#THIS GAMES AWESOME i remember a friend talking about it last year AND I SEE WHAT HE MEANS!!!!! its so cool

[nicohischierz]

a mat(t) for every situation: hughes sister

tagging: @ivy-34, @francesfarhadi, @hzstry8, @cixrosie, @itsnotgray, @estapa94, @trevs-swiftie, @heartz4hisch you want to join the taglist let me know!!

when she got drafted by the islanders in the 2020 nhl draft, no one was expecting it.

sure she was on the zoom with all the top prospects but she thought it was for show and really she’d only been present to watch her friend brendan get drafted.

but alas, her name was called before his. brendan jumped onto her immediately bringing her into a hug before her mother brought her into her arms .

adelaide’s brothers stood shocked as she placed an islanders hat on her head. quinn and luke congratulated her after jer interviews and jack just lifted his head in acknowledgment.

that was four years ago.

now she was in the big leagues, leaving the university of michigan in her sophomore year and finding a permanent spot on the islanders roster.

“barzy, should i do one braid or two for the game?” she asked, barging into her teammates room.

during her rookie season, mat had been tasked with looking after her. it didn’t take long before the two of them started acting like siblings, going as far as to call each other such in interviews.

“i don’t know addy. tito should she do one braid or two?” mat asked his former teammate over the phone.

“two!” tito replied.

“anthony!” adelaide squealed jumping into bed with mat. the man on the phone laughed as mat chastised the younger girl, he truly did miss the two.

“hi mon chou, how are you?” he asked.

“i’m great! super excited for the game. except for the fact that my brothers will be there and jack hasn't been in the stands to see me play like ever," she ranted.

tito and mat both gave the girl a sad look. but adelaide brushed them off, giving anthony a smile and asking "how's the checklist going?"

when the news of anthony's trade dropped, adelaide provided the boy with her personal nashville checklist. she had covered a pretty good chunk of it and wanted her friend to do the same.

"you seem distracted," tito pointed out.

adelaide shrugged, she looked over to mat hoping he didn't spill her secret. but then she was reminded that tito and mat knew her better than her brothers.

well, those two are her brothers.

"mon chou whatever it is, we're here for you," tito's toned softened and mat pulled the younger girl into her arms.

"um, there's this guy i met ..." adelaide was cut off by tito yelling

"barzy you let her near a guy! i thought we agreed no boys till she's 45!" he joked causing the two in the hotel room to scoff. tito smiled, happy to change the girls mood slightly.

"as i was saying, i met this guy and he was really tall tito and he was so sweet. he was canadian for sure, but he didn't know who I was which is awesome and he said he;s going to be in new york for a bit," she explained.

in the three years of knowing adelaide hughes, tito and mat had never seen her talk about a boy this way. she always presented a cold front and if someone tried flirting with her at a bar she'd shut them down.

"that's not all is it?" tito pressed.

"like i said earlier, my brothers are going to be there. tito, whenever I have something important jack is always there to steal the spotlight," you murmured the last part.

mat remembers the comments under your draft post about jack not wanting to be there at all, or how he hadn't even congratulated his sister for her achievement.

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅──╮

when it was time for the outdoor game, adelaide had focused her attention on the game and not on the two boys in the stands. the only thing that really threw her off was the announcement that a rookie was debuting at the game.

"oh you're kidding me," she whispered when she saw the guy making his debut.

mat looked over at adelaide and saw her staring at the new rangers players. the new player doing the same upon seeing adelaide.

the older boy kept the interaction in his head as a reminder to ask adelaide later.

the game was a bit up and down as adelaide and matt got distracted by each other. however, the former did a good job of not letting it affect her game.

the islanders lost in overtime and adelaide's frustrations were evident on her face. she skipped out on media and headed to her parents, calling the boy that plagues her mind.

"meet me at the same bar tomorrow night," she told him ending the call immediately.

ellen wrapped her arms around her daughter and praised her efforts during the game, calling the overtime goal sheer luck. luke teased his older sister about the devils win and jack was preoccupied with his phone.

adelaide didn't need jack's attention but she craved it. even when she was a child, all she wanted was to make her brother proud of her.

the awkwardness within the hughes family didn't last long as mat came around, wrapping his arm over adelaide. he greeted the parents and the two boys before stealing the girl away from her family.

he could see the hurt in her eyes when jack didn't acknowledge her. mat knew that inside her head, adelaide was listing all the bad things she could've possibly done to have her brother hate her.

"addy, the canadian guy from the bar. it's rempe isn't it," mat stated as soon as the two reached adelaide's apartment.

the hughes girl stilled. "barzy, i swear i didn't know. we never spoke about hockey and I was shocked when I saw him today," she rambled.

mat pulled her in for a hug as her eyes started to fill with tears, she was overwhelmed and mat knew she needed some comfort.

"you're the best brother a girl could ask for," adelaide whispered.

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅──╮

the next day, matt and adelaide made their way to the bar in the morning. the latter had been pacing around the entrance with a cup of coffee in her hand.

"didn't see you as a day drinker hughes," matt quipped.

adelaide couldn't help the smile that made its way on her face. however, one look at the boy's cut reminded her of why she was here.

"you didn't tell me you were a hockey player,"

"you didn't tell me either princess,"

in all honesty, the two weren't sure where the conversation was going but matt called adelaide for a walk.

the two spoke freely about everything and anything. adelaide forgot why she was angry at the boy and matt enjoyed his time with the pretty girl.

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅──╮

that exchange happened three months ago.

"is your family coming down for playoffs?" matt asked. the two of you were currently enjoying a lazy day in bed, matt was playing with your hair as you scrolled through tiktok.

you shook your head.

"well my mum and da may come down but they've got to see quinny too and he's stressed cause he's captain. then jack's got his shoulder surgery and luke's going to worlds. but I don't mind," you answered quickly.

matt's heart sunk.

in the three months he'd known you he learnt three things

one: mat barzal was more of a brother than your actual brothers

two: jack was an asshole

three: you would always blame yourself for anyone's flaws

"when you guys play at home and if I've got nothing going on I'll come watch you," he whispered, pulling you in for a kiss.

you smiled giddily at your boyfriend and snuggled into his chest. he truly was the perfect boyfriend.

[clownkiwi]

with that out of the way THIS GAME IS AWESOME!!!!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN A FUTURISTIC MOTOR BIKE FIGHTING GAME IS ONLY RESTRICTED TO ARCADES ONLY???

ik sega model boards are a bitch to emulate (hence why mame has been taking a while to support them all), but motor raid wouldve killed it on the saturn or even dreamcast. i can see motor raid being a killer hit on ps2 or even on computers like pc or mac

actually im surprised motor raid is like. one of the only few sega model 2 games to work on mame. it works pretty accurately!! (from what i can assume, audio sometimes repeats itself, but besides that, nearly an arcade perfect emulation)

[palenutbasement]

(all scenes are depicted as platonic)

So every Inktober I try to do something more challenging, and this year I thought I would make a short comic/fanfic. I think I got the idea for this one a year ago but I was already wrapped up with another Inktober. Eventually I solidified the idea by making my own prompt list some time ago.

This comic is split into three parts with 10 days focusing on each of them, 30 in total, everything is compiled here. I wanted to post them after October in case I wanted to change anything.

This first part takes place in the summit.

The comic is basically all improvised, that means no planning for the composition, plot, or sketching any drawings. The most planning I did was write a few scripts ahead of time within the month to save me some time but most of them would be changed last minute anyways.

As for the plot, I won't go too deep into it because I don't want to talk too much, so you'll just find commentary on the making of the comic and stuff.

This first part is a little gimmick-y compared to the next two, with new elements appearing almost every day. It’s because I relied a lot on the prompts (dog, milk, etc.) to keep things happening, eventually I move further away from them.

What is surprising to me is how much the art changes as the days go by especially within the span of one month. I did refine a few things to keep it more consistent but this is nearly indistinguishable from the original drawings.

I should also mention that my favourite aspect of this project was adding references to the game and subtle details (if you can find it all, awesome!!) This may have been done quickly but I like to have those things and put at least a bit of effort into the dialogue.

Part 2

Eventually I figured that drawing the same setting for 30 days straight would drive me insane, hence why this comic is split like it is. I’m glad I did because it makes the story a little more interesting, seeing the characters have different attitudes in different places and whatnot.

This one takes place in the cave directly after pt 1. Admittedly I do better drawing outdoor settings, it's what I'm used to, but the cave wasn't so bad to figure out.

I remember these two days I was streaming drawing the comic to my friends, so I kinda zoned out while we were talking lol

One of the prompts was about napping, so I made Dwarf sleep. I believe I was tired that day too and it was therapeutic to draw and include that. Also they look cute, I think.

18 & 19 have some of my favourite drawings in the comic. The campfire lighting is what we'd get if I had a bit more energy each day, and I like the perspective in the first panel of 19.

I find this last section interesting, because of all the 30 days, it’s the only one in Dwarf’s POV. I felt like it was fitting to do something like that at the time.

Part 3

Since we were approaching Halloween, I wanted to have a special part for it. It’s related to the other two parts but it takes place some time after. I’m really sorry it’s out of season, if it were up to me I would have had this post out earlier (thank my midterms for the delay)

Out of all the other parts this one is my favourite. Maybe because it’s more recent I’m inclined to think that way but it has some of my fave moments that I've written here.

Other than that I don't have much commentary for this part. More thoughts at the end!

I was caught up everyday atp, but I didn’t have much spare time to prepare for the ending (I wrote it the morning of that day). I think this is a decent conclusion though.

I intend on coming back to this story, maybe next year to make a continuation but we'll see what happens. There are definitely things that I want to come back to someday.

Thank you for making it this far btw. It's been an eventful month for me beyond this (Untitled) comic, but there wasn't a single aspect of this that I didn't enjoy doing. It's a silly project and I care about it.

Also, I'm not going to neglect the 31st of October! That day will get an illustration, where I will pick my favourite panel and redraw it. I want to take my time with this one so it's not out yet, but hopefully I can finish by Christmas.

[humanityinahandbag]

Steddie Accidental Marriage

AKA: Eddie and Steve have been together for twenty plus years and married for one.

No one told Eddie.

A brief one shot about Eddie being in love and also an idiot.

-

Eddie quickly becomes an expert at nodding.

More specifically, he becomes an expert at nodding to whatever Steve Harrington is saying, and as long as Steve Harrington's eyes stay fixed on his, he knows he'll probably keep nodding until his head tips off his neck and rolls away.

See, 1986 hadn't gone the way anyone could have predicted. The monsters, the portals, the child who could probably summon a giant marshmallow man if she tried hard enough. But the most startling development (besides coming out on the other side, scarred and shaken and very much alive) was Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington, who was kind, sweet, and all too thoughtful. Who protected people with everything he had and pressed his heart into other people's hands without asking for it back.

And that sucks, honestly. Because he could still remember being invited to parties for drug deals and sneered at in the hallways, shoved into lockers by the group of hair-sprayed goons while Steve had watched like some all-seeing vassal.

It didn't help that Eddie had been in love with the guy since before popularity graced him with its unwelcome presence.

And now that he's kind, sweet, generous, thoughtful?

Well. He was doomed when he held that bottle to Steve's throat.

So yeah. Eddie is deliriously in love. He's not sure when it will end, but he knows it will end eventually. He'll slip up and Steve will realize he's gay and punch his lights out, or he'll find better, less frustrating friends and leave Eddie and the rest of them in the dust. But until then? He needs to take every moment he has.

And so he nods.

He nods when Steve Harrington asks if he'd like to attend pool parties with the kids. He nods when Steve Harrington asks if he wants to hang out alone and see a movie. He nods when Steve Harrington picks him up from physical therapy.

He even nods when Steve Harrington leans over and asks I'm not imagining things, right? You're, like... into me?

Steve beams. "Awesome," he says, and leans forward to press warm, full lips against his.

It will end soon, Eddie tells himself as Steve's hand presses into his hair and lips leave little dappling pocks along his jaw. So he'll take what he can.

-

A year passes, and Eddie is still waiting for everything to quietly shatter.

Which makes it all the more frustrating when it doesn't.

Steve is over at their new (government hush-moneyed) apartment almost every day. It's not unusual to see him puttering about, folding blankets or hovering above the stove. Their little home smells less and less like microwaved meals and more like whatever Steve has tried to cook up that day.

Wayne is delighted. "Finally got someone to talk about important stuff with," he crows one night after dinner, sitting in the recliner with a beer while Steve takes the couch besides Eddie. Their fingers link, bodies pressed tight alongside the other. If Wayne notices, he doesn't say anything.

"My stuff's important," Eddie mutters.

Steve just laughs, stealing the beer from his hand to take a swig before pressing a fond kiss to his cheek. "Sports trump everything, Eds," he says, and then goes back to discussing the game playing on the little TV with Wayne.

His thumb rubs back and forth against Eddie's hand the whole time.

Eddie holds tight.

-

Steve Harrington's phase to figure out himself lasts longer than Eddie would have expected. Long enough for Steve to drag him into bed, confident and shy all at once before taking Eddie apart slowly before putting him back together one little piece at a time.

When Eddie lets the I love you slip out, he waits for everything to crash around him.

Instead, Steve whispers something that sounds suspiciously like I love you into the seam of his shoulder.

Eddie holds even tighter and wills the moment to last forever.

-

Another year passes. Steve applies for community college and celebrates with Eddie and Wayne and Robin when he's accepted to the social work track. There's talk about moving closer to Indiana so the commute isn't as long. Robin already has an apartment with Nancy there while they work out plans for Boston that Steve has become more and more invested in.

Housing becomes more difficult to come by as prices rocket upwards. Which is absolutely, definitely, positively, one-thousand-percent why Steve turns to Eddie and says, "We'll find something that works for the both of us," and then proceeds to show up at Eddie's work in the little garage on Maple Street with a clipped advertisement for an apartment.

"I visited it today," he says, giddily drumming on the wheel as they drive through the main slot of road and past Loch Nora. "Just wait. It's got great lighting. And the landlord says that she'll let us get a pet if we want one!"

"That's... that's great," says Eddie.

It is a great apartment. Large windows. High ceilings.

"Which bedroom would you want?" he asks Steve, who's busy opening and closing every door to see how it latches.

"Whichever one you choose," says Steve, like that sentence alone hasn't rocked Eddie to his very core and shaken his heart loose.

Eddie nods mutely which seems to at least get a positive reaction out of Steve. "Oh! And I had this great idea. We could totally turn the other bedroom into a studio for you. How cool would that be!" He went on to describe the pullout couch they could put in the center of the living room. How they could host the kids, his Uncle, Robin, whoever else wanted to drop by.

Eddie could only nod along.

And he'd keep nodding as the furniture was moved in, and Jonathan and Wayne and Steve argued over the little bolts and screws while they put together the bed frame in the master bedroom. He'd keep nodding as the walls in that room were painted a lovely, dusted blue and two bedside tables were added to either end.

They didn't argue over sides. They didn't have to. Eddie naturally fell to the right, Steve to the left. Shared books filled the shelves along with sports trophies and twenty sided dice.

He didn't stop nodding when it was their first night there and Steve climbed into bed alongside him, exhausted and clingy, and pressed himself to Eddie's back whispering fantasies about how their life would play out.

-

And play out their life does.

They move to Boston. Eddie finds a new band. Steve begins working for Boston General Hospital in their pediatric wing where he holds kids hands and talks them through what scares them before surgeries. Sometimes, he brings Eddie along. The kids always shriek and laugh and ask to touch his guitar, and Steve watches Eddie with a kind of Love that could spin the world off its course when he plucks the first notes of a favorite Tears for Fears song.

Robin and Nancy live just next door, because Steve and Robin have separation anxiety and Nancy declared herself and Eddie to be best friends that couldn't live without the other.

There are great moments. And terrible ones. Sometimes there are fights and slammed doors and Eddie always waits for the other shoe to come crashing down, and yet it never does. He and Steve always find one another again.

Which is... odd.

Mostly because he's never heard of any other friends-with-benefits case working quite like theirs.

He brings it up once with Gareth on a weekly phone call.

"I don't get it," he says. "I mean... you'd think the guy could find himself someone to spend his life with. He's just... he's so great. He's just perfect."

There was silence on the other end. And then;

"Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot."

Eddie spluttered and hung up. He didn't bring it up again after their next call.

-

The 1990's come and go. The year 2000 is celebrated with a kind of raucous glee followed by '01, '02, '03. Steve becomes head of the social work department. Eddie has stopped touring and is instead teaching music in an elementary school, where he plays music to children who hang off his knees and scream about wheels on school busses. They're happy in ways he couldn't have dreamed they'd ever be.

2004 arrives with the purchase of their first house, an occasion marked with Steve dragging Eddie from room to room, christening each one with an attention that borders on religious.

Eddie blames it on homeowner stamina and has to wonder why buying a house with your "booty call" (as the teens are now calling it) is something worth celebrating.

Though he supposes it makes said booty call more accessible, and makes it a little easier to struggle through the intense love and adoration that fill his chest at all times.

He's never believed in a God, but if he did, he'd probably ask what he did in a former life to deserve this. Even if he can't have Steve, he can still have him in any way that Steve is willing to give.

Which is why, ten years later and still somehow living out his dream, Eddie is left so completely and totally confused when all of his friends and family plan to swarm Boston to celebrate... something.

He's not really sure what they're celebrating.

But they're definitely celebrating something.

It's when he finds paperwork during an attic cleanout that he finally realizes it.

They bought their house ten years ago.

That must have been it!

Ten years of being homeowners come and gone.

This is made even clearer when Steve looks over his shoulder, curses, and says, "I forgot all about that."

"Me too."

"We should probably think of remortgaging soon." Steve tousled his hair with a sigh. "Not like it'll be any fun, but..."

"Look at you," says Eddie, hating how sour Steve's pretty face had become. He leaned over and pressed a kiss by Steve's ear, pleased to see him perk up. "Being an adult and everything."

"I can say the same for you."

"Don't you dare," says Eddie with a laugh.

And yeah, sure, maybe that didn't seem like much of an achievement, but Eddie was happy to give what he could. And so when Wayne arrived at the airport and practically broke down in tears, tugging Eddie into a hug to let him know how proud and happy he was for his boy, Eddie could only just smile and nod.

If his Uncle wanted to cry about Eddie repainting some plaster and tending to a garden and making consistent mortgage payments, who was he to stop him?

"Can you even believe it?" his Uncle asked in the car ride back to their home.

Eddie laughed. "I mean, I don't think it's that big of a deal."

"You just can't see it for what it is cause you've been doin' it for so long."

Which was a fair point. He had been a homeowner for a while now.

"I guess," he agreed, and Wayne smiled and pat his shoulder and asked him all about his job. He tells Wayne all about a group of six year olds who've all learned about becoming tea pots (short and stout).

Two days later (much to Eddie's consistent shock and confusion), Steve dresses in his best suit and helps Eddie knot a tie covered in tiny skulls and drags them both to town hall. They wait in a line on the third floor, Eddie looking around a little dazed and unsure, until they're finally let into an office and Steve (through tears) signs his name on a line before turning to Eddie and clasping their hands tight together.

"Eds," Steve says. "You gotta sign it too."

And Eddie, who has been nodding since 1986, can only nod again and reach for the pen.

He's not entirely sure why everyone arrived to celebrate them renewing their mortgage. He didn't even know City Hall made a huge fuss over the financial gains of two middle aged men in middle America. But his friends and family are waiting in the lobby. They're all crying, even though he's not really sure why, but that just triggers him into crying. Even more when the kids (though they're not so much kids any more) clump around them with hugs and tears and shouts about how excited and proud they are.

"It's about time," Dustin sobs.

"I mean, I guess," says Eddie, wondering why Steve hasn't let go of his hand yet.

But he's not going to let go.

-

He doesn't find out until one year later when Steve surprises him with a trip to Hawkins. They meet Uncle Wayne first thing before going off to explore their old haunts, flipping their middle fingers out the window at the high school, stopping off at one of their favorite old diners that still served what Steve considered to be the most okay chocolate milkshakes in the entire world.

Their waitress was a lovely older woman named Dotty who looked moments away from pinching Steve's cheeks when she collected their menus.

"What are you folks here for?" she asked. "Haven't seen you around here!"

"We used to live here," said Eddie. "We moved away."

"And we're celebrating," countered Steve.

Eddie blinked, considering the date before he remembered. "Yeah," he agreed with a nod.

"Oh, how lovely!" Dotty clasped her hands around the sticky diner menus. "What's the occasion."

And before Steve could get in a word, Eddie apparently decided to leap headfirst off idiocy mountain and say, "we refinanced our mortgage."

There was silence.

"Oh..." said Dotty, finally. "Well. That's... nice?"

Across the table, Steve stared at him.

Eddie couldn't shake the feeling that he'd said something wrong. "Um." He reached for a napkin, tearing and twisting it between his hands. "Yeah. Totally. It was a, uh. A big deal."

"Was it...?"

"Mmmhm," he squeaked, trying hard not to look at the way Steve was gaping at him. "We've, uh... we've been roommates for a while, so."

Steve looked moments away from sliding off the booth and into the earth's core.

It wasn't until Dotty left (a little confused and befuddled) that Steve sprung up, grabbing Eddie by the arm, marching them both into the parking lot.

"Refinancing our mortgage!" Steve stomped little circles around the concrete. A family walking by crossed to the other side of the street. "We're refinancing our mortgage!"

"Steve, you're uh. You're scaring people..."

"You're scaring me!" Steve tossed his hands into the air.

"Right. Uh... I got that? But... why? Am I scaring you?"

"Because you said we're roommates!"

"But. We are roommates?"

"We-!" Steve froze, mid panic.

Eddie, taking a chance, snuck forward and gave him a little poke. "Uh. Steve? You rebooting?"

Steve blinked. He reached up and scrubbed his face. He looked back up at Eddie before squeezing his eyes shut and counting back from ten. When he opened them again, Eddie was amazed to find there wasn't a blue screen behind Steve's eyes.

"Eddie," Steve said. "You honestly think I took you to city call to refinance our mortgage?"

"They're important documents," Eddie said.

"And that we've been roommates for over twenty years?"

"We're very good roommates," said Eddie, weakly.

Steve's eye twitched. "Roommates don't have sex, Eddie! They don't tell each other they love each other! They don't get married!"

"I never said we were traditional roommates! I just said-" And then Eddie stopped, Steve's words finally striking ground. "Wait..."

"Yeah."

"Wait."

"Mmmhm."

"Wait!"

Steve waved his hands. "Now he gets i- mph!"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by Eddie dragging him quick into a kiss.

Dottie arrived back at their table just as Steve and Eddie slipped back into the booth, looking a little mussed and tossed about, lips red and eyes shining.

"Still celebrating that mortgage?"

"Actually," said Eddie, "it turns out, we're married!"

"Isn't that nice."

"It is," agreed Eddie, accepting his hamburger and shake. "Did you know I've been in love with him since high school?"

"How sweet! And how long have you been married?"

"A year!" Eddie preened.

Steve accepted his own burger. "He just found out," he said.

Dotty wasn't sure what that meant, but the two of them looked happy enough. Who was she to question a good marriage?

-

Published, edited, and slightly longer story found here!

[imagoddamnonionmason]

Hiiii gooooose 😍

For the ask game for Ashley!

👑🌹💎

Hola bonita <3 I have been thinking Ashley and Jr so much lately- I am very excited to talk about her and these questions 😊 👀

👑 - Person who raised your OC and/or was important during their formative years

The obvious two are Frank and Jodie Woods, her parents; they're a close knit family, very protective of each other and one of the people that inspires her most is her Dad. Her mum does, too, but that intense inspiration comes a lot later in life when Ashley finds out about Jodie's past. But as a kid and teenager, seeing her Dad still be fucking awesome despite being in a wheelchair, despite what other's might call limitations, he proves to her every day that you can do whatever the fuck you want and nothing can stop you. I know for a fact that the knowledge of Alex and Sarah Mason would influence her, too, even though she doesn't remember them - she was too young to remember them when they passed (queried passed away, regarding Alex). I think she would ask about them and Jodie and Frank would talk about them, the good memories, the memories not tarnished by their tragic fates. I think they would also do that for David and though I feel it's more of a tense subject for the boy, I think Ashley would secretly idolise those two.

Some more people that I think would have been important in her formative years would have been Aleks Adler and her children (I don't think she would really rate Russel Sr, just because she would have barely seen him. I'm also not sure in what capacity they would have ever seen each other in her younger years, you know? Maybe kinda in passing). I think Aleks would be very important because 1) she's the mother of her future husband and 2) Aleks is a part of her parents' lives and they see her often. She's that sweet family friend that's more family than friend, that Ashley would remember being able to turn to if she couldn't turn to her parents. And lastly, but probably one of the most important people that she had in her life is definitely Russell Jr, Aleks and Adler's son. They grew up together, were great friends, he taught her a lot and vice verser. No matter what, he was always there and supported her whenever needed. They got into a lot of mischief as kids, continued into their teen years and adulthood. They're definitely a power couple! I honestly don't think she would have turned out as balanced had Russell Jr not been there; they're kind like the yin-yang, yk? Two half of the same whole, but slightly opposite. I do think Ashley may have been more of a nuisance had Jr not been there to kinda rein her in a little! (But also, her sense of adventure pulled him out of his shyness.) He's just very important to her and if they hadn't gotten together, he would have been someone she would have fought to keep in her life.

🌹 - First relationship

OOOOOOhhhhhh I was thinking about this and I think she really wouldn't have been bothered about dating anyone until possibly her late teens; maybe 18/19? That might have been the age when she had her first proper relationship. I don't think it would have lasted very long, maybe a year? Maybe until the end of her uni/college days?

I may have to be corrected, but this is about the age that American's attend university, right? But it's called College instead? Anyway- my point is that her first relationship would have started in uni. She's left home, she's in a dorm, maybe it's a guy she shares the dorm space with and they hit it off etc.

(Again, I don't actually know how dorm situations work in America, as over here, England, it's essentially a flat of 8 rooms and it's mixed. I had to share with all genders and yeah people hooked up and relationships started because they met there- that's how I kind of imagine this.)

I do think that this first relationship would have deteriorated simply due to jealousy; I don't think the guy would have liked how close she was with Russell Jr. Maybe this idea that guys and gals can't be friends. Yet he'd be fine with her and David because "he's more like a brother to you, your parents kinda took him in". Flawed logic, yk?

I may have to work more on this guy's character, actually put a name to him, a face too.

Anyway, she would have realised he wasn't exactly great and would have stood up for her friendship - if he can't trust her, then there's no relationship.

💎 - Chosen family (including warband)

Chosen family would definitely include David Mason - even though it's not official, I think they would see each other as siblings. They were raised together for a time, between him visiting his aunts and staying with Jodie and Frank.

I think that other chosen family would include some of the other pilots that she trained with during her Top Gun training. You have to be close knit and trusting when in the air and part of something that elite - there's no room for mistrust and she'd say it's hard not to see the group as family.

Of course, the extended Adler family would become chosen family, too (even if at some point she'd love to light a fire under Russell Sr's ass. She doesn't out of respect for everyone else and an understanding that the past is in the past.)

Hope you like!! <3 <3

Aleks, Russell Jr and extended Adler family OCs -> @alypink

Also, I bloody love Jr and Ashley 😭 I would fight for them, tooth and nail

[desire-mona]

dead poets society chars but i assign them random things ive seen happen on the internet / random videos or posts i remember (not based on anything it is genuinely at random):

neil - tony crynight's fnaf animation series which i dont entirely remember the plot of but i'll try to describe. so basically its fake mangle lore to say that mangle is the way they are (all broken and shit) because Mangle kissed Foxy and Chica got jealous so she took a Machete to Mangle to Mangled them. and then the gang tries to save mangle or whatever

todd - fluffle puff, someones pink fluffy mlp oc who was in lesbians with chrysalis (i think thats her name, i never watched mlp). mosy notably known for the animation to pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows. also the creator is a pedophile i think

charlie - sorrow tv and his entire existence. sorrow tv was a youtuber who made videos reading out reddit videos in silly voices. there was a whole posse of youtubers who did this, and he was the most popular just bc his voice acting was rly good. i still watch him every couple months even tho he hasnt posted since 2021.

cameron - does bruno mars is gay? i think about cameron man door hand hook car door every day, so i obviously need to point to my third favourite silly trying to be serious sentence. most ppl know this from game grumps but im not linking a game grumps video on here. rumour come out!

knox - venturiantale, the youtube channel usually consisting of 4? siblings playing gmod together usually. the channel itself was ran by this guy named jordan i think? and his siblings has their own channels. i knew them best for their fnaf gmod videos and their fanmail videos. turns out they were all very christian? and the whole family was abusive and way deep into said christianity if i remember correctly, one of the siblings who left first made a video on it. the venturiantale channel hasnt posted in like 2 yrs and the slow death was kinda sad to see bc he (jordan) blamed it all on The Algorithm.

meeks - that one nagito komaeda kinnie back in Whenever it was cutting off their finger to. i guess prove that they were a nagito kinnie frfr? if u dont know danganronpa lore then nagito gets his hand cut off and replaced with junko enoshima's hand because sheeeee got... executed? i wont lie i dont remember this part of the games story sorry. but essentially that one person was like I Gotta Do That........ anyway im jk the audio was faked and nothing actually happened + the person is fine LAWL

pitts - the key of awesome's parody of tiktok by kesha called glitter puke. theres no lore to this the key of awesome is / was ? a silly little song parody channel. this video was made in 2010 and it kinda shows in some moments but other than that it holds up. just checked and the key of awesome is Not still going, it ended 6 years ago and the last video was actually rly good and genuine

keating - onma island is buried a treasure chest. ok so basically mr beast made a video talking abt a private island and he buried. a treasure chest for a viewer to find. during the video he said "on my island is buried a treasure chest" but it sounded like "onma" which this one youtuber (pinely) found rly funny. it became an inside joke with his friends (one of whom got a tattoo) which then became a lowkey meme. mr beast even tweeted it so. good lord thats a lot of links sorry there isnt a know your meme page or anything

chris - i dont have any links for this one sorry, im just gonna tell the story and u have to believe me when i say i swear it happened (its very a believable fandom story im sure you will). so back when the genshin impact was still in its fairly early days (late 2020-early 2021) the phrase "hear me out" to refer to characters n stuff started becoming popular I THINK at the same time. so people in the genshin fandom were like hear me out with increasingly more heinous shit. started with characters, then npcs, then enemies, then bosses, then weapons, the stamina bar at one point, etc. a lot of these were jokes or straight up bait but back then (maybe now too - i havent been part of the genshin fandom for a LONG time) people took bait far more often than they didnt. so it became a "genshin fandom bad" gotcha to point out That One stamina bar post.

ginny - $300 junko enoshima wig! sorry for double dipping with danganronpa it was just the first fandom i actually started like. on purpose noting fandom happenings with + a lot of shit happens in that fandom. this one cosplayer who at the time was called snowthesaltqueen / badguyincorporated started selling pre-made (and styled) junko enoshima cosplay wigs for $300. which WOULD be fair (i think? idk how cosplay commissions work) if said wig was styled well or quality at all, but what was ACTUALLY provided was a rly basic wig base and few clips with no note or no nothing, and rly flat. like on purpose. like that was "the styling". also you may recognise this cosplayer for 1) getting in trouble when they did a cosplay photoshoot (danganronpa cosplay funnily enough) in a graveyard, posing ON a gravestone. 2) KILLING SOMEONE. they were screwing around with a firearm and fake pointing it at someone and then they accidentally shot them.

i could do this forever like actually. i have SO many internet stories in my brain its actually bad.

[dawnisatotalqueen]

SOUR BERRIES // LOVE GROWS

title: love grows :: chapter two

characters: haikyuu various x reader

notes: profanity, tsuk*shima (jokes kind of), sugawara being an angel 😍, hinata being a qt, and bestie iwa ofc

summary: after some chaos ensues where hinata and kageyama get kicked out of the gym, the boys come up with the idea for a 3v3 to settle if kageyama can be the setter. of course, you get roped into it, and you're now joining them for 5 am practice.

masterlist

Kageyama and Hinata did not get along. That is exactly what resulted in the two of them getting kicked out of the gym. You stuttered, looking between the three older boys.

You didn’t know them. You only knew the two boys who were now kicked out until they could get along.

You heard Hinata and Kageyama plead with the captain who’s name you learned to be Daichi, though he was determined in his stance that the two needed to work together.

The grey haired boy, Sugawara, told you that you could watch practice for today, then the next day you could go over what you needed to do for manager duties with Kiyoko, the other manager.

You were kind of dazed, honestly. The next thing you knew, Kageyama was challenging Daichi to a 2v2, which he turned into a 3v3 with two other first years that would be joining the team. The penalty if they didn’t win? Kageyama wouldn’t be the setter.

After Daichi put Tanaka on the two boys’ team, he had the idea to meet up and practice, which is exactly why you found yourself standing at the entrance to the school, half asleep at 5 AM.

You weren’t technically supposed to be there, but after exchanging numbers with Hinata, he mentioned it to you, and you both decided joining could be fun.

Your brain was starting to regret that.

Well, that was until you heard a now familiar voice cheer your name. You looked around, spotting Hinata and grinning. “Morning!”

He smiled brightly. “Good morning! How’d you sleep?” The two of you turned, heading onto the school grounds.

“Pretty good! I fell asleep on a call with my best friend.” You hummed, remembering how you had talked Iwaizumi’s ear off about your first day and all the new people you had met.

“Ooo. Do they go here?” Hinata tilted his head.

“Ah, no, he goes to Seijoh!”

“Wait, really?!” Hinata gasped a little. “That’s where Kageyama was supposed to go too, right? It’s one of the best schools in the prefecture?”

“Mhm! I was pretty surprised to see him here. We’ve actually been in school together for a while!”

“Really?” He grimaced. “I don’t even wanna imagine what that’d be like..”

You giggled a little. “You know, if you wanna win this thing you’re gonna have to learn how to tolerate him.” You grinned. “I get that he’s kind of an ass, but he’s not that bad, I promise. He’s kind of awkward, actually.”

“Well, he seems pretty mean to me.” Hinata huffed, putting his hands on his hips dramatically. “I met him last year during a volleyball game. I swore to beat him, but.. Here we are. On the same team. And I have to work with him!” He groaned, and you snickered, the both of you arriving in front of the gym and spotting Kageyama.

“Yo!” You called out, waving at him.

Kageyama looked over, narrowing his eyes at you. “What is she doing here?”

“She’s here to practice. Duh.” Hinata walked up to the doors, pulling on them only to realize they were locked. “Should’ve seen that coming. It’s locked.”

“Okay, let’s go through the window.” Kageyama shrugged, and Hinata turned to him, gawking.

“Are you crazy?! We’d end up getting expelled!”

You heard a yawn behind you, turning around and seeing Tanaka. “Five AM is too early..” He had his hands in his pockets, trying to keep warm.

“Tanaka?” Hinata blinked, looking at the older boy.

“You got two hours! And then, beat it.” Tanaka grinned, spinning the keys to the gym in his hands.

You gasped. “Woah! Cool, dude!”

“You’re awesome!!” Hinata cheered.

“Thank you!” Kageyama spoke, though didn’t show nearly as much visible enthusiasm as Hinata.

“Aha! Yeah, who’s your hero first years?! Call me Sir Tanaka!”

“Sir Tanaka!!” Kageyama and Hinata yelled at the same time, and you cringed.

“That’s a little far.” You eyed Tanaka, and he looked at you.

“Want my help or not?”

You let out a little grumble and sigh. “Sir Tanaka..”

“Alllright!” Tanaka grinned, walking up to the door and unlocking it.

He clicked on the lights, the entire gym brightening, and Hinata gasped. “WOWW!”

“You were just in here yesterday.” Tanaka blinked.

You snickered. “I’ll grab some volleyballs!” You went over to the supply closet, grabbing some, and when you came back out, Sugawara was there.

“Oh– Hey–” You blinked.

Sugawara looked over, smiling softly at you. Tanaka huffed, clearing his throat. “Suga figured out what was going on, so he’s here to help.”

“Oh! Cool! Okay!” You grinned.

..

It had been a while of practicing, and you sat up on the stage while Hinata practiced his receives with Suga. Hinata didn’t seem to be paying attention completely.

“So, like, have you been on the team since you started going here? Oo, and what position do you play?” You tilted your head at Suga.

He hummed. “Yeah! And I’m the team’s setter.”

“Ooo..” You hissed a little. “Nervous about Kageyama taking your position?”

“No, not really.” He shrugged before pausing and blushing. “Ah, sorry, that came out kind of arrogant. I just mean that if he earns it, he earns it. No hard feelings.”

You stared at him for a second. Was he a gift from God? “Marry me.”

Sugawara stuttered, blinking before a heat crept up his neck. “What?”

“Nothing.” You whistled, leaning back on your hands and acting as if you didn't say a thing.

Before you could be questioned, Hinata started bugging Kageyama about setting for him after he had set for Tanaka.

You felt bad for him, honestly. Kageyama had always seemed a little awkward, but he was downright mean to Hinata. It was hard to have too much hatred for him on Hinata's behalf since you had known him for so long, though.

The next guy you met, you couldn't say the same for, though.

..

The next guy you met you couldn't say the same for though. You had briefly met the other two first years during practice, but you didn’t talk to them much since you were mostly shadowing Kiyoko to see what you’d need to do.

You had managed to get Daichi to let you leave a little early with the excuse that you were walking home and since it was dark you wanted to get an early start, but really you had made your way out to where Kageyama and Hinata were practicing. Hinata was still working on his receives, and you were almost certain he was about to catch this one when a hand stuck out above him, catching the ball.

You squawked. “Heyy, he almost had that one!” You huffed, looking up and seeing the other two first years.

The blonde one who was admittedly kind of cute raised a brow. “Are you guys seriously practicing out here? You must be the first years who made all that trouble on the first day.”

The green haired one smiled a little. “T-shirts out here? Aren’t you cold?”

Hinata looked a little in awe of the blonde's height before he started to jump for the ball. “Give it back! Hey!”

“Shouldn’t you elementary schoolers be home at this hour?”

Hinata gawked at him. “Who are you supposed to be?!”

Kageyama raised a brow when he looked over. “I guess you’re the other first year players.”

“Quiet! I’ll do the talking!” Hinata huffed.

“Question. How tall are you?” Kageyama tilted his head.

“Glad you asked! Tsukki happens to be 6’2! He’s almost 6’3.” The green haired one grinned.

“6’2???” Hinata stared, mouth agape.

“What’s the point in you bragging about how tall I am, Tadashi?”

“You’re right. Sorry Tsukki.”

Tsukki and Tadashi then.

Tsukki looked at Kageyama. “You’re Kageyama from Kitagawa First, aren’t you? Tch, a star player like you at a school like this?”

“So?” Kageyama narrowed his eyes, stepping forward.

“Look, Pal! We are not gonna lose to you, do you understand me?!” Hinata huffed, looking up at Tsukki.

Tsukki stared at him before scoffing. “Isn’t that cute? I didn’t realize that little skirmish actually meant something to you, we couldn’t care less about it. But if it means that much to you, I guess we could throw it.”

“WHAATTT?” Hinata gawked at him.

“Fine. Throw it or work yourself to death for all I care. It doesn’t matter ‘cause I’m still gonna win on Saturday.”

“You mean we, right?!”

Tsukki laughed. “So confident! Well that’s the King for you.”

“Hey! Don’t call me that!” Kageyama grit his teeth, stepping forward before you placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking your head.

“I knew it. Rumor has it you lose your cool every time somebody brings up your old nickname. But who wouldn’t want to be the King of The Court? I mean it really suits you, right your Highness?”

Kageyama was shaking with anger and you narrowed your eyes at Tsukki. “That’s enough.” You stepped in front of Kageyama. “I don’t know who you think you are coming over here and fucking with people, but you’re not all that.”

Tsukki raised a brow. “And who are you?”

“Y/N, not that it matters but I went to school with Kageyama and you’re wrong. He’s not like that.” You narrowed your eyes on the blonde.

He scoffed. “Right. I saw him at finals.” He looked back up at Kageyama. “I still can’t believe your teammates put up with all those selfish sets you’d toss up. I know I wouldn’t.” He paused. “Oh, I bet that’s why you’re here, right? They finally got sick of you?”

“Hey, I said that’s enough–” Before you could say anything else, Kageyama moved you out of his way and grabbed Tsukki by the collar.

“Tsukki!” Tadashi gasped, both him and Hinata in somewhat defensive stances.

You and Hinata both stared at Kageyama as he glared at Tsukki before letting him go, turning around and going back to his bag, picking it up. “We’re leaving.”

“Wha–” You sputtered when Tsukki spoke again.

“Running off? Guess the King’s not a threat after all.” You saw the way Hinata’s eyes snapped to Tsukki. “I hope his majesty puts up more of a fight on Saturday–” He tossed the ball up and you’re not sure how it happened, but Hinata was in the air, jumping to grab the ball as Tsukki gawked at him. He landed pretty smoothly too.

“Would you just shut up about the stupid King?! I’m here too!” Hinata glared at him. “You have no idea what I’m capable of!”

“Oh yeah?” Tsukki narrowed his eyes and Hinata grimaced.

“What’s that look for anyway, buddy?! Are you trying to start something with me?!”

Tsukki sighed, smiling. “There’s no need to argue, alright? Let’s all just enjoy playing some volleyball together. It’s just a game, right?”

Hinata furrowed his brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. Bye.” He turned around.

Hinata huffed. “Hey, not so fast! You never told me who you are!”

The two boys both turned back to him.

“I’m Kei Tsukishima, Year 1 Class 4.”

“I’m Tadashi Yamaguchi!”

Not Tadashi then.

“As of today, we are officially your new teammates. Even if it doesn’t feel like it. Anyway, I’m looking forward to his Majesty’s royal sets.”

“Cya!” Yamaguchi called out, walking off with Tsukishima.

Hinata and Kageyama glared at the two as they walked away and you huffed, turning around. “What dicks.”

“For real! We should show them who’s boss.” Hinata grinned.

“It doesn’t matter.” Kageyama said, turning around.

“Hey! Where you going?!”

“Huh?” Kageyama turned to him.

“We still have some work to do, don’t we?”

Kageyama stared at him before setting his bag back down.

You don’t know what it was, but those guys really pissed you off, and you were more determined than ever to help Kageyama and Hinata beat those jerks. Especially the stupid blonde one.

taglist: @writing-for-me-at-this-point @casabaswrld @one-piece-frvr7

[papermonkeyism]

Remember back in last summer when I read R. A. Salvatore's Dark Elf trilogy?

I moved on to its sequels, the Icewind Dale trilogy, with its first book the Chrystal Shard. Well, technically the Icewind Dale was written first, and the Dark Elf was written afterwards as a prequel, but this one's chronologically set few years or so later. Not sure what word to use here.

Anyway!

I actually finished this one sometime around the new years, I just couldn't think of what to say about the book, but I just finished the second book of the trilogy, and that one I do have words about, and it felt weird to just skip this one.

I have a faint memory of reading in some old gaming magazine how this book was written in, like, four weeks. Which is an absolutely bonkers achievment! But also, yeah, I can see it. Few rewrites might have done the book some good.

It's... a book. It has a plot? And characters, who... do stuff? There's very little in terms of character developement or interaction, or description, or worldbuilding. The book has a habit of skipping over all the stuff that I personally like in my fiction, and focuses mostly in just telling how evil the bad guys are, how awesome the heroes are (except Regis), and how they fight or prepare to fight.

Also it was written in the eighties, so a lot of the tropes are very... well, eighties.

The book begins with the gathering of all the barbarian tribes (proud warrior human) for an attack against the Ten Towns (your basic human townspeople). This is important, because as the barbarian army gets defeated, one of their young lads, Wulfgar, gets into battle with one of the Main Characters, Bruenor the dwarf, who knocks him unconscious and basically adopts on the spot. Bruenor basically claims him as a servant for five years to teach him to value the townspeoples.

Cue five years of bonding, except we don't see any of it, because the story skips from that moment straight to the "five years have passed"-moment, where Bruenor throws Wulfgar to Drizzt, the dark elf protagonist of the prequel trilogy.

Oh, and Catti-Brie, Bruenor's adopted human daughter is also there. I think she had few speaking lines in the book. (I have a feeling Wulfgar was planned as the Young Protagonist character, and you can't have a Young Protagonist without a Love Interest. It's the eighties. Look, they even talk once! Not that there'd be any actual chemistry, that would require feelings and character interaction. But look, they are two young, conventionally attractive human characters of opposite sex and approximately same age!)

And the last member of the party is Regis, a halfling rogue, who has a stolen ruby amulet from his backstory. Regis is fat, lazy and a coward, a.k.a. the obligatory comic relief.

So there's this evil crystal shard that picks up a failure of a wizard apprentice who gets dumped by his wizard friends after said friends convince him to murder his master for them. The crystal shard then spends most of the book corrupting the wizard and giving him power, and it keeps amassing huge armies of Evil Races (tm) for him (goblins, orcs, ogres, trolls, giants and the aforementioned human barbarian tribes), and stuff.

The book's plot is basically this evil wizard working in the shadows for years, gathering an army, and said army attacking the Ten Towns, and the four protagonists (Drizzt, Wulfgar, Bruenorr and Regis. Catti-Brie is also kinda there, but doesn't really do much) being awesome and stopping them.

I don't really know what to make of this book. It doesn't feel satisfying to me much, personally. There's not much character developement, the main characters are pretty much smug badasses who whoop arse with an air of superiority. The only one with kinda internal character arc is Wulfgar, as he comes from a proud warrior people, and kinda learns to be less arrogant? I guess? I think it gets maybe a paragraph or two in the book.

None of the evil guys get really any fleshing out, maybe except the main baddie. The rest are basically as deep as their DnD stat sheets, and that's it. (And like how did a group of ogres/giants make a camp right next to the dwarves and don't get found out for a while, untill they grow arrogant and kill couple of them. Like, what are they eating? They somehow have food, and it's actually a plot point that they have flour, as Drizzt at one point steals a bag of flour as a "lucky charm", but these are ogres/giants from the frozen tundra who only steal and kill, where did they get flour?? The ogres/giants don't farm, that's explicitly not a thing, yet they have enough flour and other food to feed themselves for few weeks without raiding any farms and alerting anyone to their presence??? This is what I meant about worldbuilding, there are hoards of evil bad guys because you need bad guys to kill, but they work in video game logic of spawning and aggroing and don't actually have any logical support if you think about them too hard. Also the barbarians make no sense culturally. You can't just be all macho men battling each other to the death at every opportunity and hold your women as nothing but wives to be barely worth mentioning outside of "women and children" while supposedly living off of reindeer herda and expect me to believe they don't heroically battle each other to extinction faster than a reindeer sheds its antlers.)

And what baffled me the most in this book is how the main characters, who one would expect to be the DnD party of the story just... don't hang together much. They all have their own stuff, their own heroics that they do on their own. At most we get Wulfgar and Drizzt doing few fights together, as Drizzt teaches Wulfgar (the book skips over most of that and focuses more on their one raid to the ogre/giant camp, or the dragon battle they spent half of together), but otherwise the book seems to avoid having the characters actually interact anywhere.

Oh, right, there's also a dragon. It gets first mentioned about 2/3 - 3/4 into the book. It's dead by the end of the same chapter it gets first mentioned in. Wulfgar needed to do a heroic act to get his barbarian tribes to listen to him and bail from the evil wizard's army, so the book pulls a dragon for him to heroically slay. There's no foreshadowing for it, besides like the very final paragraph of the chapter before hinting about a story Wulfgar remembers his father telling him long ago.

This book sure likes telling a lot, yet showing very little of any of it. It keeps telling me these characters are the bestest of friends, but doesn't let them actually do anything as a group at any point. Even in battles they all take part in, they all fight separately.

All bad guys are Dumb and Evil, and all the good guys are... well at least the main fou-... three are superior and awesome and very smug about it, and they're all just kinda flat.

Eh.

I think this book is meant as an introduction to the setting and characters, as things do get mentioned in the sequel. It's just. This book in particular is pretty meh, and it took me, like, few months to get through, as I kept doing it at a page or two every evening -sorta speed (while brushing teeth before bed).

Just. Eh.

[james-fun-in-the-sunderland]

Mob Psycho 100 for fandom! And Amy from Sonic for character~

omg hello thank u niru c:

obligatory link back to the original ask game

Mob Psycho 100

sorry that alot of these repeat and probably arent like insane thoughts, i was only big into mp100 when i was like 16 and finished the anime like a year ago 😭

Favorite character: Serizawa c: hes a 6w5 so legally i must enjoy him but also i just like him ... he has curly hair and is cool OH AND TOME !!!! shes fun :) i dont fully remember my interesting thoughts on her but i enjoy her and how she works for reigen post canon. i think her weird girl charms get to me

Least Favorite character: uhhhh probably mogami or shous dad... theyre both just annoying like whateverrr stop being a dumb adult stop beefing with 15 year olds losers...

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): 1.... serirei?? is that the ship name. serizawa and reigen. basically canon ? 2. mobteru again basically canon 3. . um . theres not much ships i really have with this show so idk if i can do 5 but i can at least do three bc i think tome and mezato is cute :) i briefly became obsessed w them for a bit after season 2 .... i think the ship of the two claw guys . the like sword one and the other guy is pretty cool...

Character I find most attractive: serizawa. who would have guessed.

Character I would marry: nobody everyone here has many red flags also theyre 90% children

Character I would be best friends with: if i was a teenager there is a non zero chance i genuinely would be besties with tome but also maybe slightly find her annoying. but also maybe i would become besties with mob. in normal life none of them bc i would never talk to children or the adults in the show

A random thought: i think reigen is one of the last tumblr sexymen before that term really became used as meaning: character im sick of seeing so much of... but also i could be wrong. also can everyone stop drawing serizawa with straight hair ... i know they do in the manga/anime but if he had curly hair before they cut and washed him then it wouldnt go away. thats not how hair works and i should know as ive lived with it for like years.

An unpopular opinion: mogami arc wasnt that good, stop using it as an excuse to be weird abt child characters plsss

My canon OTP: nothing is canon :/ so

Non-canon OTP: serirei as i said above ☝

Most badass character: mob :] hes cool and awesom... but also i do think

Pairing I am not a fan of: idk if its bc i dont remember much but i cant see shou and ritsu as much more than besties but also obvs im not at all a fan of the . weirdly large amount of reigen and mob stuff like whats wrong with you all im killing you . i also just dont care too too much about ships between teenage characters so many of the ships in the fandom are like yea thats alright, also can see them as just besties, u kno?

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): i didnt realize how little there was of serizawa in the manga or the anime .. i feel like he had more when i first read it ???? anyway he should be there more .

Favourite friendship: i think mob and reigen are fun as friends :) especially as they grow older, i think the dynamic would be fun. also teru and ritsu are fun when theyre together. worlds most dramatic 12 year olds.

amy will b under the cut

amy rose :)

How I feel about this character: I like her !!! i feel like shes not talked about much outside of ships which is a shame because i feel like if people came together on her character (this includes people writing canon) then there could be a compelling character here that wouldnt deny her roots or just stay the same sort of trope she used to be. I cant deny i do enjoy that they occassionally dip into her little interest in tarot :) its nice to see that trait remembered.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: sonic of course, shadow, blaze a bit?, metal sonic anddd... yea thats it

My non-romantic OTP for this character: i think her with silver or knuckles is always fun :) idk why i think its because they bounce off of each other well. equal levels of no braincells happening here at least with silver. and with knuckles i feel like they could have a fun brother sister dynamic.

My unpopular opinion about this character: what is the popular opinion on her .... idk ill just use this as more of me talking about her character in general. i wish people would use her abandonment issues more, or at least like integrate that into her character since i think its a trait that shows up a bit in the little visual novel and in sonic frontiers and i think that makes sense as a trait for her

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: if she was ever playable again . I HAVENT played the sonic frontiers dlc but i think giving her a little spin off game ala the princess peach games would be fun. maybe then her team from sonic heros can be used again and i could like care about big and cream outside of them being sparingly used in canon .. and big not just being a joke ... also i just want more development for herrr im always begging for development or character in this series i know its for children but plsss also i wish they would like actually like .. fully deal with her whole thing with sonic... it feels like they wanna pretend her obsession just never happened and wasnt like the main thing with her character before they basically turned her into sally acorn.

My OTP: honestly ive really come around on amy x metal sonic :) i think mainly bc i cant see her with sonic at all (<- sonadow truther) and also i think it could be interesting if i thought about it more deeply

My OT3: amy x sonic x blaze i know i just said i cant see her with sonic but this is the exception, if i had to have an ot3 it would be this .. otherwise idk if i would have one.

[krissielee]

Hey! How did you get access to watch the March RW&RB screener? I want to sign up for that, if I can. :)

I got lucky--a friend of mine down in LA got the offer and immediately sent it to me. She didn't/doesn't care about it, but she knows I'm obsessed and had made sure to let all my Hollywood-connected friends know that if they saw anything come up, let me know IMMEDIATELY because I needed it like air to breathe.

But there are a lot of websites to sign up for early screeners (or even just "barely before opening but it's free and free things are awesome so yay" screeners)--note that these are in no particular order; just whatever ones I happened to think of first:

Preview Free Movies is the one I got RWRB through, as well as tickets for Rocketman way back in the day. These are ostensibly the hardest to get into because they're usually only held in very specific movie-centric places and often tickets are handed out literally in person at local malls. It takes luck to get a location you can get to, but if you can ... totally worth it. They do sometimes do early online screeners, too: I saw Spinning Gold back in 2020, unfinished, and it was awesome. Found out later that a friend's cousin wrote the movie about their uncle! Small world, there. Also, I now can't listen to Love to Love You Baby without wanting to kill myself, but they changed that for the final release lol. Everyone in that early screener was like PLEASE DON'T PLAY THAT FOR TEN MINUTES EVER AGAIN.

Gofobo does a lot of early ones as well, but those are more like press screenings just before wide release, not in production ones.

1iota sometimes has screeners, even though they usually do tickets to talk shows (I have seen Taron Egerton at a bunch of those, though, including for Jimmy Kimmel where my [clothed!!!] boobs are on display for an awkward amount of time because Jimmy was talking to the people sitting directly in front of me lol)

Advance Screenings offers a lot of press screenings, but also sometimes contests to see special movie screenings. I "won" passes to a special Hunger Games screening through this site.

Amazon Screenings is really neat because it also does a lot of early virtual screenings. I've seen so many movies sitting at home in my jammies this way. And often they'll have special things to go along with it, like talks with the cast and crew, or for their Halloween set a few years back, virtual dance parties with DJs. Jason Blum was in the chat with all of us and it was kind of epic.

Searchlight Screenings is for Fox films. Same as the others; you sign up and hope to get lucky with a screening in your area.

Lionsgate Screenings are for, well. Lionsgate films.

WB also does screenings sometimes.

iScreeningRoom is great for online indie films. I've seen some really great movies that I can't wait for them to get wide releases. Some of them are weird as hell, as expected from indie films, but I've never hated anything I've seen. I know Nomad is pushing for a release soon, and I can't wait to watch that one again.

Many of these are US-centric, for anyone who comes across this post. I don't know much about other countries 'cause, you know. 'Murica, or whatever.

The other thing to remember is, for any of these screenings that are in person, you have to get there early. Like, stupid early. Multiple hours early. They always overbook the theatre. Yeah, you have a ticket? So do 500 other people for that 100 seat theatre. There are no guarantees for early screenings. I was almost the last person in for RWRB, and about the only people in after me were Matthew Lopez and some other people in his group. I only got a good seat because @machtaholic got there earlier than I did and saved one for me, which, had I not made it in, would have gone to someone else. The workers were going to try to sneak me in regardless because I was freaking out about having driven 8 hours only for the movie and if I'd missed it I was gonna cry, lol. Also, the hotel next to the theatre is where the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz were housed during film, so. Learned something while there, ha.

But also, there was no notice on it. Like, I found out on Tuesday that the screener was on Wednesday and I had to get myself to LA immediately if I had any hope of making it. For the really early ones, if you don't live in the city it's held in, you have to be ready to get up and go. Immediately. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and hope your boss is really cool with you just not coming in.

Caveat: a lot of those super early ones, they won't even advertise those films to you as you're "out of market" for their research purposes. If it hadn't been for my friend living in the proper market, I'd have never known. It's the same way I was invited to a crazy early screening of Argylle (but from a different friend), even though I couldn't make it to that one because the timing just didn't work. So if you live in Boise and the movie's screening in Seattle, you're not going to even know about it.

Also also, there are age and gender limits on some of these. The woman and her daughter behind me in line, mom couldn't get into RWRB because she was one year past the age cutoff. Conversely, some movies you need to have children of a certain age. Keep that in mind when signing up for the really early ones. The press screeners are rarely that picky, though they did actually ID check for Kingsman (no others, not even other R rated films).

The more you sign up for, the more you redeem, the more you get invited to others. There have been many times where I have to choose which screening I feel like seeing because I've got offers for two or three films on the same night. Conversely, there have been times where I'm a greedy brat and go see the same movie across multiple screeners, but that's only happened like ... twice, because it was Eddie the Eagle, and three of my friends wanted to go but never on the same night, so I took them different times lol, and then the other was for The Wedding Ringer, which was never full so it didn't matter.

And I know there are other sites out there, but these are the ones I'm signed up on that I can recall. I get a lot of emails from these ones, and thus more chances to see films early.

Also sorry if my links are broken. I'm pretty sure I did them right but who even knows anymore lol.

[geometricalien]

Life is Strange Double Exposure Review

(Spoiler warning)

I finished the game last night and my thoughts have been given time to proof- like making bread.

Characters

- I loved playing Max again! There was such a sweet nostalgia while playing her and hearing her repeat lines from the first game like, "Shaka brah", and it was awesome to see how 10 years had treated her- both the trauma of Arcadia Bay and how she is more confident, more assured of herself!

- I was instantly endeared to Safi from the beginning, her friendship with Max and their bantering was fun! You could tell they had a good close friendship- which only got deeper during the last 2 episodes. I think she is complicated and interesting. It just sucks that she kinda feels like a watered down Chloe. Which it had to be this way for the themes and plot. She is funny, daring, reckless, sometimes mean, vengeful, scared. I wish I knew more about her since she is going to be a bigger part of the universe going forward (if it continues).

- Moses is sweet but again I wish we knew more about him. We are only in his office once and there wasn't much to snoop around with. He gave such a weird expression when I picked the toilet mug in episode 1, I thought there was going to be more depth (which is going to be a reoccurring criticism of mine). I know he was more Safi's friend and it was only a few days since Safi's death, Max and him can't bond that fast and Alex and gang had weeks/months to bond but it still irks me.

- Amanda. She's nice. I played as a messy bisexual so Max and her are not together and I don't know if that's how it is for everyone's ending (which railroads the ending a bit and I'll go into that more later) but i think she was half developed? She is "a cool artsy music lover gay who falls in love quickly" doesn't that sound like Steph? Deck nine is playing the same fucking tune and I'm getting sick of it.

-Vihn. I didn't like him but then he won me over. What do you meannnn he is a well dressed, well groomed calendar of a bi man who seems like he only cares about the university and yasmin's schedule, but actually he has a prized hedgehog statue (where's that fucking story? Where is the depth? It is a fucking flat narrative object like when max was in that motel loop and everything was flat cardboard except the wall LIKE EVERYTHING IN THIS GAME THATS NOT TIED TO THE MAIN THEME OF THE GAME, sigh, I'll continue this later), and does tarot??? I like him alot more than Amanda actually because he is narratively tied to the plot and hence has more characterization and depth. I don't ship him with Max but hot people appreciate hot people. She smashes. I smash. Let them kiss.

- I like Gwen. She's fucking awesome. I loved snooping in her office. Icon. Firewalker mention! But again, I could use more info about her outside of relation to Safi and Yasmin.

- Lucas. [Crowd boos] shhhhh shhh you're right but shhhhh. This is less cruel Jefferson. Narcissistic scum of the earth. But still I feel like we needed more info on him. Think about how much info we have of actual Jefferson and even Nathan!

- Yasmin... let's hear it for overprotective parents who value their reputation more than their child's health and safety whoooooooo

- Diamond. Again i feel like i don't know much about her. And I'm trying to dig into what her power could be- probably something with past and future or prophecy shit. Idk I'm just thinking about her project in the fine arts building. Also who did she have a crush on? Moses? I liked having little undergrads around but she could have been developed more

- Reggie. Anxiety gay boy. Does photos. Could have been developed more.

- Reporter girl. I don't even remember her name, SHE could have been developed more. Could have been an actual element in the story, someone pressuring Max about inconsistencies and shit. Except she didn't. Not in my play through

Setting

- College was very cozy and so was the bar. I'm also a grad student so alot of the background talk of grading, finals, college traditions, thinking about dropping out, that x professor hasn't given feedback for your proposal- it was all so fucking relatable.

- but it was small. The world. The set pieces. There wasn't alot to examine or explore. I feel like if there was more of this we could know the characters more and a campus is one of those characters! I do think the split dimensions offered a slightly interesting view of the campus with and without tragedy but only in episode 2 and 3 bc then that aspect was forgotten about.

- episode 5's setting was great. I always loved the dreamscape "nothing feels real or is right" of the original's last episode AND true color's last episode bc those types of settings tell us about the characters. And that's what setting is supposed to do. I feel like double exposure didn't use the setting effectively enough

Plot

- the parallelism was good but if this was released an episode a month or two like the original- people would be calling the twist ending of episode 3. I wasn't fucking surprised. I was intrigued and wanted to see what they would do with a shape shifter but. I'll get into that in the ending section

- lis games are getting very predictable bc the creators have a mold they want to follow for better or worse "main character has superpower, aesthetic vibes, romantic interests, murder to solve, a twist!" And now. A fucking marvel ass universe. I'm intrigued but ugh. The media is so so over saturated with superpower teams of heroes and multiple dimensions- I'm over it. And so is alot of people.

Themes

- the one thing they did really really well was having Chloe and Arcadia Bay haunt Max. Everything that happened back then was paralleled in the present and Max faced the storm. She made up for her cowardice and mistakes.

Did it honor lis 1?

- yes. And no. Yes in the way that I think it was the best way to wrap up the hotly debated ending of the original. It really showed how Max grew as a character. Which is important if she's like one of the main characters in this universe they are trying to make. No in the way that it upset many people that Chloe and Max broke up. It really goes to show you can't have a decisions matter game as a series. You just can't. Because you railroad shit and take away choices and character insights. You take away the punch the bite the thing that makes the story talked about a decade later.

Gameplay

- I know there is a reason both intext and meta wise why the power is dimension hopping. But it could have been developed more. It left me wanting. (Common theme of this review)

Choices

- again. Your choices don't matter. Deck nine in making more installments trying to reuse characters or tie in events, make it so your choices don't matter. It becomes more and more aparrent every game that deck nine makes that they are railroading the game and your choices. I'm not even upset about Chloe and Max break up because I sacrificed her in my playthrough, I'm saying true colors ended with Alex either being in Colorado or not being in Colorado. This game ended with Max agreeing to stand with Safi or not when she comes back- and I'm willing to bet, deck nine will not make a game that has a big impact if they are friendly or not. That's not how deck nine makes their games. They railroad choices and make things go their way. They aren't going to do something intriguing like have one game be Max and Safi taking over the world together and another where Max is fighting Safi. That is two separate games. Whatever game they make in the future with these characters is going to be 1 game. 1 game where they decide your choices you made previously don't matter. They are going to make the story they want to make. Which is why you shouldn't make a choose your own adventure/examination on interpersonal relationships game a fucking series- and that's why so much of the set dressing and interactable objects were gone which in turn impacts the characters.... it's a fucking shit show.

- also some of the choices I made that said "this will have consequences" didn't fucking matter. Like, I didn't tell Safi about the restraining order. I really thought in episode 5 that would be important and the cops would be called at the bar. It. Wasn't. It just. This game railroads you hard.

Ending

- so as I said, your choices don't matter, they will just explain away Safi and Max's friendship in the next game like they always do

- the fucking cheesy ass marvel ending- i am both vaguely curious what will happen and sick to my stomach because. What. Why. Why are they doing this. I give them some benefit of the doubt because if they go the "we could be Gods" route... it could be interesting. But it makes me hesitant.

- People are souring over this series. I'm not even sure if they will be able to have enough support to make the series they want to make. They need to break the mold they put themselves in (see me saying the predictability in plot) but when dontnod made life is strange 2 with completely different characters and setting and a main character without power- people hated it (i loved it, it's my favorite lis game) but that's why deck nine has been leaning hard in the prequel and steph and Max and "max will return" but what they are doing in making this a series is betraying the original premise and fucking importance of the original game. That choices matter.

- Unless they suck it up and actually make a game that takes into account all the different endings we have (which max could she really could in the final game of the series, the last episode, hopping dimensions that have Chloe alive, Daniel in Mexico or not, etc.) this series is going to be a pale shadow in comparison to what it could've been.

Extension Game

- What the fuck was that. The cat extension seems fucking stupid to me, if someone actually got that and played it tell me- did it actually add something to the game or was it a way for us to give deck nine 10 more dollars?

And lastly, Ranking:

Here's the thing. Double exposure is a really good sequel/continuation of Max's story but it's a bad execution of a "choices matter" game and a game hinging off of interpersonal relationships and how superpowers can impact them. So,

Life is Strange 2

Life is Strange

Life is Strange: True Colors

Life is Strange: Double Exposure

Life is Strange: Before the Storm

Now with my mixed feelings I am going to play lis2 and wait for lost records bloom and rage comes out hoping that dontnod does their usual magic again.

[megafreak400]

2024 Media Thread - #31

Crash Bandicoot (N Sane Trilogy) (8/19/24) -  Score - 1/10

So far this year, i’ve mostly played really good games. Last year I tackled more games on my backlog, to mix quality. This year i’ve played more new games or games on game pass so most of the games I've finished tend to be ones I’ve liked. There have been a few exceptions like the disappointment that was Ufouria 2, but overall I was starting to think I wouldn’t have any really bad games on this year's tier list. ENTER THIS FUCKING GAME! So let me give you a little bit of background. I was mostly a Nintendo kid, with a splash of Sega genesis. But my youngest brothers during the GameCube era were given a Playstation 1 at some point. So occasionally I’d check out what games they had for that and found a few I really gelled with. Jigsaw madness was a ton of fun playing against my brothers, Spyro 2 was a blast and then there was Crash Bandicoot Warped. I remember it being somewhat tough but having been a kid that preferred 2D platformers and missed them on the N64 and Gamecube, it was cool playing a game with a similar energy. Fast forward to college and while I never beat Crash Bandicoot Warped, the game stuck in my mind. At some point one of my college friends was selling some Playstation One games, and I had recently purchased a used PS2. They had a copy of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex strikes back. I remembered fond memories of Crash, so I bought it from them. I had thought however that 2 was the game i had played in the past. So when I looked things up in more detail and I realized it wasn’t I was slightly disappointed. I did later play Crash 4 and overall enjoyed it (though i’m never 100 percenting it), but I never got back to Crash 2 for one reason or another and so it just sat on my backlog. That is until GamePass added the N sane trilogy to game pass. I was like “ok awesome this is a good excuse to mark another game off my backlog and I also get to finally play Crash Warped again. However I didn’t just want to jump into Crash 2. I could have, and probably should have, but if I’m playing 2 of the 3 Ps1 Crash games I might as well play them all right…….HAHA… WRONG!!! I finished this game out of spite. I finished this game to write this blog post because Crash Bandicoot 1 is by far the worst game I played this year, and might be the worst game I’ve beaten in a long time. All of this mind you is multiplied by the fact that the game has 2 sequels that are basically the same thing but better. It’s like how people don’t really talk much about Sonic 1 because Sonic 2 is just better in every way while also being basically the same thing. Mega Man 1 is also talked about in this fashion. But I don’t see too many people (more than I thought though after I lambasted this game in my Discord server) hating on the first Crash game. I’m shocked this series even took off because this game is just frustrating and mocking the player at every turn.

To start with, yes I’m playing the remake. From what i’ve been told by friends the physics are the same as what they were in the original. I’ve also seen conflicting accounts online that it uses Crash 3’s physics, and then other sources say it uses Crash 2’s physics. Ultimately, i’m willing to believe some of the precision isn’t nearly as awful in the original, but on the other hand, some of the easier difficulty aspects like being given masks after so many deaths or extra checkpoints were also added which balances things out in terms of which version is worse. On top of that apparently if you wanted to get every boxes in the original you had to do every level with zero deaths. I’ll get into how awful 100 percent is for this game in a bit, but fuck that. Also the original was programmed for the D-pad, but ultimately i’m going to tell you playing the remake with a control stick is still ass so I don’t think that’s a mark against the original. Ok where to begin? Well to start with as I mentioned above the physics in this game are ass. It’s possible it’s because a different momentum system was applied to overly precise levels but even if the momentum is the same, some of the precise jumps they ask you to do in this game are insane at times. There are so many 2D levels that have several vertical jumping sections that one wrong move sends you plummeting back to the bottom. Or a few horizontal sections with multiple small platforms or enemies you need to jump on. It reminds me of DKC Tropical Freeze when you only have DK, you pretty much have to be spot on with your jumps or you’re screwed. And while the many 2D levels are annoying, the traditional Crash Style hallway levels are also to blame for my rage. Those stupid bridge levels can go jump off a cliff, they’re horrendous, asking the player to land on a tiny plank multiple times while dodging WILD HOGS. It got to the point where I said screw it, found out you could walk on the railing of the bridge, and cheated my way to victory. Don’t get me wrong precision platforming can be very fun, but it never feels rewarding here. If I fail it’s because the level is a long ass gauntlet or because of the weird perspective at points that throws you off. Or again, because if you don’t jump at the last possible moment you will fall. Add into this the fact that like most bad old game it has a lives system and a game over sends you all the way back to the start of the level, and you can see why it just gets tedious. Maybe if other aspects of the game felt rewarding I wouldn’t be too annoyed by the platforming, but no the game is the opposite of rewarding. So the big thing with Crash is that you need to smash all the boxes in a level to get a gem. Can be a fun time in theory, though more often than not they get it wrong. In Crash 4 the levels were also long slogs, with some boxes hidden in a way that if you missed one you had to do it all over again. Long levels and the box mechanic don’t really go together, and unfortunately most of Crash 1’s levels are overly long. That would be fine though, if it wasn’t for the fact that 90 percent of the time YOU CAN NOT GET ALL THE BOXES ON THE FIRST RUN OF THE LEVEL. Why? Because multiple levels lock a few boxes behind a colored gem….that you will not be able to get until a future level in most cases. This means wasting your time until you realize this, and even after if you do want to do 100 percent it means slogging through the level again. And keep in mind I didn’t have fun the first time so there was no way in hell that I was going for a 100 percent. But that’s not good enough for the game. You didn’t get all the boxes? Well shame on you, how could you be so bad at games. Because of your crimes against gaming we’re going to proceed to smash a billion boxes that you missed on your head to make it hit home how awful you are at this game. Like seriously, you couldn’t get all the boxes? 

No game I couldn't because LITERALLY I NEEDED A GEM FROM A FUTURE LEVEL. This aspect of the game just infuriates me because I hate it when games feel the need to mock the player. 100 percent doesn't even feel that important in the game, so making a big deal out of it just rubs me the wrong way here. The box crashing animation is so bad, in Japan it was taken out because it was making kids cry. So ok the levels are mostly unfun slogs, 100 percent is a fool's quest, what about the bosses? Surely the bosses are a good time? Ha…Ha..ha, what do you think? The first boss is easy enough, but the second boss requires you to jump over small platforms above water to hit TNT boxes that will hopefully be timed to explode when a deranged kangaroo is jumping by to damage him. Sounds easy enough, but instead of flowing constantly through the water, the TNT boxes stop at each platform for a bit. When you stomp on them they stop moving for good so that they can explode, but while in theory the waiting is good to allow people an easier time to jump on them…they just take forever. So it causes this battle to drag. On top of that, small platforms and Crash 1 = precision jumping meaning I died a lot. Ripper roo sucks, and it’s hilarious because his battle in 2 is a joke, but here it made me want to pull my hair out. Most of the other bosses aren’t as bad but they all have elements of just…taking forever. Koala Kong is easy enough but he just takes so long to do anything. Other bosses like the weird gangster rat and N Brio aren’t horrible but also aren’t really fun either. Ultimately just get rid of the bosses, you already have stupid long levels we don’t need the bosses dragging this game out any longer.  Other negatives are the overuse of really bland locals, like dank tombs, dank castles and dumb bridges. I will say the Levels in Cortex’s lab are generally ok, feeling more like something you’d see in crash 2 with less precision, but overall most of the levels just felt like they were wasting my time. Music is whatever, it’s fine but for having to re do these levels over and over could you give me something catchy to listen to? Crash himself is ugly, but at least the remake let’s me play as Coco instead, and she functions basically identical to Crash himself.

I honestly don’t know how this series got popular. Maybe it was the novelty of the more 3D style levels but if you want precision platforming there are much better games. Crash is at it’s best when your collecting stuff in short levels and trying to do the levels fast (something Crash Warped would be perfect) and none of that exists here. Could I have 100 percented this game? Sure but why if i’m not enjoying myself? I never felt rewarded finishing a level here, I just felt relieved it was over. Anything good Crash 1 does is just done better in the later Crash game or is done better by a different platformer.  If you like Crash 1, more power to you, but to me it’s going straight in the trash.

[cattimeswithjellie]

Stream Recap, Rendog 07/09/24

Not too many recaps this week, it's a busy week! I was gone all weekend for my 20th anniversary (yes, I have been married longer than quite a few of you have been alive), and now I have family coming to visit, but here's this Ren stream I started before I left and just finished up. In this stream, Ren gathers material for his autosmelter!

00:00 Ren opens the stream in video-with-music mode, running the countdown clock and bopping around the server to do various pre-stream chores. The title for today’s stream is “Gathering Stuff For A New Project” and Chat is happy to speculate as they filter in.

5:40 Ren turns down the music and greets the chat, welcoming them to the Tuesday stream. It’s been a week since he streamed because the Skulk Crane sucked the life out of him while he was building with it. He vastly underestimated the amount of copper required to make 500 copper trapdoors! He starts the day by checking to see if the shop actually made any money. He would be surprised. There have been no sales. Ren remembers that this is actually the worst permit in the world to have because nobody in the entire world (except Cubfan) ever does anything with skulk! It looks cool on its own but does not go nicely with any other block in the game. The skulk enthusiasts in Chat are hurt by this slander. Ren wishes he’d gotten at least one sale. Gem is doing a magic theme, maybe she will buy some in the future. Terrible sales aside, he’s very happy with the build, which is really very pretty and impressive.

9:50 Ren checks the diorite shop (no sales) and beacons (some sales) and thanks subs and donos. Today’s plan is a new project! He showed Chat a preview last week, but he’s going to build an autosmelting facility! His current facility is terrible and he has to smelt _so much_, so it’s time for a newer, bigger, better smelter. He warns Chat that among other things, the new build needs over 900 quartz blocks, so he’s got his work cut out for him.

13:40 A chatter has been subscribed for 11 months. Ren loves the number 11, it’s his favorite sub month number and also his birthday! He reminds Chat that his birthday is 10/11 and he will be seven years old. That is so old! Chat is impressed. ((It is not clear whether this is just a random bit or whether Ren is counting his age in dog years, which would make him 49 on his upcoming birthday.)) Chat encourages Ren to go to Impulse’s quartz shop and save himself a lot of grinding. Ren says that being an adult is 70% boring and 30% awesome, with the 70% subsidizing the 30.

16:00 Ren begins laying out his workspace. He has done the whole thing in creative already and sent it off to get a schematic made. He hopes to be able to show it off soon! Ren remembers he wants to give Cherrifire and Foxxology the Artist Badge, but he doesn’t know how to do it. Chat helps him out. He does it successfully, he and Chat are very proud. He gives one to Sanistratus as well, then realizes he has no VIPs. How has he been streaming so long with no VIPs? He is the worst streamer ever. He tries to make his Hermit friends VIPs, but none of them are watching right now and can’t be targeted. He tells Chat to remind him, then begins collecting quartz in his Gigaplex villager complex.

21:30 Ren is not sure if he wants to show Chat the finished creative mode version of the autosmelter before it’s really built. He sort of wants to in order to get Chat’s help with naming the building. He thanks more subs and donos and talks with a chatter about their new PC. He greets his mods and welcomes in the new chatters still filtering in. He wants to get as much as possible from the villagers, but he also has a ton of quartz tucked around in random chests that he hasn’t sorted well. Ren spent all his diamonds on copper for the Skulk shop, so he does not really have much to buy Quartz with. He needs 15 stacks of quartz, but he has 16 stonemasons to meet the need.

27:30 Quartz collection is going surprisingly well for the moment, and Ren realizes he may need more to do in this stream. He thinks about completing the tunnel to his farmer trading hall, a project he partially completed and then ran out of juice on. A chatter points out that Ren should be selling conduits, Ren remembers he’s supposed to be selling conduits but wonders if anyone will buy. Chat points out that Impulse wanted a conduit last week but had to make one because no one was selling.

29:30 Ren finishes his quartz collecting and waffles about showing off the autosmelter. Chat wants to see it and Ren lets himself be persuaded. He opens his creative world and quickly faces the sky to preserve the surprise, then turns on shaders for maximum effect. He slowly and theatrically pans downward onto… nothing, because he is facing in the wrong direction. He quickly looks back up and spins around, then pans down onto the beauty and majesty of the new autosmelter. Chat stops laughing long enough to admire the new autosmelter. Ren explains that he didn’t want to just make a big square smelter, his design has an interesting shape and lots of moving parts that make it look cool and satisfying. It’s not a huge smelter, 32 furnaces, and needs to be manually loaded for that Gigacorp feel. He shows chat how the autosmelter works, then notices something is not working in the model smelter and fixes it. The most interesting part of the system is that the furnaces feed into a system of droppers that spit the items out and down through an observation window before being collected into chests.

37:40 Ren smelts a bunch of cobblestone to show Chat how the autosmelter will work. Chat very much likes the way the items rain down and fall into the collection hoppers. He does some troubleshooting on locked hoppers and takes suggestions for names from Chat. “Hyper Ore Thermonator” is a strong contender.

42:50 Ren heads back to the server to hunt for the next ingredient, four stacks of light blue concrete. Ren has three stacks already. He greets other Hermits online (Grian, Zedaph, Skizz) and goes shopping for concrete at False’s shop. In chat, Zedaph remarks that Xisuma’s cam account is hot. Skizz agrees that it is likely the best looking one. Ren explores the shop while thanking subs and donos, he finds that there is no light blue concrete available. He buys white powder and decides to dye it. Chat hears background noise on the stream, Ren says his neighbor is mowing the lawn. He dyes the powder and goes to make the concrete in a pond, then takes a break to fly back to his storage room and fetch a cauldron just to point out how much better it would be if throwing concrete powder in a cauldron would make concrete.

48:00 Chat suggests Giga-HEAT as a potential name, the Hyper-Efficient Alloy Thermonator. Ren likes it very much Ren decides it will be the GigaHEAT-1 or maybe the GigaHEAT Facility. He decides that to keep the lore orderly, he should review all his existing names and see if there’s a way to keep some kind of pattern going. He has the GigaCorp Hangar Bay, the GigaCorp Terra-M1, then the GigaPlex, then the GigaTruck. The naming conventions are a mess! He considers the GigaCorp H.E.A.T Station. (Hyper-Efficient Alloy Thermination) Chat likes the Thermonation Station.

52:00 Ren returns to the storage area and decides that corporate rebranding over time is the cause of the naming differences between builds. He collects white concrete and looks around for the wood to make acacia trapdoors. He doesn’t know why False complains about his storage system, he only had to look in two buildings to find his trapdoors! He gets trapdoors and sandstone slabs, then powered rails. He needs more gold and heads for the gold farm, where there is one single block of gold available. Nothing is spawning in the farm at all. Ren is confused until he remembers that Xisuma is online. When Xisuma is online, nothing works! He flies up to the AFK platform anyway, whereupon piglins begin to spawn. Ren apologizes for his aspersions on Xisuma’s good name. He takes the opportunity for a short ad and bio break.

1:00:20 Ren returns from his break and checks in on the amount of gold that has accumulated. He got 11 blocks of gold in 3 minutes, not bad at all! He doesn’t need tons of gold, so that should do. Ren heads home and thanks subs and donos. He talks with Chat about who does and does not get served ads during ad breaks. Advertising on Twitch is not actually very lucrative. YouTube either, really. He finishes the powered rails and goes onto quartz slab. He might charge at the door for use of the autosmelter, but give free use passes to a few select Hermits. He moves on to quartz stairs, then briefly quails at the 107 hoppers. He convinces himself that it’s not really thaaaat many hoppers, compared to what other people do. He can always lagbust it later.

1:07:40 Off to the Gigaplex for black terracotta. A chatter tells Ren to give himself a compliment. Ren stutters for a moment, then says he’s a pretty good cook. Chat offers many other ideas for compliments. They know many good things about Ren! Chat also wants to talk about baked watermelon again, but Ren hates that. Baked watermelon disturbs him in his soul. Grape soup, too. Smooth quartz is next, but that’s the acutal reason he wants an autosmelter in the first place! He hates smelting quartz. A chatter drops subs, Ren thanks subs and donos. He welcomes the new Gigacorp employees, telling them of the many benefits of working for Gigacorp with only the small caveat of being plugged into a Giga-building for the rest of one’s life. The description of how this happens is nothing Chat wants to hear. Chat does want Gigacorp merch though, so Ren takes Chat down a Google rabbit hole of possible merch designs.

1:18:00 A chatter makes a big donation with a Do-Not-Read message, which accidentally triggers the text-to-speech. Ren dives in and catches it before it gets to far and warns chat that Rosie does not understand DNR and will read any dono above ten pounds. He talks with Chat about trainers and retro shirts in Gigacorp colors. Chat is into it. Ren is Googling without a net, Safe Search turned off, but so far so good. He really likes the 80s style knit polo shirt. Chat thinks it looks like a dad shirt. Ren says of course it does, dads are from the 80s these days. Ren doesn’t have the selling power to do a whole line of merch, but he’s pretty sure he can do one or two things successfully. Chat agrees with merch, but think Dads may also be from the 90s these days.

1:26:00 More materials gathering! Ren has most of the next few things he needs, though he has to smelt even more quartz. He does more farmer trades and buys more quartz. Chat is coming up with more merch ideas for Ren. Ren thinks about a Gigacorp tin lunchbox. Chat is into it. Ren thinks about a Gigacorp calculator. Chat doesn’t think calculators are still a thing. Ren thinks about a Gigacorp Casio Watch. It would be difficult, but would be a cool piece of merch. Economies of scale might not be in his favor. A chatter sends a dono with a gently sarcastic message about how often Ren talks about merch without making merch. Ren admits that is true, but he can’t afford to take a loss on merch. He has to be really careful.

1:36:00 Ren smelts his stairs and thanks subs and donos. Speaking of merch, he has a new exclusive preview for something coming soonish! He can’t show too much and he can’t talk about it, but he can show a little, little bit. He shows Chat an image of what appears to be the top 25% of a plush Rendog, which is mostly a Ministry hat with diamond band, some curly hair, and the top of pointed ears. He tells Chat he will not be answering questions, this is all they get. He is nearly done with gathering supplies, good progress is being made! Ren is better about this than he used to be, getting stuff together first makes it so much easier to build than finding something every time you need it. He is down to items he only needs one stack of, so the gathering is going quite fast now.

1:46:00 Ren reorganizes the shulkers and then goes for the last bit of stuff, including the 32 actual furnaces the autosmelter requires. He realizes he may not have enough redstone, and does a time check with the chat. Some chatters are just waking up (10am Pacific) while some chatters are up very late. He realizes he doesn’t have enough lightning rods, but he cannot possibly give even more money for copper to Xisuma! Xisuma already has all his diamonds! Pearl shows up in Chat and Ren tells her to stay put so he can VIP her. He does so successfully and is satisfied, but does not know if VIP actually does anything. Chat explains that it makes Pearl a Very Important Person. (One clever chatter suggests Pearl is a Vertically Inverted Person) and that it’s basically just a free sub but it also allows her to talk in emote-only chat like mods do. Ren thinks that’s an abuse of power waiting to happen and laughs about it. If Chat bothers him he can make them emote only and only Hermits and mods can talk, perfect! He also thinks about who else he needs to make VIPs, and whether some of the OG chatters should be VIPs. That will be for a future stream.

1:55:00 Back to the item collecting! Except Ren wants to show Pearl the crane he spent all his copper on, and Iskall shows up in chat and needs VIPped! Pearl somehow runs afoul of the automod in Chat and gets timed out, then logs onto the server to tell Ren about it. Ren admits that his Twitchbot is very grumpy and decides to just mod Pearl so she’s immune to the bot. He VIPs Iskall, Jono and Cub. Iskall lets him get some copper from his chests. Ren realizes that nobody can be a VIP and a mod, and that Mod Pearl is no longer VIP Pearl. He does not like this. Chat points out that Mods are Very Important by default. Ren decides to keep Pearl a mod so the automod has no power over her. He realizes he also needs to remod Iskall and Jono. Now it all makes sense! He knows why he has no VIPs, because he makes all these people mods instead!

2:04:00 Back again to item collecting! Ren is deeply, deeply pained at the idea of using waxed copper trap doors for anything. He goes back to the creative world in the hopes that maybe there aren’t actually copper trapdoors in the design, but it turns out they are there and they look cool, so Ren cannot bring himself to exclude them. He shows new arrivals the autosmelter, which is broken again, and fixes it. The torches he placed earlier to unlock the hoppers has broken the loader. He hastily backs out of the creative world and decides he will fix that later. He gathers more items while still complaining about the lack of sense in the mod/VIP dichotomy on Twitch.

2:11:00 Ren needs a bunch of redstone blocks that he definitely doesn’t have. He thanks subs and donos and reminds Chat that he has no diamonds to purchase redstone and redstone components. He collects up all the rest of the things he needs, which are generally in his chests. He notices chat talking about court cases and demands to know if he is being taken to court for anything. He should not be taken to court, he insists, because he always follows all of the rules of the server. In fact, he used to be the king of the server! They can’t take him to court! Chat is not sure, but they are somewhat concerned that Doc might be trying to divorce Ren. Ren thoughtfully considers the possibility of divorcing Doc and suing for half his diamonds. The trial was extremely stressful, after all, and Ren has not been the same person since. The press was also extremely critical of his lawyer’s performance! Chat hates the idea of this divorce and thinks Ren should sue Skizz for emotional distress instead.

2:16:00 Ren gets so caught up in court talk that he breaks one of his soul campfires. He replaces it and threatens to sue Chat for their intimations that his lawyer was wooden. He needs hay bales and goes to sneak some from Beef’s fields. Chat points out that Doc doesn’t have as many diamonds this season because he’s only taking payment in sand. Ren doesn’t really want sand. But Ren’s farms are going great, producing so many pumpkins and melons! Ren does replant the wheat fields, claiming this is one of the great unwritten rules, along with not farting in the bank. Chat may have been breaking that latter rule. Ren is appalled to hear that some chatters also break wind in the cinema. Chat is fascinated to hear that Ren goes into the bathroom to fart. Ren doesn’t want to talk about it and changes the subject to the weather. It’s windy.

2:24:00 Ren grows some acacia trees to get the fence gates he needs, still castigating Chat for their farting habits. Ren has some surprisingly complicated rituals for farting in public. Chat is pleased to be appalling. Ren tries to make a detector rail by memory and gets almost there. He has everything except the redstone blocks that he needs for the GigaH.E.A.T Station. He’s going to build it on top of the chicken coop, which is no longer needed.

2:30:00 Ren drops into the Giga-Truck, has a seat in the driver’s chair and goes to F5 mode to address the Chat. He thanks subs and donos one more time and says it’s time to call it a day. He wants to get an episode out very soon, but the smelter build may take longer than he thought. He thanks Chat, raids into SoupForEloise and ends his stream.

[dominimoonbeam]

I Don't Know You - 3

The David/Huxley amnesia fic!

I Don't Know You - 3

The next day was a parade of visitors. People came over all day in twos. Huxley’s team captain coordinated their visits, texting with David so as not to knock on the door. He reminded the players before going in that they were to be quiet. Hux didn’t remember half of them from his team but some of them he knew from playing against them in college games and his captain he knew by reputation.

Still, he seemed happy to see them. David had set him up in the corner of the couch and kept the lights low, trying to give the illusion of staying out of the way by loitering in the kitchen.

Sometimes Huxley remembered a game when the others were reminiscing about a play. David’s heart pounded then. They were little memories, but they were filtering back up to the surface when he wasn’t trying to reach them. He could see how excited some of Huxley’s teammates were when they realized it too, and grateful to them when they didn’t point it out or press for more.

Asher had been there all day, outside, talking to the parade of hockey players rolling through. He made it seem like he was just there to hang out, but David knew he was there in case someone needed to be bounced.

Damien and Lasko came that evening, after the team, and even though Huxley was obviously tired, he was also incredibly happy to see them. The relief when he threw his arms around them made David’s heart ache to be remembered too.

He went outside then. He didn’t need to hover while Damien and Lasko were there. He knew they wouldn’t overstep or do anything to hurt Huxley. Damien would burn the house down before he let anyone hurt his family. Although, David did hope it didn’t come to that.

He dragged a deep breath outside and sat down on the porch. Asher came over and sat next to him. “Do you want a hug, boss?”

“Fuck you,” he grumbled.

Asher laughed and threw an arm over his shoulders. “A bunch of the pack want to visit but I told them to wait. It’s already a lot today and…” his words trailed off and died.

He was going to say, “And he doesn’t remember any of us.”

Asher sagged a little beside him.

David looked at his friend and caught the glimpse of his own heartbreak there. Asher and Huxley had been close. So had Huxley and Babe, and Huxley and Milo, and Huxley and Sam. Everyone loved Hux. They went on group trips, had almost weekly barbeques at the house, and regular double dates. Christ, he and Asher had had a joint wedding. The idea that Hux just didn’t know them anymore, that he might not remember them ever, was devastating.

He also saw the moment Asher realized he was being watched and perked up, putting back on a supportive front. He knew why. It was the same reason none of them would be able to talk to him about their own feelings right now—because his loss would always be bigger than theirs.

David ruffled Asher’s hair, palming the back of his head.

Asher pretended to hate it the same way he had since they were kids.

“He remembered some of his games,” David said, quiet like it was fragile.

Asher blinked. “What? Really?”

David nodded. “When the team was in there talking to him… Some of the games were just last year. I don’t think he realizes that though. He just remembers the plays or the win.”

Asher beamed. “That’s awesome!

David hoped so.

-

Huxley was dead tired and his head had been hurting pretty badly for the last couple hours, but he’d been trying to hide it. He didn’t want David to call off the visits. He didn’t want to be shut up in that room he didn’t recognize or lay down in that bed where he always felt like something was missing, more than a little terrified that he knew what that something was.

“You guys are… together?” Huxley asked. Lasko hadn’t let go of Damien’s hand since they walked in, other than those few minutes where they each hugged before settling down on the couch with him.

They did let go of each other then, almost jumping apart like they were kids who got caught. “Oh. Oh, yeah. I mean… It was… Well, it’s not a secret,” Lasko rushed to explain, words rolling out but still in a whisper. “It’s been like a year and Damien works-works at the university but we’re not like in the same department or anything and you were one of the first-first people we told.”

“Dudes, I’m happy for you. I’m sorry I don’t remember…”

Lasko exhaled relief and Damien almost subconsciously rubbed his back, while looking at Huxley. “Don’t be. You were happy for us the first time too. So, how are you doing? This has to be really stressful…”

Huxley laughed a little. His head hurt behind his eyes, but he tried not to squint too much. “Yeah. It’s been… well, it’s been really weird.”

“The memories will come back though,” Lasko said, almost urgent with his optimism.

Huxley smiled, grateful that they came, that his whole team had come. He was really lucky.

“And if they don’t, you get to do a bunch of firsts over again,” Damien countered.

“Firsts?” Huxley asked.

Damien smiled. “Yeah. Have you seen your garden yet?”

Huxley blinked. “No.”

“It’s pretty impressive. You and David work on that thing all year. You should go see it before your memories come back. It’s not often you get to surprise yourself with your favorite things.”

Huxley and Lasko both stared at Damien.

The room got a little warmer, the fire elemental flustering. “What? Was that the wrong thing to say? I just thought—”

“No,” Huxley smiled. “No, that’s a pretty cool way of looking at it.”

Damien exhaled relief and sputtered, looking away.

“So…” Huxley started again, glancing toward the empty kitchen. David had gone outside. “We still hang out, right?”

Damien raised an eyebrow. “What? Yeah, all the time. I mean, we all have our own schedules, but we get together at least a few times a month.”

Huxley nodded, relieved. “And…” he hesitated. Why did he need to ask at all? Maybe because he was living in a house with a stranger?

A warm hand took his and he realized he’d closed his eyes. Damien had reached across Lasko to take his hand, both of them watching him with so much care. “Ask it,” Damien said, voice steady and low. “Whatever it is, just ask it.”

“Do you like David? Is he… are we good?”

Damien stared at him. He wouldn’t lie to him, Huxley was sure of it. If Damien had any doubts, if there was anything to know or worry about, Damien would know it and he would tell him. He looked him dead in the eyes and said, “He’s great. You’re great. He’s always made us feel like we were family, honorary members of the pack even.”

Lasko nodded. “You guys were really happy.”

Huxley nodded, not sure why that didn’t make him feel better. Maybe because it just felt like he’d lost something big? And taken something from David too…

Damien gave his hand another squeeze. “If it’s ever too much, you can always stay with us. You know that, right?”

Huxley huffed a tired, strained laugh. His headache was officially making it hard to keep his eyes open. “Like that would go over well…”

“Hux…” Lasko’s quiet voice drew his attention, forcing his eyes open again. Lasko looked worried.

Damien spoke. “You’re not being held prisoner. David’s going to care and he’s going to worry if you leave, but he’s not keeping you here. You could go with us if you wanted to.”

Huxley blinked. It felt like a cold bucket of water. Had he really been thinking David was going to stop him from leaving? Maybe. But even knowing he could leave, could go home with his friends and be with people he knew… he didn’t want to go. Not really.

“Are you guys staying for dinner?” Huxley asked.

Damien still looked worried.

“Unless you have somewhere to be, of course… I don’t know what—”

Lasko shook his head. “No. We can stay!”

Knuckles tapped so quietly at the front door that they barely heard it before the door opened and David walked in, his friend on his heels.

Damien was still holding Huxley’s hand and made no move to drop it, the three of them almost snuggling in Huxley’s corner of the couch now. He turned his head toward the shifters. “David, what do you have for dinner? The prince is hungry.”

Huxley wasn’t sure what he’d expected but Damien comfortably demanding food and the alpha huffing and walking into that open kitchen to list off their oven-ready options wasn’t it.

David’s friend sat in one of the big chairs, talking to Lasko and stealing glances at Huxley. He felt like he should recognize him and knew that he should. He was in a bunch of the pictures on the walls, but he didn’t know his name until David said it, telling Asher to get people drinks.

Asher. Yeah, he had seen him the other night at the hospital too.

How many people had Huxley hurt by forgetting the last three years? He would know if he could remember…

-

Everyone had gone and it was just the two of them.

Huxley’s head was splitting but he still stood there, torn between needing to lay down and wanting to step closer to David. Only he didn’t know him.

“You should get some sleep,” David said, his voice that low rumble that made something ease inside Huxley’s chest. “I’ll grab you another pill for the pain, okay?”

“It’s not that bad,” Huxley said, but he wasn’t sure if he was right. His head really hurt. He’d barely been able to keep his eyes open the last half hour.

“Go get in bed. I’ll grab some water and the meds.”

Huxley nodded and ducked down the hall, toward that room.

He stopped a few steps inside, feeling somehow both out of place and at home at the same time. It was confusing. The room was frustrating. He’d been trying to avoid it. He went into the adjoining bathroom and brushed his teeth. David had had to tell him which brush head was his that morning.

He heard David in the bedroom and when he came back from the bathroom, David was changing his clothes. He was down to a pair of black briefs, long muscular limbs and a board back. Huxley stared, thinking he should look away but not doing it. David pulled on a pair of sweatpants. Huxley wasn’t sure which ones were his and which ones were David’s. Their clothes seemed to be mixed together. David tossed his shirt into the hamper and pulled a new one from a drawer. It was a loose fit and he ruffled his hair with a yawn.

This had to be exhausting for him. His spouse was just gone and he was basically babysitting Huxley. What had they been like before, when it was just the two of them? What did they talk about? What did they do?

“Hux?” David asked, closer.

Huxley snapped his eyes open again, realizing he’d pressed them shut. “Sorry.”

David shook his head, obviously worried. “Today was a lot. The healers said you needed to rest but…”

“It was nice to see everyone.”

He nodded, picking up something off the bedside table and a glass of water and bringing it over to where Huxley still stood. “Everyone really wanted to see you. I can’t blame them.”

Huxley took the water, feeling heat climb his face. He put out his palm and let David tip the pill into his hand. “Thanks,” he said and took the medicine, the word feeling like too little. He drained the water and walked to the bed, putting the glass down. “For, all of this. I know this has to be awful for you…”

He looked up and David was watching him, unreadable. Was he really unreadable or was it just that Huxley couldn’t read him? His heart beat faster under that gaze. “Where’s my phone? I should set an alarm or—” he babbled, tearing his gaze away almost frantically.

“You don’t need a—Wait,” David jerked a step closer, arm out when Huxley reached for drawer on the bedside table in search of his phone.

Huxley stared down at the contents, heat rising to his face. Lube, toys, rope, polaroids…

He closed the drawer and jumped to his feet. He kept thinking about the contents—about those pictures. He wanted to see them, suspecting he might be in them, but still feeling like an intruder. “I’m so sorry, dude,” he rushed out.

David sighed. “You don’t have to apologize… Everything in this house is ours.”

Huxley nodded, trying not to think about the details of that. Everything was theirs. Everything in that drawer was theirs… He took a step back. “You know, you basically slept on the floor last night. You should take the bed tonight and I’ll crash on the couch.”

David stared at him.

Huxley couldn’t quite meet his gaze. Fuck. Fuck, this was so awkward and he was the reason. He was the one making it worse.

“Take the bed, Hux. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Huxley shook his head but David was already walking around him, to the door, getting there before him.

“Get some sleep, please. You don’t need an alarm. You just need to rest,” he said on his way out, gently closing the door behind him.

Huxley dragged a breath, staring at that shut door and wondering if David was still there.

[xxsuicidalravenxx]

Thank you @babychosen for tagging me in this game!

Rules: copy and paste the questions below into a text post and write in your answers, then tag as many people as you want

1. How long have you been watching Smosh?

I've been watching smosh on and off for probably about 5 (?) Or so years now. There was definitely like a year where I fell off for a minute but for the last like year and a half I've been watching them pretty much consistently

2. Favourite Smosh cast member(s)?

I'm gonna just do my top three for this one which would have to be 1.) Angela 2.) Amanda and then 3.) Chanse

3. Favourite pairing?

Angela and Amanda is definitely my favorite pairing in general but I also really enjoy Chanse and Angela’s friendship, same with Amanda and Shayne’s

4. Favourite recurring character?

I really like Angela’s detective wesma kofi and Amanda as Tinky Winky lmao but, and I know it's more of a bit than a character, but I really miss Shayne’s "You're my favorite pizza place" bit and his Dumpster Wizard character

5. Favourite Smosh video?

Would probably have to be the first love is blind video or Amangela 2t1l

6. First video that got you into Smosh?

Oof it's hard to remember but I think it was tntl #9 my friend showed me that video first when introducing me to smosh

7. Favourite picture of the cast?

This is definitely one of my favorite photos of the cast I loved every bit of smosh the sitcom

8. Favourite picture of your fave?

Okay- listen I know it's not just one picture but can you blame me?! Anyways these are my top four candidates (shout out to the pictures of her in the black dress at shourtney wedding party and shout out to hawaiin button up over the black bra she wore for Chanse's birthday)

9. What Smosh series do you want to see more of?

I'm always a sucker for tntl trivial pursuit and I think it would be really funny if they did detective wesma kofi and Tinky Winky

And then I know this isn't one but I would love to pitch a series, I think it would be really awesome if they played stardew valley, the line up being: shayne, Courtney, Angela, and Amanda. I doubt they would but I'd love EVERY minute of that

10. Dream guest on Smosh Mouth?

Definitely MatPat, I would have loved him on for the lire explanation of fnaf but I think it would be really funny if they brought him on eventually being like "hold my beer" and explaining the lore again lol. Or I think another one with Kallmekris would be amazing especially if they talked about paranormal stuff :>

Thank you again @babychosen ! I had a blast with this :>

[kanazawa-division]

ARB Birthday Special: Joey Kurusu

~~ October 9th ~~

“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

Login Lines:

“Oh shit! Oh shit! I’m late for work! Haaah…why didn’t my alarms go off?! I set up six of them! Man, I knew I shouldn’t stayed up all night gaming! Wataru’s gonna have my a-huh?”

“What’s this? A present? And it’s for me!…Oh crap, so that’s why my alarms didn’t go off, it’s my birthday, haha!”

Voice Lines:

“Damn, I’m 24 now. I know it’s not a huge milestone or anything but after all the shit I went through and coming close to death more times than I would like to admit, I’ve come to learn that time is very precious and I’m thankful for every minute, hour, day, and year that I’m alive….wow, that was hella sappy lmao.”

“Everyone at the station sent me a happy birthday! Even the Narcotics Unit and those guys don’t talk to anyone! Man, it feels like yesterday I was just joining the force, I’m glad to make such nice and cool friends.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I just got a text from my dad, he wished me a happy birthday….’why do I look angry?’ I’m not angry! Really, I’m not! It’s just….this is the first time he’s reached out to me in four years…yeah…I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Hahaha! Oh man, my mom is hilarious! She sent me a book a puns….a book of police puns, hehe. Oh, I am definitely going to use these on Wataru and Kyler, maybe this is the day I finally get a smile out of both of them! Wish me luck!”

“Hey Shanny….I’m sorry I haven’t visited in a while, work’s got me in a chokehold right now, especially with all the DRB stuff happening…but I haven’t forgotten you, I would never forget you. I hope you’re doing okay wherever you are, I hope that you’re happy, your big bro is working really hard to find whoever took you away, they’ll get what’s coming to them, I promise.”

“Sorry guys but I’m spending the day with my lovely Mamoru! It’s been a while since we’ve been on a date, I know it’s my birthday but I wanna make this special for him….Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, call me a simp, whatever, I’d gladly be his Tier 3 Sub!….Wait-“

“Wataru! Buddy! You’re here! And here I thought you forgot about little ol’ me!…Ouch! That’s so mean! C’mon man, we’ve known each other for how long?…You’re so cold Wataru, you’re lucky I’m here to thaw that frozen aura of yours, otherwise you’d never have any friends haha, ooooh! A gift! From you! Let’s see what it is!”

“It’s a….a….okay, I’m stumped, what even is this?….Ohhhhh…This is…nice….I guess…Hey! My desk is not messy! Maybe to you but I can easily find whatever I need no problem! It’s called ‘organized chaos’, dude, there’s a method to the madness…Holy fuck, you’re old-“

“Kyler! My dude! Good to see you, man! Feels like it’s been forever since we last hung out…that’s still too long! C’mon dude, not only are we teammates but we’re friends! We should hang out outside of our jobs! Hm? You got something for me? Your bestie? Aw, you shouldn’t have…I’m joking, gimme.”

“Whooooa, sick! A new game! Deadpool huh? This is a character from your American comic books, right? Niiiiiice! I’ve been wanting to play more western games, this is just what I wanted! Thanks Ky! We definitely have to play this together, a game night with the boys! It’ll be awesome!”

Wataru Lines:

“Hello Joey, happy birthday…to be honest, I had completely forgot it was your birthday and even when I remembered, I originally wasn’t going to do anything…*sigh* For the umpteenth time, we are not friends, we are coworkers, I don’t know why that hasn’t clicked for you…Good grief, just take this.”

“It’s a desk organizer, something I noticed that you desperately needed ever since you started working here. It’s irritating to pass by your desk and see all sorts of junk everywhere, I implore you to use it, there is only so many times I can see your Hatsuno Miki pencils and notebooks lying around so haphazardly.”

Kyler Lines:

“Sup Joey, happy birthday, man…we literally just solved a case four days ago, alright, alright, you might have a point. Speaking of, I got something for you, I figured you would like it….fine then, I’ll give it to someone else…yeah, yeah, you’re welcome by the way.”

“It’s the Deadpool video game, I had it imported all the way from America to here so you better enjoy it…Nice, I’m glad you like it, I’ll admit, you do kinda remind me of him sometimes…but without the regeneration abilities, ducked up face, and is somehow more annoying. *Sigh* Y���know what? Sure, just text me when and I’ll be there, happy birthday, Jo.”