loved TS3 so much and was looking forward to everything Sims 4 had to offer. The game came out, we played it, we made ourselves and immediate best friends as a household, and it was FUN. We really did enjoy it, but we came to the conclusion it was lacking so much compared to TS3. We knew we were comparing a basegame Sims 4 to a fully fleshed out all DLC Sims 3. I remember trying to recreate characters in Sims 4, but not being completely happy with them. Sims 4 was a new game and I had no clue how to mod it like I did Sims 3. We actually ended up going back to Sims 3 for some time. It was at a point where we would ping-pong between the games. I remember Sims 4 being new and interesting, but I think I fell back to Sims 3 because it just had so much. All of my sims and their content were there still while Sims 4 was all new. 

Going back to Sims 3 was like a return to form. It felt good to see all my sims I worked so hard on and I continued to work on them even though Sims 4 was a thing. I would still play Sims 4 some when new DLC came out and play around in the game a bit, but all my serious sim making and pictures came from Sims 3. Playing both games I learned a lot about sim making, modeling, and just the games in general. It wasn’t until early 2016 I finally felt like I had hit my apex in Sims 3. I could create sims to the best of my ability at the time and was satisfied with my work. It was around this time I decided to make a tumblr and I began posting some of my last Sims 3 pictures I ever took.

Then in 2017 I learned how to mod Sims 4. This was a BIG game changer for me. I could finally start making all my sims over again and they wouldn’t be out shined by their Sims 3 counterparts. I would complete a sim and be so happy with the result. My Sims 4 game was finally on par if not better than my Sims 3 sims. I wanted my sims to use more content I created and not have to rely on others. My brother and I played and made so many characters in Sims 4 since then. We really focused on honing our craft. Our sims went through rigorous polishing over the next years. We’d be happy with our sims, leave the game for a few weeks, come back think our sims look bad, edit them up and make them better, and repeat. It was a never ending cycle really. We had this big strive for our sims characters to be perfect. Our goal was for a character to look like they came straight out of their own universe into The Sims. To this day, my brother and I have amassed more than 600 sims in our game total. A feat we are both very proud of.

[kinkyacademia]

Mod Pasta, Pasta of my dreams, it’s your smol birb magpie requesting your writing prowess! I’m so excited for Power Loader, beautiful gremlin man that he is! Would it be oh so possible to have either a nsfw scenario or headcanons (which ever takes your fancy) of his fem s/o surprising him with the fact she knows like a ton about cars and mechanics since it’s canon that he loves cars I could totes see this revving his engine *pun intended* Please and BIG Thank you and many 💕💕💕

Cars 4 next year? MORE LIKE CARS 69 RIGHT HERE WHOOOOOOOOP!Oh my gods, I never realized how entirely attractive Power Loader is until today. What an emo stud.👌P.S. I know nothing about cars, I don’t even understand how engines work O_OP.S.S. It’s 4AM, so this is unedited :)

-Mod Pasta🍜🍝

 You two had been together for a couple weeks, hanging out off and on and just getting the whole “relationship” ball going. It was working well, though, and you seemed to be hanging out at his house a lot. You still haven’t found something to fully bond over, though; just minor subjects, nothing big enough to talk about for hours on end. It just happened that you were spending the night at his place when he brought up his old 90′s peach coloured Toyota as you ate the French soup you made. Your eyes widened, “That’s so beautiful, is the paint original?”

“Of course, I’d never settle for less,” Your comment spiked his interest, and you felt it in how he began to ping-pong small automobile subjects off of you, testing the waters so-to speak. His relatively dim, dirty kitchen seemed much more lively as the conversation diverged, and he promised to show you his old navy blue Mustang after dinner. You talked about his other collections as you ate, but the food got cold from how long you two talked, smiling and laughing, gawking and recognizing the signs of a perfect match between the both of you. Being a designer, he had collected and restored many cars in his past.

“I really don’t think this wine goes with cold soup,” You admitted, and he chuckled and nodded in agreement as he, rather excitedly, pushed himself up to throw his plate in his sink. You kept the wine, joining him and placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, we got distracted, but that’s okay,” He shot you a grin, “It was delicious, though.”

“Oh quiet, I want to see your garage,” You hit his shoulder, and your skinny (Yet burly) boyfriend whisked you away to just where you wanted to be. He couldn’t stop bragging about different pictures and parts on the way there, and you paid attention the whole time in awe.

“This one’s, oh this one’s with that damned kid who stays after. She tried to make a hovering one,” He sighed, covering his eyes as he walked past the train-wreck of a picture. You giggled to yourself, wow, he did love his students, didn’t he?

“I guess you must be doing something right,” His head snapped around to you as he opened the door to the garage and turned the flickering light on.

“Why do you say that?”

“She keeps going, you must inspire her,” You took in the Mustang. A little beat up, but in amazing condition for how old it was and how many miles it had.

“Huh,” He thought for a second, then shrugged and patted the hood of his car, “I’d take her for a test run, but the street’s packed around this time,” You two talked the car over, and your wine disappeared into the night with the empty glass forgotten on the floor. You both were fascinated with each other’s knowledge on the machines. It was when the subject of your old hobby of fixing your friend’s cars came up when he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“So she said “The tire’s out, but my whole e-”

“I think you fit perfect,” He interrupted, and you tipped your head to the side. His glazed over eyes offset you, and you wondered just what you little mechanic was thinking.

“What? Like, in that tool belt we were talking about? Never in my wildest dreams!” You laughed, but quickly cut out when he grabbed your waist and pulled you to him, swaying slowly as his piercing eyes caused your face to flush. You’ve been this close to him before, but never with this much intimacy, with this level of understanding of one another. Your own hands hesitantly trailed up his dirtied white tank top, brushing past tufts of orange hair and to his cheeks that you never realized were so perfectly sculpted.

“Nah,” His smirk sharpened, and he pulled you in for a heated kiss. Butterflies filled your stomach, and you excitedly reciprocated the intensity. He tasted like rum and your sweet soup, and you found yourself falling in love with the taste with every second that passed by. When he didn’t pull back very quickly, you pressed yourself to him in hopes of getting more of the delicious friction you were feeling. He took this as an open invitation to take a step around you, one of his feet slipping between your own and forcing you to straddle him as he hiked you against the front of his car, “You’ll fit just nicely face-down on this here hood, don’t you think?”

“But-wouldn’t I-?!” You exclaimed in shock, your blush deepening and eyes widening. He was ready to do that with you? He was usually such a ruthless, romantic tease, you couldn’t tell if he was joking. When his rather large hands greedily groped your ass, though, you knew he was serious. You bit your bottom lip, nodding and swallowing hard; you wanted this. And damn if you didn’t want to get fucked silly against this beautiful machine, “Get it… dirty?”

“Do I look like I care about dirt, (F/N)?” He narrowed his eyes, leaning in until your noses touched. You ended up giggling, and he snickered and caught a quick kiss. You shook your head, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Well, then I think that’s a lovely idea Maijima,” You purred, and he smiled to himself in victory.

“Then you’ll have to be face down,” He took a step back, his hands sliding off your ass and leaving you cold without him. You happily did as he told you to, the cold metal pressing against your breasts and making you very aware of his much softer touch as he leaned over you, his hips pressing into your heat, “You’re sure, (F/N)?”

You nodded in excitement, “Of course,” and pressed back into his growing bulge. You’ve wanted this for a while, now, and was happy that he finally felt the same way. He practically purred as he leaned down, his teeth dragging from the base of your neck up to right under your ear, where he bit and began to make a hickey. You whimpered, hands kneading the top of the car. He pulled your bottoms down, pushing your panties to the side and fiddling with something on his hands. When you almost got the confidence up to ask, you realized that he was taking a couple rings off of his fingers before sliding a single digit into you. His forwardness was a breath of relief, and you ground back into his hand as he enjoyed your warmth.

His hands were big on their own, but you were becoming dripping wet for him. Once he was satisfied with his rather large hickey and your own panting, he pushed another finger in and lovingly pumped slowly, his own arousal becoming painfully restricted. You felt a pressure inside of you, and his name slipped out of your lips as you got closer and closer to your orgasm. Before you could reach it, though, he slipped his fingers out and pulled himself away from you. You were left dazed and surprised, “M-Maijima? Please, Mai…” You whimpered, leaning up seeing him wiping his hand on a rag from a pile of cleaned ones. They must be for cleaning tools. Before you could walk anywhere, he turned to you. His eyes held so much lust, so much intensity, that you froze in place.

“What? Nobody’s getting hurt from waiting,” He then opened a drawer, searching around for something. Among his pens, measuring tools and screwdrivers, he found what he was looking for. When you saw what it was, your heart tightened, and you bit your bottom lip as he came back. His smile was contagious, and you ended up pulling him in for a quick, yet passionate kiss as you used your other hand to slide your panties off and leave you bottomless. He gently pushed you down against the hood of his car, lengthening the kiss as he pulling his jeans and boxers down. You found yourself anxious and needy for him, pulling back from the kiss to meet his eyes with your own.

“Please, Maijima, please fuck me,” Your whisper was just what he needed to push his length inside of you, slowly filling you up. He held you up with his arms around your back, the remaining braces on his fingers digging into you a little. He started out with slow thrusts, but as he picked up the pace, he ordered you to “hold on” so he could have some upper body fun.

“Look at you, pretty little bird perched on my car,” He growled, one arm keeping you close so he could observe your panting, sweaty face, his other hand sliding into your shirt and playing with your breasts. He’s always been a materialistic person, and digging through hard dirt all day left him craving your soft body tonight, “You’re the prettiest thing in this whole house.”

“I’d h-have to a-argue,” His thrusts, becoming fast and overwhelming you with pleasure, were rough and greedy, “This Mustang’s awfully nice,” You laughed, but your giggles faded into moans and gasps. He leaned over, nibbling your growing hickey and causing you to turn your head and expose more of him to yourself. You wanted more of him, all of your mechanic boyfriend.

“Yeah, but I’m not willing to wreck that beauty,” He chuckled darkly, causing  goosebumps to form on your skin. You definitely knew what he meant as your orgasm returned with a vengeance from being denied before. You pulled him closer, letting him bury himself deeper and deeper inside of you. Soon you felt yourself clench around him, and you closed your eyes and clamped your legs around his waist and gasping as you came. He let you, continuing for a couple more seconds before giving in himself and leaning down to lay you across the hood. Your flushed chest caused his own cheeks to be painted red as well.

“F-Fuck, I didn’t know you had that in you,” You bit your bottom lip, unconsciously smiling up at him. Alas, of course your dork had to ruin the moment.

“Technically it’s inside you, (F/N),” You hit his arm, and he snickered to himself as he pulled out. Pushing yourself up on the cold hood, you glanced down to see what really had been inside you. Satisfied immensely, you looked back up to see him wiping his forehead with a rag. He came back seconds later, arms crossed as he slipped his removed braces back over his fingers, “Did I leave marks on your back? I forgot about these.”

“It’s fine, they’re badges of honour,” You teased, and he nodded as he stared at you expectantly. Your eyes widened in confusion, “What, Maijima?”

“Turn around,” He ordered simply. He must order people around a lot at work, because this sort of stuff slipped off his tongue like butter. You turned, though, and he pushed you back against the hood, “That was just round one, who said we were done little bird?” You moaned softly as he slid himself back into you, already starting to get hard again. You couldn’t believe you had this man.

“God… fuck yes.”

[pumpkins-s]

Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker

Read On AO3 Here

When Pidge is offered the spot as communications officer for the Kerberos Mission, to accompany her father, and her friend and former classmate Shiro, she’s expecting eight months of quiet, beautiful cosmos, ice samples, and—if she’s lucky—some broadcast signals to support her alien life theories.

She is not expecting to end up the prisoner of a fascistic race of alien cat-lizards hellbent on apparently reenacting the ugliest parts of the Roman empire, down to the massive enslavement and expansion effort and the gladiators as entertainment shtick.

But, if she’s going down, she figures she might as well go down swinging.

(Or, in which Pidge is the third Kerberos member, is decidedly not a damsel in distress who needs protection—thank you very much Shiro—is very much done with this crap, and fully intends to make it home to her little brother, no matter what it takes.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: platonic Pidge & Shiro, Pidge & Matt, Pidge & Sam Holt

Characters: Pidge, Shiro, Sam Holt, Matt Holt, Thace, Ulaz

Rating + Warnings: Rated Teen; trigger warnings include graphic violence, blood, combat, murder, and systematic transphobia on the part of the Galra. I recommend checking AO3, or in my author’s notes under the cut, for a more extensive list.

Stormbreaker was written for the @pidgebigbang, and is accompanied by art from @anime7otaku7artist7. 

Chapter 1: Willow

((Author’s Note: 

Hello, hello! Welcome to Stormbreaker / Coffinmaker, my fic for the Pidge Big Bang. Developing the concept and storyline for this fic was the work of months (even if I wrote 90% of it in the last two weeks before it was due shhhh), and I'm so pleased to finally be able to share it. I love Pidge and the friendship she holds with Shiro, and I really wanted a chance to explore that in a setting where they were closer to being peers, as well as what her relationship to Matt would be like if she were the older sibling, and hence that (+ my desire to just see Pidge kicking ass as a gladiator) is how Stormbreaker was born.

As always, music played a big part in my writing, and I'd like to take a moment to credit that: I wrote and outlined this fic largely to the work of Barns Courtney and Florence + The Machine, particularly his  The Attractions of Youth album and her How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album, respectively, and the influence of both is definitely there in how the story turned out. The title of this fic was chosen as a nod to two songs that pushed the concept and development of Stormbreaker by leaps and bounds. Of Monster And Men's Winter Sound, and Florence + The Machine's My Boy Builds Coffins. And of course, I can't not mention the song that played the original inspiration for this fic: No Doubt's Just A Girl.

For your listening enjoyment while you read, there's also an actual playlist for this fic (with more than just those previously mentioned couple of artists in it, promise). You can find the tumblr post for it here, with art by the wonderful corpus--corvus, or jump straight to the Spotify or Youtube link.

Before you read, a final warning for the content -- this is a gladiator fic, boys & girls & nonbinary pals. That means violence, blood, injury (Shiro's probably an obvious indication but people do lose limbs), fight to the death scenarios, and murder. People die in this story, and not all of them necessarily deserve it, though rest assured Pidge and Shiro themselves stay (relatively) intact. There's also the presence of underage drinking in a flashback scene, some mentions of the sexual abuse and forced prostitution of slaves within the Empire, and swearing. So much fucking swearing. Additionally, while all relationships are written to be strictly platonic, Shiro and Pidge's longer friendship and view of each other as closer to peers does mean their friendship has an emotional intimacy that wouldn't necessarily be seen in their canon counterparts. They lean on each other for support, quite literally, so if any of that would be a personal squick to you for whatever reason, please look away now.

That's about it! Enormous thanks to the Pidge Big Bang mods for putting this all together, and to my artist, anime7otaku7artist7, for their phenomenal work. Their art is embedded in the story, and you can also find a link to it here.

Stormbreaker is split into eight sections, with the entirety already written out pre posting. Chapters range from about 4-10 thousand words, with the first one being the shortest. It will update every day until its completion (so long as everything with editing and posting goes smoothly on my end, at least. Here's hoping). Enjoy!))

(( Author’s Note [Cont.]:

Willow: Forsaken

The gorgeous title art opening this chapter, while not provided by my official artist for the Pidge Big Bang, is provided by the wonderful corpus--corvus, who put up with months of my ranting about Stormbreaker!Pidge, and generously provided me with both this title art, and coverart for this fic's playlist. Thank you Logan you're a peach.))

Oh I'm just a girl, living in captivity

Your rule of thumb

Make me worry some

Oh I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?

- "Just a Girl", No Doubt

“Careful,” is the first thing Pidge’s father says to her, and she sighs, blowing errant bangs out of her eyes—she knew she should have pinned them back when they were suiting up—as she steadies her arms and inches the ice sample out of the extraction drill.

“Yeah, Pidge, careful,” Shiro says with a grin she can only classify as shit-eating, leaning over the back of the drill with his forearms resting on top.

“I am careful,” she snaps, fully removing the sample and hefting it between her arms. The weight is less than that of Earthen ice of the same mass—which is expected, given the gravity on Kerberos is much lesser than that on Earth. It’s a lucky thing their suits are specially designed and weighted to model Earth’s gravity on their interior, Pidge wouldn’t want to be hopping and stumbling around like the astronauts of her grandparents’ generation.

She hands the sample over to her father carefully, his eyes bright as he studies it. “Extraordinary.”

Pidge glances over at Shiro, who is doing his best to look anything more than politely interested, and smirks. “What? Not impressed?”

Shiro looks down at her, and shrugs ungainly against the bulk of his suit. “You guys get…a little more excited about ice samples than I do. I understand their value, but it’s not exactly my area.”

“Yeah, yeah, motorboy.” Pidge rolls her eyes. “I get it, you’re only interested in things with an engine and that go really fast.”

“That’s—“ Shiro makes a face. “Ok, that’s only partially true. I also like…uh…” He trails off, brows furrowed, and Pidge grins. “…What do I like?” he finally asks, looking to Pidge in askance.

“Uh. Reading? Fixing Keith’s bike?” Pidge counts off on her fingers, squinting down at them. “That’s…you’re really bad at having non-work-related hobbies, dude.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Oh! Me!” Pidge holds up a third finger triumphantly. “You like me!”

Shiro groans. “You’re my best friend, that’s a given—“

“You know what I like?” Pidge says, and then continues on before Shiro has the chance to respond. “I’ll tell you what I like. Motherfucking aliens, that’s what I like, Shiro.”

“And here we go again—“

“And that—“ Pidge points at the ice sample, “could be the key to finally proving their existence, right Dad?”

“Well,” her father says, looking quietly amused as he shifts the sample in his hands. “We certainly can’t rule anything out, all the way out here. And I’d hardly complain if one of these ice samples wanted to come along and solve my life’s—“ There’s a rumble all around them, rock vibrating slightly beneath their feet, and he pauses. “…What was that?”

“Earthquake?” Pidge asks as another rumble starts up, stronger than the last.

“Kerberos-quake?” Shiro mutters behind her, and she turns to tell him just how terrible that was, before the strongest shake yet occurs, throwing her off balance, and she yelps, falling forward.

“Pidge!” She catches herself on Shiro’s outstretched arm. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She shakes her head, trying to dispel the hair blocking her vision and the vague sense of dizziness she feels. “We should get back to the—“ She stops, caught up in the feeling of something suddenly here, large and looming and right behind her, and slowly turns around as a ship comes into view.

For once, all her knowledge—all her calculations, her observations, her vast vocabulary, abandon her, and she is left with one thought, and one thought only.

That isn’t one of their ships.

“It can’t be…” She hears her father say, but it’s distant, muffled, as if he was underwater, and then all she can focus on is Shiro grabbing desperately at her arm, yanking her along.

“Run. Run!”

She runs.

It’s a rush of sudden sound, sudden movement that seems at odds with the serene stillness expected of space. All she can hear is the roaring noise of whatever is behind them, Shiro’s shouts, her own heavy breathing as she stumbles along in her suit, the previously steadying weight suddenly cumbersome.

There’s a sudden pull behind them, around them, everything lit up purple, and Pidge screams as her feet suddenly leave the ground, flying up into the void of black above them. She hears both of the others yell her name, and she reaches out blindly for something, anything—her father’s blurry form, the outstretched hand she knows is Shiro’s, only to find nothing.

Tractor beam, a detached, scientific part of her mind supplies for her. I’m the smallest, so it’s natural I’d be the first picked up.

Sure enough, one of them—she thinks her father—flies up a moment after, Shiro caught up off the ground last.

They’re both shouting in panic, and Pidge thinks she should be screaming, too. Might already be screaming, or perhaps she’s forgotten to altogether, it’s impossible to tell, right now. She is not in control of the motion of her own body, of her senses.

Debris off the ground, caught up in the beam with them, catches on the side of Shiro’s helmet, scraping along, and she can only pray it hasn’t knocked it loose, hasn’t stolen his oxygen, before another rock slams into her own head.

The last thing she hears as it all goes black is the sound of her own voice tapering off, dying in her throat like a person hanged, condemned and left to die.

…Oh, so she had been screaming.

The night Shiro gets offered the position of pilot for the Kerberos mission, Pidge drags him out drinking.

“Shots!” she announces loudly, placing them down on the bar, and Shiro winces. He’s the one person she knows who gets a headache just from being in a bar. Normally, Pidge would have sympathy, as prone to migraines brought on from stress and lack of sleep as she is, but over time she’s come to accept this is an inevitability of taking Shiro out anywhere fun that isn’t space or flight themed. Luckily, the more alcohol Shiro gets in him, the more he seems to forget about his headache, or his apathy towards bars in general—enough to be willing to repeat the same cycle of misery, ecstasy, and then mild hangovers, occasionally, every few weeks, at least.

“What are those?” He picks one up cautiously, sniffing at it. “Whiskey?”

“Mhmm,” Pidge hums happily, sliding into the stool next to his. “Good brand, too.”

“I think I’ll just order one of those fruity cocktails,” Shiro says with an air of quiet distaste, sliding the shot glass back across to Pidge.

“Weak.” She downs them both, hers first and then Shiro’s, slamming the second empty glass down to the background of his horrified face.

“I don’t know how you do that,” he says, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

Drinking is just one of the many things they do together, but in very different ways. Shiro—perhaps still trying to live down the keg-stand days of his barely-twenties that Pidge remembers sneaking into at seventeen or so all too fondly—doesn’t like anything strong, anything that leaves too much of a burn behind. He finds his preferences in what is sweet, where the alcohol is masked by some more agreeable mix-in.

Pidge, meanwhile, relishes the burn. Chases the chemistry reacting in her own body, the poison her brain somehow just barely sustains, with fascination. Drinking is stupid, objectively. So naturally that only leads to the urge to categorize it, sample every flavor until she understands every urge and every predilection.

She watches Shiro order his cocktail in amusement, and waves her hand when the bartender looks to her. They both know how to take care of themselves—and each other, if they find it necessary. Shiro will sip his fruity drinks, and Pidge will knock back a couple shots before giving it a break and then nursing a beer or some watered down vodka-and-schnapps concoction for the rest of the night.

She’s an experimenter, not an idiot. If she takes it too far, makes herself too sick or poisons herself too permanently, she won’t be able to carry out the next test. She’s the extent of her own sample size, which means she has to make herself last.

“Remember when we were young,” she says languidly, swinging around on her stool and leaning on the bar, head tilting up to watch the ceiling, then Shiro. “And we’d party like the sun wouldn’t come up?”

“I remember going through a bottle of Advil every two months, yeah,” Shiro says dryly. “Besides you’re—I love the way you say that, when we were young. You’re not even legal to drink yet.”

“Shhh.” Pidge waves a hand. “Keep your voice down or you’ll get us kicked out. I worked hard on that I.D., Matt helped me pick the picture.”

“And what a great picture it is,” Shiro offers sarcastically, and Pidge levels a threatening eye at his drink. He pointedly moves it out of her reach, and after a moment, continues. “I still don’t get why you like bars so much. You’re you—I can barely get you out of your room to go to the dining hall.”

“Are you kidding me?” She waves a hand. “Bars are the one place where I can get social stimulus without having to actually talk to or acknowledge anyone beyond the wonderful person providing my drink. It’s an observational heaven. At the Garrison I actually have to make conversation.” She shudders, and Shiro snorts.

“…It still feels weird being out here, with your parents knowing where we go.”

“Joys of being second-gen American,” Pidge says proudly. “Just enough Italian left over where a twenty-one plus drinking age seems like the dumbest thing in the world.”

“I guess.” Shiro wrinkles his nose. “Still just feels weird when my commanding officer knows I go out drinking with his daughter.”

“Shiro, you practically live in our house. You’re in Matt’s elementary school graduation picture, for crying out loud. Bit late for worrying about that sort of thing.” Shiro winces, and Pidge laughs, patting him on the shoulder. “Man. Kerberos. I can’t believe you’ll be locked up with only my dad and some poor communications officer for eight months.” She pauses, and at Shiro’s faintly proud, but still somber look, she grins. “Maybe I should suggest to Dad he bring his zero-gravity specialized Scrabble board along.”

“Oh god,” Shiro groans, dropping his face into his elbow against the bar. “Please, don’t.”

“Doing it,” Pidge says happily. After a long moment, she looks over to Shiro, curling her arms into a pillow on the bar for her to drop her head onto, sighing. “…It’ll be weird, without you here. It was going to be strange enough not having Dad around that long, but at least I’m used to him disappearing off for missions.” Shiro grunts morosely, and she hums. “Always got Matt, I suppose. And Mom. I’ll just spend more time around the house or something. Lucky we live so close.”

Shiro says nothing, stealing the discarded beer bottle of some other long-departed patron, and peeling habitually at the label in one of his little-seen nervous gestures. “It will be weird.” There’s silence again, and Pidge is just starting to wonder if she’s expected to say something, before he continues, quiet and unsure. “You know they haven’t decided on a communications officer yet. You could always…throw your hat in the ring. They’re already worried about team compatibility—with a mission this long, and this important—and everyone knows we work well together.”

“Me?” Pidge snorts. “Please. Even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do—they’d never take me. I’m still a cadet.”

“Only while you finish up the last of your engineering credits.” Shiro points out sullenly, still not meeting her eyes. “You’ve been an officially marked communications officer for the better part of a year at this point. And there’s no one better at the job.”

Pidge blinks, surprised at the blunt honesty in his tone. “…You…really want me to apply, don’t you?”

Shiro shrugs, glaring down at the decimated bottle label. “It’d just be—it’d feel weird without you, alright? Like something was missing.”

Almost unconsciously, Pidge reaches across, snatching up the balled-up wrapper, freeing it from Shiro’s wrath and contemplating it, as if it might suddenly give her an answer to this new puzzle.

Of course, looking for solutions in beer bottle wrappers is neither scientific nor logical, so Pidge isn’t very surprised when it offers her none.

“…I guess we do do most everything together, don’t we?” she offers softly. Shiro just shrugs again, avoiding both the answer and her eyes as he sits up and sips awkwardly at his drink. He doesn’t want to pressure her, to suggest her into something she doesn’t want to do. He also doesn’t want to go without her.

He’s always been stupidly good at expressly not talking about his worries, especially when he thinks he’s burdening someone else with them. Luckily for him, while Pidge is no feelings expert, she is a Shiro expert at this point, and very good at determining the logical end point to a problem.

“Yeah, okay,” she says unthinkingly. “Why not?” Shiro turns to look at her, still all kinds of conflicted mixed in with his hope, and she steals his drink easily, downing back the last of it, and when she slams it onto the bar next to the empty shot glasses, it sounds like a promise.

Kerberos. What could go wrong?

It’ll give her an amusing story to tell Matt when she gets rejected, at least.

…We come from a peaceful planet…

Pidge comes to with a quiet gasp and a rush of aching pain along her left temple. She startles just ever so slightly—everything blurry and her suit feeling far, far too heavy for either Kerberos or the conditions of their ship—before the weight of strong hands holding her arms behind her back, and Shiro’s muffled voice pleading somewhere off to her left, come to her attention, and she tenses, stills.

It doesn’t all come back so much in a rush as in a trickle of images, feeding into her brain like a lagging video on a bad connection as her quick, panicked breaths fog up the inside of her visor. The ship, the tractor beam, being dragged up and up and away from Shiro and her father, the sudden crunch of the rock against her skull, all sliding through her mind and clicking into place.

For the first time in a long, long time, Pidge feels true panic grip her, staring down into the abyss of the unknown. She’d come close, in their attempt to flee the inevitable on Kerberos, but had been too caught up in the immediacy of the situation. That was instinctive panic, raw and something close to animal.

This is a panic of exercised consideration. Of weighing up her circumstances and what little information she has available to her and ultimately coming up short—short of a plan, short of an idea, short of even a clue. She has no idea where she is—beyond somewhere she never was supposed to be—who has her, or what is going to happen.

Based on her position and her mode of capture, Pidge can only assume herself and the others are being held captives by a hostile extraterrestrial power. Which is not, she thinks a little hysterically, even remotely fucking close to something the Garrison had prepared them for.

For Pidge, sorting all this out amongst the overwhelmed screeching in her head and the dull throb of pain above her eyes that signals either an impending migraine or a concussion feels like the work of hours. But it must only be moments, because one second Shiro is talking, stammering out a few desperate phrases on their behalf, before there’s a shuffle of movement, and Shiro’s cut-off yelp of pain as something strikes him.

At that she does stir, almost involuntarily jerking against the hold on her to turn and observe, check on Shiro’s condition—he was speaking, which means at least he hadn’t sustained any major head injuries, surely. In response there’s a tightening of the grip on her arms, an increase on the weight pressing down on her back, a boot maybe, and she buckles instinctively, head bowing to the ground and her whole body going taut but unmoving.

Eventually, after some further exchanges of words she can’t muddle out in the confused space of her brain beyond the disbelieving fact that it’s definitely English, the grip holding Pidge shifts, moving as something like handcuffs with a rigid bar between them is shackled onto her wrists. Something takes hold of the bar, and begins to drag her backwards, assumedly out of the room. Rough sliding noises on her left and right are the only indication she has that the same is being done to her father and Shiro, she doesn’t dare look to confirm.

It’s not until they’re moving along some hallway, and the other dragging noises move past and ahead of her, that Pidge dares to tilt her head just slightly up, trying to catch sight of something beyond her own feet scraping along a metal floor.

She can only get glimpses, between long stretches of endless chrome and the shine of purple lighting coming from some undeterminable source. Flashes in windows of huge containment systems, layers upon layers of prisoners crammed into cages and moved about as if building blocks directed by a child. She sees whispers of floors upon floors of moving figures, all discernable only in the same shades of grey and purple, with splashes of red, outsizing any operation she’s ever seen at the Garrison.

She sees torture. She sees order. She sees cruelty. She sees control.

There’s the bark of voices above her head, and she yelps as she is dragged around a corner roughly, the quick turn putting a strain on her arms. But she doesn’t dare fight back, not at the risk of suffering the same fate as Shiro.

Observation is her greatest—her only strength, right now. She must do what she does best, as she does at officer meetings, in Garrison dining halls and classrooms, even in shitty, dim-lit desert town bars.

Pidge watches. She grasps at every piece of data, commits to memory every variable she can spot, and above it all she is left with only one question, buzzing in the back of her dizzied, overwhelmed mind.

Where the hell are we?

[nardaviel]

Part 4 / ?, now with pets and vampire stalkers.

Once again this is a long and image-heavy post, but at least this time some of the images are of a cute Sim kitten. I finally bought all the updates for Sims 4 so goodbye to all my spending money for this month, but now I can play it again.

I was super excited about getting Kinatsuen a cat, but I wanted them to have the exact cat I picture when I imagine them having a cat so I couldn't adopt any of the stray kitties or any of the ones on the computer. So I just made her as a kitten in Create A Sim from the Manage Households option, since there was no other way to do it... but we can say, for story purposes, that they went out and adopted her.

Their new gallery portrait. En looks like he's about to pass out. She's too cute for him to handle.

I also changed Atsushi's aspiration to Master Chef and Kinshirou's to Soulmate, because I felt bad having En make progress on his aspiration while they were stuck longing for a family. (Also they weren't getting all the useful satisfaction points you get for doing aspiration things.) Once they've finished these aspirations, I'll give them the original ones back.

I start playing the household and

this is what I find. Don’t abandon Hou-chan like this, she’s just a kitten ;-;

She’s so adorable, though. She is an affectionate, clever, and friendly kitty!

Atsushi admires her cuteness. This seems like a place for a Lion King joke, but I don’t want to detract from the cute.

It's late so they all go to sleep. Hou-chan follows Atsushi into the room to sleep near him even though she has her own bed al;sdkf I'm just... really charmed... I love her...

She's so needy... wow. My other Sims' pets aren't like this at all. The affectionate trait is powerful. (But it's cute!)

Kinshirou fixed a broken sink, and now he's rummaging through the discarded bits for useful parts. I took this screenshot just because it's such a strange sight.

He’s pissed off that he had to do something so disgusting. Poor baby.

There’s a big market for Kinshirou’s thoughts on etiquette.

I wish I'd bothered to come up with custom names for the other two books now because it's funny to see things like this but oh well, I guess. He was still learning! His titles weren't very good yet.

This painting perturbs me. Hou-chan is the only saving grace of this screenshot.

Fuck. I hate chance cards. H a t e. ...All my legacy Sims and my City Living girl would set up in the street (if they were in the painter career), because they're all that type. But I think En just wants to give up... An excuse not to work, what could be better...

En's laziness worked out for the best this time. It's a shame about the money, though. They're a bit broke.

Before work, Atsushi makes a bunch of quick salads so his boyfriends don’t have to cook. (That is to say, I’m working on his new aspiration.)

Kinshirou and En have a date scheduled, but En comes home tense from work (even though he earned his salary, despite what that chance card result said). So he goes to join Kinshirou in meditating the tension away before they leave.

Sadly, Kinshirou gets bored, and the TV bores him even more because the action channel just isn’t cultured enough for him. You can’t make this stuff up, I swear... And by the time he’s over it, En is asleep. So their date is postponed. There are no screenshots because I was hoping they'd get it together and I wouldn't have to go into so much detail lol

But Atsushi gets promoted! So the night isn't a total waste. He's a mixologist now.

Yes, darling, we’re all very proud.

I don't know why he doesn't have glasses in his work outfit, by the way. I didn't design it.

His hours are even worse than before, from 6pm to 2am. But he gets three days off now instead of just two, which is a relief.

Meanwhile, Hou-chan loves her little toy bird so much that she wants to take it with her everywhere, even if that means she has to glitch and walk around stuck in it.

Atsushi, savior of kittens.

Atsushi wants to play with her with the wand, since that seems safer, but she wants to use the litter box. So he follows her into the bathroom... Let her have some privacy, Atsushi...

Meanwhile, En paints a masterpiece-quality painting! Aside from being necessary for his aspiration, that's just really cool!! I'm proud. Not sure whether to keep it because it's pretty or sell it because it'll sell for a lot...

Nothing really to say here. This is where the camera ended up when I exited screenshot mode, and I thought it looked pretty so I took another screenshot.

I put it in Atsushi’s bedroom because his bedroom is a bit bare. It can live with the Enatsu painting.

Gross, Hou-chan.

Okay, well, En is off to work, but Kinshirou and Atsushi can go on a date, at least. They decide on a nice, classy dinner date at a restaurant I built for them. It’s as boringly built as everything else I’ve done before now (I’ve learned how to build cooler things but it came too late for some of the buildings in their save...) which is why I didn’t take a screenshot but it looks okayish on the inside, I suppose.

LMAO... I forgot I gave him that suit... oh my god... he looks so proud. Atsushi is politely keeping his thoughts to himself.

They're shown to the one semi-private table in the establishment. Probably because Kinshirou is from a good family, even if they themselves don’t have much money.

Gosh, they’re cute.

(I am really, really sorry for those little lightbulbs and plus signs and sparkles. They signify that a lot trait is having an effect on a skill that a Sim is building. They’re incredibly annoying in screenshots, but there’s no way to turn them off. It eventually occurred to me to get a mod for it, but only after the end of this post...)

It takes their food some time to arrive, but at least it gets there, which is more than I can say of the last time I tried to go on a restaurant date in TS4. They don’t mind. It gives them lots of time to talk! Something about Kinshirou’s drink puts him in a flirty mood...

En comes home from work while they’re out. He got a promotion, so he’s in that bizarre outfit again. Luckily, I don't have to see it except in his little portrait at the bottom left.

To put the finishing touch on an incredible date, they kiss passionately on the top floor of the restaurant.

Kinshirou makes this face when Atsushi first grabs him, but he gets into it.

Looks like I spoke too soon.

Kinshirou got sick on his date, and now he's itchy. Hm.

Their reward for such a good date! It’s just decor, not actually drinkable. If all goes well, they'll have these littered around the house eventually.

Kinatsuen receive an evening visitor, a friend of Atsushi’s in another save where I recreated demon AU but emphatically not his friend in this one. Fortunately, they're smart! They know not to invite a vampire into the house.

Less fortunately, Kinshirou is outside expanding Atsushi's garden. Maybe, he thinks, if he stays off to the side of the house, his dazzling gold suit won't catch Vlad's eye.

But the medicine has made him energized, and he needs to get all that energy out somehow. Kin-chan, sweetheart, not in your nice suit... although maybe ruining that suit would be for the best.

En and Hou-chan just became friends! She must have been giving him advice on his painting. ...Also I forgot to change him out of his promotion clothes.

Now that the vampire has left, Kinshirou is free to return to his kitten.

She is honestly unbelievably cute.

Atsushi comes home from work, exhausted and reeking from a night behind the bar, only to find that he can't even sleep in his own bed. His boyfriends missed him so much, they went to sleep there themselves.

En's bedroom may be messy, and he may not ever put the condoms and lube away, but it's closer than Kinshirou's.

Must have been a rough night. En still thinks he looks hot, though. Sometimes having a slob for a boyfriend is a plus.

Enatsu and Hou-chan morning domesticity. En is addicted to painting, I swear. Mixologists and bars aren’t as bad as En and his easel.

His second masterpiece is even prettier than his first. They're both impressionist paintings so I suppose Sim En is an impressionist painter. That suits him, I think. Unfortunately, painting a masterpiece means he'll go to work in a confident mood when he'd be better off inspired, but you can't have everything.

Again... Why is it always En who gets in trouble at work...

My headcanon is actually that En wouldn't judge, but, since that's not an option here, he would want to talk about his passion. En is always ready to share his thoughts.

THAT'S RIGHT. Although it's a bit sad because I still think En would defend her, if anything.

Atsushi needs to improve his mixology for work. Instead of making yet another drink for himself or wastefully practicing and then throwing out the results, he makes a pet drink for Hou-chan. :D

The window for Kinshirou to sell his books to a publisher. A screenplay about the magical boys’ revenge will definitely fly off the shelves, I agree.

No story value, just cute.

With Atsushi at work, En and Kinshirou decide to check out a community lot (not as a date). I actually made it for Atsushi, but... he'll get here someday. Basically, one of the expansions introduced all these food stalls and a bunch of recipes (honestly like 20+ in total) that you can learn how to cook only after tasting them. But it's hard to track them all down in the places the game initially put them because they rotate, so I just made a foot stall lot.

Unfortunately you can only have so many stall vendors on a lot at a time, so it'll always look like half of them are closed... But I'm still proud of it? I think it's a cute lot with nice Kinatsuen colors, and it'll help Atsushi to have this one place to go to. I'm proud of all the lots I built for them, actually, even if they’re often not very interesting-looking.

The moment they arrive, Kinshirou goes straight to the Japanese food stall without the least bit of prompting from me. En chooses some spicy Vietnamese food, but by the time he gets to the table, Kinshirou is already halfway done with his dango. I want En to get used to spicy food ASAP because it's out of character for him not to be able to tolerate it. It wasn’t until I started watching them eat that I remembered Sims also have to learn how to use chopsticks... En, I don’t think that’s now they work.

Getting used to spicy food.

En: Kinshirou, help! Help me, it hurts! My mouth is on fire!! Kinshirou: Ahh, that was so good... such delicate, mild flavors... :’D

En is grumpy because he wants a vacation, even though they literally got back from one like a week ago. I think this is one of my all-time favorite screenshots just because it's the opposite of what would be IC for them.

Luckily, I put some bubble blowers on this lot, so he can relax a little. Don't make that face at me, En. This is for your own good.

...En put in the flirty flavor that makes you angry if you choke, and Kinshirou choked on his very first blow. I guess it's not such a surprise, though. The bubble blowers are basically just game stand-ins for drugs, and Kinshirou would be the absolute worst person to get high with.

Kinshirou: Ow ow ow ow ow! That hurts! En: Yeah, how's it feel, asshole?

En: Wait, shit, ow! Kinshirou: You deserve no better for taunting me.

Kinshirou’s face is adorably pinched and angry here. But En is angry now, too, so they go home and go to sleep, after losing some friendship points. That didn’t quite go according to plan. Tomorrow night will be better.

A Hou-chan’s-eye view. Kinshirou was in the middle of eating breakfast, but she was too cute to resist.

En took some pictures of Hou-chan and put them up on Simstagram (lol) and !!! I've never had a pet get so many followers immediately like this. Everyone loves Hou-chan.

I shouldn't have complained about En always getting in trouble. Now it's happening to Atsushi too.

Atsushi is annoyed that his coworker would steal and put him in this position, but he would rather just keep quiet to avoid a confrontation. Maybe someone else will handle it...

Still better than causing a scene.

They're finally out on a date! Making identical pleased expressions. Kinshirou's taken En out to a museum because he's a cutie deep down and he knows En will like it. I didn't build this one orz I meant to make them a museum but I turned it into an arts center instead. En will enjoy that more, but he needs to look at things in a museum right now for his aspiration, so...

Their animations continue to be creepily in sync as they admire the artwork.

It looks for all the world like Kinshirou's just made a dirty joke about the painting they're looking at, but...

...this isn’t the sort of work that would make Kinshirou think naughty thoughts. It would take even En several seconds to make an innuendo out of this.

But then Kinshirou autonomously offers En a public massage... Maybe he's just in a mood.

They spend the rest of the date in that room, mostly on that couch, sitting and talking. So there’s not much to say about it. But it’s awfully cute.

Sadly. they have to go home early, because En has to work the next morning. He would rather just quit his job, but Kinshirou won't let him.

He doesn't want to let on to En, which is why he's walking behind him, but he’s ready for the date to end. He’s exhausted.

The collection grows.

(I know one is more forward on the bar than the other. It's not my fault. I don't understand the rationale behind slot placement in TS4.)

Guys! Guys! stop eating! Pay attention to Hou-chan! She's just a little kitten and she's lonely!

Kinshirou is writing my fanfiction for me so that I don't have to. Although I suppose that means he's writing about an alternate world where he and his boyfriends live in a fantasy setting with some dude named Arima, and this Arima guy gets romantically involved with them all.

(I don't actually intend to have a sequel to Veil named Kidosen. I just wanted him to write a sequel and that's the title that came to mind.)

Their house, the most boring-looking house in the world, but now with two boring stories! I promise, when they move onto a bigger lot, I’ll do better.

The triad decided to spend some of their hard-earned money on a home addition. Their bedrooms are on the second story now and they have a bathroom with an actual bath in it (this was half the purpose of the remodeling; it’s a tragedy for them not to have a bath). Atsushi's kitchen is slightly nicer as well, with a better fridge and some aesthetic improvements. But the household now has exactly §301 to its name. No interior screenshots because the only really new thing is the bathroom and it's not exciting enough to be worth a screenshot. The bedrooms are almost exactly the same and the upstairs landing is completely empty because they ran out of money. The most interesting things here are the sad, neglected plants...

Atsushi, savior of plants (as well as kittens). He still needs to work on his herbalism. He’ll get to that at some point.

This is the problem with the goddamn bar. You tell a Sim to start mixing drinks and suddenly it's all they want to do. As soon as he stops needing to level mixology for his career, that thing is getting sold.

Even Atsushi himself dreams of a day when he can rid himself of the bar. He is trapped.

At least Hou-chan is proud of him. Or maybe she just wants another one of those pet drinks.

Atsushi suffers from a moment of self-doubt. Is he doing the right thing, encouraging Hou-chan to drink? She's only a kitten...

But she looks so happy.

Yeah. He made the right choice.

...no story value, just cute.

She reached 250 Simstagram followers with this very stylish pose. Her charms are irresistible!

But her love is reserved for Kinatsuen, and for this toy. She can’t stand to be parted from it.

LMAO

Not only does Atsushi barely even know his name, but he's also already married?? Nah, dude, if you want to cheat don't drag Atsushi into it.

Atsushi: Eheheh... *nervously ignores phone*

Atsushi doesn't have work for a couple of days, so he has time to relax and chat with Kinshirou while Hou-chan communes with her ball and takes a nap.

Atsushi: (Okay, time to try that pickup line I read...) So, Kin-chan... what underwear are you wearing? Kinshirou: Atchan. Please, spare us both.

Meanwhile, that lady who makes weird art bothers En at work again, and he comes out on top again. Maybe she should give up. Luckily for her, he should get promoted today.

Atsushi is sick. :C He's trying to meet his death with brave stoicism and honestly judging from how he looks I don't blame him for thinking the worst.

But all he has to do is take some medicine! All better. Time to go find Kinshirou and celebrate his return to good health, if Kinshirou has forgiven him for that pickup line.

Why is he making that face in the middle of WooHoo... Dare I even ask... Kinshirou, I would have thought you'd be more experienced by now...

Then again, Atsushi is completely satisfied afterwards. So maybe he liked it.

I feel like I go on about how cute Atsushi's Sim is but honestly they're all adorable. Also, this screenshot made me realize they just WooHooed with a window wide open looking down onto their street.

Like... he doesn't even go to work in those clothes. I don't get it.

But as you can see he got promoted! He's now an Imaginative Imagist, whatever that means. The painter career doesn't have the most informative job titles.

He honestly doesn't even want to be in the official painter career. He can't wait to get given a super nice easel so he can work from home like Kinshirou, who, by the way, is making the most money by far out of the three of them right now. I suppose that's fitting.

...He and Atsushi wanted to have a date tomorrow, but now that he's been promoted, he has to work. :\ Atsushi's due for a promotion too, so I guess they’ll see in a couple of days what his new schedule is like.

On the other hand, En gets off work an hour earlier now, and Atsushi still doesn't work at all tomorrow, so maybe they can have their date anyway. They were just planning to hang out at home anyway, in true Enatsu fashion.

It was at this point that the My First Pet stuff pack was released, and, well, long story short, they have a hedgehog now. Guess what its name is?

Don't do it, Kinshirou. Don't fall for it again...

orz.

But he goes to find Atsushi afterwards, just so that Atsushi knows he still cherishes his friendship more than he does a hedgehog.

Hou-chan has something to say, loudly enough that Kinshirou is startled.

Kinshirou: What's wrong, Hou-chan? What is it? Hm? Hou-chan: *sad meowing ;-;*

She needs attention, it turns out. Kinshirou is happy to oblige her whenever she wants. Unfortunately, En is lost in his art and barely even noticed her meowing.

Atsushi has made his first foray into gourmet cooking! He's pleased with the results, but he wishes his boyfriends were here to enjoy it with him.

Better late than never. Look how happy he is! It's like in episode 11 when he's feeding the defense club his curry.

I didn't quite manage to get a screenshot of Lilith at the door, but why do vampires keep knocking on the front door after dark?? It's scary. Maybe the boys just smell delicious or something? At least there hasn't been a vampire break-in, I suppose.

Hou-chan is suspicious of Zundar...

...and WISELY SO what the fuck??? What did they do to Zundar? What does this mean???? I have literally no idea. It popped up just as I left the home lot, so if he did something to trigger it, I'll never know...

While En is at work (orz), Atsushi is taking a trip to the newly-opened Arima Community Garden. They need some people to help do some preliminary work like planting before anything can be harvested.

(This is my way of explaining away gameplay limitations in terms of storyline. I made this lot so that Atsushi didn't have to run around the world finding things to plant, and also so that I had a place to put my modded insect spawners. You need insects for herbalism, but I didn't want to fill their home lot with bugs. But you have to have your Sims plant things on community lots, even if you put the seeds there with a cheat.)

While Atsushi works on the garden, Kinshirou learns chess from a very red individual named Kengo Fujita who's a member of what is essentially a chess club. Maybe they'll become friends! Atsushi wants to hold a dinner party soon to show off his cooking, so the three of them need friends, or at least people who'll accept an invitation.

Atsushi is working hard, but it’s a big task.

Eventually, Kinshirou resigns himself to getting dirt stains on his clothes and steps in to help.

Gardening boyfriends! Kinshirou looks like he's ready to stab himself with that spade. The light has changed and the shadows are longer. They’ve been here for a while. En is home by now, hopefully having a nice nap.

It’s late by the time they’re done. For dinner, they have hamburgers from a plate some stranger left on the table. That’s not what I would do myself, in their place, but they both survive it.

A solid day’s work! But it’s past midnight now and they just want to go home. Don’t judge me for the terrain paint, I did my best.

En is a sweetheart and waited up for them. In the background, Hou-chan remains vigilant.

That painting right there is a masterpiece worth almost two thousand Simoleons. En has an amazing talent.

These are, hands down, the best screenshots in the post.

At work, Atsushi once again refused to report that the cash in the register was low, and it once again got taken out of everyone's tips. Whoever did it the first time must have learned that they could get away with it.

Wtf he's back

They know they're being hunted.

Kinshirou: Perhaps he'll go away if we pretend that we didn't hear the bell. If he has no hope of getting inside... we need to act as though we think we're alone. En: Sure. But how do we do that?

En: Oh, I get it... I like the way you think.

Vladislaus: *watching through the door* They're completely oblivious to my presence. Amazing.

En: We might as well make it convincing, right? Right? Kinshirou: Is this something that interests you, then? Being watched? En: What if it is? Vladislaus: I can't believe they haven't noticed me. Their front door even has windows.

En: What are you into, then? Boyfriends should talk about stuff like this, right? Kinshirou: Oh, well... there are a few things, I suppose... Vladislaus: This is absurd.

En: Mm. Actually, why don't you tell me later? Kinshirou: Wh— oh... Vladislaus: *peers through the door, trying to get a better view*

Vlad is a pervert. Wow. I never knew. No wonder he and demon AU Atsushi are friends.

It worked!

Kinshirou: Oh, thank goodness. Maybe we should invest in some garlic braids. En: We can talk about it later.

This is such a sweet screenshot. Kinshirou can already tell that En is planning some sort of mischief, but he's so relieved that the vampire left before Atsushi got back that he's just amused and indulgent.

Oh, no... with all the vampire scariness and relieved WooHoo, they forgot to refill Hou-chan's food bowl...

(Don’t worry, Kinshirou came downstairs and did it. I just forgot to take a screenshot.)

Atsushi is a line cook now! Look at his fancy clothes! He must wear contacts at work. (That's my excuse for why he doesn't have glasses in his work outfits, and I'm sticking to it...)

His work days haven't changed, although he starts and leaves work four hours earlier now, so he won't be getting home at 2am anymore. He and En won't have a day off in common for a few more days, assuming En doesn't get promoted again in the meantime and get another schedule change. But they'll get their date. They’re determined, and so am I. If all else fails, Atsushi can take a vacation day and En can call in fake sick, and they can hang out with Kinshirou all disapproving in the background.

With the day's salary and his promotion bonus, they're able to expand their house again!

A boring deck to go with their boring house.This is the real reason for making a second story. More than the bath, I wanted to have room for a deck so that they could have a hot tub. :D They now have a grand total of §10 so it's a good thing they have lots of leftover food.

When will they move into a new, less ugly house? When will En get to quit his job? Will En and Atsushi ever get to go on a date? Will there ever come a day when I don’t end one of these posts with a question about En and Atsushi? What in God’s name did that notification about Zundar mean? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but we can find out together next time.

[spartanburger]

Eris Redesign Pt2: And Now For Something Completely Different

Okay, so remember when I said I was going to redo the design for all of my OCs?

Well, I do. 

I had to take an extended break due to college and general disgust with Andromeda, so this is a long time coming, but here’s part 2 of the process. And by that I mean let me just stop working on Eris entirely and focus on Tali.

When I last left off on the process, I had finished a 4k texture for her.  Now, the goal is to work on customizing the model, so I can start to capture things about her that I’ve not been able to do so before.  The first part is to allow that hood of hers to come down.

It all started with a post on Reddit about the Expanded Galaxy Mod that showed Tali with her hood down:

I almost immediately decompiled the Quarian model in the hopes of recreating it for the Quarian civilian.  As it turns out, the model is broken into some interesting parts.

The base model seems to be lacking a few things:

Both the hood and the shins are separate “parts.”

The pockets and main belt are on yet another part:

Finally, there’s also a physics model.  If I recall, this model acts as both the hitbox and the part of the model that gives it weight in a game environment.  If Gmod was still relevant, this would be vital to making a good ragdoll:

But since SFM is a thing, nah.  It got deleted.

With some quick fiddling (okay, I’m skipping over a large part here where I just mashed my face against the screen until some of the model porting and compiling process was finally absorbed through osmosis, but I did this months ago and have nearly forgotten the whole thing so w/e) I grouped the hood and the pockets into bodygroups, so that they can be disabled at will.

Finally, I took a look at the hood, seeing what needed to be done to make it acceptable as a hood-down variant.

Looks kinda nice, but what about another angle?

Yeah, there’s no geometry back there at all. 

I’m skipping over some stuff here, but the TL;DR is that I really such at sculpting, and all my attempts at making it look good failed miserably.  The most interesting results from all of that were Eris’Takara vas Hedgehog and spiky Eris:

So, back to the drawing board. 

At this point, if I wanted to go anywhere with this, I’d need to have a closer look at that EGM Tali model to see how it was done.

I  downloaded and installed the mod and worked on ripping it out of the mod files.  Because it was unsigned, umodel didn’t work at all, but thanks to the amazing ME3 mod tools, it wasn’t long before I had the model in Blender. 

I encountered another issue when trying to get it textured. The UVs were grouped or hidden.  It took some googling, but this is apparently a common issue with Mass Effect models.  Thankfully, there’s an easy fix that’s literally just a button-press or two away.  Once that was done, I could get a good look at her in Blender:

It looks like the geometry from the back of the default human helmet was grafted on to make it work.  Which works for me!

But then I got the random idea to just go through with the full port of the model, which is something I’d never done before.

Thanks to the wondrous tutorials of PTE Jack, I was able to get most of it figured out.

At this point, it’s still exported as ‘render sharp,’ hence the blocky bits of it all.  But before I fixed that, I wanted to get the eyes and glowey bits working.  Through a bit of playing around, I got a selfillum layer where every line on the model geometry glowed slightly, which was neat.

I liked what it did to the eyes the most.  I added some eye flexes to make the iris contract and expand, which was neat until I remembered that I could make the eyes actually be fixed to work with the modern eye shaders. Here’s the old method, with glowing eyes:

And here’s the new, reflective eye shader:

After that, I set the model to shade smooth, and re-exported it.  And thanks to SFM’s amazing animation technology, the whole thing broke

I should point out that somewhere in the process, I had to rotate the animation skeleton to align with the model (it was 90 degrees off before), scale the model to the appropriate size, and added a whole bunch of new things, like a bodygroup for the visor to disable it, and using Lord Ardvark’s mask and eye materials that he used for his Tali model.

I also fixed up the other textures for the model.  In the mod, this variant is treated like another skin, so you cannot get the original colors on it.  It was made a little more difficult since the UV unwrapping was a little different to enable the textures on the new head geometry. With some quick photoshop, both her original, loyalty, and Alternate Appearance Pack skins were quickly added in as different skins.

The last step was a bit of a grind. Because the model doesn’t export with any face flexes, I had to go through the process of morphing the geometry into some face flexes for the eyes. But soon enough, the whole thing was done, and released onto the Steam Workshop!

Right, so what about Eris?

Well, the next step now is to do something similar with that head geometry to the Quarian civilian. After that, I want to add some animation bones to the hood so that it can be animated or posed being pulled down or up.  No idea how that’s going to work out, but it’ll be fun to try out, regardless!

[fuckyeahbadcodocs]

Name: Mira 'Paws' Cole

As callsigns go, I don’t think Paws is half bad. It’s not as grandiose as some that stumble through this door, not edgy and hardcore... It sounds like the kind of nonsense a military faction would hand down to the new kid.

Appearance: Height- 5"9. 

There is a desperate need for more lady OCs who are not like 5′2″ every time. I can at least salute the creator for this...

Weight- 134. 

...And a sensible weight for someone in the military! A little googling tells me this BMI is in the normal range, if on the smaller side. No one has to give this OC a sandwich for her to run out and kick some tail.

Eye color- Emerald green. 

Mmm, unlike my fellow mods, I don’t think using specific descriptors for eyes is a dealbreaker or special snowflake. There’s a lot of shades of green out there. However, I would maybe pick something other than a precious gem to describe a character’s eye color. It’s become a bit of a dead horse at this point.

Hair color- Dark brown.

So far, everything is really good, very low-key. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop to explain why the hell this OC is doing on this page.

Where she serves- U.S. Army Ranger

Recent as it may be, women are slowly entering the ranks of the Rangers through the school, if not actually able to serve in its ranks. Assuming some level of research was put into what it would take for a female OC to break ground like this, we might be onto something.

Now, if you’re all prepared, the other shoe drops... now.

Position- Hired medic/Assassin

Well, medic OCs are old hat at this point, but as long as there’s real research and a plot, I’m not totally opposed to someone examining a side of canon that isn’t totally defined by missions and frontline action--

Wait.

A medic’s first rule is to do no harm... and she is an assassin. Does anyone else see the glaring lack of fundamental understanding of how the military works in that statement, or just me? I’m sure at some point in history or another, a killer has used the disguise of a medical personnel to get closer to a target, but that’s not exactly military standard, not in this day and age.

For that matter, why is the US Army hiring assassins when they have some of the most elite fighting forces on the planet? Any one of Ramirez’s team could easily take up a sniper rifle and hang out for a few hours waiting for a good shot. The Army does not need assassins in the classical sense. It would be much more sensible if this OC was freelance, PIC, or maybe even part of a CIA that is far darker than the average Modern Warfare civilian accounts for.

But for your baseline US Army attache, this is going well over the line. It renders basically all past praise I put upon the OCs design nearly moot. I can’t even imagine what an international DISASTER it would be if an American medic was outed as a professional, government-sanctioned assassin. It would change the face of warfare, totally flip centuries of regulations about medics and their role on its head. Everything would just go to absolute shit if people trusted to heal and stay out of trouble came out as paid professional killers operating with their government’s blessing. 

You can make an OC interesting without relying on secret identities or shocking swerves, or defying basic military roles that leave little hope for a character being an assassin.

History: Mira had never thought she could go to war-and at least experince anything, But now she's been sent over to work as a medic. She'll meet anyone and (oddly) enough; everyone. 

The Rangers, Shepherd, Allen, these are characters I can understand an OC rubbing elbows with, given the game and faction in question. Maybe even  a brush with Team Metal, if you want to broach MW3 and the fact both Rangers and Delta fought against the Russian invasion on the East Coast. Everyone, though? That’s pushing it. The 141 and the Rangers are never anywhere near each other in game proper to allow for meeting ‘everyone.’

Is Mira surprised? Kind of. Sure she has some crushes on certian people. But this is war, not the love boat. 

As opposed to OC/Canon shipping as many people are, so long as it’s not the focal point and overshadowing a much more interesting plot... I personally see no problem with mentioning a character might be interested in someone else. Especially if it’s buffered with the fact ‘hey there’s a war going on, let’s not worry about our alleged sexual tension and instead focus on not. fucking. dying.’

None of this excuses the walking International Shitshow Waiting To Happen, but it’s a surprising touch.

She also earned the name nickname 'Paws', from the wolf paws tatooed and her back, and two small ones on the back of her neck.

That’s not usually how callsign assignments work, it’s usually more of a callback to a memorable incident or a personality trait. 

For pure hypotheticals, let’s say Soap once slid off of something during training, or is very thorough about ‘cleaning’ out a room when on ops. Either of these things might lead to teammates alluding to him as ‘Soap,’ either due to his slippery fuck up, or his sheer ‘cleaning’ power. It’s not like teammates looked at Soap’s haircut and just decided ‘You’re Mohawk now.’ There’s more to callsigns and military culture than that.

Personality: Mira is a kind, gentle, and calm soul. But if somthing goes wrong; she; like Dunn would freak out just the same. 

For both of her preposterous careers, staying cool is a part of the job description. 

A medic has to know how to perform under intense pressure, when the lives of their patients are on the line, sometimes in the middle of a firefight. The military medic career is not one you want to freak out in. 

Assassins must master the art of planning -- entrance, loadout, the exact moment they take down the target, and an exit strategy. They have to be veritable ghosts, leaving no trace of themselves, and with the patience to wait sometimes days for one brief moment and then a quick way out. A freak out at any stage of an assassination is a surefire bullet in the chest at best and a trip to a black site in your target’s home country at worst.

Also if shes meant to be calm why the hell would she freak out when a plan goes to shit? Why does everything about this OC oppose prior information?

She has an affectionate side, but tends not to use it. Theres moments where she can be totally awkward.

Why? Why any of that? I know I harp on explanations in just about every review I do, but I’m just really passionate about OC creators explaining to their audience how and why things work. Personality traits existing at odds with one another are a good reason to have explanations in your profile. If this OC is kind and gentle, why hide her affectionate side? Is she perhaps uncomfortable with overt displays of affection, while still being super sweet and kind to people? Is there a disconnect between her professional personality and her off-duty persona?

Hell if I know, that’s all that’s said for me to analyze.

Also, how awkward are we talking here? ‘My mouth sometimes moves faster than my brain’ awkward, or ‘I was apparently raised in a cave and have no understanding of several normal every day things’ awkward? Much like there are many different shades of green, there are many different flavors of awkward. 

Secrets: Mira is a So-Called 'Assassin', as she describes herself, but is labled as a Sniper by others(As she states during Modern Warfare) but tends to lie when someone questions her. 

A sniper is not an assassin in the classical sense. A sniper is a part of many military teams, and is in fact basic in certain circumstances. A sniper is a legitimate specialist and would never cross over with medical corps.

A lone sniper might well be an assassin, but a sniper on a military team is usually just that: a sniper. Not an assassin, sure as hell not a medic, but definitely a person who is good at waiting, communicating with their spotter, and shooting OpFor as needed.

This might come as a shock, but I don’t think this OC makes much sense, guys.

On that note, why the hell is she in the original Modern Warfare? The American faction in COD4 was the Marines, not Rangers.

She comes to the Army Rangers (In Modern Wafare 2) posing as a Medic, but still serves as a Sniper, she them keeps her position as an Assassin in Modern Warfare 3, where she is seperated and is now on the hunt for Vladimir Makarov.

If she ‘comes to’ the Rangers in MW2, who was she with originally in MW? Was she supposed to be a freelance assassin that the US Army looked at and said ‘good enough for us?’ I really don’t get this bit, I’m sincerely confused by the sequence of events now.

As for MW3... That’s just poor writing and we all know it. The implication Ramirez and company are out taking the Kremlin, and this OC gets separated from the real party. I’m offended for her.

Other: She hates the way anyone treats attack dogs, she has a way to avoid being attacked by them. In this case, she carries treats to throw them off. Even the most vicious dog can be strayed away when confronted by Mira.

No. No, actually, they can’t. These dogs are broken and remade into fur-covered death machines that exist only to destroy whatever they are pointed at. There is nothing you can do to ‘stray’ them, let along with treats. Maybe if you throw them fresher meat than you, but otherwise I have no idea what would even come close to swaying a legitimate dog of war. They would eat her alive, brutally, and then turn their attention to the other Rangers.

Gory, yes. True, also yes. Attack dogs are not misunderstood babies anymore. They are straight up gone, redesigned to do nothing but kill whoever their kennel master sics them on. Kill or be killed is the only way to deal with an enemy attack dog in the middle of battle. Now excuse me, I have to go hug my own dog for a little bit.

Family: Both her parents died when she was 14, but she made friends with a kid named Chuck Seasons *Aka Chef* and the two became friends and have stayed that way ever since.

Let me guess, a member of this creators OC cadre? Did making friends with this kid cure the ache that is losing both of your parents and being made an orphan as a young teenager?

Animal Companions: Mira owns a black German Shepherd named 'Coach', after her famed basketball coach during middle school.

I’m not sure about this one, but I think this Coach guy’s parents really wanted him to be a coach.

So anyway, Mod M would like to posit this question: Why is it that the best/most down to earth designs always end up being tied to brain-breakingly out of touch with the real world OCs? For that matter, why am I always the one left holding the flaming bag that is these ocs?

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Moonjumper

The jist of his character is that he is the corpse of a prince, and his two rivals are the princes ghost and the princes ex. The 3 fuckers want to rule over the same area so competition. Also moonjumper I think only appears on the horizon, meaning he is the only 2d character in a 3d game which is pretty dope.

They were a cut character that was originally supposed to be pretty important, but all we got was gamefiles of vague information, a flat character model, a bit of dialogue, and some music. That hasn't stopped many different and wildly unique headcanons, designs, and stories from taking shape from the original scraps of this one axed character.

The third area/chapter in the game had a much different story in its concept stage, and even though the level was designed enough to be playable for a demo, the devs decided to simplify the story for that area from three central characters to one and a half. Originally, he was a prince that met with a terrible fate at the hands of his obsessively jealous princess, and he somehow got trapped on the horizon without any memories of his original life, instead going mad. He was going to offer information about the area to help to the protagonist, though he really wants to manipulate and control her and everyone else into being unable to leave the area. Mj's backstory was ultimately given to the new central character, Snatcher (who also existed but got a bit of a personality shift with his new spotlight), his musical theme (and somewhat his design) repurposed for the game's item dealer, and MJ himself was removed from the game. Bits of the original story are still scattered around (a spectral body outline on the wall, a face painted in the attic of an icy manor, the scrapped explorable area that still exists out of bounds in the final version of the game, a broken tower), but the character only exists in mods, fanworks, and the concept artist for the original level fleshing out his ideas in art. He has a lot of speculation about his full backstory, abilities, and role, but there's very little sources to have anything beyond theories.

okay. so. let me give you the basis of a hat in time's third (or second during the time moonjumper still existed) chapter. evil ghost guy steals the protag's soul and makes her do shit for him and along the way you can get Lore on why he's a ghost and turns out Another ghost-like entity that you encounter in the chapter killed him while they were both Alive. its more detailed than that but that is Not the point. ok. ghost guy who steals your soul. his name is snatcher. ghost guy who Killed snatcher. her name is vanessa. Where does moonjumper come in you may be asking. well. ORIGINALLY moonjumper was in snatcher's place. but! snatcher also existed in the game at the same time as moonjumper- just with a different backstory. eventually, moonjumper was scrapped, and snatcher filled that role. there are So many things involving moonjumper that got just outright removed because of this. However. there are also things that Didnt get removed that are still in the game that can be traced back to moonjumper, mostly through his design being different from snatchers- moonjumper's design is much, much more closer to the design of moonjumper/snatcher while he was still alive opposed to snatcher, who is just a purple ghost noodle. but even then, their human design and moonjumper's design still have quite a few differences. many people in the fandom/fan community of a hat in time like to try and incorporate moonjumper back into the story, and everyone's different takes are always fun to see :)

He was originally to be the remains of the prince, and was to haunt (and I believe attempt to take over) Subcon Forest. I’m pretty sure he was scrapped because a) there would have been too much going on in that one region and b) Snatcher was the spirit of the prince and in charge of the forest, so maybe they decided it was a little weird to have two characters come from the same dead guy. Also he would 100% have been a tumblr sexyman

Moonjumper is a cut character from A Hat In Time. Originally, they were going to live in Subcon Forest, and have puppetmaster motifs. He was also going to be the prince killed by Vanessa. The motifs and being killed by Vanessa were instead given to Snatcher, my little scrunkle doo.

Apparently originally there were supposed to be three characters for the Subcon Forest level, Moonjumper was supposed to be the Prince in the original story, but was later replaced with the Snatcher, who wasn't the Prince in original story. He still had NPC files on the full release of the game, but it wasn't a model, rather just 2D image with particle effects

He was a scrapped antagonist for the level of Subcon forest! Moon Jumper was scrapped due to the Snatcher being the main character for subcon forest, and not having room for subplots. Early developer commentary states that the Moon Jumper was stuck in the horizon and that his role throughout the level of Subcon forest was to get Hat Kid to join him in the horizon.

wiki link: https://ahatintime.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Jumper what we know and some theories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor-oR5ti9E showing off the NPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krHXy8afF74

Timmy

when a hat in time was in development, it had a kickstarter with stretch goals. one of these stretch goals was co-op multiplayer. we did get co-op eventually- but the character used alongside the protag wasnt always the same. the protag and main character of a hat in time is hat kid! in co-op, the second player plays as bow kid. but, originally, the second player character was going to be a boy named timmy. not much is known about him as im pretty sure he never really had much put into him before he was cut. what we do know is he is a bit older than hat kid (maybe he had an older brother dynamic with her?), and had physic powers. whether or not he would be able to Use those powers in gameplay is unknown. he's been modded back into the game by multiple people all with different interpretations of him.

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Moonjumper

The jist of his character is that he is the corpse of a prince, and his two rivals are the princes ghost and the princes ex. The 3 fuckers want to rule over the same area so competition. Also moonjumper I think only appears on the horizon, meaning he is the only 2d character in a 3d game which is pretty dope.

They were a cut character that was originally supposed to be pretty important, but all we got was gamefiles of vague information, a flat character model, a bit of dialogue, and some music. That hasn't stopped many different and wildly unique headcanons, designs, and stories from taking shape from the original scraps of this one axed character.

The third area/chapter in the game had a much different story in its concept stage, and even though the level was designed enough to be playable for a demo, the devs decided to simplify the story for that area from three central characters to one and a half. Originally, he was a prince that met with a terrible fate at the hands of his obsessively jealous princess, and he somehow got trapped on the horizon without any memories of his original life, instead going mad. He was going to offer information about the area to help to the protagonist, though he really wants to manipulate and control her and everyone else into being unable to leave the area. Mj's backstory was ultimately given to the new central character, Snatcher (who also existed but got a bit of a personality shift with his new spotlight), his musical theme (and somewhat his design) repurposed for the game's item dealer, and MJ himself was removed from the game. Bits of the original story are still scattered around (a spectral body outline on the wall, a face painted in the attic of an icy manor, the scrapped explorable area that still exists out of bounds in the final version of the game, a broken tower), but the character only exists in mods, fanworks, and the concept artist for the original level fleshing out his ideas in art. He has a lot of speculation about his full backstory, abilities, and role, but there's very little sources to have anything beyond theories.

okay. so. let me give you the basis of a hat in time's third (or second during the time moonjumper still existed) chapter. evil ghost guy steals the protag's soul and makes her do shit for him and along the way you can get Lore on why he's a ghost and turns out Another ghost-like entity that you encounter in the chapter killed him while they were both Alive. its more detailed than that but that is Not the point. ok. ghost guy who steals your soul. his name is snatcher. ghost guy who Killed snatcher. her name is vanessa. Where does moonjumper come in you may be asking. well. ORIGINALLY moonjumper was in snatcher's place. but! snatcher also existed in the game at the same time as moonjumper- just with a different backstory. eventually, moonjumper was scrapped, and snatcher filled that role. there are So many things involving moonjumper that got just outright removed because of this. However. there are also things that Didnt get removed that are still in the game that can be traced back to moonjumper, mostly through his design being different from snatchers- moonjumper's design is much, much more closer to the design of moonjumper/snatcher while he was still alive opposed to snatcher, who is just a purple ghost noodle. but even then, their human design and moonjumper's design still have quite a few differences. many people in the fandom/fan community of a hat in time like to try and incorporate moonjumper back into the story, and everyone's different takes are always fun to see :)

He was originally to be the remains of the prince, and was to haunt (and I believe attempt to take over) Subcon Forest. I’m pretty sure he was scrapped because a) there would have been too much going on in that one region and b) Snatcher was the spirit of the prince and in charge of the forest, so maybe they decided it was a little weird to have two characters come from the same dead guy. Also he would 100% have been a tumblr sexyman

Moonjumper is a cut character from A Hat In Time. Originally, they were going to live in Subcon Forest, and have puppetmaster motifs. He was also going to be the prince killed by Vanessa. The motifs and being killed by Vanessa were instead given to Snatcher, my little scrunkle doo.

Apparently originally there were supposed to be three characters for the Subcon Forest level, Moonjumper was supposed to be the Prince in the original story, but was later replaced with the Snatcher, who wasn't the Prince in original story. He still had NPC files on the full release of the game, but it wasn't a model, rather just 2D image with particle effects

He was a scrapped antagonist for the level of Subcon forest! Moon Jumper was scrapped due to the Snatcher being the main character for subcon forest, and not having room for subplots. Early developer commentary states that the Moon Jumper was stuck in the horizon and that his role throughout the level of Subcon forest was to get Hat Kid to join him in the horizon.

wiki link: https://ahatintime.fandom.com/wiki/Moon_Jumper video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mor-oR5ti9E showing off the NPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krHXy8afF74

Vanessa's Manor third floor

Snatcher turning into a shadow Hat Kid, Queen and Prince lore written on the walls, unused mechanic with eyes appearing on the walls, Moonjumper lore