#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

Other Links & Support | Ask box | Rules 

[again-please]

✨Let's talk about OCs!✨How would you describe your OC's personality/aesthetic? What's your favourite thing about them? Tell us a fun fact(s) about your OC or their creation!

❤️Send this to at least 3 people to spread some OC appreciation!❤️

oh my god. i do feel like it's 24/7 neve hours over here already but GLADLY

i guess maybe a fun real-life fact about neve is that she existed quite a while before i ever actually PLAYED bg3. when the game was in early access i was hesitant to actually download it since i didn't have a good PC at the time, but i looooved watching the cutscenes on youtube. i wrote all of a little further without actually having played it for myself. her name was also wyn up until about five minutes before i posted chapter 1 of a little further because initially i couldn't settle on what to call her, but that was my friend's dnd character name and i didn't want to just steal it lmao.

my core concept for neve was like: the rest of the companions have such hugely dramatic backstories that it's quite difficult to come up with something on par with being a chosen of mystra or being brainwashed and memory-erased by sharrans. so how about someone with extremely human problems (debt, family shit, grief) feeling COMPLETELY out of their depth among all these incredibly heroic figures?

neve is someone who has spent her whole life measuring herself by the things she hasn't done and rarely gives herself credit for what she has done. she's always trying to disappear into her work. she makes the best of things. she's practical. she doesn't really know how to be anything other than 100% genuine. she's kind of a huge smartass. she works so hard. don't get her mad.

sorry i love her

[mecachrome]

probably very out of context, but how do you get into the nhl fandom? before i got interested in f1 i was looking for what sport to watch (other than football) and i wanted to go there because a few years ago it became a popular topic in m/m romance books (which i read a lot at the time, now i mostly read fics xd) and i found… nothing, i mean, on twt there didn't seem to be a community, i didn't see people interacting about the players, and there weren't high numbers in the posts either, i found a bit of the same thing here on tumblr and other apps, probably it's more popular on tiktok which is what is used the most? the thing is, in the end i couldn't get interested because i didn't understand anything and i ended up watching formula 1 thanks to the noise made by the stans of other fandoms that migrated there lmao

LOL anon a lot of the things you mention here that you considered to be barriers of entry are honestly a great overview of why user-restriction is more commonly practiced in the hockey archives...!

anyway i actually did some sports fandom analysis last year and i really think a large part of it is >nhl fandom is much more accessible to people in na and >football fandom is a lot more accessible to people in europe... for me personally, i've spent Most of my life in places with local hockey teams + part of my family is from a classic market so getting into hockey as a sport was like a pretty natural thing, and i loooveee going to hockey games and actually watching the sport—plus it's way cheaper, if you're in a shitty market with a shitty team you can go to one game and see the players all up close during warmies for like $20 vs. $1283749492347 to go to an f1 race. that being said though, there are definitely people from all over the world who are into the nhl and i do think it's really easy to get into! i've actually seen a lot of f1 fans migrate to hockey recently and i'd argue that it's a lot more public/mimics f1 fandom culture on twitter now (for better or worse haha) if you ever want to get back into it... i'd also say that there's lots of fic to read as well, but admittedly if you were only trying to consume hockey during the height of its like booktok surge, it probably wasn't the same landscape i was working with when i first started reading hockey fic 11 years ago. the thing is that BACK_IN_THE_DAY, hockey WAS the top-producing sports fandom on ao3, so it was super easy to invest in current narratives without feeling like you were part of some tiny grassroots community (ok exaggerated on my part but i'll get to this in a bit lol)... honestly if you just sort by kudos on ao3 while logged in there's plenty of old classics that are fun to read even if you don't understand everything! see an old graph i made below:

anyway 1) i truly think hockey is the best sport ever like as an actual sport in terms of Sportish Entertainment (forgetting the rpf for a second) and you can learn it pretty easily just by watching with a good commentator! hockey isn't like f1 where you watch a race with everyone on the grid, so that's why as an overall fandom it's more quiet and it helps to pick One (1) team you're interested in getting into and just watching their games and not worrying about the rest of the league for the moment.

for ex i'm primarily a dallas stars fan, and my main hockey blog 39oa is entirely meant for them, and they're the only team i watch All 82 Games For. i also have montembeault for other teams i like (mainly habs/nux) but i don't really update it that much anymore...

2) hockey rpf has definitely had phases with strong formative ships and the problem with it currently is that there's kind of a dearth of like active, marketable material to work with... at its peak and during the early ao3 days there was sidgeno, ship i won't name, bennguin (in some ways we still have 2 of these but it's not like at the same level of course), nickovi, i mean i could go on... tragic kings yaoi... and then the 2015 draft class revitalized things majorly (this is when i got into hockey rpf properly lol i peddled mcstromarner when they were still in juniors so hard... not many people know this) and a lot of rpf for the following years depended on them, and then of course we had the Summer of tknp which is what REALLY got things going again..... but that ship is functionally over and there's also a really prominent rivalry ship that has much less pull now that they're not actually on rival teams lol and then another ship that had rookie and_they_were_roommates narratives got separated so now it's like WHAT IS THERE TO SHIP!!! and i mean hockey is SO spread out truly, i actually have another old stats post about degrees of separation in hockey shipping but anyway... nowadays there is actually a Hawt New yaoi ship that kind of models jdtz (rookie rommates) that many people are into! so that's a fun place to start if you want to try somewhere trendy. i'm 100% sure if you sought out sharks fans on twitter in like a fandomy environment you could do so pretty easily...

3) i think part of it as you said is that hockey is a much smaller community, especially when you're interacting in the subfandoms for each individual team. some teams have HUGE markets on an IRL fandom level (canadian teams like toronto and montreal for example), but my team's being from dallas where the primary sport is american football means it has an absolutely tragic amount of news coverage and no one really cares about them much. the #southernbias in hockey is so strong ��� and then on top of that even teams with big irl fandoms might not really have the equivalent attention on tumblr because it also depends on whether they have compelling yaoi to keep the fujos interested......... but to ME that's also beautiful because even if your team's fandom is just 10 people liveblogging and making gifsets with 40 notes, it's a special sense of community and the wank/drama levels are like insanely lower, and there's more of a sense of We're in this watching sports together than like We're all going to be really mad at everything and argue about team orders all day even though the race ended 5 months ago 🥲 yes the fic outputs will be much slower than you might like but that's what i mean by the grassroots feel haha like there's really a sense of support for the fandom creativity!!! f1 can kind of feel lonely sometimes because there's so many people but they're all silent lurkers/likers :'(

also playoffs hockey will change your life. so you gotta stick around until april!!!!!!!! that's all i've got...

[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.

[pbaz7]

I have never been so early or so excited

sexual content

knowing "Yeah… I don’t know what the hell you’re going to do when I start doing everything else.” was in the last part I have a feeling this gonna be GOOD

Azzi was lying across Paige’s chest, her head tucked beneath Paige’s chin

of course she is. author if you break them up ill cry

Azzi was about to make by grabbing her hips and pulling her up so she was straddling Paige’s waist. "This is more entertaining."

damn already?!?!

Paige tilted her head, feigning offense. "That’s not what you were saying this morning."

LMAO PAIGE

"Since you started calling me annoying every two seconds. I gotta get something out of it."

I mean get urself a dub out of it

Nika strolled in, completely unbothered by the scene in front of her.

god I miss that girl

"Maybe I just like them better now," she said, glancing at Paige with smile.

better now that you don't have to go with that fugly cave woman

Paige, not liking the space between them, pulled Azzi back down for a kiss. Her hands found their way to Azzi’s waist, holding her securely as she deepened the kiss, her lips moving slowly in a way that made Azzi melt.

the things id do for this kind of love

Paige tipped her head back slightly, giving her better access, her breath hitching softly.

don't leave me in a room alone with neck kisses

"Your clothes have too much fabric,"

oh?!

"I like when you’re drunk," she added, her tone carrying some playfulness.

Azzi Fudd I know your tricks

Drunk Paige had no problem pulling her close in public, leaving lingering touches that sent sparks down Azzi’s spine, and when they got home...Well, Paige couldn’t keep her hands off her, and Azzi loved every second of it.

well damn I mean she's gotta get WASTED now

"I’m definitely getting you back for keeping me up all night the other day."

Nika omg who's the lucky gal (don't even mention that she has a bf im in mourning)

"I mean, Azzi’s loud, sure, but she’s not that loud,"

oh Nika you don't know what you've just walked in to

Paige thought for a moment before leaning forward. "$200."

damn she's CONFIDENT jeez

if there was one thing Paige knew, it was how to get Azzi to let go of her inhibitions.

proof or it didn't happen

the sweatpants hanging slightly loose on purpose

I would put this sentence on a hear me out cake

a black long-sleeved crop top that showed her entire stomach, only falling low enough to cover her chest.

someone check on Paige and make sure she's still breathing

“I move quiet when I want to,” Paige replied

certainly won't be doing that tonight

“God, can y’all not do this in public? Like, at least give the rest of us a chance to have fun without feeling single as hell!”

Aaliyah is me

wiping her lip gloss off of her.

good god ill cry

“Why do I feel like you tryna get me drunk?”

cuz she is😊

“But when you’ve had a few drinks, you don’t hold back. You’re all over me—” her voice dipped, “—and I like that a lot.”

azzi doesn't even know that she's setting Paige up for success in this bet already

Paige had her arm slung casually around Azzi’s waist or shoulders for most of it

bro p is so touchy in this I love it tho

She leaned into Paige’s touch, letting herself be pulled into her orbit completely.

FOURTH WALL BROKEN

Paige tilted her head, her eyes dark as her hands rested firmly on Azzi’s waist. “What can I say? You make it hard to behave.”

she's been practicing that line in her mirror for sure

“Because your neck is exposed,” she said, her voice dropping lower. “It’s so sexy.”

someone take away her alcohol

Azzi mumbled, her voice soft but with a slight edge of warning. “You need to behave.”

I mean you are the one who said u wanted her drunk

“Like you’re mine,” Paige replied smoothly, her words so confident and sincere that Azzi’s cheeks warmed more.

SMOOTH

Kayla plopped down on the couch, completely oblivious to the intensity of the moment she had interrupted.

Kayla ur ruining the freak for all of us

Paige sat up, her lips brushing Azzi’s ear as she said, “It’ll make you feel euphoric baby.”

oh god she's already drunk enough

Kayla watched the exchange with mild interest, still completely oblivious to the tension that was in the air.

OPEN UR EYES KAYLA BABE

Paige leaned in close, so close their lips were just a breath apart but didn’t quite touch.

Kayla messy as hell for this one

Azzi’s lips trailed over Paige’s neck as she mumbled about how pretty Paige was.

Nika might as well cough up those 200 bucks right now

Paige groaned softly, leaning her head back against the couch. “Feels too good.”

so go home! let's get this freak on the road

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Paige muttered.

literally azzi after getting away with a foul and just smiling her dimpled smile

“You have no idea how hard it is to be around you and not...you know”

omg these freaks I cant

Amber.

guys I thought this party was a cave man free zone who let her in

Paige exhaled, her body relaxing slightly under Azzi’s touch. “You’re right, I’m sorry” she admitted, her voice quieter now.

anything for the precious princess

“Azzi,” she called, her voice loud enough to cut through the haze. “Can I talk to you?”

no! hope this helps

Paige, meanwhile, didn’t even glance up. She stayed exactly where she was, her lips still brushing over Azzi’s neck, her movements unbothered by Amber’s presence.

this is giving Paige kissing Azzi's neck in against the tide while she was on the phone with that other ugly cave woman. omg wait I've just had a thought... elle and amber would be best friends

I was... immature, and I didn’t treat you the way you deserved to be treated.”

correct! you may go now

But… do you think maybe we could try again? Like, really try?”

you do realize she was kissing her girlfriend not even two minutes ago... right?

“Are you and Paige even serious? Or is this just some… thing you’re doing?”

are you... being for real? do you... want me to snatch your wig?

Paige smirked, brushing it off. “I wanna dance.”

oh god

"Don’t start something you can’t finish, P,"

oh she'll finish it. trust.

In one swift motion, Paige turned them around, pressing Azzi’s back against the wall.

public environment guys! other people are present!

“Make me,” she whispered, her fingers now lightly tracing along the waistband of Paige’s sweats.

absolutely should not have said that

Then Azzi leaned in, her lips brushing Paige’s ear as she whispered, “Take me home.”

someone unlock the car door! right now! remote start!

small I go

“Don’t hold back tonight.”

I don't think she was planning on it

“You’re already worked up,” Paige said softly. “And I haven’t even really started yet.”

good lord

update: my life has been forever changed

“M’sorry, baby,” her voice soft and muffled.

her immediately apologizing im crying

“I’m sorry for making you cry, beautiful.”

guys stop this cuteness I can't take it

“Meet me in the shower when you can walk again,”

omg did yall not get enough?!?!

“I don’t know how you go from that to this.”

don't we all azzi. don't we all

Without saying a word, she walked up to the counter, grabbed a banana, and slapped $200 onto the counter in front of Paige.

SHES SO PISSED LMAO. HAD TO GIVE UP HER SLEEP AND HER MONEY

Azzi sighed, shaking her head as she took a sip of her coffee. “Unfortunately for me, I really do,” she muttered.

this has been said irl I dare you to tell me otherwise

holy crap author. oh my lord. the freaks in ur requests better be satisfied after this.

as always, incredible writing. lysm!

-🍉

Nika strolled in, completely unbothered by the scene in front of her.

god I miss that girl

i miss Nika so bad

Nika omg who's the lucky gal (don't even mention that she has a bf im in mourning)

exactly you get it

azzi doesn't even know that she's setting Paige up for success in this bet already

she clearly got her own thing going on 😭

FOURTH WALL BROKEN

oops

this is giving Paige kissing Azzi's neck in against the tide while she was on the phone with that other ugly cave woman. omg wait l've just had a thought... elle and amber would be best friends

why did i lowkey forget about this lmao they would be besties fs

update: my life has been forever changed

you’re hilarious 😭😭

the literally better be satisfied because it’s not happening again lmao

ilysm thank you like always 🫶🏼

[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.

[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 

[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 :)

[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.

[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.

[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.