#The problem is that early access is fun lmao

[otter-byte]

Playing a lot of factorio has given me completely unrealistic expectations for how well optimised early access factory games should be. Gear brain means that I'm always expanding my factory at every opportunity, and unsurprisingly most games actually do have a ceiling on factory size that you can hit in a few hours if you play like that

[gothoffspring]

This is my blog and I truly do not give one single fuck who I offend or upset. FUCK greenllamas. 🤷 FUCK lazy early access creators, fuck anyone who actually supports these lazy ass creators monetarily (if you download their cc for free like i do idc), fuck the entire system that ended up getting us to the point where """"""cc is a luxury """"

I know some of y'all havent been in the community for long but if you had any idea what it used to be like... This is absolutely pathetic. It'll never be as fun as it used to and it's because of greed point fucking blank

I fucking hate EA and I hope they die a miserable death as a company. There isn't one redeeming thing about them as a company, as a game studio, as an employer. They're fucking trash and they destroyed my favorite game of all time. Absolutely shit on it. decimated it. The game we have now is a fraction of what it should be and it's because of EA.

I fucking hate the culture surrounding custom content, the fact that it's NORMAL now to hop on and start your patreon with your FIRST EVER CC POST. Come the FUCK on.

There are so many shitty, greedy, negative things happening in this community and I will speak on them, i will bitch about it, and that's never changing lmao. I will also continue to uplift free cc creators and people in the community who do this for fun and passion not money. But don't tell me I'm "just being negative for no reason" or "tearing others down". Yeah I WILL tear you down if you use the community for financial gain in the laziest way possible because you deserve that shit. And yeah, I WILL continue to be fucking negative because I refuse to be a simmer who sucks ea's ass and ignores all of the huge fundamental problems going on in the community. Id rather some ppl in the community hate me for being outspoken than to just sit around and not say shit.

[talesfromlissom]

TFP!OPTIMUS HEADCANNONS  // Optimus x reader tidbits || Part 2 

WARNINGS -  Infertility/sterilization, some mentions of pregnancy(??) , mentions of genocide 

A/N - I put down Elita-1 just because why not, but you can imagine this as an x reader instead. These are mostly Optimus headcanons. I have another post with headcanons about him before he became a Prime HERE. This also is alot longer than I thought it would be please help.

Elaborating on the previous bullet point about Optimus being the last of the data clerks. In the early stages of the war, the High Council ordered a mass extermination of miners after Megatron’s rise to fame. They blamed Orion for it, which caused Megatron to retaliate and order every data clerk to be killed. He was mostly successful. 

After being anointed the next Prime, Optimus was confused. One of the main reasons he advocated for a peaceful resolution to the caste system problems is that he had seen what the Quintesson War had done. He had seen war at its worst and didn’t want that kind of violence put onto the planet again, hence the reason why he always advocated so strongly for peace. 

After becoming the new Prime, he was isolated from the world. He wasn’t allowed to contact any of his friends unless supervised, but he would often sneak out to see them. He doesn’t remember why and thinks that it was because he was friends with many people who hated the caste system like he did. 

If he wasn’t seeing them, then he was painting. He liked to do giant graffiti art murals the most, hence the reason why he has ‘steady hands’. He’d spend an entire night in some abandoned theater or an empty alleyway. You could probably find one if you looked hard enough during the war. He often left the citadel late at night to do this. . 

After the war, most of his murals were knocked down or destroyed. 

Nighttime seemed the only time he had to himself back then, so he’d stay up late doing whatever he wanted. 

He always claimed to be a Prime of the people, not the government. This was reflected in his actions, as he would often donate large amounts of shanix to charities outside the High Council’s jurisdiction. He increasingly got frustrated by the high council’s lack of concern for their people and their refusal to listen to him. 

The High Council eventually appointed him a Lord High Protector due to his increasingly ‘rebellious’ antics (could be the reader/Elita-1, depending on what suits your fancy, ;] ) 

He despised the Protector, as they felt more like a glorified babysitter than a bodyguard. 

Eventually, the High Council got fed up with Optimus’ refusal to listen to them. At his last ceremony, to be officially inducted into the Primacy, they planned to give him a drink laced with sedatives so he’d be more accessible to shadowplay. 

Optimus’ Lord High Protector found this out, contacted his friends, and helped him escape, which made him trust them more. He then went to find the Matrix of Leadership because Megatron’s war was starting to poison the planet. He could feel it somehow, though he couldn’t explain how or why. He still can’t. 

He enjoys drawing A LOT. Given his size, he obviously can’t do graffiti art on earth, but when he goes on ‘patrols,’ half of it is him going somewhere to draw. However, he doesn’t do creative or fun drawings nowadays. It’s mostly art of the people in his life, nature, etc. So, it's primarily observational art. That datapad and pen are his most prized possessions, and he always carries them in his subspace. No, you cannot see it. 

A MASSIVE touch of the ‘tism. He could talk for hours about ancient history, famous literature, or anything like that. He visibly gets more expressive when talking about these things, too (actually canon lmao). He enjoys learning about mythology from other cultures as well. 

He hates group settings and despises oil. He most likely suffers from high empathy, but he tries to be empathetic towards people or animals only to mask this. 

More on the high-functioning side of the spectrum.

He’s very aware of life and deeply existential. He always wonders how life came to be and related matters. He asks many questions and thinks of new ones every day. Hence, Agent Fowler and he are so close. He got stuck in a storage house with him once and asked so many questions about human life/purpose that Fowler aged 50 years. 

His interest in history was easily hidden as just a plain interest in it. He was a data clerk, specifically a data clerk in the history-keeping field, so it’d make sense he’d know a lot about history. Not only that, but he’s also a Prime, so he has to know about the history of his own planet/people exceptionally well. It’s a good thing he already did before the primacy. 

He tends to focus too much on things, almost becoming obsessive, for example, trying to repair his relationship with Megatron, nearly bordering on obsession with doing that very thing. There are times when he will be working at the console and he’ll be so wrapped up in his work that he’ll forget to eat, sleep, take a break, and do things like that. 

He spaces out a lot more than people realize. He’s pretty good at making it look like he’s listening, but he does listen(partially), just not as much as people think he does. People think he’s quiet due to this (which he kind of is but yeah)

His audio finals move a lot, and he used them to stim. The only issue is that due to the energon shortages, many people had to shut down certain parts of their frame, and his fins ended up being one of them. He resolves this by tapping his fingers on his knees instead or letting his smokestacks shake, but this makes people think he’s angry, which confuses him because he’s not. This is probably due to the MASSIVE RBF he has. 

Speaking of brain stuff, he also suffers from C-PTSD. If we’re going by the lore found in The Covenant of Primus, Optimus has been involved in two civil wars—one as a soldier and the other as a leader. Regardless, both of these wars are terrifying. I’d imagine that’s why he seemed to handle the war much better than others—he’s used to it. It doesn’t change the fact that he hated experiencing both of them. 

He has most definitely stumbled upon sparklings once or twice. He usually contacts a neutral colony planet or ship to take them and does so quickly. He’s gotten attached to every sparkling or youngling he comes across, barely able to prevent any sire/carrier protocols from activating. And when I say attached, I mean EXTREMELY attached. You need a parental figure? Congratulations! He’s adopted you. No, you cannot go home; let’s decorate your bedroom together 😀

Speaking of children, he wants his own, but the Matrix is annoying. Most Transformers constantly drift to being hyper-fertile or sterile (I headcanon that the Allspark is primarily responsible for this, but I will probably go into that later. I have a whole process and everything), and Optimus is no exception. 

However, the Matrix takes a lot of power from his frame, including his processor and other parts. It's very taxing. It’s rendered him completely sterile, no matter how potent the Allspark is. This is a sore spot for him, and due to how long the Matrix was in his frame, these effects have remained even after he was resurrected without it. Only Ratchet/Elita-1(or you) know this. 

Jack, Miko, Raf, Bumble Bee, and Smokescreen are all registered under the sparkling category. Those are his kids; don’t touch them. 

WORD COUNT - 1239

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[qoldenskies]

(I'm SO sorry if this doesn't make sense, I am very sleep deprived) GOD clipped wings is so good, like actually so good oh my god. i feel so hard for Donnie obviously but what's getting me right now is what the rest of them went through under the curse. having your sense of reality warped like that so violently is terrifying, if it happened to me idk how I'd ever feel safe in my opinions ever again. I can just imagine them, even ages and ages after the story, getting into an argument and panicking cause they can't tell if it's genuine or a curse again. idk tldr I rly like your fic <3 and warped perceptions of reality mess me up. ty!

its so fun to chew on the idea of how this'll affect them ALL long down the line ... three months is a horrifying amount of time to have your mind altered, by such subtle magic too. they FELT like themselves the whole time, and the only signs that they werent is that they didnt have the same access to their mystic powers later down the line (which is tied to their emotions and self-understanding, they werent faltering because of any magical side effects of the curse. if they had ninpo unlocked at that point it wouldnt have worked at all!!)

and god, yeah, arguing and getting angry at each other is going to be something very loaded for pretty much all of them (donnie included, just for different reasons) so i cant IMAGINE the ways that this'll fuck with their communication skills (you can already see some of the early ways it already is LMAO); especially because i cant really see them comfortable with being apart for long periods of time after this. they all already get weird alone (raph especially, but i imagine all of them have issues with it) and i suspect the problem is going to be exacerbated after this whole thing.

[wetcatspellcaster]

Hello, dear writer, thank you for tearing my heart apart once again 😭

No, seriously, thank you. It was painful in all the best ways. I hope you know how beautiful it is when writing elicit so much feelings.

I want to smack Astarion for how he hurts Rose, but I understand where it all comes from, and it still makes me want to shake him and yell "don't you love her?!" because damn. That's so manipulative, and so in character. Every time I go through that part of the game Astarion makes me furious with the same words, while I know why he wants it so badly, it just... Yeah. You captured so well the devastation and helplessness of someone who loves him deeply and wants what is the best for him, while he is blinded by the bleak prospect of possible power that was absent in his un-life... It hurts so good. Like the words Rose said were very similar to my own thinking when Astarion brought it up in act 3, and that brought me so much deja vu I had to step away and breathe out of frustration and need to scream how dumb he truly is. I mean, I love you, stupid fanged elf, but my god you are stupid.

It's so devastating. And so unfair to poor Rosalie. I mean, yeah, there is some truth to Astarion's words, about her not knowing much hardship, but as once I've read - you don't need to live through things to know about them. At some point it felt like Astarion wanted Rose to live through the things he lived through, and just... Ugh. I hope he will see how fucked up this was. He already gets it, once the haze of his anger fades I see. I have tears in my eyes as I think just how hurtful those words must feel for Rose. It was so cruel, but so Astarion. Bite where it hurts, and keep tearing it apart before they hurt you? Yeah. I understand that, but condemn it.

It was such a good chapter. After so long of fluff, I knew there will be something that will hurt me, and I wasn't wrong. As much as I want them to be happy, I know there will be a long, long journey to get there for both of them. And I'm here for it. Thank you.

bonjour anon, thank you so much for such a lovely message!!

I've had a lot of fun with actually thinking about An Honest Lie going forward, and what I want to do with it, because obviously I wrote A Bleeding Heart first in Early Access, and I was really pleased with it at the time, but it also has a three-act structure where a conflict is resolved, and then I just... continue on into Full Access gameplay lmao. Where problems get worse.

So what I decided was that, A Bleeding Heart doesn't fix Astarion, but Rosalie thinks it has. This is why it doesn't occur to her that he would want to do the ritual. Like yes, she has that autism justice sensitivity in her, but she meant it when she said 'we've literally done this before at Ethel's'. Astarion has started doing nice things for her specifically, so she thinks the problem and his worldview is fixed. But of course, when that kind of belief is so deeply ingrained in a person, it isn't a 'one conversation and it's done' kinda deal. Also, being nice to your girlfriend isn't the same as being lawful good lmao (not that Astarion will ever be lawful good, that is not the aim of the fic).

So A Bleeding Heart was 'I think I fixed him' and An Honest Lie is, 'well now the real work begins, and it's not going to be as easy as one sexy argument in a field' lol.

And thank you!! I know there's a tendency in fandom to either make Astarion wilfully awful or never having done anything wrong in his life, but neither of those are for me. I think he's just well-mastered in knowing how to hurt someone, and it's a cultivated skill rather than a predilection, because he's been hurt a lot so that's all he's been taught. And I think someone being incessantly nice to him but also not being able to empathise with either the temptation of power or the darker thoughts he will inevitably have, would trigger his desire to bring her down to his level. Not because he actually wants Rosalie to suffer, or know what it's like to feel that way, but he just wants her to actually know him properly, and be able to understand.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

thoughts on 4WS? everybody and their mom knows the prelude,but would you be interested in talking about some of the other interesting vehicles with stuff like this?

or maybe other methods of decreasing turn radius?

I love the “everybody and their mom knows the Prelude”. Truly the embodiment of the silicate chemistry XKCD.

But sure! I can’t really say much about 4WS beyond “It’s when the rear tires steer opposite to the fronts to decrease turn radius at low speeds or when they steer with the fronts to increase stability at high speeds, and it really helps make cars be and feel more agile, which is why you see it on the new Range Rover and why you will probably see it in many other cars now that they are all ballooning out of proportion. Cool! Don’t park too close to curbs tho or your rear end will kick out into them and curb your wheels”, so let’s move on to… less orthodox ways to decrease turn radius.

You’d included a GIF of the Rivian “tank turn” which they were going to include in their models only to then not, but I took the liberty to place it next to a GIF of the BYD YangWang U8 showing it off at the latest and incredibly exciting Japan Mobility Salon [for some reason this post is stuck on the old editor so pretend that link is blue] to offer suitable accompaniment

(start at 1:36 if it doesn’t do so automatically)

Hope this will do in lieu of commentary because all I could offer is a demonstration of how many times I can type “what the fuck” in a row. Oh and if that wasn’t enough they also showed one do this.

I am genuinely pretty sure I came up with such a wheel design and then thought “no, this is stupid and absurd, forget I thought that” and then BYD was like “lol, lmao, rotfl even”.

But if you have wheels that don’t make you fear a robot uprising and surfaces that grip too hard to permit that Tchaikovskian bullshit, what are you to do?

Well, turn radius is a function of steering angle and wheelbase, so you can just alter those! Now, one would think the distance between the centers of your wheels would be pretty tough to alter, and indeed, it is. Well, it is pretty tough to alter without getting a wall involved and giving you more problems than you solved, if you know what I’m saying. Let alone to alter it reversibly. But some have done it! Enter Rinspeed, Swiss Porsche tuner turned concept car maker whose staying afloat I genuinely cannot explain, and more specifically its early-00s concept the Presto, a concept car that, once you realize you cannot for the life of you find four people willing to get near that horrendous front let alone in the thing, has the ability to cut your losses and accordionize itself.

“Yahchoo!”

Nice, Ron. And sure, the windshield is borderline nominal, the doors were sacrificed to the gimmick altar so one assumes you must get in Hazzard-style without even having a roof to paint something racist on, and it’s probably illegal in many fun new ways, but at least it’s gotta be a TON of fun.

You know what I suddenly feel like we should move on to something else. How about this thing?

“The Mk1 Golf?”Almost - as seen by the five bolt wheels, different bumpers and barely visible side vents, while this was an ordinary Mk1 Golf, Italo-Swiss tuning house Sbarro took care of that problem by shoving a Porsche 3.3L behind the front seats (what is this, Renault? [again, please record yourself saying “that link is blue” and play that recording back repeatedly over a spinning spiral GIF]). But the thing is, Franco Sbarro saw the whole ordeal and thought “Ah, but the engine that we put right in front of a massive trunk lid is going to need accessing at some point. I must think of the most rational way to accomplish that”, and then made the car fucking open in two. What is it with Switzerland and cars doing this shit.

So yeah. If you were willing to spend an absolute fortune to make your Volkswagen Golf a positive deathtrap, you could, through an incredible and unimaginably dodgy feat of engineering, shorten your wheelbase by a measure I measured at comfortably under two inches. Now, I cannot think that makes much difference in turning radius, but hey, I’ve seen masculinities built and shattered over less.

Fortunately, the wheelbase is just one of the determining factors of turning radius, and the other, steering angle, is a pretty popular thing to increase through aftermarket components because it’s very important in drifting: as explained in this brilliant-as-always article from Speedhunters, since drifting consists of holding your car at a big angle relative to where you’re going, if you want to maintain that big angle you kind of need the front wheels to be able to be at a big angle relative to where the car is pointing.

Unfortunately, your steering wheel doesn’t stop turning just because it feels you got to turn it long enough already - it stops because the wheels are about to hit something. So in serious drift cars the front wheels have to be pushed outwards to keep them from encountering car as they turn. But of course, there is an alternative to pushing the wheels out - pushing the wheel wells in! That, in fact, is the technique employed by the personal driftcar of world champion Piotr Więcek…

….no, not the 800hp S15, I said the one he drives for fun.

Perfection. Indeed, since the last generation Twingo shares its platform with the Smart Forfour which itself shares bits and bobs with the historically rear-engined Smart Fortwo, the engine is in the rear, meaning the front wheels have nothing in between to stop them from turning outrageously wide, making its turning circle great for city driving, city parking, and apparently tandem drifting with an 800hp S15.

But I cannot talk about ways to facilitate street parking without talking about the first thing I ever received by email, in January 2011, or more than twelve years ago (yeah I know, sorry): a video of this car.

Apparently, it was an idea that had existed since the 50s, too!

I find this to be a really clever idea - you already need to bring the spare tire around anyway, and you already have a shaft spinning in that direction because that’s what connects the engine to the differential! Unfortunately though, nowadays most cars -especially the space-conscious ones- are front wheel drive, which would make implementing what already was a packaging nightmare to begin with take up even more space, probably to the point of being counterproductive. Unless perhaps you put the spare in front of the engine and redesigned the differential to *spends the next six months thinking about this*

[tomsawyee]

Every time a Pretty Good RPG comes out, the same brand of post crops up and gets reblogged by Pretty Much Everyone, and it always functionally boils down to:

"See??? People still love single player games!!"

It's pretty easy to see where this take comes from. With the advent of consoles and internet connections that can functionally "always" be online (ymmv, our private internet infrastructure is woefully lacking), AAA has been on a shift away from offline standalone experiences for ~15 years.

What this take ignores, though, is where this shift in what gets greenlit and published comes from.

No amount of "proof" that single player character RPGs still make money is going to change the fact that shitting out Call of Duty every year makes more.

The games audience on Tumblr is heavily skewed toward character games with flexibly approachable RPG mechanics and gamified relationship interactions. This community, large though it may seem from the inside as all fan communities feel, is a microscopic slice of the games market. Every rando who's ever worked in a store that sells consoles can confirm: The vast majority of Xbox One's and PS4's are/were Call of Duty + Fifa and/or Madden Machines. These games are annual releases with minimal change between titles and robust+heavily monetized online features.

Bioware didn't shit out Anthem because the (exhausted, mismanaged) workers there wanted to make Destiny: But Worse. Bethesda didn't shit out Fallout 76 because their devs thought it would be a compelling restructuring of the IP they had already rendered unrecognizable under the survival MMO umbrella. They did it because EA and Zenimax, publicly traded billion dollar parasites, wanted to cash in on the fact that, if you can tap this content well just right, you can convince people to keep paying for your game forever. They did it because we've been modding the shit out of Skyrim for 10 years and they're losing sleep over the fact that we haven't had to keep giving Zenimax (Microsoft, lmao) more money to do so.

The antidote to this problem isn't to cross our fingers and pray that Dragon Age 4 doesn't suck (It's going to) (If it even comes out at all). It's to stop placing our hopes in the hands of enormous publishers, and to do start digging for games that scratch the itches AAA is intentionally missing because they aren't infinite money pits.

The antidote to the frustration of corporatized art-making is the same for every medium: Go looking for the thing that you want. It probably exists, and it is probably being drowned out in the mainstream by multi-million dollar marketing campaigns for Assassin's Creed: We Promise We Don't Abuse Women Anymore Lmao XIII. You don't even have to manually dig through itch.io-- Investing a little more in this hobby we all love can start with something as simple as clicking the "more like this" equivalent tab on whatever online marketplace you use and reading more about a title that doesn't cost $59.99 but still catches your eye. Mainstream indie-adjacent publishers like Devolver and Annapurna Interactive have strong recent track records of enabling small/medium studios to make games that are compelling and fun without the looming specter of infinite monetization and breaking employee's backs to make sure horse balls shrink in the cold.

I really hope you consider this perspective if you feel like BG3 came out of nowhere. It was in Early Access for almost 3 years, but it was largely panned from the mainstream Hype Cycle. Larian self-publishes, and games journalism is by-and-large not journalism but marketing, so this enormous game was incredibly easy to miss if you weren't actively looking for it.

Every tier of this industry has its own foundational rot, its own bad actors, its own entities that we really don't want to give our money to. But I promise, taking a little bit of time to go digging past the AAA buzz of the week will net you a better experience than waiting for megacorps to place something in front of you that is worthy of your time.

[microsuedemouse]

it turns out that I actually kinda remember how to draw?? (please kindly ignore the janky proportions in the bottom image… I am. out of practice lmao. I love how their faces turned out, but his neck and their hands are weird, and her head might be too small? oogh.) I might try to mess around with my scanner and get a decent scan of this tomorrow, but in the meantime here's a hastily-edited photo.

back in uhhh, August? I started toying around with these new OCs, just kind of… for fun. I realised that I hadn’t created characters Just Because in literal years. every character had been for a Project. and I wanted someone just to play around with!

so, these two are Paz and Winnet. more rambles about them beneath the cut:

I’m starting to get Paz’s appearance down; Winnet’s still a little bit of a work in progress but I know more or less what I’m aiming for, at least. might end up darkening her hair colour... idk.

my starting point with these two was that I wanted to make a pair of super-squishy soft romantic characters - and specifically, I thought it'd be fun to design a couple with two very different aesthetics. annnd that eventually led me to Paz the (dorky) punk and Winnet the cottagecore/sort of mori girl-ish wheelchair user.

Paz is of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, and pretty heavily into the punk/diy scene, as well as being really dedicated as an activist. he spends a lot of time volunteering, going to protests/demonstrations, or going to shows. he's also super protective of his trans little sister, and ever since she came out, he's made a point of learning a lot more about trans issues in particular. (he also makes sure to have a prominent pronouns patch on every one of his vests and jackets!) he's a severe hemophiliac, and as a result doesn't have any piercings (or tattoos), but he enjoys wearing other jewellery like the ear cuff you see above.

Winnet is very sweet and feminine in her style, and values her independence and a simple, happy lifestyle. she can walk, but mostly sticks with her wheelchair, as a variety of health problems make her unsteady on her feet and also inclined to fainting spells. she works remotely as a transcriber, and is close with Alfio, her elderly Italian neighbour (who also owns the laundromat downstairs from their apartments). he calls her paperotta, a term of endearment something like 'little duck' <3 she's an avid crocheter in her free time, and a slightly less avid knitter. she also has a service dog, but I haven't decided on any further details on that front haha

they're both in their early twenties, and absolutely, ass-over-teakettle in love with each other. both are easily flustered, though probably Paz moreso; they get embarrassed by one another pretty often. their fashion senses converge at 'plaid.' they're both really interested in learning more about one another's hobbies and interests and overall worlds - he loves learning about all her houseplants, and wearing things she crochets or knits for him, whether they go with his look or not. by the same token she starts learning to be more politically active with him (and he's very good at helping her make sure that her accessibility needs are taken care of at, say, protests, or other events), and absolutely adores the battle vest he makes for her, and eventually even starts going to shows with him. their music tastes are as different as their fashion choices, but they learn to love one another's favourites :)

[chromaji]

i keep having this conflict with my character assets because I KNOW the early access stuff isn't gonna get as much attention or desire as the finished & released asset packs (well i hope. lmao.), but there's still this pressure that i'm just not working fast enough or hard enough.

And its like WELL... DAMN I GUESS I'M NOT. I know the times i'm spending on editing or making stuff for my videos/streams is taking at least some time away (i dont work on assets on weekends anyway, so streaming or recording on weekends isnt a problem).

But I really dont like leaving anything hanging, so sometimes I dont actually work on assets on a weekday, so that i can work on whatever i need for my LP/streams.

It's a juggling act I'm kiiinda failing at right now, BUT, I'll be taking a month or two off of needing to edit or make cutscenes for streams after my next 2hd stream (final part of main story). Similarly once I start the postgame, I wont need to do extreme editing until the final postgame part where I make one last cutscene.

As for the LPs, I dunno how much longer VFD is, buuuut i think you can see from recent videos i'm really trying to get a lot more done in each episode now. Tomorrow's is me doing every quest i've had in the backlog. After i finish vfd, I wanna try a different format for future playthroughs (much less frequent, but much more condensed parts)

I kinda derailed on the point of the post. I just hope I can work more consistently and faster once I'm finished with vfd (& sorta 2hd but mainly vfd for aforementioned frequency reasons). It feels kinda bad to wanna finish both quicker bc i AM having fun with em, but they are definitely taking some time🧎‍♂️

[joshfuckingkiszka]

『summer heat』

jtk x f!reader

i'm sorry this took so long, i've been a bit of a wreck lmao. hope this is good enough for y’all. 

THIS PIECE IS 18+ MINORS DNI

» requested

warnings: explicit sexual content, unprotected sex (once again, a given with me but wrap it up folks), and mention of the double standard of men being shirtless and women not being able to - FREE THE NIPPLE - anyways.

☼

Nashville humidity was an absolute killer. Luckily, your absolute angel of a best friend, Jake, insisted you attend a beach trip with his band. You had been apprehensive at first, of course, if only for looks. Who wants to intrude on a well-deserved vacation after a particularly grueling tour? Certainly not you - even if you really wanted to go.

However, he assured you that Kenzi and Hannah would be there as well, and you wouldn’t be intruding. He claimed you were “practically family”. For an unidentifiable reason, that struck a sore chord with you. But you brushed it off for Jake’s sake, and finally “conceded” to his demands.

“How many Fleetwood Mac shirts do you have, exactly?” Jake was laying horizontally at the end of your bed, his head resting on his hand.

“Not enough - and don’t say it like it’s a problem, Stevie is an absolute gem!” He rolled his eyes with a smile on his face as you dramatically threw your hands on your hips.

The drive there wasn’t entirely awful. Two separate vehicles was absolutely the better choice for your sanity, though. You’d manage to lose shotgun to Josh, who insisted on talking your ear off about some indie film he’d recently become obsessed with.

“What’s your favorite movie, Penny?”

“Don’t ask that question and use that nickname in the same sentence, you’ll sound stupid,” you told him jokingly. Josh often made fun of your - only slight - obsession with Almost Famous. After the guys had seen your numerous posters and decor inspired by the movie, they’d nicknamed you “Penny”.

On day three of your vacation, you’d awoken early to the stream of sunlight and the soft sound of waves hitting the shore. Downstairs, you found Jake, alone, strumming his acoustic on the couch.

“I think it’s pretty pretentious that you bring your guitar on vacation, Jacob,” you told him, sitting beside him on the couch, legs crossed.

“Well, Penny, you never know when inspiration will strike you.”

Deadpanning, you said, “I’m gonna strike you if you don’t take me to the beach.”

“You can’t wait until the group gets back?”

“Jake, they went hiking, it could be hours.” Leave it to Josh to find a hiking trail no matter where he went.

Rolling his eyes and letting out a playfully exasperated breath, he agreed and told you to hurry and put your swimsuit on before he left you. You knew he wouldn’t, though, he loved you. You were his best friend. Ouch, another sore chord.

He waited for you on the back porch, the beach house the guys had rented had a private beach only accessible to you guys. At the sound of your footsteps, he turned, his expression changing ever so slightly to one of surprise.

“What is that?”

“Look, Jacob, I know you don’t have a ton of experience with women but I do expect you know what a bikini looks like.”

Granted, was it a bit revealing? Perhaps, but you were a grown woman, for God’s sake. Regardless, you walked down the short pathway to the beach, occasionally bumping into each other on purpose. You laid your towel out on the sand, wordlessly handing him the sunscreen so he could apply it to your back.

His hands were cold and you shivered against his touch. You heard him attempting to stifle his laughter and elbowed him in the ribs. When he finished, you moved to give him the same treatment. Jake’s back was smooth and his skin was so warm, despite having only been in the sun for a few minutes.

After a second, he turned his head slightly to say, “Well, at least you don’t really have to worry about tan lines, I guess.”

“I could worry less if I didn’t have a top on at all.” It didn’t really have any double meaning behind it, just a true statement. “I mean, it’s not really fair, is it? Guys can take their shirt off, well, anywhere, really. But the second a woman does it, it’s a ‘problem’ and she needs to ‘cover up’. Such a fucking double standard, it’s not my fault I have more fat and tissue there than you do.”

“Penny, there’s no one else here. If you wanna take it off, I won’t judge you. It’s the human body, it’s natural and nothing to be ashamed of.”

You let his words ruminate for a minute, searching his face to ensure he was truly okay with it. Once you found no ounce of hesitation surrounding him, you reached behind you to untie your top, slipping it over your head.

His breath hitched for a second, and he eyed you carefully to make sure you didn’t hear it. When you laid back on your towel, drenched in sunlight appearing to him as an ethereal goddess, he knew you didn’t. The sunglasses you wore were big and orange, a genuine gift from Danny for your birthday.

You looked straight out of a 70s movie, one Josh would probably talk about for weeks. One Jake could watch for the rest of his life and never get tired of.

“Get in the water with me, Jakey,” you begged. He stood with a groan and raced you into the ocean. You let out a betrayed gasp when he splashed you, and began a battle of water. Running away from his torment, he chased you until he finally grabbed your shoulders, turning you pulling you into his chest. He wrestled with you for a second before dunking you into the cold water.

“I could kill you for that, Kiszka.”

With his signature smirk, his eyes boring into yours, he asserted, “I’d love to see you try.”

You threw yourself onto Jake, catching him by surprise and causing him to lose his footing, and took him under with you. When the two of you came up, it was all smiles and boisterous laughter until you both realized you were still pressed into his chest.

His smile died down and you couldn never miss the way his eyes flickered to your lips.

“Jakey?”

“Mhm?”

“Kiss me.”

It felt as if a wire had snapped within the two of you, all the years of tension building up to this very moment. His lips felt like they were branded into yours, and you didn’t mind. You never wanted to lose this feeling. Jake’s hands gripped onto your thighs and you took his hint and jumped. For a moment, you worried about falling, but his hold never faltered as he walked the two of you back to the house.

He laid you down gently on his bed, and, while you wanted him to absolutely take you, the look in his eyes told you he would always be gentle. It was you, after all. You realized, after a second of paused movements, that he’s taking it all in. The way your hair splays around you, how your legs curl up so that your feet dig into the soft comforter, and especially the deep breaths you take that make you look absolutely fucked out already.

Jake lowered himself gently on top of you, but you surely wouldn’t have minded feeling his entire body weight on top of you, at this point. His lips met yours, almost timidly, but you soon concluded he was attempting to control himself. You let him, seeing as how you’re already crossing a plethora of formerly-thought boundaries.

One of his hands reached up to cup your bare breast and you gasped at the contact. He pulled away to make sure you were okay, but upon seeing your eyes closed and mouth open at the sensation, he lowered himself to wrap his lips around your nipple. After giving what he determined to be enough attention to both, he began trailing his lips down your stomach. When he nipped just above your belly button, you scolded him.

“Hey! No marks.”

“Oops.”

He wasn’t sorry, and he wouldn’t pretend to be, either. You couldn’t even say you were that mad. If it wasn’t for the fact that the guys would never let you live it down, you would let him mark you entirely.

Wrapping his fingers around the waistband of your bottoms, he looked up to you for confirmation. You let out a quiet ‘please’ and then they were gone. The way he kept eye contact with you as his tongue delved into your cunt was absolutely sinful. Jake alternated between licking and sucking at your clit seemingly randomly, but it was so strategic. When he stopped you thought you were going to cry.

“Want you to sit on my face, pretty girl.”

He moved you to take your place on the bed, beckoning you onto him. Like any other girl, you didn’t intend on fully taking a seat, however his arms wrapped around your thighs, and you had no other option. Within seconds, you could barely hold yourself up, as if your entire torso was made of jelly. Steadying yourself, you planted your hands on his stomach, and it brought you closer to the edge to feel how his muscles twitched below your touch. Soon you were cumming on his face, and you worried about your grip potentially bruising his abdomen. You fell to his side, his hips beside your face.

Jake’s eyes were beautiful, you had always thought so. Seeing them in this new light, blown out by lust and admiration only brought out that beauty more. Quickly, he roughly planted his lips back on yours, as if they were meant to be there, and, gripping your hips as you had his, brought you back to the center of the bed. He didn’t even bother flipping you around, leaving it so that your head was at the bottom of the mattress.

Turning around for a split second, he grabbed a pillow and maneuvered it underneath your hips.

“Heard that this makes it feel better,” he explained.

In a minute, his swim trunks were on the ground and he was once again searching for that acknowledgement that it was okay to move forward. Once he had it, he was sheathed inside you and you both let out the same low moan.

“You okay?” His hand gently caressed your jaw.

Nodding, you told him breathily, “I’m great, please move, Jakey.”

“God, I love it when you call me that.”

He built his pace up, starting slowly to ensure that you were comfortable. When you moaned, he knew you were wordlessly telling him to go faster. It felt like you were gonna pass out - in a good way, of course - as he thrusted heartily into you, gripping your hips with an unexpected force, and left nearly bruising kisses to your neck.

The sensations were so overwhelming, and you quickly felt your peak approaching once again. It didn’t help hearing those grunts escaping Jake, you’d heard them when he was playing. Within this - much different - context, you thought you’d never been able to hear them again without wanting him to ruin you.

“Cum for me, baby.” That did it. You let out a drawn out moan as you came, and soon he was doing the same.

For a minute, you laid there attempting - but not wanting - to come down from the euphoric pleasure. You felt his hand on your jaw once more, caressing the soft skin of your face. His thumb ran over your swollen lips and you turned to smile at him.

“You know I’ve always kinda been in love with you, right?”

“Good. ‘Cause I’ve always kinda been in love with you too.”

The front door was shut loudly and you heard two boisterous voices. They quieted down for a second before you heard Josh.

“Who the hell tracked all this sand in the house?!”

〚taglist〛

gvf: @doodle417 @brokenbellz @gretavanfleas @pyrojoshy @greta-van-chaos @xserenax-13 @hayley1623 @kdarling1 @autumns30 @keighoe @chalametpwk @sammysvanfeet @shawnsthighs @gretavanbitches @sammiejane22 

jakey: @loofypoofy 

[hamsterboos]

here’s a fact. hating someone is exhausting.

Again, another one I speed wrote between finishing up homework and playing genshin lmao I really need to work on that but oh well. Seeing the prompt immediately reminded me of The Hating Game and this is kind of based on that, so do with that information what you will :D Title is also a quote from the book!

Word Count: 1495 Read on AO3 Rowaelin Month Masterlist

Day 18 of Rowaelin Month Prompt: You're my work rival and we're stuck in an elevator

~~~~~~

It was a race, and they were tied for first place.

Then again, it’s not like there were any other competitors except for the two of them.

Aelin glanced at the clock and silently cursed, realizing that there wasn't much time left until the working day was done, and she desperately needed to finish this data analysis report for her boss to be able to look over the first thing Monday morning. The only caveat to this was that Rowan Whitethorn was also there until the last possible minute finishing his analysis report on a different department’s data collection.

If he wasn’t sitting directly across from her and constantly in her direct line of sight, it wouldn’t have been such a problem, but when she looked up to see his annoyingly handsome face with his gorgeous eyes and infuriatingly beautiful tattoo creeping out of his shirt’s collar, Aelin was just pissed off that he was such a dick.

Ever since Rowan had joined the company, his insane work ethic (that rivaled hers, honestly) and the fact that he had immediately begun to compete with her for the same manager promotion had Aelin understandably frustrated, and it seems that Rowan was frustrated as well. However, Aelin was nothing but professional, so she never acted on her annoyance with him until the small passive-aggressive and sarcastic comments shared between them turned the silent feud not-so-silent, or secret. Soon enough, the entire office was aware of the fact that Aelin Ashryver Galathynius and Rowan Whitethorn hated each other and could not work together.

Of course, that just forced their boss to work together more often than not on data analysis projects, but they got their shit down. Somehow.

And now here they were, both working till the last possible second of the working day to show off their dedication to their jobs in order to somehow get the upper hand compared to the other. Everyone else had slowly begun to leave already, the office emptying out early especially with it being a Friday afternoon (even their boss had left), but this was an important report. With being promoted to a manager role, that would mean that they were the other’s boss, and Aelin wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle Rowan as her boss. He would definitely somehow make her working life hell, and she liked her job; she enjoyed working with the numbers and making graphs and analyzing these numbers.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and with every glance at the clock and at Rowan, her fingers worked faster, slowly beginning to cramp as she desperately tried to get that last sentence in so she could proofread it over quickly.

“How are you still writing, Galanthynius?” she heard Rowan taunt, and she rolled her eyes as she finished typing out her last thought. “You seem to be losing your touch.”

“Screw off, Whitethorn,” she growled, hitting enter and then saving the document — four times but who’s counting — before turning to look at his smug face. “Maybe you finished earlier because you didn’t have nearly as much detail as I do. It’s always quality over how fast something can get done, anyway.”

“Hmm, that wouldn’t make a difference if Maeve can’t look at the document bright and early on Monday, now would it?”

“Who said anything about her not having it done by Monday morning?” she asked, her eyes scanning the document over for any typos and coherency issues.

“Such arrogance.”

“It’s called confidence, Rowan. Maybe you’d attract more girls if you had any of that,” she replied sweetly. It was a blatant lie, though. He had enough confidence in himself that she was attracted to him. Not that she’d ever, ever, make that obvious to him.

“Not like you go out on many dates, either.” Aelin saved the file yet again after another read through, and she sent it to the printer, and she stood up, moving to the printer. Rowan followed her.

“How do you know I don’t have one tonight?”

“I think you’d be bragging about it much more if you did.”

Aelin leaned against the printer as it worked, and she ran her eyes over him. It was unfair how hot he looked in a white button-up collared shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, and gray slacks, but it wasn’t like she was unaware that she looked hot today as well. It was a navy long sleeved dress with a gold belt cinching around her waist and a v-neck that went deep enough to barely be considered professional.

“I don’t need to brag about my dates,” she said, turning to pick up her papers and stapling them. “I think my clothes are enough.”

Aelin saw his eyes roam over her, lingering on the v-neck, before snapping back to her face. “I suppose so. I’ve seen you look like a nun, so this is definitely something special.”

“Aw,” she cooed. “You like it. Now, if you’d kindly get out of my way, I have something to submit before I leave.”

She walked away from him and set the report on Maeve’s desk before picking up all of her belongings and packing it away and moving to leave the office. Waiting for the elevator took a bit, and by that time Rowan had joined her, silently standing next to her. The elevator dinged, announcing its arrival, and they both got on, still in utter silence until there was a loud clanging sound as the elevator jerked. Aelin lost her balance as she let out a cry of surprise, tumbling into Rowan’s side. He grabbed onto her waist to steady her with one hand braced on the side of the elevator, and the lights within had turned off before turning to a soft blinking red.

“What’s going on?” she asked, pushing herself away from him. Rowan moved to press a button on the elevator before they both realized that the building had lost power, effectively trapping them in the elevator.

“Shit,” he cursed, “we’re stuck.”

Aelin pressed the emergency speaking button, “Hello? Is anyone there? We’re stuck in the elevator.”

The speaker crackled to life immediately afterwards, with someone asking if they were okay and how many people were in the elevator before saying that the firefighters were on their way, but it would take at least half an hour.

“Well this is fantastic,” Aelin sighed, leaning against the wall.

“Too bad you’re missing out on your date,” Rowan said.

“Yeah, well at least you get to grace yourself in my presence for a bit longer.”

“As if I need more of you in my life.”

Aelin scoffed. “People could always use more of me in their lives. You wouldn’t be having nearly as much fun at work without me.”

“WIthout you? You can’t deal with half the tech problems we get if it weren’t for me. How did you make do without me?”

“Perfectly fine, Rowan, trust me.” In their heated conversation, she hadn’t realized when she’d moved away from the wall and instead was so close to Rowan that she could feel his body heat. His hand snaked around her waist and pulled him snug against her body, and her hands landed on his firm chest.

“I don’t believe you,” he whispered.

Aelin smiled, “I don’t care.”

She wasn’t sure if she had moved first or he had, but the next thing she knew, her arms were around his neck and both his hands were on her waist as their lips moved in tandem.

He was intoxicating as his lips devoured hers, and her brain spun as her body heated up in his hold.

Holy shit, Rowan was an amazing kisser.

She leaned up on her toes to get better access to his lips, and he leaned down even further. She couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care. Who needed air when he was kissing her like that? It wasn’t possible for her to want to keep doing this with a man she hated, but her body didn’t care about that. Her body wanted Rowan’s hands all over her. Her body wanted him to slam her against the wall, hard enough that all she could feel was his body against hers.

Fortunately (or unfortunately?), her brain restarted, and Aelin pushed away from him, her chest heaving as she took gulps of air.

As the two looked at each other in silence, there wasn’t anything for them to say. She knew Rowan felt the same as she did. This was a mistake. An insanely amazing mistake, but a mistake regardless.

“This was a one time thing,” she breathed, and he nodded, his eyes still burning into her.

Thankfully, the elevator jerked slightly yet again as the speaker turned on again. “Good news, the power’s back, so everything’s fine.

“Great, thanks,” Rowan responded, and once they had arrived at the ground floor, Aelin resisted the urge to grab him again.

That could not happen again.

[where-all-the-time-went]

welcome back to puzzles' giant crate of weird yttd theories. today she brings you one she's actually kinda confident in...

alright i've just finished 3-1b (no lmao i started this post a month ago and I'm finally getting back to it today) and i was talking with an irl of mine, and like they lowkey forced me to try and explain why i felt that mr. policeman being joe's dad was important. i'd sort of thought about it a lot before but explaining it to someone who disagreed with me got me thinking, and i reached a WAY COOLER theory. wait for it. wait for it...

What if Keiji's wish was to meet Mr. Policeman's son?

So I know this instantly has some problems. First, I'm gonna present to you why I think this is true. Then, I'm gonna refute the "obvious" counterargument. This'll be fun! Haven't written one of these beasts in a while!

Keiji is the only living candidate whose wish we don't know because Sara didn't know where he was when she used the lantern. Ranmaru was quick to theorize that Keiji wished for Sara to be in the game because of his jealousy and his knowledge from the transceiver and the knowledge he was given as a dummy. Personally, I think at this point he had already used the Joe AI and some of Joe's mistrust of Keiji had waded in, and while that might support my theory later, I don't really have enough evidence to back this up, other than my confidence that he had used the Joe AI early on in 3-1a because of the dog chain scene. Regardless, this is the most we know at this point about Keiji's wish, and, well... it's wrong? Like, if it's true, there would need to be some wack-ass reasoning, but we have literally played as Keiji before and we know what his actual plan was with the Midori head, so we know that, at least in part, Ranmaru was wrong.

Before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, for those who still aren't convinced that Mr. Policeman is Joe's dad, I'd like to thank tumblr user @craftybubb (let me know if you want me to get rid of that mention, please, I just figured I should credit you with this information) for responding to my post nerding out about the Joe's dad theory:

the japanese dialogue highly suggests this. it's lost in translation but he wanted to "name his kid who is passionate about his feelings", (情に熱い漢の名前 very literal translation but it's a bit awkward in English)

情 stands out because it's pronounced as "jou" = Joe = Jou Tazuna boom

Anyway, that out of the way, I am now back, a month later, to finish this super awesome theory. I haven't proofread, nor will I proofread, anything before this, so deal with however nonsensical it sounds, this is a fucking tumblr post for Christ's sake.

So, the questions are: why did Keiji instantly trust Sara? and what is the character and plot relevance of Joe being Mr. Policeman's son?

My original thought process here was that Keiji always suspected a little bit that Joe was Mr. Policeman's son, and was thus terrified of him. First, Keiji may have been a bit paranoid that Joe would recognize him somehow, and he also may have been terrified to face up to the consequences of his own actions, those being Joe's status as an orphan. Keiji's fear of Joe is evidenced by Joe's mistrust of Keiji: there were plenty of members of the death game with equally bad intentions at the time, but very few who showed signs of some level of mistrust towards Joe. Hence, Keiji's fear would stand out to Joe. Still, my friend pointed out to me that this doesn't sound like the cool, logical Keiji, that he wouldn't think this way. Although I posited that Keiji's own trauma would prevent him from thinking rationally, I still don't think this theory quite makes sense on its own. The familial resemblance would simply never be enough evidence for Keiji to believe that Joe was Mr. Policeman's son.

So I think there was another element at play, Keiji subconsciously remembering his wish. If Keiji could wish for anything, would he not wish to apologize to the son of the man he killed? The son we now know he knew existed?

Now, we already know that the reason Joe was in the death game was to create "balance" by preventing Sara from taking a massacre route. However, it's been demonstrated through Shin's simultaneous existence as a candidate and as Kanna's wish (via Kugie) that candidates can have multiple reasons to be in the death game. In this case, it's just too much of a coincidence that Joe happens to be the son of the man Keiji killed. Furthermore, presumably, Mr. Policeman was looking into collusion between the police and Asu-Naro, since, well, everything in this game is connected, so along with the man's death, the existence of Mr. Policeman's son and murderer would instantly be known to the organization. Thus, they may have planned for Keiji to wish Joe into the death game in order to have access to both men.

uh tbh i definitely had more evidence a month ago when i first came up with this theory, and i was really convinced it wasn't just a crack theory, but i honest to god cannot remember why. so like, I'm gonna put this out there, and I'm gonna plead and beg that if this so ~inspires~ you to find more evidence, please share.

[scorpionyx9621]

Robins at the Airport

So a fun fact about IRL me is that I work in shipping & logistics and I work closely with a lot of the major airlines as both vendors and customers. And it had me thinking. How do the Robins fly? (And no I don't mean with their suits lol)

Also I'm aware that Bruce is a billionaire. Bruce without a shadow of a doubt has not only a private jet but access to a lot of personal travel supplies. That being said, even though some of our boys have definitely flown on Bruce's jet. I have no doubt since most of them are adults now, if they wanna travel they're probably flying commercial.

I'm also a filthy ♌ Leo Sun ♌ and fire signs stereotypically love to travel. So! Here's the Robins and their travel traditions.

Tim Drake

Tim is interesting because he, like Damian, actually grew up with money. Like. The Drake's were in the same tax bracket as Bruce.

Tim likes to travel and has flown everything from small little turboprops to big commercial jets to his family's and Bruce's private jet.

I feel if Tim is going commercial he's that guy who arrives at the airport 4 hours before his flight. He's catching a 7pm flight? Expect Tim to be there at 3pm.

He's that person who can find an outlet by his gate, get some overpriced airport coffee and/or food at a standard fast food restaurant, and wait down the time for his plane to arrive.

Tim dresses pretty smartly but casually. Usually a button up and some jeans with some tennis or boat shoes that are easy to slip off in security.

I don't think Tim sleeps on planes easily unless it's a red-eye. But he does just spend his time on his phone or on his laptop either watching movies or doing coding to kill time.

Dick Grayson

Prior to inheriting all that fortune from Alfred Dick loved to travel and loves airports. Both for the people watching and the jet-set atmosphere.

Traveling around alot as a child helped out with that. The Flying Grayson's almost always traveled by car so anytime Dick gets to go on a plane he gets excited.

Dick has a fascination with Technology and I can certainly see Dick being a low-key Avgeek. Seeing how these huge planes carry hundreds of people across the sky through feats of human engineering is something that makes him smile.

That being said Dick is not often on time for traveling. He always either shows up WAY too early or he's sprinting through security because his flight departs in 45 minutes and he just got to the airport.

Hell even when Dick is EARLY he ends up running late for his flights because he always ends up eating at a restaurant/bar post security with the best views of the planes and loses track of time.

Dick has missed many a flight/connection because he gets lost in the moment much fo Bruce's chagrin. Granted dropping a couple hundred to rebook Dick at a moments notice is literally just a minor hindrance for billionaire Bruce Wayne.

That being said, more than once, Bruce has had to call a charter for a private jet to pick up Dick when he got stuck at an airport and he HAD to be on the last flight out from San Francisco to Newark or Gotham.

Dick can sleep on a plane no problem. None. It's one of the few times he does ever get truly good, restful sleep. Much to the shock of everyone.

Dick always wears something athletic for flights. Usually sweats or compression pants and a hoodie with tennis shoes. He always carries his Nightwing outfit in his carry-on though much to the chagrin of his family.

Damian Wayne-Al Ghoul

BRAT

He's that person I, myself, would hate at an airport. He demands to fly private all the time because he can't be bothered to deal with the riff-raff of us poors.

He gets better as he gets older though. He still demands to fly first class at a BARE minimum and will give Bruce hell for it regardless.

Damian may be a bit snobbish when it comes to trying restaurants but he always wants to eat before he gets on a plane because plane food is gross to him.

He's fine most times though. Like Tim if you plant him in front of an outlet and give him a sketchpad and/or his video games/manga he'll be fine.

On a flight he's always very respectful to the flight staff but he will use them for what they're worth. He takes full advantage of all the perks he's given. He's not old enough to drink but he certainly will take advantage of the snacks he can get (Damian insists on flying Delta because he loves the Biscoff cookies. He doesn't like many sweets, but Biscoff cookies are his weakness.)

Damian is way too vigilant to sleep on a flight. Even if it's a red eye and even if he's flying private. He just can't seem to find a way to be comfortable.

Damian is like Dick, casual and comfortable in dress. It's an airport not a gala.

Jason Todd

So fun fact: we actually have a canon representation of Jason on a regular flight from Red Hood & The Outlaws!

Boy literally wore a blazer on a flight while Roy wore a freaking Tank Top lmao. And he was uncomfortable with Roy's behaviors but flirted with a flight attendant and one of my personal favorite minor characters/love interests in Red Hood's lore, Isabel Ardila.

Jason is also like Dick in that he actually really enjoys traveling. That being said, being legally dead and not on Bruce's best terms means Jason's a well-versed economy traveler.

I read somewhere that Jason has a small personal fortune from the assassinations he's done. But I think he still chooses to fly economy when he can. He sees flying first class as unnecessary and would rather use airline miles for free tickets than free upgrades.

Is a master of getting crap past the radar (it's called checked bags friends. Also if Jason needs to move heavier firepower he knows it's easier to just ship that shit ahead of him.

He's like Damian in that he gets everything he can out if a service. Free pretzels? You bet. Complementary drink? Give him a coke with extra ice (it's canon he likes extra ice in his drinks)

He's always extra nice and polite to all the flight staff and any TSA he sees because Jason knows he's a monster and has to work extra hard to blend in.

[justletmeplayminecraft]

okay, so thoughts on hcbbs because oh my gosh i'm really excited for this actually? spoilers below the cut <3

the swaps are so cleverly thought out! like, okay.

firstly, xb and joe. an odd pairing at first until you realise their bases focus a lot on lore and story. xb was creating little skits to figure out how somebody would actually live in his base. joe planted massive fields of berry bushes for the Story™. i am super excited to see if they try to progress those stories or just get very confused.

grian and zed oh my gosh you have no idea how excited i am. i am, admittedly, a little nervous for zed. he has a Lot of pressure on him with grian's fanbase (which grian has already attempted to mitigate by saying he's excited to see what zed will do, and saying they'll talk.) but they are the opposite end of the same chaotic energy. zed, when he wants to be, is actually a pretty decent detailer. the man-eating plant, his bed, etc look really good! he's great at giving life to places. whilst grian is really good at making places look pretty, and i think he'll find it fun to make some silly redstone as well.

also i just really want a proper collab from them.

cleo and keralis is another really smart swap. cleo's main problem right now is that she doesn't have much time irl. she's not been able to focus on her base and build it up. so having keralis's means the majority of the building is done for her, whilst keralis almost gets to spread his wings again in a new area. cleo's also going to brutally murder the secret base gang did you see her reaction to joe initially like oh boy congrats on ur like nine new bases cleo

false and tango, though we haven't seen tango's thoughts yet, i think does work super well. tango had been struggling a bit for ideas with toon towers, and false even mentioned they'd talked about his plans for the base (whether that was pre-swap or not idk.) but like false said, she's been stuck doing a very limited colour scheme all season, and now gets to branch into a new style! whilst tango is focused on among us if he doesn't want to be too involved, but has a fresh canvas for ideas if he does (which i imagine he will.)

beef and iskall is one of the ones i'm really interested about. because iskall can't really do lore, and it seems like he now owns three fox hole. but, the possible redstone he could do over there? whilst beef, i have a feeling he's gonna do some cool stuff, but he's totally going to troll with it as well. i can't wait to see what these two come up with tbh. iskall's a little busy with vault hunters but i'm curious.

stress and impulse for me is very much like,, a wildcard. their build styles are nothing alike. stress just started collecting new plans for her base whilst impulse has plans for his. impulse is a redstoner! i do think stress could really help with building and detailing impulse's base, whilst impulse could get stress some farms and i can see him taking on the challenge of that build style. impulse is nothing if not up for a challenge. i can see them being a possible pair to swap back early, though.

cub and doc are both masters of the grind. you've now plopped doc, who missed half the season, into a very complete base filled with redstone, traps, secret passages... doc's going to have a field day. (also i can't remember if the baby was due soon, but he might drop off a bit with that too.) whereas cub now has access to doc's tunnel bore, and a completely blank canvas. he doesn't need to fill out the pyramid now. they've also both been leaning into story (pharaoh versus goat mother) and i imagine they will continue to lmao

and scar & mumbo. honestly these two complement each other super well. scar's been teaching mumbo a lot about terraforming and building lately, so this feels like a natural progression? i can see mumbo bringing some much needed order to scar's base, whilst i bet, being neighbors, scar has probably looked at mumbo's and had ideas about what he'd do with it. two very different skillsets combining here!

it's also notable you've got the lil xb, joe, cleo & keralis friendship bubble. also, if mumbo is behind it, he's actually met and worked with both grian and zed irl. and it gives zed some much needed exposure bless.

however i am still devastated the zit triangle has been broken up. whoever will they steal borrow from now??

i think, as long as it's managed well behind the scenes, this is going to be super interesting. and i am super excited to see the collaborations that will come out of it.

[zosonils-art]

Pixel Man’s design interests me and I would like to know more

pixel man!! i love this bi disaster, infodump about him under the cut!

pixel works in cybersecurity, cracking open suspicious programs and mysterious files to figure out exactly what they do and why. basically what he does is open the pure code he's working on and read it line by line to figure out what it does from scratch, letting him find security flaws or hidden malware in only hours where it'd take even the most experienced human hackers months to make any progress. he's fluent in every documented language of code and can teach himself new ones, and was specifically designed to be good at learning and applying new information

he has to be really thorough and meticulous with his job, so that extends to his personality and behaviour. he double-checks everything, has some neat freak tendencies, and generally is a bit of an anxious wreck overall. he's morbidly socially awkward and has trouble with social cues, but once he's had some time to work up his confidence he can easily hold a conversation for hours just gushing nonstop about something that interests him. he's easily flustered and quickly turns into a stuttery mess when he receives praise or affection, he's such a huge dork i love him so much

when he's not working, pixel is usually finding other types of code to pull apart - he's fascinated by old video games and especially by emulation! in his spare time he likes putting together his own emulators, often on unconventional hardware like getting a gameboy to run on a smart fridge or something ridiculous like that. it's a fun exercise in creative problem solving for him, and the stakes are so low in comparison to his usual work that it's actually pretty relaxing :) [he also rips all his own roms! no piracy for this guy, he's hard-coded to follow the law even when he knows it's objectively stupid. when he gets his 'don't do crimes' code ripped out with a pair of tongs i think the first thing he'd do is download literally every rom of every single game released from 1977 to 20XX on company wifi at a horrifying speed lmao]

if he needs to, he can plug himself into almost any computer via the port in his chest to directly access files without any interface in between. this greatly increases his work speed, since he doesn't have to waste precious time translating visual information into something he can process, but it makes his own systems pretty vulnerable to malware - especially if it specifically targets robot masters, as he learns the hard way when wily takes control of him. because of this increased risk, he generally only directly accesses files if they somehow resist being displayed visually, they're stored on a computer without any wireless capability, or if the matter is REALLY time-sensitive. he typically opts to use his holographic screens instead, which can connect wirelessly to most devices and have a unique operating system built specifically to streamline pixel's job for him. like 99% of the time they're more than enough

he's weak to sugar rush because trust me, as someone who has dropped cake in a keyboard before, it's not good for computers. by that logic sugar rush would wreck the entire game, but pixel in particular has a gaping hole in his chest specifically for getting directly into his systems, and he really needs to get like a surge protector or something before someone just hucks a massive glob of icing in there. he's not well-prepared for combat at all, honestly, but with his screens modified into hard light shields he can at least defend himself and give any stray super fighting robots a nasty electric shock. sadly i don't have much of an idea for what his stage would be like yet..... given his interest in old video games and my absolute obsession with the aesthetic i could see him maybe having a stage in an arcade?

pixel is one of the first robot master ideas i ever had, but it took me ages to figure out how i wanted him to look. i think early on he looked more like bounce man in my head? whatever he started as in my brain, though, i never drew it, and somehow i ended up with this lanky minecraft man instead. a lot of his design was just made up on a whim and immediately stuck, and there's a bunch of things i tried to do but just couldn't get to work [like the aforementioned bounce-like design, and i originally wanted green and purple in his colour scheme before accepting that it wasn't going to work], but despite the pain drawing him has caused me i think he's ended up as one of my favourite ocs design-wise..... society is objectively better off since i drew big eyebrows on him in the initial microsoft paint image and liked them so much i kept them there

also, when he's working on a particularly tricky project that has him pulling all-nighters [whether strictly work-related or not], my guy goes through e tanks the way stressed students go through coffee. it's probably a problem lmao have you tried sleeping sir

it's getting pretty late so i'm gonna call the pixel infodump done for now - thank you so much for asking about this dork! like last time, here's the art without the fancy lighting for a more straightforward look at his colour scheme :D

[crayonflop]

Have the kdrama socials always been so petty and childish? Twitter esp seems a bit bleek. It mostly seems childish so I chalk it up to the influx of newer and younger western fans but I could be wrong. I started following you and most of your oomfs early this year because most of you have respectable/fun drama opinions. I see the other side of kdrama twitter every now and then when y'all comment on the nonsense and oh my,...

yeah lmao i do think it's gotten worse in the last like 2 years just bc kdramas have gotten more popular with more accessibility and i feel like the average age is now like kpop levels when it used to skew a bit older......i literally only pay attention to what the ppl i follow post too so i only see other shit when they bring it up or when random ppl start bothering me lmao like leave me alone.....i love to be in my tiny curated twitter bubble bc it is really soooo embarrassing outside of it those kids just love to make up problems