#also they had two versions of the thumbnail too it seens
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socksandbuttons · 11 months ago
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You drew it a few days ago? How'd you predict the future /genq
the thumbnail from an episode before
Like a weekish ago or something. It was either on SAMS or LAES. but definitely the design was in a thumbnail!
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goose-on-the-loose · 26 days ago
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The Darkest Hour - Styracosaurs in a Wildfire Paleoart Process Breakdown
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It’s been a long time since I’ve shared my art on this account (at some point years ago I just forgot to), but I thought that this might be a great opportunity to start posting my art again! This is my first attempt at paleoart, and I think it’s worthy of sharing. It’s for my showcase at my art school, so there were time restraints that stopped me from adding elements that I would’ve liked, but ultimately I’m quite satisfied with it.
For any budding paleoartist (or anybody really) who’d like to see my process, I put it all below the read more! @a-dinosaur-a-day (hope you don’t mind me @/ing you, i originally meant for this post to be an ask but it got too long haha)
I started off knowing that I wanted to depict some kind of ornithischian for a number of reasons. Two of the biggest reasons were that 1) I simply like them more than theropods and sauropods and 2) My senior showcase is all about showing animals in ways that the viewer hasn’t seen them before, and most people don’t really think about ornithischians except for if they’re being preyed on by a theropod.
I then narrowed my choices further by looking at different formations and what species they have. I looked up what formations parasaurolophus was in (since it’s one of my fav dinosaurs and I was thinking of making it my subject) and I saw the dinosaur park formation. Looking at the different species found there and the type of environment they lived in, I knew this formation was going to be my choice. 
I couldn’t narrow it down to one species yet, so I decided to think of some scenarios ornithischians might find themselves in first. I thought, “Oooh, what about some dinosaurs escaping from a wildfire?”, since the storyline could easily be conveyed, the lighting would be interesting, and I could get creative with the composition (flames and burning debris can create arcs to guide the viewer’s eye).
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I did some very quick simple thumbnails and sketches to get the feeling and flow of the lines. I saw some paleoart by Marzio Mereggia and I remembered one of his parasaurolophus pieces that I really liked. I also looked at the composition of the fire scene from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron for inspiration. (the tiger doodle had nothing to do with it, i just wanted to draw a tiger) The shapes and silhouettes of these species weren’t really clicking for me, so I looked back on the list and saw styracosaurus. I looked at some paleoart and realized that the silhouette and shapes of their frill and horns could really draw the viewer’s attention.
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So, I drew the top thumbnails and showed them to my teacher. He liked all of them, but especially liked the middle one, so I drew a larger version of it, making sure to elevate the best parts and communicate the story. I like to use highlighters when thumb-nailing because it helps me break down the background, middleground, and foreground while also giving attention to the focal points. I was satisfied with this layout, so I drew an even larger version of it that would be the same size as the piece of wood I would be painting on.
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I wanted to add more dimension so I changed the placement a bit. I don’t have much to say on this one, except for the final project has less background detail because each piece in our showcase has to be finished within a certain amount of time, this is also why the adult styracosaurus doesn’t have scale detail. I would’ve liked to add it, but I have to be realistic with my time.
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I then drew the sketch on the piece of wood, and then my teacher cut the excess wood off.
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Painted the background and also changed the shape of the face horn to be more accurate. I believe that styracosaurus’ horns changed with age and each individual’s grew in their own slightly different way. I do regret not pushing the dark ground colors further back.
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Started trying to figure out the colors in class here.
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Did this all the next day, took about 6-7 hours. 3 during class and the rest in my dorm. I changed/added to the rest of the face colors later, but the beak stays the same. I still really like the way I painted the beak.
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This was after 3 more hours of class time. I changed the face horn color and made the frill horns match it. I also started focusing more on highlights and shadows. This is the last photo I took during the process.
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With the final version, you can see that I warmed up the highlights to match the fire and I dulled them out too (adding yellow to purple desaturates it). I also went over the background again, making the colors more vivid and adding a glow to the fire. Ngl I do regret not adding that glow to the fire on the trees, but oh well. Live and learn ig.
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genericpuff · 1 year ago
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CvO2Fo1vbJU/?igshid=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA==
I don't know if you have seen the last thing RS posted on instagram, and I don't wanna sound mean or like I'm criticizing every single thing she does, but, why does this feels a bit off? Like, I know every author needs money, and that's why they sell books, special editions and merch from those books. But seeing how some people who went to that last "book signing" now want to order or buy ANOTHER lo book just to get an autograph or that "exclusive doodle" feels a bit... Idk, bad? Like, the fans have to spend more money than other fans just to get this stuff? It feels a bit like what happened with that Persephone + Ares book that had a special edition that was all black, but costed more than the regular edition so the fans had to spend more money if they wanted their lo novels to look good together. Idk, maybe i'm just seeing too much into it, but I still wanted to ask your opinion on the matter.
Love your work, btw. Lo rekindled is so good, and your art is beautiful!
OKAY SO
I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THIS INSTAGRAM POST LOL
so I looked into it and yeah! it's off! it's super off!
story time, but there's this band I'm really into where, 1-2 years ago, they had released two new separate EP's, and they were selling them individually as special editions, only for them to then SELL THEM ALL OVER AGAIN AS BUNDLED VERSIONS AND THIS JUST LIKE
IT FEELS VERY SIMILAR LOL
there was also a time where this Youtuber musician my husband was really into was selling vinyls, and we managed to snag a copy in the hour that they were available, only for them to start selling SIGNED copies the week after they had sold out of the original prints
it's just an overall "ech" move because it really screws over your audience for paying attention/getting in first, y'know? That's what's such a big deal about being in a fandom, a lot of people like being "first" so to sell something under the precedent that it's "limited edition" just to print more with an even COOLER thing attached feels like such a fuck you. They're literally just trying to gouge more money out of people who have already bought the thing and "need" the exclusive copy.
This just goes to show btw there was nothing stopping her from signing books personally at SDCC. That feels like such a middle finger to the people who paid money to go to and be at SDCC (travel costs AND attendance costs) esp the people who cosplayed as LO characters and were clearly specifically there for Rachel just to be given a stamp and shooed away with zero conversation (as I talked about in a previous post) and then find out later after you've already gone home days later that you can get a PERSONALLY SIGNED AND DOODLED COPY if you go and buy a brand new book in one specific bookstore. That's so lame man, I can't even.
Just to add btw, not related to your ask really, but it really goes in conjunction with it, there was a tweet recently from Rachel advertising some new t-shirts.
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But people who bought the shirts reported that they're INCREDIBLY cheaply made and don't look anything like the products listed. You can even see the low ratings on them but when you actually view them-
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I do not feel the need to say it any louder for the people in the back, it's being spoken clearly at this point - WT and Rachel are cashing out on what little merit they have left, they do not care.
AND Y'KNOW WHAT I FOUND OUT WHILE WRITING THIS POST ????
THEY CHANGED THE FUCKING THUMBNAIL!!!
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THAT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE 2 DAYS AGO, I CHECKED IT MYSELF BACK WHEN IT WAS FIRST POSTED TO REDDIT AND IT WAS THE GREEN VERSION.
THEY'RE LITERALLY CHANGING THE THUMBNAILS AND ADS TO DISCREDIT THE REVIEWS BEING LEFT.
DO NOT FALL FOR IT. BUYER BEWARE.
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archandshri · 9 months ago
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23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group
A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0
For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy. 
I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD
Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]
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The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result.  In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.
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Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]
One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city.  I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.
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Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles
Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.
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Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.
Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.
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PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)
Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.
As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.
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I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.
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Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')
RISO!!!!!!!!!!!
I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)
For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.
First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.
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With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!
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This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))
I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)
I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.
Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:
Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes
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Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.
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Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.
We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!
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The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)
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And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.
I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.
Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.
Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))
Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3
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howlingday · 3 months ago
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My idea for a potential DB! #11
2024 jun 26, 27, jul 4, aug 22, 24
PREVIOUS POST
Tenya Iida vs. A-Train
MASTER LIST
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Chaos VS Kyogre (Sonic the Hedgehog VS Pokémon) | DEATH BATTLE!
Their rains of destruction will flood and drown the world!
THUMBNAIL
FIGHTER 1: Chaos, the mutated God of Destruction of alien descent from Sonic Adventure.
FIGHTER 2: Kyogre, Pokémon’s legendary sea expander of primordial origin.
Wiz: Water is the substance that fuels all life, the sea is where life originated, and rain brings crop growth and rejuvenation.
*insert clips of the sea, flooding, and torrential downpours*
Boomstick: But too much H2O will leave you drowning or flooded, especially when it comes to these two ancient gods of rain and sea. He’s Wiz and I’m Boomstick.
Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win... a Death Battle.
PREFACE (What to know): 
For Chaos, I’ll primarily be looking at Sonic Adventure and Generations for references to power, and I’ll look at Sonic Battle for moveset. For Kyogre, the games are the primary source of Pokémon canon, so I won’t look for any anime or manga adaptation. The games I’ll be looking at for Kyogre are Pokémon Sapphire and Alpha Sapphire.
This MU also has some popularity. Brandon Yates gave us Primal Chaos (both an instrumental and vocal version), Sky / TehGM gave us Chaos Primal, and we even had a DEATH BATTLE cast episode related to this MU. You can find other MUs for these two (I noticed Chaos vs. Zygarde a few times), but this is perhaps the best MU for both due to their icons and surface-level similarities.
I will not be treating this as a Pokémon battle, so we don’t just get damage that correspond to “It’s not very effective…” attacks, and Kyogre will be using the moveset from when you encounter it during the climax of Alpha Sapphire as Primal Kyogre: Body Slam, Aqua Ring, Ice Beam, and Origin Pulse, as seen here, but I’ll still make reference to other moves because Kyogre’s thing is manipulation over rain and water.
I also looked at the VS. Battle Wiki pages for both characters, but I decided not to use their stats, only their abilities.
WHY:
Connections (What do they have in common):
1. Both are ancient water beings who were reawakened by the main antagonist of their debut games (Dr. Eggman and Archie of Team Aqua) for their big plan to change the world (Dr. Eggman wanted to conquer the world by making Chaos subservient to him and Team Aqua wanted to expand the oceans to make more room for aquatic Pokémon)
2. Both have reputations for being destructive god-like creatures with potentially world-ending power. Chaos is known for wiping out the Echidna tribe, flooding Station Square, and being one of Infinite’s “4 Horsemen”. Kyogre is known to have expanded the oceans via torrential downpour and tidal waves. At their most powerful, Perfect Chaos and Primal Kyogre both had big potential to, again, destroy the world. Perfect Chaos handedly flooded Station Square and Primal Kyogre could have drowned not just the Hoenn Region, but the entire world via rain. Their final forms even look like giant Leviathans from the Bible.
3. Both draw power from ancient stones that allow them to transform into their strongest states. Chaos becomes Perfect Chaos with the Chaos Emeralds and Kyogre becomes Primal Kyogre with the Blue Orb. Said rocks were used by the aforementioned main antagonists, but our rain gods only ended up turning against the villains.
4. Both also have connections to ancient peoples, Chaos being the descendant of the extraterrestrial Ancients that brought the Chaos Emeralds with them and Kyogre is connected to the Draconid people that prayed for Raquaza to stop the fight between the Primordials. 
5. There is a possible thematic element of peace vs chaos. Ironically, Chaos could represent peace as Chaos is the first known guardian of the Chaos Emeralds and watched over a Chao colony in ancient times. However, 3,000 years before the events of Sonic Adventure, an attack from the Knuckles Clan led to Chaos being consumed by a fury that threatened to destroy the world, but was sealed in the Master Emerald. After the events of Sonic Adventure, Chaos has only re-emerged in times of great crisis. Kyogre would represent chaos and destruction to all of its lore regarding its legendary fight for dominance against Groudon. 
Personal reasons (Why I want this battle/like this MU):
We could use a good Sonic vs Pokémon MU. Mewtwo vs. Shadow deserves to be redone with love, so in the meantime, here’s my idea.
Kyogre is also one of my all-time favorite Pokémon ever since I first played Alpha Sapphire in 2014. Chaos, while not one of my favorite Sonic characters, is intriguing to me, mainly because of its reputation from Sonic Adventure and its lore from Frontiers. Also, I liked the idea of being able to play as Chaos in Sonic Battle and I liked how Chaos looks in the Sonic Smackdown videos.
Imagine Chaos as a Pokémon. I imagine it starting as a Chaos Chao, but its first evolution would be a lot like iconic Chaos 0 and the Ancient Warrior. The limbs and body are now water and fluid. The cutesy features of the Chao start to disappear, with some scales and the brain starting to protrude from the body, but there is also a core in the chest of the beast. The eyes become a mix between the yellow of Chaos Chao and the emerald green of Perfect Chaos. The final stage would be a giant kaiju-based monster like Tyranitar, Archaludon, Groudon, etc. Scales, the monster-like eyes, the brain now exposed, and scary power with a busted ability that lets it set up beneficial weather and boost its own attacking power or speed, almost like a two-in-one Drizzle and Swift Swim. The line would have a pure Water typing until the final evolution, which would be either part Psychic or Dragon due to using the power of the Chaos Emeralds, which their abilities to affect space and time and even powerful god-like beings (Solaris, Dark Gaia, Time Eater, Nega Mother Wisp, THE END), are affected by the thoughts and emotions of the wielder, can be recharged by the planet, and are artifacts of alien origin. Either that, or Chaos would be tapping into its alien ancestry. The line would have poor speed, but its HP, Attack, and Defenses are great. Maybe it would have a stat total between 400 and 500. Maybe it could even be a pseudo legendary/member of the 600 club for a new region.
Maybe I’ll actually draw this Fakemon someday.
August 22, 2024
King Bowser VS Dr. Eggman is confirmed and is currently a work in progress. I want this to be a celebration of not only DB!’s return, but also of the eventual release of future Hard-Boiled Fury.
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Art:
THE FIGHT:
Art and animation:
It’ll be in 2D sprites. Let’s count: Sonic has had 12 fights with 11 of them being done with sprites, and Pokémon has had 6 fights with 4 of them being done in sprites. Sonic’s only none-sprite fight was the show’s 100th episode, done with hand-drawn animation, and the none-sprite Pokémon fights were done in 3D, which were the season 2 finale and the “milestone episode” 125. The fight will most likely be in 2D unless it's a season finale or milestone episode like 250 and not a pseudo milestone episode like 125 or 175.
You can find Chaos sprites, though there may be some struggling with some Kyogre sprites, so it’s likely that some custom sprites will need to be made.
Or maybe it’ll be in 3D for ease of movement for Kyogre, but I don’t know where you can find the models for it. There already is a model for Chaos if Sonic Smackdown is any indication.
Possible setup:
Groudon and Kyogre have emerged from the Seafloor Cavern and Cave of Origin. They have once again engaged in their eternal endeavor. There may be rain, but the sun is still shining.
Groudon uses Precipice Blades, but before Groudon can fully execute the attack, the land on which it stood falls and Groudon is seemingly pulled down into the water by an invisible force. The rain clouds start to quickly block out the sun. Kyogre is also struggling to control the waves as they are going against its command, until a fist made of water deals an uppercut to Kyogre’s jaw, staggering Kyogre a bit. The fist of water lands meters in front of the Sea Basin Pokémon, and it morphs into Chaos 0.
It is a time of crisis, and so Chaos has re-emerged.
Kyogre lets out its battle cry as if it were a Pokémon battle.
FIGHT!
1. Chaos enlarges a fist and strikes Kyogre and starts to unleash a combo, ending it with slamming both arms and fists into Kyogre, submerging it. Kyogre responds by spins around and strikes Chaos, like if it used Aqua Tail. Chaos retaliates by plunging his arm into the ground, causing a fountain to spring up and knock back his opponent (Upper Chaos).
2. A  Chaos Emerald quickly descends from the sky, and Chaos turns into Chaos 1. Before Kyogre could move, Chaos repeatedly starts lobbing water at Kyogre (Chaos Shot). Kyogre gets hit, but then uses a Body Slam, crashing into Chaos.Chaos then uses Chaos Strike, a ripple of Chaos Energy hitting and dazing Kyogre long enough for Chaos to dive into the water, shoot out of it like a crazed angel fish, and stretch his arms down and lands a powerful Air Chaos Strike. Kyogre, while hurt, simply launches water under immense pressure a la Hydro Pump and damages Chaos.
3. Yet another Chaos Emerald descends, and Chaos 1 becomes Chaos 2. Kyogre charges at Chaos like if it used Double Edge, but Chaos simply becomes a puddle, emerges by Kyogre’s tail, grabs it, and swings Kyogre away with a lot of effort. Kyogre enters the water again but with little trouble. Kyogre then cools the air around Chaos in a poor attempt at using Sheer Cold, momentarily freezing and greatly damaging Chaos, but then another Emerald descends. 
4. Chaos 2 becomes Chaos 3 when another Chaos Emerald descends and breaks free from the ice. Chaos jumps into the air and then strikes the Sea Basin Pokémon with a punch on the way down, inflicting a large shock that triggers an earthquake, damaging and dazing Kyogre (Chaos Impact). As Chaos then starts striking Kyogre up close again with powerful aquatic arms, Kyogre charges at Kyogre again, but as Chaos starts to hold Kyogre off, Kyogre uses Ice Beam and starts to freeze and break off Chaos’ limbs.
5. Chaos 3 becomes Chaos 4. With greater speed, Chaos starts to emerge out of the water in an arc and splash down around Kyogre, and before Kyogre could use Ice Beam again, water in the shape of tendrils suddenly forms upwards and starts bashing Kyogre. Chaos is using Chaos Splash, but Kyogre makes the water around it launch upward like if it used Water Spout, launching Chaos 4 skyward and Kygroe bounces Chaos once like a dolphin or sea lion bouncing a beach ball and then bounces Chaos away.
6. Chaos 4 absorbs two more Chaos Emeralds and turns into Chaos 6 who then turns into a giant puddle, escaping another Ice Beam and charges at Kyogre with a giant version of Chaos Dolphin, but Kyogre uses Aqua ring, and Chaos then merges with the Aqua Ring and is launched out towards whence he came, and Kyogre then launches origin pulse to launch Chaos 6 further away. Chaos then escapes back into the water and uses Chaos Heal. Kyogre continues healing with Aqua Ring.
7. The rain is pouring down, but neither beast is dead. They have their ancient stones in possession, and so draw power from them and from nature itself. With the final Chaos Emerald descending into the ocean, Chaos becomes Perfect Chaos, erupting out of the water, and with the Blue Orb, Kyogre becomes Primal Kyogre. We see the world now almost fully flooded. The rain is now pouring down furiously, and the two gods roared at each other.
8. P. Chaos launches an energy projectile, but P. Kyogre moves out of the way and strikes with an Ice Beam, severely damaging P. Chaos. As Kyogre moves around the battlefield, Chaos then lifts up water tornadoes, preventing Kyogre from moving. Chaos then bites down on Kyogre, and with one swift motion of the neck, throws Kyogre across from him.
9. Chaos wins by using power and terrain control. Perfect Chaos causes a whirlpool and then a water spout to launch Primal Kyogre skyward. As Kyogre reorients itself, it starts to use Origin Pulse. However, Perfect Chaos unleashes a faster Breath Attack and Tentacle Attack. Effectively juggling the Sea Basin Pokémon until Chaos can use Chaos Bind, freezing the air and Kyogre. Perfect Chaos then catches Kyogre in its open jaws and splits the legendary leviathan in two, the giant bloody body falling into the water. Victorious, Perfect Chaos releases a perfect roar of triumph as the rain clouds start dissipating, and rays of light start piercing down.
10. Kyogre wins by exploiting Chaos’ weaknesses. Primal Kyogre uses Ice Beam on Perfect Chaos, reducing its mobility. Chaos opens its mouth to launch a super charged laser, but Ice Beam has frozen it, and by using Ice Beam once more, but this time, on the exposed brain, Chaos is effectively done. Kyogre charges one more Origin Pulse and shatters the frozen leviathan. The clouds are now pouring waterfalls, and the sky is fully dark save for the lightning. Kyogre then gives a primal scream of victory.
11. The victor doesn’t celebrate for long because a giant green snake with ephemeral, golden, and glowing tendrils as long as its body protruding from its lower jaw descends from the sky and unleashes its own war cry. The aquatic adversary responds in kind, and another battle for the Hoenn region and the world begins. 
12. KO!
RESULT:
Strengths and weaknesses:
Chaos:
+ Perfect Chaos is powered by all 7 Chaos Emeralds, which could move pieces of Sonic’s world and power planet-destroying weapons. Perfect Chaos is more powerful.
+ The better fighter up close.
+ Several Chaos forms have hydrokinesis. Perfect Chaos can even create and control water tornadoes and entire floods, thus having terrain control in the ocean, lakes or sea in which Chaos fights.
+ Chaos 0 can cause status effects. Chaos 0 can use Chaos Bind and freeze his opponent, and so has the faster freezing option and can also use Chaos Strike, which can disorient the opponent (basically casting confusion). 
+ Chaos, at least Perfect Chaos, can change his shape into liquid, “and if dissipated, can reconstitute himself again.”
= Comparable healing. Chaos needs to stand still when using Chaos Heal while Aqua Ring is passive, but Aqua Ring doesn’t heal as fast or as effectively as Chaos Heal and will eventually wear off.
= At their strongest, both have similar flooding power. Tikal said that Chaos could eventually destroy the world and Steven said that if Kyogre’s rain/reign doesn’t stop, then the whole world will drown, not just Hoenn. Chaos may have an advantage as Tikal said that Chaos has destroyed the world before.
- The brain on Perfect Chaos is a highly exposed weak point.
- Cannot take advantage of Kyogre’s weaknesses of electricity or sapping plants.
- Slower regardless of form
- Lacks a meaningfully powerful moveset
- It is told to us that Perfect Chaos is powered by the negative energy of the Chaos Emeralds, and it is implied that this negative energy is not as powerful as positive energy, which is what is used by the Super Forms. If this is true, then it’s a matter of how much more weaker negative chaos energy is compared to its positive form. If it’s a lot, then Chaos runs the risk of being weaker than Kyogre. If it’s minimal, then Chaos remains the stronger combatant.
Kyogre:
+ Kyogre produces rain that powers up its own attacks.
+ Ironically the more agile combatant.
+ Origin Pulse and Ice Beam offer better ranged attacks.
+ Ice Beam can freeze Chaos, and Chaos has been damaged in lesser forms by being frozen.
+ If given access to moves like Thunder and Sheer Cold, then Kyogre has instant win attacks. Sheer Cold is stated to attack “with a blast of absolute-zero cold”. Thunder (which is more appropriately named as “かみなり / Lightning” in Japanese) never misses in the rain, and is described as “A wicked thunderbolt is dropped on the target to inflict damage. This may also leave the target with paralysis.” Again, this is a conditional advantage that isn’t fully common.
+ Moves like Calm Mind increase Kyogre’s resistance to energy attacks and projectiles (Special Defense) while augmenting its own energy attacks/projectile attacks (Special Attack)
= Comparable healing. Chaos needs to stand still when using Chaos Heal while Aqua Ring is passive, but Aqua Ring doesn’t heal as fast or as effectively as Chaos Heal and will eventually wear off.
= At their strongest, both have similar flooding power. Tikal said that Chaos could eventually destroy the world and Steven said that if Kyogre’s rain/reign doesn’t stop, then the whole world will drown, not just Hoenn. Chaos may have an advantage as Tikal said that Chaos has destroyed the world before.
- Limited moveset that doesn’t always take advantage of Chaos’ weakness and can be exhausted. (Power Points, aka PP)
- Kyogre doesn’t learn Thunder naturally and doesn’t always have access to Sheer Cold.
- Ice Beam only has a chance to freeze, compared to Chaos Bind which always freezes.
Ending puns:
"Kyogre couldn’t handle all this destruction and Chaos."
"Kyogre truly did rain on Chaos' parade."
MUSIC:
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Art by me. (:
Name: Raining Chaos
The name makes reference to Kyogre’s rain abilities and to Chaos directly by name. I wanted to include “Alpha” in the name to make reference to “Alpha Sapphire”, but I couldn’t think of anything. I also did not want to include “Primordial”, “Primal”, or “Origin” because most VS scores for this fight have titles referring to the ancient nature of both fighters. It will seem hypocritical considering what I’m going to do with the sound, though.
Art: The cover shows a Chaos Emerald with both the beautiful sapphire shade and alpha symbol of the Blue Orb. From it Perfect Chaos’ tentacles are emerging from under, and from above, there is a blast of Origin Pulse. If there is a background to the image like in Hearts of Light, Chaos Unraveled, and Thunder Shroud, then it will be the flooded Station Square or the flooded world
Sound: There’s really only two songs that need to be referenced: Open Your Heart and the Vs. Groudon and Kyogre music. Just use Open Your Heart’s guitars and the Kyogre and Groudon battle music’s bells and horns. I specifically think Yates should be the one to make the battle track since, as previously mentioned, gave us “Primal Chaos”.
The song starts with the iconic bells of the fight from Groudon and Kyogre with the sounds of distortion of the Primal Reversion like this mashup here. As the bells fade out, we get the starting guitars from Open Your Heart. While the sound is primarily Open Your Heart, every now and then, the guitar fades for a bit and the bells play again with Hoenn’s iconic horns in the GBA sound like Vs. Primal Kyogre & Groudon, foreshadowing the eventual primal reversion.
FINAL THOUGHTS AND WORDS:
I like the idea of Chaos winning only to have to take Kyogre’s place in the fight against Groudon and Rayquaza. By embracing the wish to destroy, Chaos only perpetuates ancient conflict and becomes a monster. Rayquaza then becomes almost a reflection of who Chaos was: a figure considered divine with legendary power that reappears when there is great conflict that threatens the world, but will become aggressive when a threat comes near.
I had to do a lot of research into Chaos’ abilities, so I hope I did a good job of portraying them alongside Kyogre’s fearsome power. I wanted to give them both respect since both are more or less gods of water, rain, and sea.
August 22, 2024:
I wanted this to be my release for June and have the next episode be for July. Obviously, that didn’t happen. DB! has since announced their return with their next episode airing October of this year. During the summer, I was struggling with my life and career choice and then my classes resumed, which is why I haven’t continued with this for almost two months.
I also had an idea of drawing the cover art for the music. After I drew my “Raining Chaos”, I decided to resume writing this for a little bit, but then I started writing more, and I thought to myself that I can get this done before my next class. Maybe I’ll make a more well done version of my drawing, but it won’t be donde digitally like all DB! track art since I have neither the tools or knowledge to draw digitally.
When the two beasts fully transform into their Leviathan forms and roar, we get an epic Crush 40-style solo like what Yates did in Primal Chaos. It’s just pure glorious guitar from there on out. The song ends similarly to Open Your Heart but with the bells from the start of the song fading out.
IDEAS THAT I HAD:
1. Kyogre vs Chaos 0 - 6, Perfect Chaos vs Primal Kyogre.
2. We see the world drowning and being flooded. Maybe the Draconids pray for Rayquaza and Tikal is praying for Chaos to find peace
3. When reaching the final transformation, they let out a titanic roar.
4. Chaos trying to attack Kyogre with Aqua Ring active, causing Chaos to be molded into the Aqua Ring and launched away.
5. Include references to Noah’s Ark and the Leviathan of Biblical fame in the analysis.
6. Chaos hearing Tikal’s prayer, remembering the Chao, and winning by embracing positive chaos energy
THANK YOU AND I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS!
NEXT TIME…!
After the A-Train/Ingenium fiasco, Vought has come under intense scrutiny and UA is losing popularity for endangering one of their students and for associating with a company that employed a Nazi like Stormfront and a questionable character in A-Train. Homelander has taken it upon himself to “fix” the problem, and while UA may have given a press conference to address the issue, Homelander, the charismatic devil that he is, started a slander campaign against the threat of “Quirkies”.
In UA, the students have left as the school day just ended. All Might is in his normal form, taking down anti-UA propaganda that people have stuck to the school protective wall as well as some anti-Vought propaganda after a long day of teaching and trying to calm down protestors outside the school making noise that were shouting that word spouted by that fellow hero, a blonde American whom All Might initially thought well of. His press conference called to action the… More unpleasant elements of society. All Might hasn’t even changed out of his costume. and as he enters his office to grade papers, he hears a voice coming from within it. 
“Ah, Toshinori. Just the man I’m looking for.” 
That voice… All Might was hoping not to have to face the man in front of him. Toshinor turns on the light and behind his desk with his legs on the table sits a middle-aged man wearing a navy blue suit, red boots, and an American flag for a cape. Homelander had snuck past UA’s defenses and gotten in. He must have been waiting for him. He was… Looking at a picture of young Midoriya and Class 1-A. 
“Homelander. Why are you here?” Toshinori was hoping that the other teachers, and especially the students, weren’t here.
After a chuckle, John replies: “That f*cking little UA goody two shoes and that moron A-Train ruined everything at Vought and are making Supes look bad, and then that red birdbrain Hawks tried to leak some confidential info. So, I decided to come here and fix the problem at its core. Step 1? Remove Quirkies, and that starts with UA and you.” Homelander puts down the picture.
“Young Ingenium is a great hero! He may have faltered, but he lifts those around him and encourages them to be their best selves! I’m sorry to hear about A-Train, but he murdered an innocent civilian, and then you decided to make Heroes with Quirks look like villains.”
“See, here’s the thing, Toshi.” Homelander sighs and he stands up, approaching the skeletal figure. “We’re heroes, right? We gotta look for the public. I. Gotta look good.”
“After that press conference you did, I can’t consider you a hero. Your words are putting my students and colleagues at risk.”
“To the people, I am a hero, the GREATEST hero. I’m saving them from this plague, your genetic diseases of superpowers that make the majority of you Japanese not even Supes. A-Train and Ingenium may have brought bad press, but it’s nothing uncontrollable, and Hawks wasn’t able to get anything. So don’t stand in my way, Toshinori. I’m a real hero, and I will save everyone from you Quirkies, and if you don’t…”
Homelander’s eyes start to glow red and he smiles evilly.
“Well, let’s just say that you’ll have a hard time being either a hero or a teacher.”
Toshinori’s cheeks then stretch downward with his lips, steam exiting his lean body that is now starting to fill in his costume. The lanky man who was more bone than skin now stood almost two feet above Homelander, with his costume now stretched by his amazingly dense muscles, and his two long strands of hair, droopy and miserable now stand proud and curved like rabbit ears. Where there was Toshinori Yagi now stands All Might, a sharp blue gleam in his eyes.
Class 1-A may be able to handle Homelander, they certainly could handle almost everything, but in front of All Might stood a villain masquerading as a hero, and it was his duty to stop villains. “As the Symbol of Hope and as their teacher, I’m warning you: Don’t you dare hurt my students.” 
FIGHT!
All Might VS Homelander (My Hero Academia VS The Boys)
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Whale, whale, whale,
Look what washed up on our shore. Another Death Battle idea? Holy mackerel! As fishy as it may seem, I smell blood in the water and we're gonna need a bigger post.
...Tuna.
Anyway, great work on another awesome idea! I can't say I've played Sonic Adventure, though 2 was definitely the best Sonic game ever. I did watch Sonic X, which briefly touched on the story of Sonic Adventure, though. I've played A LOT of Pokémon Sapphire, too, so I am very aware of Kyogre and their legendary status.
To be honest, the Chaos Emeralds do feel a bit deus ex machina, but it's not like it'd be the first time Death Battle pulled this kind of thing. The battle also feels very strange, since it's a physical fighter VS what's basically a whale ocean wizard, and Kyogre's only response to being punch in the face is either "flipper whack" or water/ice beam. Still, it was a fun fight to read, especially with Primal Chaos playing (Non-Vocal, because the lyrics can be very distracting).
Overall, great work!
As for this next fight, I'm feeling a little bit antsy. See, based on the dialogue, this is post-injury All Might, which means Homelander is going to be fighting against someone not in his prime. Also, that line about him purging the world of "Quirkies" got my blood boiling, so awesome work on that! Then again, maybe using this All Might is giving Homelander the Handicap~?
If I were to give this next battle track a name, I'd say...
PLUS BETTER
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mimicteruyo · 20 days ago
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Hello again, I’m the anon from the previous ask!
I can’t believe I was right about those two KomaEiki fanfics being connected the entire time! I remember back in I believe 2021 when I first discovered Glass Mirror, I couldn’t help but always think about the plot of that specific fanfic while listening to that Vocaloid song I mentioned in the pervious ask.
There is technically a few versions of that specific song and one of them focused more on the “tragedy” aspect of the story presented through out. I always thought that the plot of Glass Mirror fit the “tragedy” version of the song but often thought how funny it would be if there was another fanfic that was “similar” to the more main song which supposedly had a happy ending in comparison to the other version mentioned. When Reflection of Higanbana came out, everything kinda clicked when I first read it. I was able to figure out the stories were kinda connected in a way based on the title and ending alone but I can’t help but feel like I was able to fully figure everything out thanks to listening to that Vocaloid song and the other version of it. I guess never underestimated the power of Hatsune Miku.
For more more context about the song I referring to, the first version of Romeo and Cinderella is about a girl who basically want to have a happy ending like Cinderella but in the end was trapped in a predicament where her “story” could end up like Juliet’s from the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet. The other version of the song has a similar plot but the girl accepts that she will end up like Juliet rather than Cinderella. It is heavily implied that the two girls are different people and that “Juliet” was jealous of “Cinderella” for having that happy ending she longed to have.
I started making connections to the songs and the fanfics based on some of the plot elements I saw throughout both such as one having a “happy ending” and one not having the best ending. I also remember finding comments on a YouTube Nightcore video with a Eiki Shiki thumbnail where people were saying that she was like Cinderella since in the picture one of Eiki’s shoes fell off. This obviously just fueled the fire for me. I also remember pulling up the two fanfics in two different tabs side by side to make further comparisons too, it was a whole thing.
As you can see, I over analyzed the two fanfics way too much but I had fun with it.
Actually there are like two other Vocaloid songs that I felt that gave off similar vibes to KomaEiki in a way.
One of them is called Love Trial: https://youtu.be/TXzfQ0cP1P0?si=nUP6ifWIznYFA5u7
And one of them is called Ah It’s a Wonderful Cats Life: https://youtu.be/FaiU_sSifGc?si=sN76WqvKSP_PdM5y
Oh and here is an obscure KomaEiki song from the early 2010s! I’ve wanted to make fan art of it for the longest time but just haven’t found the time to make it yet. Not sure if you are familiar with this song either. https://youtu.be/gGNy2Pj73IY?si=pCIy2YpClCaj-7rL
That’s all I have on the topic of these fanfics! I hope that you enjoyed reading about me over analyzing your fanfics. You are probably the only consistent KomaEiki fanfic writer I’ve come across and I hope you continue to write about the pairing in the future!
I also hope you are able to get out of your creative slump too. I hate when that happens to me but I am sure soon something will inspire you to write again!
Here are two subliminals to help with creative burn out! Not sure if this will help you but it might make you feel better!
https://youtu.be/DOp6gI5FH3s?si=PXrwW_xET0dgrr4C
https://youtu.be/tMnlXOoVYR4?si=JtC_91EVXdaaTk_j
🐾🐾
Hi again!
Oh, that's an interesting duality to the two versions of the song. The version I listened to must've been the first one. The connection between the song and the fics makes a lot of sense now.
Thank you for the song and video recs! I'd never actually seen that KomaEiki vid before, so that's very neat!
I have indeed! Thank you, and I hope to keep writing the ship as well. This weekend has been on the rougher side, but I've made more progress this week than I did during the entirety of October and hopefully I'll be back in the saddle sooner rather than later. 💪
Thank you again and all the best in the future! 🌼
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randomshipperhere · 2 months ago
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The 31 Days Before In Space With Markiplier
!!🧹CLEANING OUT DRAFTS WRITTEN IN LIKE 2022. Posted as is last written🧹!!
A recap of what happened in the one month before the release that is more or less related to ISWM. Open to any missed info and note.
I used my time zone for this so some events may have happened hours earlier or later for others. That and also the date I found certain posts. So you have to keep those two factors in mind while reading through. Also minor note is that I write them on the day and once it’s over I do not mess with previous entries.
This post is for fandom historical purposes or in case someone needs a refresher in the future or someone is feeling nostalgic.
March 5, 2022: Mark released the official trailer for In Space with Markiplier.
He has replied to tweets, and reblogged stuff on tumblr. If you look at the keywords for the trailer, he was cheeky and typed “you’re looking for an easter egg aren’t you?”. No need to call us out.
2 Major fan agreements: Chica is seen as the most important part of the trailer, and we aren’t qualified enough to run a spaceship.
March 6, 2022: He is seen in multiple comments section of ISWM trailer reaction videos on youtube. Pretty active on social media probably reading fan reactions on all platforms he knows. Like a lurker. 
March 7, 2022: Unrelated but it sparked discussion. Matpat made a Game Theory video of Mark’s ideal Pokemon. 
March 8, 2022: Some memes about how ISWM is free and not paid got popular. Not sure the origin date of this fandom meme but he does go on a rant in “nothing strange is happening here.” about being confused why people think Distractible Podcast was paid.
March 9, 2022: Mark has interacted with his fans on twitter. Gave the fans a scare.
A fan announcement is released to change names and locations when ISWM drops. Mark himself liked an earlier version of the tweet.
Unrelated to ISWM but related to fandom matters. 10 Minute Power Hour - Season 2 Trailer on The Grumps youtube channel was posted. I’ve heard that marktwt ended up having to see his ass on their timelines for a few days. Cannot confirm nor deny.
March 10, 2022: Cursed stream. Watching the Same Video 100 Times. He has way too high of a charisma stat that there was a good amount of people went along with this insane stream from start to finish. He had a very Actor-esque monologue in the middle and got permission to show BTS photos (say Thanks Amy). Live viewers was consistently around 25k.
This is the day a good amount of the fans decided we will give him hell when the show comes out.
March 11, 2022: I’m not sure why but the Markiplier fandom on tumblr decided to make some Bald Mark edits.
March 12, 2022: The Test 2. Timestamp: 51:34. It’s another tease for ISWM but this is from the last frame of Everything has to begin with the date release from the ISWM trailer.
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March 13, 2022: Not much outside of some fans making a copypasta. “Hello. This is Markiplier. I have been logged out of my main account and I need your credit card information so I can keep making Youtube Let's Plays.”
There are variations but the main content of the copypasta is the same. Mick also posted this on his twitter.
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March 14, 2022:  Mark did a livestream “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2: REVISITED”. It managed to reach over 100k viewers live on average (probably, I was only there in the last 50 minutes). For whoever needs it. He likes being called a himbo.
March 15 & 16, 2022: Nothing noteworthy to say about these days.
March 17, 2022: Since so much nothing has happened. I’ll report that Mark uploaded Assessment Examination. Cursed Thumbnail BTW. Thanks, I hate it.
March 18, 2022: Nothing to note.
March 19, 2022: Mark went live. FNAF 3 Revisited. He mentions 1928 so WKM fans are triggered. Also briefly explains why he hasn’t been active.
March 20, 2022: Mark retweets this. 
March 21, 2022: Mark went live. FNAF 4 Revisited. I find it funny that if you ctrl+u and searched for the keywords he just keeps adding instead of changing things around. First one I didn’t get to watch live.
March 22, 2022: The Grumps: 10 Minute Power Hour. Our [REDACTED] boys doing chaotic things as usual. 2 weeks left before release, I’m assuming Mark will start messing with the fandom big time when there’s only a week left.
Mark went live and streamed Sister Location. Peaked at 106k viewers. He’s still adding keywords there.
March 23 & 24, 2022: Please move on to the next date.
March 25, 2022: On youtube, Mark started a premiere countdown.  Mark retweeted 2 fan arts on twitter. Then he had a bit too much fun over on tiktok.
March 26, 27, and 28, 2022: Please move on to the next interesting date. I guess instead of just the trailer thumbnail, we had the trailer playing too.
March 29, 2022: DING! DING! DING! DING! Something finally happened! One of the captains found a link to an unlisted video because their premiere glitched. It’s mostly the same. The only thing that has changed is that the slap is in reverse. Here is the link and from unlisted it went to private. So that link is useless now but hey, at least we have the URL.
He really played us like that huh...
March 30, 2022: Because timezones are a thing, I’m writing the part 2 here. A couple of our fellow captains found 2 codes from the video. One and two. The first one has an update. First link references Venus, and the second link is with Zeus so Jupiter. This amazing captain has a pretty solid idea. Whether this will be true or not is up to the future.
Thumbnail changes are also happening. Mark is also messing with the polls. Three times actually.
Mark liked this post on twitter.
(kinda lumped them together because I was still looking for posts of peeps trying to figure this stuff out.)
March 31, 2022: Knock! Knock! 3rd edit has us shown a robot and a new set of codes. This time it’s for Kronos aka Saturn. Differences for today’s trailer. Theory of possible upcoming codes. Link to the video that is now privated. Thumbnail change is even more fucked up with the mouth erased.
April 1, 2022: Captain Atterid with updated code results. Also better compilation post of trailer thumbnail changes. Mark changed the thumbnail for April Fools. He also seemed to stop creating a poll asking whether we had reminders on.
It was Ares this time around. Theory for upcoming planets as well.
April 2, 2022:
.
April 3, 2022:
.
April 4, 2022:
.
April 5, 2022: In Space With Markiplier releases in my time zone :)
Happy Space Expeditions fellow Captains!
.
In order: Aphrodite-Venus, Zeus-Jupiter, Kronus-Saturn, Poseidon- Neptune, Ares- Mars,
March 22: I’m assuming Mark will start messing with the fandom big time when there’s only a week left.
Hey I got it right!
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lilacerull0 · 2 years ago
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OOOOOOOOOH ok ok ok:
Panic! at the Disco
boygenius
Song: this movement of dvorak’s symphony no. 9
& Dance Fever
HEY LIZ!!!!!!!🧡 thanks for stopping by MWAH
*I am not doing the rating thing because it feels wrong to me for some reason and this is my blog -> I shall do what I please
p!atd:
Do I know them already?: yes | no 
Favourite Song: she had the world (alternate version), i have friends in holy spaces/northern downpour (they must be listed as a couple) + MUST mention crazy=genius if solely for the I'M A FUCKING ARSONIST! I'M A ROCKET SCIENTIST! it gives me too much serotonin for me to avoid it
Least Favourite Song: I am horrible at this game already, but I can't say I dislike any of the songs (that I've heard, because I still haven't gotten around to exploring the last two albums) enough to mention it in this context
Favourite Album: LIVE IN CHICAGO (a fever you can't sweat out ✅ pretty. odd ✅ alternate versions ✅ live album ✅ is this cheating?)
Song That Got Me Into Them: it was Ivy (@god-nonsensical) and YOU LIZ!!!! but you guys are songs, so this isn't cheating xoxo (I am sword-fighting the rules of this ask game and I am WINNING WOOOOO)
Seen Live: In my dreams? Sure.
boygenius:
do i know them already: yes | no (I GUESS THIS IS HOW I FINALLY START LISTENING TO PHOEBE BRIDGERS)
First Song YouTube Took Me To:
youtube
THEIR TINY DESK CONCERT AND BOY AM I GLADDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!! (omg smilesss in the thumbnail 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡)
First Impression: ME AND MY DOG???? (kissing this song but shhhhhh I wish I was on a spaceship!!!!!)
Do I like It?: lame question, next!
Would I Listen To More From Them?: listening to the ep as we blog
Song: couldn’t finish it | not my thing | it’s fine | I could get into this | ooo I like | oh hell yeah | fuck this is some good shit | there aren’t even words, this transcends words  (jo march coded!!!!!!)
I am soooooo close to crying, is all I'm saying... (THIS ASK IS AN ADVENTURE *melts* ly liz)
also:
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it is now hanging out with the girls 😎
dance fever:
Opinion On Cover Design:
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INCREDIBLE!!!!!! Well. This is Autumn de Wilde, of course it is. ALTHOUGH! Even though I think this is the perfect cover and I wouldn't change it, I must list this as my favourite picture from the photoshoot:
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IT'S JUST SO!!!!!!!! (used to be my lockscreen for a while!)
Favourite Song: THE BOMB! Closely followed by Cassandra <3
Least Favourite Song: don't have one...
Underrated Track: THE BOMB
Overrated Track: there isn't one (I wouldn't be able to answer this either way, I'm simply TERRIBLE at keeping up with events and fandoms and reviews and etc etc etc grandpa girl thingzzzzz)
ask game
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themanwiththeplan05 · 1 year ago
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Once again, it is me, here to shove unfinished art I don't think I'll ever go back to down your throats. Here goes!
I'm making multiple posts with unfinished art relating to different fandoms I like to consider myself a part of. This one is for The Stanley Parable, and features some arachnid/bug parts on characters, so... ya.
Tw for mentions of spiders, bugs, and existential dread. Arachnid art and explanations under the cut.
Homestar Runner post here
Rock on! \__/,
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The first pic was supposed to be the second prompt of Stannarratober (remember that?) where they both were dressed up. I still have a fic idea similar to that, but it won't be done anytime soon.
The second was a ribbon eel design I had for the Adventure Line since I wanted to make an underwater AU of TSP, but I didn’t go anywhere with it and completely forgot about it.
The third was going to be the cover for my fanfic "File Directory" but the writing itself took too long and I decided to abandon it.
The fourth was going to be a design for the HL2 Mod version of The Narrator.
The next one was going to be the background for a school project rap song (I'm not kidding) I made with another student. It would have been between The Narrator and Glados from Portal, and Stanley would have walked around this test chamber. No, I do not have the file it was written on, and yes, we both preformed it. No, it was not good.
This one would have been for a thumbnail for a PMV I would have made of my TimeKeeper/432's lore. As seen in the image, it would have been to TMBG'S "The End of the Rope" but I never even started it. It would have fit, I promise.
Now here's an explanation for the arachnid themed drawings!
These are two notebook sketches I made of Stanley and The Narrator, with a bonus Curator (based on a praying mantis) to get a feel for their designs. The bottom drawing is also (in my opinion) my best drawing of my Narrator.
This would have been a lineup of all my different Narrator designs (one for each iteration of the game) as seen by HL2 Narrator. I would have made one for each other character as well, including Curator and Stanley, but this one took too long so I gave up.
I was going to make a proper reference sheet for my Narrator design. I both regret and love that I based him on a spider.
This one was just made as a blinking test, since I'd never animated before that.
So yeah, that's about it. I'm done now byeeeeee
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randomshyperson · 4 years ago
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Wanda Maximoff x Reader - I bet i love you
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Gif if not mine, but i swear she looks prettier every time i look at her.
Summary: Prompt based from @ecruzsalaz: The one where Wanda is popular, and Reader is a nerd. The popular kids do a bet that Reader will fall in love with Wanda. Everything will be reveal after their trip. 
Warnings: Light angst, kissing, teasing, underage drinking, lies, Vision being an idiot completely out of canon.
Words:  13.446 k /// Read on AO3
Notes: I don’t even know what happen here. I’m been busy and this took a lot of days to be done, but it’s finally here, hope @ecruzsalaz will be satisfied haha. Good reading everyone and apologies for any typo, it sucks to translate so many words. There are a few pop culture references, i wonder if anyone will catch those.
Marks (if i forgot your name tell me i’m lost):  @mionemymind @abimess
In your last year of high school, you just wish things would be peaceful.
The previous years hadn't exactly been ideal, since you were surrounded by assholes, but you are optimistic.
Your small, select group of friends, consisting of exactly two people, who you could swear were probably the only decent human beings left in West View High School, were currently the only reason you still wanted to go to high school.
Right now, for example, you were sitting in the outer cafeteria, a book of historical fiction to escape reality plus headphones with some old rock music that you weren't really listening to, since you were so focused on the story you were reading. And then someone pulled on your headphones, and you looked up ready to complain, but the mischievous smile of your best friend Bruce Banner was all you could find.
- I've been calling you for five minutes. - He said, sitting down on the stool in front of you. You smiled, apologizing, and put your cell phone on the table. - No problem, you always do that.
You laughed awkwardly, closing the book while Bruce put his backpack on the table.
- Where is Mon? I haven't seen her today. - You tell him, but Bruce shrugs. 
- Maybe her mother changed shifts again. - He comments, and you make a noise with your mouth of agreement. Whenever Maria, your friend Monica's mother, switched shifts at work, she would be late for first periods. It has been like this since primary school.
- You still haven't let me see your schedule. - You told Bruce with a slight frown, and he laughed, going through his pockets. Then he took out his cell phone, fiddled with the screen for a few seconds, and then handed it to you. You read the attached class schedule with a frown. - Bruce! You didn't sign up for half the classes you took last year?
He shrugged, running his hands through his hair.
- Yeah, I think I'll focus more on what I want for college. - He explained a little shyly. - I was getting too anxious about all that stuff. And honestly, you should have done the same.
You made a grumbling sound with your mouth, and started biting your thumbnail as you finished looking at the schedule. You would barely have any classes together. And then you handed the cell phone back to your friend.
- I would do it if I had any idea what I wanted to major in. - You tell him. - It's better to have several interests on the curriculum, so I'll have more course options.
- You can also develop burnot. - He remarked with mild irony, and you laughed, looking away.
The bell for the first class then rang, and the two of you exchanged a look before getting up. Bruce kissed you on the cheek before heading in the opposite direction, and you grumbled lightly as you picked up your book and walked to the chemistry labs.
In the hallway of the main building, a few meters before the entrance to the lab, someone bumped into you. It was one of the boys from the team, who was laughing at something his colleague said. Your notebooks fell to the floor, and the boy looked at you with contempt.
- Watch where you're going weirdo. - He warned and you rolled your eyes.
- You're the one who bumped into me, you brute. - You grumbled angrily. The boy just laughed and walked away.
After picking your books, you stood up. The athletes at your school were jerks, but you didn't blame only them for their arrogance. The rest of the school, including the faculty, treated them as gods, so they behaved as such.
Sighing with impatience, you entered the chemistry labs, wishing that the day wasn't long.
Darcy Lewis had been your chemistry partner for three years. You smiled as you greeted her and sat down next to her. You were not friends, but she was very kind and extremely intelligent. You really thought you were very lucky to have her as your partner, and then, as if the universe would like to laugh at you, Professor Nakia announced that she was switching partners.
The whole class let out a chorus of dissatisfaction, and one student asked aloud.
- Please, Professor Nakia, we have been working with the same people for three years. Why change now?
- Excellent question, Miss Quinn. - Nakia said, smiling. She was at her desk, finishing putting her materials on top. - Three years is more than enough time for you to create tricks to cheat on my exams. 
The room exchanged complicit and guilty looks, and the teacher kept a serious posture.
- The school board found evidence to indicate this. - She explains. - I was very disappointed to learn that there were students cheating on the evaluation method not only in this class, but in several others. You will notice that all teachers with fixed groups will rotate them from now on. This was a decision made by the principal.
You rolled your eyes, annoyed that you would lose your amazing partner and were running the chance of ending up with someone irresponsible or slacker, just because some kids were careless at cheating. The room let out a chorus of understanding, and everyone began to move around as the teacher indicated the new groups. You ended up sitting with a guy named Vision, who you didn't really know, but you knew was quite popular because he was class speaker, and head of the fencing club.
- Hello, dear. - He greeted you as he sat down, putting his coat on the chair. Vision dressed very well; he was part of the group your classmates called "preps”, even if he was usually hanging out with jocks.
You made a noise with your mouth in greeting, but he didn't seem to mind your lack of sociability. 
Fortunately, Vision was a decent chemistry partner. Although he was bossy, and had a habit of interrupting or explaining as if you were stupid, he was intelligent and knew how to do the experiments. You thought that was enough, since you would only have to put up with him in this class.
Feeling a glance at you, you raised your eyes from the notebook, and were slightly startled to notice Vision looking at you with amusement and curiosity, you frowned ready to ask what's wrong, but then he let out a dry laugh.
- I knew I knew you! - he declared. - You're the Presley freak!
Vision laughed lightly nostalgically, and you felt your face flush, turning your attention back to your notebook. He was talking about the Halloween party in freshman year, where you dressed up as Elvis Presley and the track team decided to nickname you "Presley Freak" for the next whole year. The teasing died down after a while, but Vision brought it back as if it were a good memory.
Fortunately he just shook his head with amusement, and didn't mention it again. When class was over, he didn't say goodbye on his way out, but you didn't care.
//-//
The story that all the teachers followed the new norm of switching partners was true. In History, you lost your partner Bucky Barnes to sit with Natasha Romanoff, equally quiet and intelligent. For the most part, you are satisfied with the partners you got. 
But then in fourth period, biology class, you ended up partnering with someone you never imagined.
Wanda Maximoff was one of the most popular girls in school. You didn't really know her. You were classmates during elementary school, and you even became friends with her twin brother in elementary school, Pietro Maximoff, before he became a complete idiot. But other than that, you didn't know much about her. Although you had a strange sympathy for the girl. Unlike the group of girls she hung out with, Wanda never tormented you at school. Or your friends. She was probably fake and sneaky like the others, but she left you alone, so you had nothing against her.
You were pulling your biology book out of your backpack as the teacher announced the new pairs, and you stopped in mid-motion when she said Maximoff and your name.
Wanda sat down beside you the next moment, smiling politely. You shook your head slightly, dropping your backpack on the floor.
Wanda was surprisingly nice. You didn't talk about anything unrelated to the subject, but she was quick enough to catch your ironic glances when Professor Darkholme made an inappropriate comment or a funny remark, and match it with a smile or a look. 
As the class came to an end, Wanda nodded slightly at you, and you smiled back before gathering your materials.
It had been four months since classes had started, and you were already used to your new partners in class. 
Vision was inconvenient in many comments, as if he took pleasure in recalling your most embarrassing moments in high school, but you learned to change the subject quickly whenever this happened. All you had to do was pretend you didn't know about some subject he mastered, only to hear him explain it to you in the most arrogant manner possible for the next few minutes, effectively distracting him.
Natasha Romanoff was exceptionally sarcastic and ironic, and you sometimes you felt that she was a more aggressive female version of your former partner Bucky Barnes. She was quite individualistic, and you had to make an effort not to get left behind, or you had to constantly remind her that you were a duo, but otherwise she was a good partner, and you were happy to invite her to lunch with you, which eventually became a habit after a week.
And then you had Wanda Maximoff. You weren't friends, but you had a strange kind of complicity as biology partners. You never would have guessed that Wanda would have a sense of humor so similar to yours. Two classes in a row, and you already had inside jokes about the way Ms. Darkholme caught the attention of her students. Two weeks in, and you two knew how to cheat your way through assignments. You didn't know how to make friends, and judging by the history of who Wanda was hanging out with, you had the impression that she wouldn't want to develop any kind of relationship with you. And honestly, this was your last year, you wouldn't see these people again, so you were more than satisfied to have just one good lab partner.
With the mid-winter vacations approaching, you were looking forward to getting some rest.
Non-Reader Pov
- God, Wanda, why are you talking about that weirdo again? - interrupted Vision impatiently. His girlfriend blinked in confusion, looking away awkwardly.
- I'm just commenting on a joke we…
- Really, Wanda? - He interrupted again with an accusing look. - It seems like all you do lately is "comment" on your little jokes in class. - He sneers as he settles down on the sofa. The two of them stand together outside the school, their group of friends watching the discussion with amusement. - I don't know why you talk to her at all. She is so silent and awkward with me in chemistry class.
Wanda bites the inside of her cheek, looking forward. 
- I think your girlfriend has a girl crush. - Tony Stark sneered next, making everyone laugh. Wanda frowned, feeling her heart race.
- You are an idiot. - She grumbled impatiently, crossing her arms. Vision looked at her curiously.
- Honey, don't tell me that you actually appreciate that girl? - he asks ironically, and Wanda rolls her eyes without looking at him. Vision laughs. 
And then Tony is holding out a craft-paper covered bottle to Vision, and he takes a sip, coughing slightly afterwards. Wanda frowns at the scene, but none of her friends seem concerned that they are drinking during school hours, as the bottle continues to pass in everyone's hand.
- You know, I think it's sweet that you have sympathy for that freak. - Tony comments a moment later and Wanda tells him to fuck off, making him laugh. 
- I think we are witnessing a beautiful love story. - Mocks Pepper, Tony's girlfriend, approaching the three of them as she sits on Stark's lap. Wanda rolls her eyes, as the group laughs. And then Vision has a thoughtful expression.
- I have an idea. - He says slightly drunk, as he throws his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders. - Let's make a bet.
Tony and Pepper let out excited exclamations, while Wanda frowns.
- What kind of bet?
- Well, you guys remember when the weirdo dressed up as Presley for Halloween, right? - he asked, and Tony and Pepper laughed, agreeing. - And then Pietro saw her kissing that girl who hang with the bikers, Jones something.
- Jessica. - Pepper clarified before taking another sip of her drink. 
- Then we know she's a dyke. - Vision says, but Tony frowns.
- Wasn't she dating that guy with the long hair and the angry face? 
- Barnes? - Vision asked and Tony nodded. - I don't think so. Anyway, she is into girls. - he said and the group nodded in agreement. - I mean the bet is this: I can prove that she is just like everyone else in this school. Give her a bit of our attention, and she will be completely obsessed.
- Vis, what are you talking about? - Wanda asked, and Vision laughed ironically.
- It's very simple, love. - He says. - You are hot. Everyone knows that, and even someone like her, who pretends not to be part of the social circles of this school, can see that. - He clarifies, and the group looks at him intently. Wanda doesn't say that she doesn't like being objectified, swallowing the bitter feeling in her stomach. - So my bet is that you win her over. It should take what, one or two dates for her to be completely in love with you.
The friends laugh in irony and Wanda thinks she should follow, but only a forced laugh escapes. Because of the alcohol, no one notices.
- This is ridiculous. - Wanda comments and then Vision looks at her with irony.
- Unless you're getting attached to the girl, dear. - He sneers, and the group laughs. Wanda swallows dryly, shaking her head in denial. - So, what's the problem? You'll just prove me right. And you will realize that there is nothing special about her. 
- I think we can make this even more fun. - says Tony with a wicked smile. - I bet you a hundred bucks that Wanda will fall in love too.
Tony sneers and the group laughs with irony.
- As if anyone would even like that girl. - Vision declares, accepting another drink. 
- How do we make sure it's working? - Tony asks and Vision bites his lip thoughtfully. Then he lets out an exclamation.
- Our trip! - he says, and then turns to Wanda. - Love, invite the weirdo to the cabin! We can watch you work.
Wanda frowns, but then the group is suggesting ideas of conquest, and laughing, and debauchery, and she hates it. But she smiles, and nods in agreement, accepting the liquor as the bottle comes into her hand.
Reader Pov
You intended to study during the winter vacations. And maybe get out of the room a little if Bruce or Monica visited. Your surprise was genuine when in your last biology term, Wanda Maximoff started talking to you about something other than the subject.
- Hey, are you doing anything this holiday? - she comments amiably. You didn't notice the looks Tony Stark was giving you two from the front seat. 
- Huh... No?
- Are you asking me? - She replies with a smile. You blush, looking away at your notebook. Wanda bites her cheek, and it takes a moment for her to speak again. - I wanted to invite you to something.
You blink in surprise, looking at Wanda. She looks away from the board for a moment, as she wiggles her fingers against her own thigh.
- My friends and I are spending the holiday in a cabin. - She clarifies. - There's all this winter activities, you know. Skiing and stuff like that. I'd like you to come.
- Why? - The question slips out a little harshly, but you can't help it. Wanda looks away, and you almost apologize. But then Wanda smiles, shrugging.
- I'd like to get to know you better, I guess. - She says. - I think it would be fun if we could be friends outside of class.
You look at her suspiciously for a few seconds. But then you sigh, looking down at the notebooks.
- Alright, Wanda. - you say after a moment, ignoring the growing anxiety in your stomach. - Is it okay if I bring a friend?
- Of course! - She confirms excitedly. - You can take whoever you want, it's a big place. 
The teacher gives a warning for side conversations next, and you shut up. You blush when Wanda approaches you to write down her phone number in her notebook. You are distracted enough not to notice her blushing slightly when Tony Stark gives her a mischievous look. 
//-//
- So you actually said yes? - Bruce asked with surprise when you told him about the biology class, while you were having lunch together in the cafeteria. Monica had the same expression.
- Yes, and I would love it if you would go with me, because I think I am close to completely freak out. - You ask with mild desperation and your friends laugh. And then Monica is looking behind you.
- Look, I would be too. They are so... - She starts and you turn around, looking at the group of Wanda's friends a few meters away. The kids are sitting at the table, making noise with their loud laughter. One of them was throwing a football up in the air. A short boy walked past them and was pushed slightly. - I can't even define them.
You let out a grumble, laying your head on your arms on the table.
- This was a bad idea, wasn't it, guys? - you ask. - They're going to eat me alive.
- Why the long faces, nerds? - Natasha asked as she came over to the table, placing the tray of food next to Monica, staring at you. 
And then your friends explained it to her, and you groaned in dissatisfaction when she started laughing.
- You've lost your mind, haven't you? - she asked wryly. - It's a trap, I'm sure.
- There's no reason for it. - You retorted, trying to eat a little. - Besides, it was Wanda who invited me. She said she'd like us to be friends.
- Look, I know that Maximoff is the least worst of the bunch. - Nat began as she opened her soda. - But she still hangs around with those idiots. 
- Yeah, I know. - You agree with a sigh. And then you remember your classes. - I just... She has been surprisingly nice, you know? I think she was being sincere. It's just a trip, it's not the end of the world.
- Good to know you think that. - said Bruce. - Because I won't be able to go.
- What? - You then exclaim.
- I applied for an internship at S.H.I.E.L.D. Labs. - He remarks and you let out a grumble, remembering.
- Shit, it's true. - You say. - I completely forgot about it.
- Girl, I can't go either. - Informs Monica with a guilty expression, and you let out an exclamation. - I'm going to spend the holiday with my father.
You bury your face in your hands. And then you risk a glance at Natasha, and she laughs wryly.
- Don't even try. - She says. - Even if you paid me I wouldn't travel with Tony Stark.
- I'll pay you.
Nat laughs at your desperation, and stops eating, looking at you with surprising kindness.
- You, girl, are adorable and kind. A nerdy cute dork, and I'm sure that if that's not enough for those idiots, they're the problem, not you. - She assures you, and you smile wryly. - Don't worry about pleasing any of them, you're going to become friends with Wanda, aren't you? Try to enjoy the trip, and if anything happens, call me and I'll finish them all off.
You laugh, nodding slightly. You don't want to think so much about this trip, but you know it's going to be the only thing on your mind for the next few days.
The week ended quickly. And you were very anxious when the weekend arrived, and you received a text message from Wanda saying that she would pick you up at home on Saturday morning. You would spend the holiday at the Stark family's winter cottage, a property big enough to fit the whole group. Wanda said it was somewhere with mountains, near a lake, and you bit your lip, wondering if you should bring a bathing suit. Since it was snowing, you figured you wouldn't try to swim anywhere.
On Saturday you were up bright and early, your bags packed. You kissed your parents and your younger brother on the cheek before you left, finding a pickup truck parked in front of your house.
Wanda hugged you when you said good morning to her, and to the boys. Vision and Pietro were in this car, and she said that Tony was in the second car, and had gone for gas.
Vision drove towards the cabin next, and he tried a little small talk before shutting up. Wanda was in the passenger seat, and Vision let his hand rest on her thigh, and you didn't understand the bitter feeling in your stomach.
- God, put on some decent music! - asked Pietro, scrambling up on the seat beside you to reach for the radio.
- Leave it, Pietro! - complained Vision pushing the boy backwards. - You only want to play that emo shit!
Pietro laughed, not insisting. And Vision looked at you through the rearview mirror.
- Let's let our guest choose the music. - he said with a smile. You cleared your throat. 
- Okay. - You agreed, pulling your cell phone out of your pocket. You turned on Spotify next, and when Vision asked if it would be any longer, you bit the inside of your cheek. And then you put on some pop rock.
Nobody said anything, and you thought that somehow you had just passed some kind of test. But then your set list started, and when the classic rock song from the 50's started playing, Vision burst out laughing.
- They don't call you Presley Freak for nothing. - He scoffs, switching to the radio next. 
- I like it. - Wanda comments surprising you, but neither Vision nor her brother change their debauched posture.
- Yes, yes, your taste is terrible too. - He replies with irony. You bite your lips as you watch Wanda roll her eyes and look away to the window. Vision lets Pietro choose the music next.
The cabin was really very big. 
You guys met Tony's car on the way, but he didn't stop. It didn't take long for you to arrive. You smiled in appreciation at Pietro when he carried your bags inside.
You looked at the structure impressed. Tony Stark really was very rich. Hugging your arms lightly after feeling the cool breeze, you smiled politely at Wanda's other friends as they greeted you.
- I am Pepper Potts, and this is Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson. - says the blonde girl cheerfully, as she waves to the other boys. - You must have met Tony by now.
- I think I've seen all of you at school. - You say feeling out of place, but they smile as they walk into the cabin. Tony hands the bags to the other boys, and then is throwing an arm around your shoulders, and you want to push him away for the inappropriate contact.
- It's a pleasure to meet you, sweetie. - He says, and you blink when you feel the alcohol. - Who knew that nerds hid pretty girls with them?
The joke makes the group laugh, and you look around uncomfortably. Tony then releases you as you enter. 
Pepper is the one who shares the rooms, and you are happy to know that you won't be sharing with anyone. 
While you are unpacking upstairs on your bed, Wanda joins you.
- Hey. - She greets me as she enters and closes the door. You're folding your clothes.
- Hi, Wanda.
- Is everything okay? - she asks and you nod in agreement. - They can be a bit much sometimes, and I don't want you to get uncomfortable and... Do you like "Bewitched"?
The sudden question startles you and you blink in confusion. Wanda nods at the item in your hands. The T-shirt you are folding has the logo of the old sitcom you used to watch with your parents.
- Oh yes. - You sigh in agreement. - It is one of my favorite shows actually.
Wanda laughs in surprise, crossing her arms.
- Wow, I didn't know that. - She says. - I love this stuff. Vision thinks the jokes are stupid, so don't tell him I'm talking about it.
She jokes and you let out a wry exclamation.
- Why would I tell Vision anything? - You ask and Wanda hesitates slightly, but then smiles.
- No, it was just a figure of speech. - She clarifies as you fold your shirt.
- Right. - You say, not really understanding this conversation. - If you want, we can watch it together anytime. I think we'll have time to do it here.
Wanda looks at you with surprise and excitement.
- Really? I'd love to. - She confirms, and you smile as you finish packing. 
The redhead clears her throat afterwards.
- I just wanted to check on you anyway. - she says. - I think Steve is cooking dinner tonight, so join us when you' re ready.
- Okay, Wanda. - You say. - Thanks.
She smiles before leaving. You stare at the Bewitched's T-shirt on your bed for a few moments before you leave.
Steve tries to cook some chicken breast. And he almost burns the kitchen down. So you are on your feet, investigating the cupboards, and although cooking is not your favorite activity, you don't mind making some chili for everyone. 
- I love Mexican food. - Wanda comments excitedly as she stands next to you and watches you cook. The rest of the group is in the living room, the boys being very noisy as they throw a soccer ball around the room. You smile at the redhead next to you. 
- God, did you see the picture that Tabitha Smith posted on instagram? - Pepper asked aloud, staring at her cell phone. She was sitting on the kitchen counter, a look of disgust on her face. Wanda approached her and quickly looked at the screen. - She put on silicone, I'm sure of it. 
Wanda made a noise of agreement, exchanging a quick glance with you, clearly not caring one bit about the topic, and you smiled, turning your attention back to the pot. Pepper didn't notice and continued making comments about her classmates' social media posts.
- It's ready. - You announce. Your breath catches in your throat as Wanda puts her hand on your waist, leaning behind your back to taste the food. She lets out a satisfied groan, and you feel her cheeks flush.
But then she walks away next, and you struggle to disguise yourself as the boys are joining you, announcing that they are starving. 
- Wow, this is delicious. - said Pepper as soon as you sat down at the table and started to eat. The group agreed, and you blushed with embarrassment. Soon they started talking among themselves, and you tried to keep up as best you could, but the topics weren't really of interest to you.
When you got back to the room, Tony proposed that you all play a game, and then he went through the storage room and came back carrying monopoly.
At first you thought it would be innocent fun, then there were drinks and gambling. 
- It's a four! - shouted Tony excitedly. - That's my property, Wilson! 
Sam let out a grumble of dissatisfaction as he moved his figure around the board. Tony laughed mischievously.
- So, how do you want me to pay the rent?  - Sam asked and Tony made a thoughtful face. 
- With a question. - Tony announces maliciously. - Among the people in this room, tell me who would you have sex with?
Sam laughs in surprise, as the group gives a chorus of excitement. You swallow dryly, uncomfortable with the direction of the questions. So far, the questions and challenges had been innocent and slightly awkward, but after a few beers, the group was clearly getting more excited in other respects.
- Careful with your answer, friend. - Vision warned, putting his arm possessively around Wanda's shoulders. You looked away to the board.
- That might be shocking for a straight guy, Vis. - Sam remarked with mild debauchery. - But not all of us are looking at the girls.
The group laughs in surprise, and Vision rolls his eyes. 
- I would do Steve Rogers for sure. - Sam declares the next moment, and the group lets out a celebratory chorus. Steve laughs too, slightly surprised. Sam just smiles playfully, shrugging his shoulders. Then Steve steps forward, amusing himself by pretending to kiss him, and the group laughs. You smile awkwardly, not really understanding what everyone thinks is funny.
The game continues, and you are doing very well. You laugh when Pepper has to tell you all about the worst sexual experience she has ever had, but you are slightly uncomfortable when Steve has to demonstrate on a pillow his first time. A few rounds later, you grumble in dissatisfaction when you take a five and end up in jail.
- Whoa, that's has a punishment. - Tony announces when he sees your move. You look at him, and he looks excited. - Finally, Presley, your moment has come.
- Tony. - Wanda scolds him for his nickname, but Tony doesn't listen.
- Let me think about it. - He continues with a thoughtful expression, and then a mischievous gleam takes over his gaze. - Have you ever heard that shy girls are the biggest freaks in the room? 
You swallow dryly, feeling your face heat up as the group lets out a laugh. 
- I will not...
- Don't even start. - Tony interrupts your denial with a smile. - Don't spoil the fun. I'll give you a simple challenge.
You bite the inside of your cheek, frowning as you fight the urge to get up.
- Your sentence of freedom will be to give a hickey to the person who gets a six on the dice. - He declares, and the group lets out a chorus of excitement.
And then everyone is rushing to throw the dice and you cross your arms, feeling your face hot.
- If more than one person gets six, you'll give them both a hickey and win immunity for a round! - Tony laughs as he makes up the rules.
Pepper is the first to play, and lets out a despondent sigh when she draws two.  And then Steve plays next, and complains when the die lands on four. Sam and Tony don't get six either. You hold your breath when Wanda rolls, and feel your heart race when the die stops.
- This should be interesting. - Vision comments with mild irony and mischief as he takes his arm off Wanda's shoulders, picking up the die stopped at six. Tony laughs and you can't keep your eyes on the redhead.
Vision gets a four. And then Pietro gets a six, and you grumble.
- I can't believe you're going to get both of the Maximoffs! - Wilson comments with amusement and you swallow dryly, shifting uncomfortably in your seat.
- Finally some action. - Pietro jokes as he approaches. He kneels in front of you, and you take a deep breath. - Come on, Y/N, it's just a silly challenge.
He tries to reassure you with a smile, and you try to ignore the staring eyes on the two of you. You think the boys are laughing as you bring your face closer to Pietro's outstretched neck, and land your lips on his skin. He smells like aftershave lotion, but it's just embarrassing to be so close. Pietro lets out a breathless chuckle as you begin to suck on his skin, and he clenches the support of the couch.
You stop quickly, and he pulls away. The red skin glows on his neck. He flashes you the seductive smile, and you look away, listening to the group celebrating. 
- Next, please! - Tony says clearly intoxicated. You feel your racing heart echoing in your ears. Wanda gets up from the couch, and unlike her brother, she completely short-circuits your brain when she sits on your lap. You think someone whistled.
- Wanda, what are you doing? - You mumble clumsily, and she just smiles as she puts her hands on your shoulders.
- Don't you like this position? - she asks and you swallow dryly.
- Come on, girls! - Tony tells you between laughs. Someone knocks over the vodka bottle on the floor, making a mess. You think the group is barely paying attention to you, fighting among themselves to save the rest of the board and Tony's expensive rug, but you're not really taking in anything other than the girl on your lap.
You move forward, sinking your face into her neck and inhaling Wanda's scent. When you let out your breath, she trembles and squeezes your shoulder lightly, making you swallow dryly.
You let your lips kiss her skin, watching Wanda's chest rise and fall, indicating her unregulated breathing. And then you lick her skin, and she chokes. When you suck on her skin, she bites her lips hard, stopping herself from moaning.  And then you let go.
Ignoring the urge to kiss the red dot again, you throw your back against the armchair, moving away. Wanda lets out a breath, and before you can say anything, Tony is complaining that the game is over because the board has been ruined, and she rushes off your lap. 
Your face is very hot when Sam makes a snide remark to you, and then you are all saying goodnight. You don't have the courage to look at Wanda when you go up to your room.
//-//
The next day you go skiing. 
You absolutely suck at it, but so does everybody else, so nobody really cares. 
You don't want to think so much about Wanda's hands on your waist when she teaches you how to do it.
You also don't want to be so annoyed when Vision insists on getting a kiss from her while you are walking back to the cabin.
During the afternoon, you are distracted by a video game with Pietro, extremely surprised that he has invited you to do something. After dinner you go back to your room to read a little, and are astonished when Wanda appears at your door a few minutes after you have gone upstairs.
- How about we watch a sitcom together? - She invites you in, and you shrug as you smile, making space for her to enter your room. She giggles when she notices the open book on your bed. - Of course you brought a book.
You laugh awkwardly as you close the door. Wanda throws herself on your bed, opening the laptop she has brought with her. You take the book out and place it closed on the dresser, before joining her, trying to keep a respectable distance.
She ends up putting on Bewitched, and you are distracted enough by the program.
- Wow, that's kind of wrong. - You comment between giggles. And Wanda laughs lightly, turning the program's attention to you.
- What?
- The joke. - You clarify. - The way they imply that it's okay for boys to behave like that.
- Yeah, I know. - She agrees, turning her attention back to the screen. - But we're still laughing.
- Yeah. - You agree, laughing. - I guess it's okay as long as we don't find it funny in real life.
Wanda makes a noise of agreement with her mouth and then you are silent again. 
Two episodes later, Wanda suggests that you eat something. Then you go downstairs to the kitchen, and find the room empty. 
- Pietro had called the boys to play soccer. - She says. - And I think Pepper and Tony are in their room.
You nod in understanding, following her around the kitchen. Wanda starts preparing a snack for you two.
- What is it? - You ask as you observe her choice of ingredients. She smiles mischievously.
- My masterpiece. - She says. - Just trust me, you'll like it.
You laugh, nodding. When she warms the bread rolls, and starts to pour oregano on top you let out an exclamation.
- Wanda, are you sure you know what you're doing? 
She laughs, shaking her head slightly.
- Trust me on this. - She asks with a smile, starting to cut tomatoes. You cross your arms, not believing that you are actually going to eat that.
And then the sandwich is ready, and Wanda assumes a cheerful posture. She puts the bread on a plate and turns to you, leaving the object on the counter beside you.
You take a piece while she takes another, and together you taste the sandwich while Wanda looks at you expectantly.
It's surprisingly good, and you blink in amazement when you feel the taste, looking away from her to the food.
- Wow, that's good. - You comment before taking another bite. Wanda smiles.
- Really? I'm glad you like it. Vision doesn't like it very much, he says it tastes strange.
You grumble lightly, continuing to eat. Wanda pours you two some soda. You are silent for a moment and when she leaves the phone on the countertop to wash the dishes, your gaze runs quickly across the screen as you reach for your glass.
- Hey, are you into poetry? - you ask as you look at the open Instagram post.
Wanda smiles, nodding.
- That's cool, I think we follow the same page. - You comment quickly pointing to her unlocked cell phone. Wanda looks surprised.
When she finishes washing the dishes, she asks to borrow your cell phone. You spend the next thirty minutes laughing and joking as you compare your Instagram feeds and follower list. You don't want to overthink on how many common interests you have with Wanda.
//-//
On the penultimate day you want to build a snowman.
There is a Hockey game on TV, and everyone seems excited to watch. So you just walk out of the cabin while Tony hands out snacks and drinks to everyone.
You are just finishing assembling the body when you hear footsteps.
- You are very antisocial. - Wanda jokes as she approaches, hands in her pockets. You don't want to think about how adorable she looks.
- Yeah, I know. - You comment with your attention on the snowman. - It's not your friends' fault, by the way, I'm just not a big sports fan.
- All right, I don't see what's so funny about it either. - She says as she stops beside you. - Can I help you with him?
- Let me see your hands. - You ask, and she looks at you in confusion, taking her hands out of her pockets. You deny it. - No gloves, no playing. I don't want you to get hypothermia.
She laughs lightly, putting her hands back in her pockets. You turn your attention back to the snowman.
- We can go for a walk. - You suggest after a moment. - Since we're not going to watch the game.
Wanda smiles, looking away to the cabin.
- Okay.
You finish your snowman in silence. It's decent you think.
- I used to do it all the time. - You tell her as you stand up, putting your hands in your pockets. Wanda looks at you curiously. - But then I grew up and my parents thought it was a kid thing.
- Yeah, I know how that is. - She agrees as you stare at the snowman. - One birthday is all it takes for the treatment to change completely.
You nod in agreement, and then you look at her, signaling for you to go the other way.
You walk side by side in the opposite direction of the cabin.
After spending the whole way talking about the most random subjects, you end up at a small pier, at the edge of the lake that covers the entire back stretch of the cabin. You and Wanda sit side by side on the wood cross-legged.
- We should have brought something hot to drink. - You comment with a smile, hugging your arms for a moment. Wanda nods.
- So, are you enjoying the trip? - Wanda asks and you look away, smiling at the lake.
- I suppose so.
- You suppose? - She replies with amusement, making you laugh.
You clear your throat before speaking again.
- I enjoyed the time I spent with you. - You confess, looking forward. Wanda wiggles her fingers nervously, looking away from you to face the lake as well. - Don't get me wrong, Wanda. Your friends are... nice I guess. But they're not the reason I'm here.
You look at Wanda, and she nods frantically. Your heart is racing, but playing games isn't exactly your thing. You want to know what's going on.
- And you? - you ask, studying her face. - Did you enjoy the time I was here?
- Yes. - Wanda confesses breathlessly, her face flushing slightly. 
Swallowing hard, you look away to the lake again. And then you slowly move your hand against the wood, reaching for Wanda's hand next. You give it enough time for her to move away, or to strike you, and she does neither. Feeling your heart soar, you intertwine your hands, holding back a sigh at how good it feels even when wearing gloves.
Several minutes later, you let out an excited exclamation when you hear a noise in the nearby forest. Turning your head, you confirm your suspicions. A small white fox is looking at you curiously. 
You help Wanda to get up quietly and slowly so as not to startle the animal.
- Hey. - You say softly to the animal, walking towards it. The fox looks at you wide-eyed, but your posture doesn't frighten him. You smile when he lets you pet him.
- He is so cute. - Wanda comments softly, kneeling down beside you. The fox lies down on the grass as the redhead strokes his head.
He tires of the attention quickly however, and the next moment he gives you a look before running back into the forest. You and Wanda laugh lightly as you two stand up.
You walk back to the cabin in silence, a tension in the air that makes your stomach turn. You don't hold hands, but you walk very close together. 
When you are almost to the cabin area, you stand in front of Wanda, pushing her by the waist against a tree. You both sigh breathlessly, but you lose the courage. It's not right, not yet. Resting your forehead on hers, resisting the urge to kiss her, you close your eyes.
- Leave him. - You say and Wanda squeezes her hands in your arms.
Wanda lets out a sigh, closing her eyes like you did, and your faces come closer together.
- I won't share you, Wanda. - You whisper against her lips. - Either you're with me, or you're not.
Resisting the urge to close the distance, you sigh and turn away. Wanda's pupils are dilated as she looks at you. You lock your jaw, putting your hands in your pockets. And then you turn around, and disguise it nicely when Pepper comes out of the cabin, asking where you were, and you just smile and say you went for a walk.
//-//
Vision and Wanda argue on the last day at the cabin. 
You frown as your awakened by the volume of the argument. But you decide not to pry, and when Pepper signals for you to join her on her morning walk, you agree.
- You know, you are surprisingly nice. - She comments as you two take a break for some water.
- Thanks, I guess. - You mumble, and she laughs.
- What I mean is that nerds are usually know-it-all types and not at all sociable. - She explains. - You're quiet, but you're fun.
- Who says I'm not a know-it-all. - You retort with amusement, and Pepper laughs as you walk back.
- I'm just saying that it turned out to be nice to invite you over despite everything.
- Despite everything what?
Pepper laughs awkwardly, shaking her head.
- The differences between our groups I say. - She quickly clarifies. You don't perceive the lie. - Maybe there is a chance for us to remain friends after here.
- Why wouldn't we? - you ask confused. Pepper seems to be talking as if it is impossible for you to continue talking to each other after the trip is over, and you don't understand why.
Pepper blinks in embarrassment, and then pats your arm, hurrying her steps.
- It's nothing, I'm just overthinking it. - she says. - I'm sure it will all work out.
You don't ask any more questions because she's walking too fast, and exercise isn't really your thing. You're struggling to keep up.
//-//
After your walk with Pepper, you agreed to let Steve teach you how to play a bit of hockey. And then you all had lunch together, and Wanda avoided all your attempts to start a conversation with her. You figured she was upset with her boyfriend, so you didn't press her.
Later in the afternoon, after you played snowball wars with everyone, and perhaps laughed more than appropriate when Wanda kept hitting Vision in the face, Steve made a fire in the backyard area and everyone gathered around.
- Let's tell some horror stories, please? - Pietro asked as he sat down, and Tony slapped him on the head, laughing. 
- You are such a baby. - he sneered, holding out a bottle of whiskey to Steve. You rolled your eyes, impatient with Stark's annoying mania for proving his maturity.
Then he began to share sex stories, and the group seemed happy to join in. The bottle swirled around, and you let it pass you by without taking a sip. It stopped at Wanda, and she drank much more than anyone else.
- And you, Y/N, don't you have any sinful stories to share with the group? - teased Tony ironically, and you rolled your eyes.
- I prefer to be silent.
Tony laughed at her hostility.
- Now all that's left is for you to say you're a virgin! - he sneered, causing the group to laugh. You exchanged a quick glance with Wanda, who didn't even seem to be listening, the whiskey bottle still in her hands.
- I'm not, but if I were that wouldn't be your business - You retort impatiently. Tony whistles impressed.
- Tell us how it was! - he asks excitedly. - I bet it was Jessica Jones who fucked the weirdo!
You stand up abruptly as the group laughs.
- You're drunk, and you're talking shit. - you say angrily. - But if you ever annoy me again, I will punch you right in the face!
Tony seems slightly impressed by your attitude, but he is clearly drunk so he shrugs his shoulders. You then leave, returning to your room.
Non-Reader Povs
- What is your problem? - Pietro complained as soon as Y/N entered the cabin. Tony blinked surprised and alcoholic.
- It was just a joke, it's not my fault she's weird. - He retorted with a wry laugh.
Pietro let out an irritated exclamation.
- You know what? - He spoke angrily, looking at everyone. - What we're doing is wrong.
- What was that? - Vision sneered, but Pietro looked at him seriously.
- You heard me. - he said, getting up. - She's a nice girl and she's been fun to be with. That bet was stupid.
The teens exchange guilty glances, but then Tony and Vision are laughing.
- One hickey and you're in love, Maximoff? - Vision sneered and stood up, as Pietro clenched his jaw. 
- You're an asshole. 
- Oh, I'm an asshole? - Vision retorted ironically. - This little scene of yours is absurd, treating your friends as if we were the villains of the story. - he says laughing. - The girl is a weirdo who must be absolutely fascinated that people like us even talk to her!
Pietro looks at him impatiently, but Vision does not lose his debauched posture.
- Shut up. - Wanda's drunken speech startles the group. Vision turns to her in surprise, but then he laughs.
- That's excellent. - He says. - Both Maximoffs teaming up against the group.
- You're full of shit. - Wanda exclaimed angrily, getting up, and Vision shook her head. - She's not...
- She's not what dear? - He interrupted. - You know I'm right. In fact, I bet if you go up to her room right now, you won't even need to ask twice and she'll fuck you.
- Vision! - Pietro exclaims angrily, but he stares only at the redhead, who has her jaw clenched.
- Everyone just wants to fuck you, Wandy. - He says. - There's nothing worthwhile beyond that.
Wanda holds back the tears in her eyes, bumping into Vision as she leaves, and the boy laughs, shouting between giggles that he was only joking, but the redhead doesn't turn around. 
- That was cruel. - Potts then said, and Vision let out a wry laugh.
- It was just a joke. - He says and sits back down. - You girls are so sentimental. 
Pietro then leaves, and Vision rolls his eyes. Steve and Sam exchange a look with Pepper.
- You can't really think it's okay to say something like that to your girlfriend. - Steve said annoyed. Vision laughs, incredulous at Steve's insinuation. - What is it, people? - he replies. - I just said she's hot, how is that a bad thing?
- You know, Pietro is right. - Steve said as he got up. - This whole story is absurd. - Steve, come on. - No, he is right. - Sam then agreed. And then Pepper stood up, exchanging a look with Tony. - Good, then. - Vision exclaims angrily. - Be my guests! I suppose you'll start hanging out with the school's weirdos on Monday then. You guys are a joke. Hypocrites. Vision grumbles before exiting angrily, walking towards the trail. The group exchanged a guilty look.
Reader Pov
You had just finished showering and putting on your pajamas when Wanda came into your room. You frowned in surprise, and let out an exclamation when she pushed you onto the bed and sat you on your lap.
- What are you doing? - you asked, and Wanda just grumbled, trying to unbutton your pajamas, but clearly too drunk to do so. - Wanda, stop. Wanda!
- That's what you want, isn't it? - She retorts with irritation, but her eyes are filled with tears. - Everyone wants to fuck the hot girl.
- Wanda, what are you talking about?
But then she's crying, falling against you. You let your arms go around her, trying to calm her down. She only stops crying when she falls asleep.
You don't know what has happened, but you feel your heart clench. Moving to the bed, you lay Wanda down on the mattress, then cover her with the blanket. 
When you consider going to sleep in the living room, she takes your hand and whispers "stay," and you obey her.
//-//
You wake up with Wanda entwined with you. It is warm and comforting, and you smile shyly at the sensation. 
The redhead starts to wake up next, grumbling as she buries her face in your neck, making you smile.
- We have to get up. - You whisper to her. - We're leaving.
- In a minute.
She says and it really only takes a moment for her to open her eyes, and be startled by the position. She awkwardly pulls away from your embrace, but still lies there. You turn on the bed to look at her, resting your face on your hand.
- I'm sorry about last night. - She says embarrassed, looking down.
- No problem. - You say. - But what was that about anyway?
Wanda sighs, running her hands through her hair as she stares at the ceiling, her back on the mattress.
- Vision told me some stupid things, and well, I believed him. - She says and you look at her curiously. With your silence, she clarifies. - It was just some comments he used to make about my body, okay? Things like, people are only interested in me because I'm hot.
You frown, surprised and annoyed. 
- That's bullshit.
Wanda looks at you, surprised that you said something. You look into her eyes as you speak again.
- Your boyfriend is an insecure scumbag who uses your body insecurities against you. It's sick. - You tell her seriously. - You, Wanda Maximoff, are completely passionate for a thousand reasons other than your looks. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
You smile at Wanda's surprised expression, letting your fingers wander across her features. 
- Do you really mean that? - she asks insecurely, and you give her a tender look.
- You're sweet. - You start, letting your fingers caress her cheek. - Smart and sincere. You have this different energy, like you never fit anywhere and you're absolutely magnetic. - You tell her. - And of course, you also laugh at my jokes, which suggests that you are as sarcastic and perceptive as I am. 
Wanda smiles and closes her eyes for a second, and then looks at you with almost guilt.
- Can I ask you a random question?
- Sure.
- If someone needed to apologize to you, what would be the best way?
- This is a very specific question, Wanda. Should I be concerned? - You retort with mild amusement, and Wanda quickly denies it.
- Come on, answer me. - She asks, and you giggle.
- I don't know, Wanda. - You say laughing, and roll your eyes slightly. - I guess it would depend on what the person did. - You explain, and Wanda looks at you with a frown. - What's that face, what would your answer be then?
- Food. - She says and you look at her with confusion. - The person would only have to buy me food and apologize and I would forgive them.
You let out a laugh, and Wanda follows. And then you assume a thoughtful posture.
- Honestly, I don't think if there is a right way. - You tell her. - I would like the person to be honest with me, and explain to me what happened. - You say, and Wanda nods with a serious expression. - That, or a really cheesy apology act.
- What? - Wanda asks with amusement.
- Yes, like in those old movies. - You clarify with a slight laugh. - If someone apologizes in the rain, or with a serenade at my window, I would probably forgive that person for the shame they are going through for me.
You and Wanda laugh and then your alarm clock starts to ring, signaling that it was already time for everyone to get up and go home. You sigh slightly.
As you sit up in bed, throwing your feet out, Wanda hugs your back, surprising you.
- Thank you. - She says against your ear. - Don't give up on me yet, okay?
You frown in confusion, laughing without understanding Wanda's seriousness. You squeeze your hands together, but then she lets go. 
- Is everything all right? - you ask as she turns around on the bed and stands up in front of you. Wanda swallows dryly, nodding. She smiles before she leaves, and you ignore the strange feeling that has settled on the pit of your stomach as you stand up toward the bathroom.
//-//
The way back to your house is strangely silent. It seems that all of Wanda's friends have changed their personalities overnight. Pietro gives you a quick hug across the shoulders as you get out of the car, and Wanda kisses your cheek. Vision doesn't look at you.
You call your friends as soon as you finish packing your things in your room. And everyone is extremely surprised when you share what has happened in the last few days.
When you return to school the next day, you are feeling excited. 
Your first class is Biology, which means that you would have some time alone with Wanda, and while you wait for the starting bell, sitting on the benches outside with your friends, Wanda's group passes you by. 
You frown as you notice Vision with his arm around Wanda, and she quickly looks away when she notices you watching. You clench your jaw at the childish attitude, and then you are getting up and walking toward the table they have chosen.
- Can I talk to you? - You ask the redhead directly, who seems to have trouble keeping her gaze on you. Her friends also look awkward, as if they are almost embarrassed, and none of them look at you for very long. Completely unlike Vision, who has a smug posture and a wry smile.
- Leave my girlfriend alone, freak. - He then says, and you blink in surprise.
- What is your problem? - You retort in irritation and Vision lets out a wry laugh.
- What is your problem? - He repeats, getting up and facing you. You don't hesitate, but you don't understand why everyone just stares at you. - What did you think was going to happen, huh? That you would start hanging out with the cool kids?
You look at him in confusion, and then he crosses his arms.
- I just want to talk to Wanda.
Vision laughed, looking mocking.
- You're so stupid. - He accused and you took a step back. - The bet is off girl, Wanda has nothing to say.
You blink in confusion, and the redhead is getting up, pulling on her boyfriend's forearm, but you look at them feeling your heart racing.
- What are you talking about?
Vision laughs, releasing Wanda's grip. You think she whispered "Please don't," but you are trying to understand what is going on.
- Oh, your dear friend didn't tell you? - he asks debauchedly. - We had a bet. I was sure you'd be completely obsessed with Wanda by the end of the holiday, and look at you! Here you are. I don't blame you though, Wanda is hot.
You choke in surprise, taking another step back. You risk a glance at the rest of the group, and they have their heads down, guilty looks on their faces. And then you look at Wanda, eyes watering as she clenches her fists. Feeling your heart break, and your stomach clench, you nod.
- Y/N, I can explain. - Wanda starts and you laugh, running your hands through your hair.
- I've always defended you. - You say, putting your hands in your pockets. - When people told me you were false and deceitful, I defended you. I really thought you were different from them.
- I....
- I can't believe I trusted you. - You say. - Never speak to me again, Wanda Maximoff.
You turned around walking away, ignoring the times the redhead called your name as you held back your tears. 
//-//
Your mother told the school that you were sick.
That's how you felt anyway.
It had been three days since you had left your room. Bruce, Monica and Natasha were sending you all the school content you were missing, and you struggled to keep your focus on that and not on the heartbreak that seemed to take over your whole body.
The weekend arrived again, and you decided to get some fresh air. You were on your balcony, sipping hot chocolate when Nat came into your yard.
- Hey, stranger. - She greets you with a smile, sitting down on the seat in front of you. You give her a sad smile.
- Hi, Nat. 
- How are you?
You shrug, and she sighs.
- It will pass, I promise. - She says and you drink some of your chocolate. - By the way, I'm suspended.
- What? - You ask in surprise, and she giggles, showing you the bandage on the fingers of her right hand.
- I punched Vision in the nose shortly after you left the cafeteria. - She tells you, and you widen your eyes in surprise. - I didn't say anything before because I didn't want you to feel guilty.
- Nat! - you exclaim, slightly upset, looking at her hand. - You didn't have to do that.
- I know. - she says with a slight laugh. - But you are my friend, and he is an idiot. You're a dork who doesn't have the strength to hurt a fly, but I have a feeling you'd do the same for me.
You laugh, nodding.
- I would probably get beat up in reality.
Nat laughs in agreement.
You are silent for a moment, until Nat speaks again.
- I hate to see you like this. - She comments, and you sigh, leaving the coffee mug on the table. 
- I hate feeling like this too. 
Nat sighs, opening her arms. You accept her invitation to hug her, and sit down next to her on the bench, letting her wrap you in a side hug.
- You'll come out of this, dear. - She starts to say as she strokes your hair. - Next year you'll be in college, with so many people wanting to get into your pants that you won't even remember who Wanda Maximoff was.
You laugh shyly.
- I hope you are right. - You grumble, closing your eyes.
- I always am.
//-//
You go back to school the following week.
Your body always seems to notice that Wanda is in the same room as you, even though she is meters away, but you learn to deal with the feeling.
You talked to the biology teacher on Monday morning. Apparently, the news quickly spread throughout the school, and she did not refuse to change your partner. 
It wasn't an ideal scenario knowing that everyone in the school was feeling sorry for you, but at least you wouldn't have to talk to Wanda in class.
And so two weeks passed.
You were almost getting used to the feeling as you walked towards the main building, after stopping by the library and returning the physics books you were using, when you heard a commotion in the courtyard.
There was already a circle of students around, and you were considering turning around, because fights are not really your thing, but you had a feeling you should check it out. 
As you slipped in among the students, you let out a surprised exclamation.
- Bruce! - You shouted as you threw the bag on the ground and lunged forward, but the boy who was fighting with your friend just turned around when you jumped at him, breaking free of your grip and laughing with irony and anger. He slapped you in the face that drew a surprised chorus from the crowd. You staggered back with the impact, feeling your face burn. But you stepped forward again, but he gave you a hard shove that knocked you to the ground. As you got up to go forward again, someone grabbed you around the waist. - Pietro, let me go! Help him!
You let out another exclamation when the boy punched Bruce in the face, but Pietro pushed you away from the fight, and Steve held you by the arms in the crowd. Pietro lunged at the boy next, while Bruce fell unconscious.
You broke free of Steve's grip and ran to your friend, and then there were teachers all around you, and you were all being led into the principal's office.
The counselor motioned for you to sit in one of the chairs to wait your turn, and you used this moment to send messages to your friends. Monica told you that she heard about the fight, but that she was in the history room when it happened. Natasha didn't answer, and when she appeared in front of you, you frowned.
- Nat, Bruce he...
- I know. - She interrupted seriously with an almost tearful expression. - He was fighting for me.
- For you? What?
Nat shook her head, looking toward the direction door.
- I told him not to get involved, but he is stubborn. - She says and then takes a deep breath. - That boy over there, his name is Clint. He's my ex. He... he hit me.
- Whoa, what?
- I know, it's too much to explain. - She says. - Me and Bruce, we... we've been going out for a few weeks now. And Clint wasn't happy when he found out. I told Bruce not to get involved but…
- Hey, Nat breathes. - You interrupt by seeing her eyes filled with tears. - This is not your fault.
You hug your friend, trying to calm her down. It doesn't take long for Monica to reach you two.
Soon the director calls you to give your side of the story, and you just tell him that you arrived in the middle of the fight. As you leave, the principal asks you to go to the infirmary and only then you remember that you were beaten.
You give up the idea of getting a bandage when you find Pietro and the group of friends, including Wanda, in the infirmary, but as soon as the nurse lays eyes on you, she pulls you in, sitting you down on one of the free beds.
She starts grumbling that the students have decided to behave like savages as she rushes over with the first aid kits to attend to all the students who were in the infirmary. You don't quite understand what happened, but it seemed that some kids had made a mess in the pesticide gardening class, so there were several students with red spots on their arms complaining of pain.
- It's okay, I can do it. - You tell the nurse as soon as she approaches you with the first aid kit. She looks at you suspiciously, but then a student at your back lets out a complaint and she sighs, handing the items to you as she leaves. You get up to look in the small mirror on the edge of the bed. There is a small cut on your cheek. That guy really hit hard.
While you were preparing the alcohol swab, Wanda walked over to you. You stared at her reflection in the mirror.
- I can help you with this. - She said about the bandage.
- I don't need your help. - You retorted harshly. Wanda looked at the floor. 
- I am sorry. 
You blinked in surprise, and turned away in irritation.
- No.  - You warned, and Wanda swallowed hard.  She looked at you, ready to start talking again, but then you shook your head. - Don't you dare.
- Please…
But you left right away, bumping into her shoulder.
Almost four weeks, and your chest still hurts just the same. 
You think the nurse has called you, but you keep walking towards the exit. 
When you reached the outer courtyard, you collapsed. 
Sitting on the floor, and trying to control your breathing and your crying, you were startled when someone touched your shoulders. Monica didn't ask questions, she just hugged you.
- I can't do it, Mon. - You said between sobs. - I love her so much it feels like I'm going to suffocate.
- Shh, it's okay. - Monica tried to calm you down as she ran her hands down your back.
- Why can't I move on? She hurt me, why can't I stop loving her? - you asked in desperation. Monica just kept calming you. 
- I know it feels like the end of the world now. - Monica says. - But I promise it will pass.
You cried for a few more minutes, trying to push or smother the pain away. It wasn't fair the way Wanda had your broken heart in her hand.
//-//
Bruce did not suffer any serious injuries.
You visited him in the infirmary as soon as he was released from the principal's office. He was worried about your swollen crying eyes, but you assured him that everything was fine.
And then he told you that he was in love with Natasha, and that Clint had been expelled. You shook his hand, saying that everything would be all right now. Soon Nat was in the room with you, hugging Bruce, while you went out with Monica to get something to eat.
The week passed quietly after this. 
Your friends started the "Moving on squad", and they did everything to keep you distracted and well cared for. It was sweet and caring, and it was enough to keep your feelings well under control.
A few days after that mess, you needed to buy tomato sauce for your mother and found Pietro Maximoff in the supermarket checkout line.
- Hey. - He greeted you politely. You felt your heart race at the possibility that he was with his sister. 
- Hi, Pietro. - You answered in the same tone.
You were checking around for signs of the redhead, but Pietro was alone. He said something about the prices, and you just grumbled in agreement, and then it was your turn.
In the parking lot, while you were unlocking your bike, he approached you again.
- I want to apologize to you. - He announced as he approached, and you let out a sigh.
- Look Pietro...
- No. - He interrupts with a quick smile. - I meant it. I'm really sorry. You're a nice girl, and we were idiots. 
You stare at him for a moment, then go back to picking the lock.
- Is that all?
- Yes. - He confirms with a wry smile. But when he turns around, you call out to him.
- I... Thank you for that day. - You say. - You pulled me out of the fight. I probably would have got hurt if... what I mean is... 
- It's all right.- He interrupts with a smile. - It was nothing. 
You nodded and he smiled, turning again and walking away. You finished unlocking the lock and got on your bike.
//-//
The next week you were surprised to find a box of chocolate in your closet.
Nat exchanged a mischievous look with you, and you rolled your eyes absentmindedly, opening the package. It didn't have a name on it, and only said "you are cute". 
- I can't believe you have a secret admirer. - Monica commented excitedly when you told her during lunch. Bruce and Natasha were sitting next to you, laughing lightly as they talked among themselves.
- Neither do I. - You comment with humor. - But the chocolates were good at least.
- I think it’s sweet. - She comments with a smile, and you shrug, blushing.
- It's weird. - You say with a slight laugh, and Monica squeezes your red cheeks lightly, saying that you're adorable, making you laugh. - Damn, I'm terrible at these things.
You start talking about the upcoming exams after that, and then the break ends.
It is in the last period of PE that you speak with Pietro again several days after you saw him last.
- Hey. - He greets you with an excited nod. You smile politely as you tie your shoelaces. 
- Hi. - You say as he joins you.
- Are you going to the game on Saturday? - he asks, causing you to frown. 
- I'm not...
- My god this guy never gives up. - He interrupts with a scowl, looking at something behind you. You turn your head to see what it is, and notice Vision talking to Wanda several feet ahead, near the bleachers. The redhead looks impatient, and you feel your heart ache just by looking directly at her. Shifting your gaze back to Pietro, you notice that he is still grimacing. - They've been broken up for over a month and he still keeps insisting.
You blink in surprise and Pietro looks back at you.
- They broke up?
- I thought you knew. - He quips, slightly surprised, and then shrugs his shoulders. - They broke up that day in the yard. Wanda slapped him in the face in front of the whole school, everyone talked about it for weeks.
- I'm not really into school gossip. - You comment and Pietro laughs.
- Of course not.
You stand up next, your gaze quickly shifting to Wanda, but you disguise it by looking at Pietro, who has an expectant expression on his face. Then you remember the question and let out an exclamation, running your hands through your hair.
- I'm not into sports, Pietro. - You tell him and he nods in understanding, looking upset. - But I like the food. And Natasha loves the games, so maybe I'll show up with my friends there.
Pietro lets out an excited exclamation, and gives you a pat on the shoulder, saying he hopes you can make it, before heading out onto the court. 
You ignore the nervous feeling in your stomach when your gaze meets Wanda's on the other side of the court, and you quickly turn away, starting to do your exercises for class.
//-//
You were slightly surprised by Natasha's outfit. She was covered head to toe in school colors, down to a commemorative hat and matching socks. You looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but she just smiled as she pulled you by the hand to Monica's truck.
- How is the story about the secret admirer going? - Nat asked as you sat in the back seat, and Monica drove to school and Bruce fiddled with the radio.
- I received flowers on Wednesday. - You tell with a smile. - And a collection of special gift vouchers.
- What are these? - She asked curiously, and Monica laughed lightly as you felt your cheeks flush.
- It's a special kind of ... eh ... vouchers for hugs, kisses, that sort of thing. - You mumbled clumsily and Natasha laughed.
- My goodness, look at your face! - She laughed. - You are loving how corny this is.
You grumbled with a hot face, turning your gaze to the window. Bruce chose a very good song next, and your friends started singing along. It didn't take long before you joined them.
//-//
The school stadium was quite crowded. Senior year games always had scouts from universities, so you weren't surprised by family members, and well-dressed strangers in the stands, as well as faculty. 
- Wow, Mom is going to have fun today. - Monica commented as two you walked to the bleachers. She was looking at her cell phone, and showed you a picture of two glasses of wine that Maria had sent her. - She has a date.
- Have you met them? - you asked curiously, and Monica made a noise with her mouth of agreement.
- She's from the Air Force. Very pretty and fun, and she treated me very well. - She told you with a smile. - I hope everything works out between them, Mom deserves to be happy.
You nod in agreement and then you find empty chairs. Bruce and Natasha join you many moments later, carrying the food. 
- Yay, fries. - Monica says excitedly as Natasha distributes the food among you.
The band then enters the stadium. And the crowd seems excited, you and Monica laugh at Natasha's excitement.
As soon as the band makes their formation, the cheerleaders enter the field and the crowd cheers. You try not to look at Wanda so immediately, but that is exactly what you do. When they are all in the center, and finish the performance with lots of applause, the director gets up on the stage and starts announcing the game.
- And without further ado, West View High let's...
The principal is interrupted abruptly by one of the students. You and the audience watch intently as Pepper nudges the principal on the shoulder, and he turns around confused and surprised. She smiles innocently as she quickly takes the microphone from his hand.
- We had a slight change of plans, West View. - she announces, smiling. And then the band is moving on, and you recognize the music quickly. It was an old rock song. The audience sings along excitedly, surprised and in shock, but still happy with the music. 
As the music plays, Pepper turns back to the director, and they discuss something. He lets out a sigh and shakes his head, and she gives an excited little jump, and then is joining the cheering team again.
When the song ends, it is not Pepper who comes up to the podium with the microphone, but Wanda, which generates a lot of comments from the audience.
- Is that? - Natasha starts and you feel your stomach turn.
- Yep.
- Hello West View. - Wanda begins looking nervous, the audience looks at her in anticipation. - Many of you must think me a complete bitch after the rumors that surfaced a few weeks ago.
- Oh my God. - You mumble clumsily, feeling the stares of some people on you. 
- I think I should explain what happened. - Wanda says tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and ignoring the comments from the audience, she continues talking. - My ex-boyfriend and my best friends decided to make a bet. - She explains, and you clench your jaw. - He bet my friends that if I gave even the slightest bit of attention to our colleague, Y/N Y/L/N, she would become obsessed with me in one weekend. - The audience seems shocked by the confessions, but Wanda was looking at you. - The funny thing is, it was the exact opposite. Y/N is this amazing girl, sweet and caring, and I can't stop thinking about her. It must be because I am completely in love with her. - She confessed, and you felt your eyes fill with tears. - But I blew it. I was mean and cruel, and I'm sorry. I'm here to apologize to you Y/N, and you don't even have to forgive me. I just wanted you to know.
The audience erupted in murmurs at the confession, and you were in shock to react. Wanda was also teary-eyed. 
A mixture of "forgive her" and " start the game" and various other comments began to grow louder, and then Director Fury was approaching Wanda, and asking for the microphone back. She took one last look at you, before bowing her head and walking off the field. The audience let out a mixed chorus of celebration and sadness, and then Monica was pushing you slightly, and you waved frantically as you hurried to catch up to Wanda.
- I can't believe you did that! - You shout at her as soon as you reach her in the gymnasium hallway, the noise of the game starting muffled by the distance.
Wanda turns around in surprise, wiping away tears.
- I just...
- When I said the perfect apology would be like a cliché, I can't believe you took it seriously. - You comment as you approach laughing lightly. Wanda looks surprised at your friendly posture. - You are such a dork.
And then you kiss her as you bring your hands to her waist, and she sighs in astonishment, but responds the next second, trembling as your tongues touch. 
You push her against the wall of the hallway, and she slips her arms around your shoulders, melting into the kiss. You separate your mouths for breath.
- I'm sorry. - She asks again with her eyes closed. - I'm really sorry.
- I know. - You agree breathlessly. - Just... don't ever do anything like that again. 
She nods in agreement, kissing you again. It's delicious the way your tongues feel together, making your head spin. You are blushing because Wanda is sighing and making a warm tightness rise in the pit of your stomach.
- I love you too, Wands. - You confess against her lips and she opens her eyes in surprise, you look at her with a smile. - I guess ever since you laughed at my joke in biology class.
Wanda lets out a short laugh, her eyes sparkling with joy.
- I love you. - She answers by kissing you quickly. - I love you. - She repeats and starts depositing kisses all over your face, making you laugh. She repeats and repeats until you kiss her again, intensely this time.
You stay like this for several minutes. Exchanging not-so-innocent kisses against the gymnasium wall. Until the first half of the game is over, and you hear the sound of the players returning to the locker room, and then Pietro is reaching for you, making a false threatening posture when he notices your swollen lips, and Wanda's lipstick on your face.
- Please get a room. - He then jokes, continuing on his way to the locker room. 
You and Wanda agree to leave the stadium, wanting to enjoy some time together without the stares of the audience on you.
You two end up in the back of Monica's truck, staring up at the stars, your hands entwined.
- So it was you who sent the presents. - You conclude by looking at Wanda quickly, to catch her blushing cheeks.
- I was trying to find a way to talk to you. - She explained, turning to you, releasing her hand only to stroke your cheek. - That's why I made the voucher “worth a conversation”.
You laughed lightly, looking at her fondly.
- I liked the kiss coupon. - You say with amusement and she raises her eyebrow, smiling. 
- Yeah? - She replies, bringing your faces together and stealing a lingering kiss from you.
- Best one.
Wanda laughs, pulling away a little. You swallow dryly, watching her carefully. 
- What happens now? - you ask, and Wanda looks into your eyes.
- I don't know. - She says. - But I hope we'll be together in the end.
You smile, nodding. 
- We will. - You assure her before adjusting your position to embrace her. Wanda snuggles against you, enjoying your warmth.
1K notes · View notes
vintagesimstress · 4 years ago
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1896 puffy spring dress
Hi everyone!
The moment I saw this beautiful dress from May 1896 I knew that as soon as May arrives, I'll have to make it. I feel like I still didn't do those sleeves justice - they are too extra to replicate them properly! Still, I think those are the biggest sleeves I've ever seen on a TS4 outfit, so mission at least partially accomplished.
I started off with striped swatches, per original picture, but got bored with them quickly and switched to floral patterns instead. Therefore, watch out: the dress comes in two standalone, separate packages! I had to split them, as both designs needed slightly different uv maps to look any good. Keep that in mind if you want to recolour!
The striped package comes in 13 swatches, the patterned one - in 20:
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Also, the colours of the stripes have been chosen especially to go well with Ruffle hat by @acanthus-sims​ and 1890s hat by @simsfromthepast​. The patterns are just me having fun with pretty stuff ;). I guess most of them come from Annett's page?
polycount: ca. 7K for LOD0
Base Game compatible
HQ mod compatible (pictures taken with the mod - I highly advise using it, especially for the patterned version!)
all LODs
custom thumbnail, bump and specular maps, shine on (almost) everything
tagged as everyday and hot weather
found under long dress subcategory
colour tagged
allowed for random
PDNs for recolours included - you don’t need them for the mesh to work. Let me know if you’d rather have the PSD files!
Known problems: stripes can become blurry in game, depending on the camera angle and distance. I have no idea why it's happening - patterns don't come with this problem and they use exactly the same mesh (and only slightly edited uv map). I guess TS4 hates stripes in general? I had it happen to me already with some earlier pieces, with some border deco stripes. Other than that, nothing!
I hope this dress will help your sims enjoy the warmer days in style :). Enjoy!
DOWNLOAD (free on Patreon, no ads)
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***
Terms of Use
Don’t: claim it’s yours or monetise in any way
Do: convert, recolour, include the mesh, edit the mesh to create something amazing - just please tag me once you publish it, so that I could also see it!
607 notes · View notes
Text
Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (9)
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(c!technoblade x fem!reader)
(so people showed they liked chapter 8 well enough so I wrote chapter 9! also how miffed would everyone be if... this was also maybe a dreamxd x reader fic? like idk i’m just having some persuasive thoughts. also don’t forget to show this chapter some love or I won’t have the motivation to do chapter 10! reblogs and comments are the best! <3)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wilbur did not like this ‘Reader’ person. God she was just as bad as Quackity, coming into L’manberg and making demands and acting like they even HAD a say in HIS country. Now more than ever he wished he’d have just exiled Quackity instead of humoring him with this ridiculous election. There shouldn’t BE an election. HE was the rightful president of this country! He fought and died for this country. Put his blood, sweat, and tears into it! HIM! Not them! 
“-ur?”
This whole election thing was a mistake. He should have just listened to his gut.
“ilbur?”
But he’d been pressured by everyone to ‘be fair’ or whatever. Nobody knew what was best for L’manberg but HIM. 
“Wilbur!”
The curly brunet jolted a bit at the sudden shout to his left, he blinked and felt himself unfurrow his eyebrows before looking over at his vice president. Said teenager was looking at him curiously, eyebrows raised in a questioning way. No doubt wondering what his friend was doing just standing there silently and chewing on his thumbnail like a madman. He was still tense but gave a quick ‘sorry’ before saying he was just lost in thought.
Tommy gave a semi awkward laugh and joked that it looked like he was trying to catch the wall he was staring at on fire just by staring at it. Wilbur gave a polite chuckle at the younger man’s attempt at mood lightening humor before sobering instantly and saying in a deadly serious tone that had the blond stiffening up anxiously,
“I don’t like this ‘Reader’ person you’ve been hanging out with Tommy. She seems really judgmental and arrogant. Not to mention her attitude. She’s argumentative and childish. She very clearly doesn’t care about you or L’manberg.”
That last part hit Tommy right in the chest like the blow from a size 12 boot. How could Wibur say that? You did care! You did! You wouldn’t have-.. People who don’t care wouldn’t-.. 
Tommy’s hurt showed on his face, making Wilbur sigh in sympathy before clapping the younger boy on the shoulder and saying that it would be best for him to just focus on the L’manberg election. This Reader person was just serving as a distraction from Tommy’s job as vice president anyways. And Tommy didn’t want that, right? Wilbur had entrusted him to be his VP over everyone else. He couldn’t slack on that, right? Tommy just gave a mumbled ‘yeah, s’pose not’ but it was clear he didn’t have his heart in it, though that was all the affirmation Wilbur needed to think the conversation was over..
-0-
You sat in the audience with Tubbo and Fundy for a bit while the candidates talked to each other up on the stage. Fundy seemed sweet, if not a bit mischievous. Though you supposed that should be expected from a fox hybrid. You smiled when his ears went back after you asked why his uniform was a lighter color than the others, unable to not think he looked adorable. But when he huffed, pretty obviously upset but trying not to show it, you frowned. And you pursed your lips when he explained that it was in ‘baby colors’ because Wilbur thought it would be cute for his ‘little champion’ to have a different uniform compared to everyone else.
You couldn’t help but awkwardly ask, “Aren’t you an adult though?” To which Fundy gave a slightly loud and exasperated, “YES!” that made you feel sorry for the poor hybrid. You gave him a reassuring look and said that well if he didn’t like the uniform then he didn’t have to wear it. Or if he liked it save for the color then just dye it darker to match the others. Fundy looked a bit put out and replied that he’d thought about dying it or just not wearing it but then his dad would be all depressed and hurt. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes and say that he shouldn’t set himself on fire to keep others warm.
“You don’t have to do whatever your dad wants you to just because he’s your dad or cuz he’ll be sad. You’re an adult now Fundy. It’s time you make decisions for yourself in mind, not your dad.”
Fundy started up at you with wide eyes, like he’d never heard anyone tell him that before. Which was worrying but you put it out of your mind before continuing,
“Caring about others is important, yes. But you can’t let yourself be miserable just to avoid maybe making your dad sorta bummed out. That doesn’t seem fair to you.”
Tubbo chimed in from his spot to your left and said that the uniform was a symbol of their independence from the Dream Smp, they wore it to show they were loyal to L’manberg. He didn’t say it accusingly or even angrily, just in a factual matter-of-fact way. You said that might be true but then asked why Fundy’s uniform was different? Shouldn’t they all look the same if they supposedly stood for the same thing? If they’re meant to have a deeper meaning then they shouldn’t be altered for a joke. You said he had to see how that would make Fundy feel left out. You asked how Tubbo would feel if he were the only one with a different uniform and stood out. The brunet boy’s goatish ears drooped and he mumbled that he’d be sad. You ruffled his hair and turned back to Fundy.
“Look Fundy, if you wanna keep wearing the uniform as it is, that’s fine. If you wanna wear it but only after altering the color, that’s also fine. But if you wanna drop the uniform altogether then that’s fine too. It’s up to you, Fundy.”
Fundy looked contemplative, like he’d never thought he’d had a choice in the matter. But here he was with three whole options thanks to you. He honestly wasn’t sure which one he’d end up choosing, he had a lot to think about. But he gave you a grateful little smile and soft ‘thanks’ that made the corners of your lips quirk up. Though your chat soon came to an end when Fundy saw Niki approaching. He and Tubbo waved happily to her and gestured for her to come over. She stared up at you with mostly hidden surprise and said hello before Fundy introduced you both. Niki looked almost shy as she gave a short wave up to you. You chuckled and greeted her warmly and said you liked her uniform, pointing out hers was a different color than the others, like Fundy’s. She looked down at her blue version of the L’manberg uniform and flashed a grin and said,
“Yeah, I just liked the lighter blues better than the bright red and navy.”
You brightened and gently tapped Fundy’s shoulder with the back of your hand and cheerfully pointed out that if Niki could choose to alter her uniform from the original she was given then he should be able to do the same no problem. His ears twitched happily and he grinned, showing off his canines and nodding. This led Niki to asking him what you meant and him explaining he wasn’t happy with how his uniform was dyed. She agreed with you, if he wasn’t happy then he should change the color. But she joked that he should avoid any bright greens… Fundy let out a bark of laughter before Niki gasped and pointed out they, as in she and Fundy, had to go get ready. Tubbo raised an eyebrow and asked if they were still planning on running in the election. Fundy sighed and said yes, like he’d been giving that same answer repeatedly. He probably had been, sadly.. 
“Oh, you’re both running for president and vice president?” You asked good naturedly. 
Fundy nodded, waiting for you to give some kind of remark about him running, or how it was against his dad, or something else. But instead you just flashed him an encouraging smile and wished him and Niki good luck. You glanced at the fox hybrid and the blonde next to him before nodding and commenting that they both looked smart, with good heads on their shoulders. You thought they’d do just fine. Fundy’s tail was wagging from the genuine encouragement, making Niki giggle a little. The two did actually have to go get ready, so you and Tubbo said good luck and waved them off before chatting about this and that. The election speeches would be starting soon..
-0-
He was watching her again. 
He couldn’t help it. He’d started watching her just to ensure she wasn’t going to pose a threat to the server, but the more he watched her the more he started to actually enjoy it. She was like him and Drista, maybe not exactly, but more than anyone else on the server. But at the same time she was so incredibly different. Seeing her interact with villagers and mobs and now players was intriguing. She was so much more powerful than all of them combined, but she had no trouble blending in like she was just another player. End sake, most of them even seemed to gravitate towards her!
The only other time he’d seen a deity blend in so well with mortals was… Dream. But he tried not to think about that too much.
His currently invisible form phased through the building he’d been lurking beside, going up until he had a better view of the seats in the audience by the stage. He watched her and the small hybrid boy she’d endeared herself to bid a fox hybrid and blonde girl goodbye before taking their seats. He watched her sit and talk happily with the brown haired boy so easily. He wanted to learn to do that. It may be foolish but he wants to be like her. Happy, open, accepted, loved. He’s powerful, yes. He’s the most powerful being on this server without a doubt. But… it gets lonely. Sure Drista is around sometimes but she sleeps so often, preferring her dream world more than the waking one. And Dream… well that’s complicated. 
His brother and him have a… tense relationship after the whole ‘falling from grace’ debacle that happened so long ago. Dream barely speaks to him anymore. Actually the last time they’d spoken face to face was after that silly little war Dream had been in not too long ago. He’d told him that he just wanted to sleep afterwards. At the time he didn’t bother to involve himself in the daily lives of the server’s players like Dream did so he wasn’t exactly sure of the intricacies of the whole ‘disagreement’ that led to the fighting. But according to Dream some players wanted to govern themselves because drugs? It all sounded utterly stupid to him so he just sort of didn’t absorb any of the details Dream was complaining about. To him it seemed like the more involved with the players Dream got the more stressed out and tired he became. Though he hadn’t spoken to Dream since their last talk when Dream had vented about all of this. 
‘Perhaps I should visit my brother soon,’ the floating entity thought with a hum before he faded from the realm, drifting back to the End.
-0-
Some time had passed and during it you chatted with Tubbo casually, idly noting all the people who started to trickle into the seats around you. You recognized most in one way or another. Some more than others. Like you’d watched a good deal of the ‘main characters’ on the dsmp. And while you knew the names and skins of the lesser involved players you didn’t watch their videos much. Like Callahan, Punz, and Ponk. You knew the bare bones info about them. In fact most of what you knew was from clips and animatics you’d seen on youtube..
You tuned back into the election, watched from the front row as the rally began. It looked like Quackity was going first, alone too it seemed since George was nowhere to be found. Apparently he was ‘too busy being gorgeous’ to bother showing up. You pursed your lips when you noticed Quackity was sounding a touch nervous at first. Which you could understand, speaking in front of a crowd was always tough. Especially if you’re not really used to it, which even then you’d heard that public speakers said they never truly got rid of the jitters going out in front of a crowd causes. So you sent some good vibes to Quackity, he may not be the one you necessarily want winning this election but.. well you don’t want him to embarrass himself either. But it turns out he.. didn’t do great but didn’t bomb either. It didn’t help that the others running were making little comments through his speech. 
He spoke about caring about the people of L’manberg and how his endorsement was KSI, despite the fact KSI hadn’t replied back to him. Not a great start. Also Jesus Christ himself apparently. That had actually made you laugh a little. And you laughed louder when you heard the chime to signify you’d gotten a message, only in multiple around you. Turns out everyone had gotten a message from Dream on the main channel. 
<Dream> god endorses swag2020
Quackity laughed, cheering loudly while Wilbur rolled his eyes and Tommy sighed. Then it was Pog2020’s turn to show off their endorsements. The first of which being Vikkstar it seemed. You couldn’t help but think it was so surreal to see these… well normal people from real life being canon characters in the Dream SMP universe… apparently. Well that seemed to make the crowd go wild in disbelief and amusement while Tommy pounded his fist on the podium triumphantly while Wilbur cheered. After that Wilbur shoved Tommy aside so he could speak into the podium and said he also brought in an endorsement. And then he introduced…. Schlatt. You wanted to facepalm so bad. You’d actually forgotten this part from the videos. It had totally slipped your mind that Wilbur was the reason Schlatt even knew about the damn election in the first place. 
And to top it off the man was clearly drunk or at least hungover. He didn’t even seem to know where the hell he was. Idly you wondered when he got unbanned by Dream as you watched the messages from Schlatt roll through on the message system. It was mostly him asking where the fuck he was and if the ‘big fuckin’ wall’ he was next to was the Great Wall of China. You facepalmed and heard Tommy say he was going to go fetch him. Quackity was laughing and saying one of their endorsements was ‘some old man’, and you rolled your eyes because little duck boy was gonna be engaged to that ‘old man’ soon.. But you kept that tidbit to yourself. Though when Quackity called the ram hybrid ‘babe’ and he said to not call him that, making Quackity laugh you raised an eyebrow, figuring they were already together! Nonchalantly you wondered how much stuff you’d missed.
And then came the yelling.
Schlatt started rambling about how democracy was overrated and he didn’t ‘need a president’, how he’d be his own president. All while Tommy and Wilbur tried to talk over him and get him off the stage. Then he started shit talking Quackity, asking everyone if they really wanted HIM to be their president. Then he went on a tangent about how Quackity’s vice president ‘stole his woman’, which just caused everyone to laugh, even you. You have to admit, the man was funny if nothing else. Made you wish he wasn’t an alcoholic drug using abusive asshole. Blah Blah Wilbur stole his heart, blah blah Coconut 2020, etc that you were half listening to.
About then is when Tommy, still laughing at this whole debacle, glanced down and noticed you and Tubbo sitting in the front row. He gave a bright grin and waved to you both, to which you both smiled and waved back. This little interaction somehow managed to catch Schlatt’s attention, even through his booze addled ramblings. He just stopped mid sentence and stumbled over to Tommy and asked that the fuck he was even doing. Tommy gave an awkward laugh and said he was just waving hello to his friends. Schlatt gave him a ‘wtf’ look and scanned the crowd for who the blond boy was talking about. His horizontal oval pupils finally landed on Tubbo, making the boy give a slightly stiff wave to the older male. Schlatt stared at the boy for almost a full 20 seconds, making Tubbo sweat nervously. 
You could almost tell yourself that you saw a flash of recognition in the goat hybrid’s eyes, but before you could blink it was gone and he was instead turning to look at you. Your eyebrows lowered as his gaze perked up and a grin you’re not above describing as ‘sleazy’ crossed his features. His eyes raked over your form, making you give him an unamused look. Schlatt leaned over to Tommy, missing how the teen sorta leaned away from him, and asked who ‘the baddie with the fat ass’ was. Tommy grimaced and replied saying for the other man to not say something so gross. 
“That’s Reader, don’t say nasty shit about her man!”
Schlatt laughed and told the younger man to not be such a little bitch, he had to see how hot this woman was! The hair, the horns, the ASS! Before Schlatt could continue to make lewd comments about your person Quackity smacked him with a golden carrot and started cursing him out in Spanish. While the two argued Wilbur went up to the microphone and said that the ACTUAL people running were going to be going into the White House to have a little chat and they’d be right back. Then he and Tommy ran off, Quackity, Schaltt, Niki, and Fundy hot on their heels. Leaving the stage totally empty. Everyone in the audience gave each other side glances before looking up when you stood from your chair and headed to the podium. 
Tubbo blinked in surprise before hopping up and following after you, calling your name and asking where you were going. You ruffled his hair and said you just wanted to say one thing to everyone in attendance. He hummed and followed after you, curious to see what you were up to. You knew the outcome of the election, sadly, and didn’t think there was any way to change it really. But you wanted to impart some wisdom onto the citizens of L’manburg really quick before all those dorks came back after finishing their nonsense. So you sat down on the stage, legs hanging over the side by the podium, and grabbed the mic and sighed before saying to the crowd down below,
“Listen up everyone. I’m not part of the other campaigns or anything, but I wanted to just say something real quick to all of you.”
The crowd watched you with rapt attention, wondering who on the SMP you were. You started off with a light chuckle, saying you’d never been a public speaker so if you started rambling and not making a ton of sense then that was why. Then you took a breath and just said what was on your mind.
“I’m not here to endorse anyone or try to convince you to vote for this or that person. I just wanted to say that despite all the shenanigans going on today that this is actually supposed to be pretty serious. Goofing off aside, you all are going to be voting for the person in charge of your country. The person tasked with ensuring you are all safe and cared for. Being president is a big responsibility. One that shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
You looked at each person in the crowd, lots you knew OF but didn’t know personally. But you made sure to tell them what you thought a president should be.
“Being president shouldn’t be about having glory or power. It should be about working to make sure all your citizens are safe, happy, and above all; THRIVING. If the citizens are miserable or not being heard then the president has failed. So I want you all to think hard about who you want to vote into office. Who do you think will honestly care for your needs as a country? Who will defend you and ensure you’re all living your best lives?”
The crowd seemed to be listening to you, none of them had interrupted you anyways. And Tubbo was smiling, having apparently thought you’d done a good job speaking. But you heard the sound of approaching voices and sighed again. You’ve been sighing a lot today, but that’s not really a surprise is it? Instead of dwelling on it you conclude your speech with a simple,
“Just keep in mind who you’re voting for, because you’re going to be stuck with them for the next few years.”
Then you placed the microphone back on the podium and grabbed Tubbo around the waist, and to the boy’s shock you jumped down from the roughly 8 block high stage. He let out an involuntary high pitched yelp of shock that was abruptly cut off when you both landed on the ground unharmed. He blinked then started laughing, which made you begin to snicker. He shoved your shoulder and called you a bastard for freaking him out. You just teased him for even thinking you’d let him get hurt. He changed the subject when everyone saw Schlatt coming over, though you could tell he was happy to hear you cared. But the moment was over once Schlatt stumbled into the audience, looking more than a little out of it. He hobbled over to the bed Tommy had put down for him before he’d gone on stage and collapsed down onto it, for some reason in mismatched armor and clutching carrots. You had no idea where he got any of that stuff because he’d shown up with nothing but the suit on his back you thought.
But then Wilbur, Tommy, and Schlatt all came back from wherever they’d been while talking. And it didn’t look like they’d come to any peaceful resolution, though you’re not surprised. And you’re even further unsurprised when Quackity announced he was going to be pooling his votes with Schlatt. But that right now the debate was over and they just had to let the voting go on until the next day. So with that Wilbur ended the rally and bid everyone a pleasant rest of their day. And soon everyone had dispersed, leaving Tubbo and you waiting by the stairs that led up to the stage. Tommy walked down with Wilbur, the older of the two looking pensive. But as you all walked down the main path it seemed Wilbur was deep in thought. You watched him while Tommy and Tubbo chatted, but as the cobble path turned to wood the older brunet said he’d see them tomorrow and walked off to who knows where.
Then Tubbo gave you and Tommy a secretive glance and said to follow him, which you both did without complaint. That’s when the brown haired boy started saying he’d been ‘hoping for the best but planning for the worst’. Tommy asked what he was going on about, ‘planning for the worst’?? So Tubbo explained that he’d made a little thing for if things went bad. That’s when you noticed he was leading you both far from the main area and towards the edge of the L’manberg territory by one of the border walls. And there hidden under the water thanks to some craft sign placement was a hidden entrance into a secret tunnel. All of which led to a bunker. Tommy was in disbelief at the sight, frantically asking his best friend when the hell he’d even had time to make this! Tubbo just gave a vaguely cryptic reply of, “I don’t sleep.” Which you scolded him for. You placed a hand on his head and rocked it back and forth a little roughly and said he was a growing boy who needed sleep! 
“Sleep is when your body grows! If you don’t sleep you’ll be short forever!” You huffed.
That made Tommy burst out into borderline hysterical laughter while Tubbo shouted in outrage. You laughed a little and easily blocked the hits Tubbo was weakly trying to land on you. But once they both settled down Tubbo actually showed off the supplies, like potions and such, he’d prepared for Tommy and Wilbur should anything go sour. Tommy, still shocked but appreciative, thanked his friend and said they should go tell Wilbur. They asked if you wanted to come or if you’d like to sleep for the night. You just shrugged and said you weren’t really tired. But you told them THEY needed sleep however. 
They groaned but you shushed them and made them go back to their place and sleep. They said they didn’t have a bed for you but you just pulled out a book and said you’d read by the fire until it was time to read the election results. They complained that they weren’t tired but you hushed them and said you could see how they were more sluggish compared to how they’d been that morning. And after some weak whining they eventually gave in and placed their beds down, took their armor off, and crawled under the blankets. Meanwhile you sat by the furnace, book in hand and hummed to yourself softly as you read. The two boys fell asleep faster than usual, chalking it up to the busy day they had. Not thinking to link it to feeling safe as they laid in bed.
-0-
It felt like barely an hour had passed before the sun was creeping up over the horizon. You’d finished going through the enchantment book forever ago, and it sat on your lap while you stared down at the fire in the furnace. You wondered when the election results would be read out and breathed in slowly, feeling tired but not physically. With nothing else to do you got busy making some breakfast. Just something simple, eggs with toast. But it worked to wake the two boys up, the smell of the fresh food rousing them to the land of the living. They practically devoured the breakfast before slipping their armor on and saying they should go now. It was a decent time to start the day. So they led you along to Wilbur, who had been in the midst of leaving his ball house. The two boys said they had something secret to tell him, and he actually hadn’t wanted to talk ‘government topics’ with you around. You rolled your eyes behind your mask but agreed to go wait by the stage until they were done.
So you sat alone in the audience, watching people slowly arrive as you did. Ponk was the first, his signature fire colored mask and lab coat(?) revealing who he was. Then right after was HBomb, dressed almost like a pirate for some reason? Or maybe he was a referee? He was in black and white stripes with a headband so you’re unsure, could go either way. And then Punz with his stylish white hoodie and gold chain. Then you saw Niki coming down to greet Eret. He was in full netherite and nobody gave her a second glance which sorta surprised you. They’d betrayed everyone hadn’t he? You admit you don’t know much about her. But they seem to be on good terms with Niki at any rate. Regardless he stood to the side, not really sitting with anyone. So maybe things weren’t as gucci as you thought. You were distracted from thinking about it as a man in a L’manberg uniform and headset arrived. Jack Manifold you think. Walking past him was George and Dream. 
You narrowed your eyes at Dream, something about him felt off? Which was weird considering you’d never met the man in person before so you’re not sure how you could tell if he was ‘off’ or not. But something about him was just… weird. Maybe it was the hood and mask obscuring his entire upper body save for some dirty blond hair poking out from said hood. Or maybe how his body moved fluidly like a person but… it also didn’t seem to be in the right proportions. His arms and legs felt a teeny bit too long while his torso seemed shorter than it should be. 
‘Maybe it’s the cut of the hood and pants making it look that way..’ you thought to yourself.
Wilbur speaking suddenly caught your attention, and when you looked up at the stage you saw all the candidates standing there while Tubbo was hurrying over to the seat you’d saved for him next to you. Seemed they were starting now. The little goat hybrid gave you a nervous smile before focusing on the results. Wilbur started reading but paused to ask Tommy why he was standing with his own mic, and then said he should be standing behind him. You watched them bicker a second before Wilbur gave in and let Tommy stand with his own mic. You smiled and shook your head fondly when Tommy gave a silent cheer for himself ‘winning’ that one. Once that was done Wilbur began explaining what was going to happen. They weren’t just reading off the results, they were also going to be inaugurating the winner as president. And then explained how the new president would make a decree and how the first decree was very important.
“My fellow L’manbergians, and by that I mean Ponk, HBomb, and Tubbo. And the others in the crowd as well, including Tommy’s tall friend…” he said while gesturing to you. 
Tubbo loudly cheered for Wilbur, making Tommy and Quackity laugh. You giggled a little at his antics but mostly kept silent to hear. Wilbur announced he had the election results in his hands, then held up an envelope and continued by reading off the four competing parties: POG2020, SWAG2020, COCONUT2020, and SCHLATT2020. And there had been a total of 220,000 votes. This of course confused everyone and Quackity pointed out there were barely 10 people in the audience, so how had so many votes been cast. Wilbur let out a tired sigh and elaborated, saying he’d accidentally opened the vote… to all the other servers when he’d broadcasted the election live…
Everyone started kicking up a fuss, some upset strangers from other servers were weighing in on a server they weren’t even a part of while others found this all hysterically hilarious. Wilbur settled the crowd down and explained there’d been some voter fraud as well, but he’d gotten rid of all the votes that had come from the same communicator protocol. But then he pointed out that all the fraud votes were only voting for one party.. then stared directly at Fundy and Niki. They glanced away from everyone else and Quackity said through laughter that they should be disqualified. Tommy agreed and said there was only one coder in the Coconut2020 party.. But Wilbur sighed when Fundy was silent before saying diplomatically that they should count all the votes regardless of their CP address… Everyone started laughing until Wilbur shushed them and started actually reading off the results, finally.
“In last place is Coconut2020 with 5%,” Fundy and Niki cheered for the votes they did get. Tommy gave them a slightly sarcastic congratulations while Quackity cackled. Then Wilbur continued,
“Then in second to last place with 9% is Schlatt2020…” That was actually surprising to everyone since Schlatt was a very charismatic guy on most fronts and usually never had issues with luring people to his side.
The current president turned to look at Quackity and George then glanced at Tommy and said that the two final running parties were Pog2020 and Swag2020, and coming in third place was…. Swag2020 with 22%. And Pog2020 with 31%. Tommy’s eyes went wide and he practically screamed his joy, nearly tripping backwards in his excitement. He rushed up to Wilbur and demanded to know if they’d won, and when Wilbur said they did Tommy missed the rest of the statement telling him to wait. The blond boy was too thrilled to stop and listen and without thinking he yelled down to you,
“MUM I WON THE ELECTION! WE WON!!” practically bouncing off the stage. 
You gave him a grin, mentally cooing over him calling you mom and not even noticing but inside your stomach was churning as you waited for the other boot to drop.. And after Wilbur calmed Tommy he made clear that Quackity and Schlatt had made a deal to pool their votes. Meaning together they had 31% as well. Meaning it’s a tie. This caused an uproar between the parties, everyone seemingly arguing while you puzzled over it being a tie! That hadn’t happened originally… But it was Niki who quieted everyone and pointed out something rather jarring…
“All four of our votes only equal up to be 67%... there’s a chunk of votes missing!”
Everyone was silent before George barked out a ‘what the hell?!’ that made everyone start arguing again. Schlatt was insisting that Wilbur counted them wrong while Quackity demanded they be recounted. Meanwhile Wilbur adamantly said he’d counted right and they were wrong. It took Tommy snatching the slip of paper out of his hand that had the election results typed out on them to get Wilbur to stop shouting. As Tommy read the list of results he mentally counted up the percentages and frowned before saying Niki was right, that was only like 67%! But then Fundy chimed in and asked what was written on the back. Confused Tommy turned the paper over and his eyes went wide. He was in shock and spoke in a normal tone, which just got drowned out by everyone. Seeing he was being ignored he shouted,
“OI! DICKHEADS! You missed the ‘other’ section of the votes!”
That grabbed Wilbur’s attention easily, he’d forgotten all about the ‘other’ voting option. And hadn’t even known anything was written on the back of the slip of paper. He ripped it out of Tommy’s grasp and rushed to read the back, his voice getting more subdued as he spoke…
“With the most votes at 33% is…. Reader..”
---
@salinesoot @lady-bee-fechin @kacchasu @putridjoy @lunawritesstories @galaxypankitty3030 @paradigmax @zachariethememerie @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @hufflepuff-demigod @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale @bananaaddictmilkshake @realitycanbeajerk @lostandsouciant
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the-lunar-library · 2 years ago
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How I Spent Years Figuring Out My Book's Cover
I don't have any experience in advertising, and my digital art skills are limited, and every article on self-publishing urges you not to do your own cover, and probably they are right. But I did my own cover, and I thought I'd share some of the process. The figuring out how it should look part, not the technical part.
For a long time, I just practiced playing around with images. These weren't finished products by any means.
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This image from early 2019 was one of my favorites. It's supposed to represent my protagonist Yew, reflecting on her ruined village and, by extension, some of her choices. The set up is straightforward – tragic woman gradating into a creepy graveyard. I felt it looked very similar to other covers I'd seen, which is both a good and a bad thing. A cover should clue you in to the tone and genre, so having set symbols and moods is helpful. On the other hand, you don't want your book to look like a million other people's.
Silent-film-era actress Mary Astor is standing in for Yew. The painting is by Caspar David Friedrich. To the best of my knowledge, both images are in the public domain.
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For a while, I played with collages. (Pretty much all the stock photos/art is from Pixabay, which I found to be extremely helpful.) I liked the way these gothic windows formed frames, and I wanted to include both protagonists, Eider and Yew. This never made it fully into a test cover, but I did a few versions of this image, both with just photos and also including original art.
(Please admire my stock photo Iron Stag with his candle-antlers. I worked hard affixing each little flame to each little tine.)
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The background I used here (Image Source: Freestock.com) is unromantically called “Plastic Chunks” in my files.
I also really like the ceiling paintings of Jules-Edmond-Charles Lachaise, so I experimented using one as a frame.
Above is a Yew cover, and below is an Eider cover.
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I can't remember where I picked the asset(s?) for this background, but I suspect it was also Freestock.
I eventually decided on having both heroines front and center, each paired with an antler from one of the two mysterious stags in the story. This focal point would be a hand-drawn piece of art with less obtrusive public domain stock stuff framing it. I wanted the picture to be intricate, feel fairy-taleish, and include different elements from the story – a snake, a diary, flowers, mirror shards, a pear, seeds, antlers, and a hand mirror.
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My first sketch had the basic idea down, but it was very long and skinny and with the title as part of the drawing it felt too tattoo-y to me. Though, looking closely, I see I included Pete the mule's head (upside down, just under the word “magic”), and it's sad he didn't make the final cut.
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So I made the image more of a circle and worked really hard until I was proud of it.
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From there, I just had to decide on which assets to use and what colors to go for. I really liked the combination of dark desaturated reds and blues in this one, along with the very gothic doily frame. However, it also felt somewhat cluttered, maybe a better design for a poster than something that was going to have text on top of it.
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There's also a lot I like about this one, the cold colors, the blending of ice and aged iron. (The original title for the novel was The Iron Claws.) But again, that border felt like it would be fighting with any text thrown over it.
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I was also concerned whether the central image would look too small and muddled in thumbnail, so I did this very stripped down version. I wasn't a big fan of it, but it's interesting.
(By the way, you may have noticed that none of these share the actual dimensions of my real book cover. I hadn't even done the page layout yet at this point, and this was all very much in the testing stage.)
As it turned out, I was on the right track with the earlier gothic doily cover. Aside from the hand-drawn image, I ended up going with different assets, most notably a smaller frame, deeper colors, and additional borders along the sides. (This image also isn't in the proper scale.) I did this cover over and over again, making little adjustments until I was satisfied.
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What do you think? Did I make the right call?
Here’s info on the book itself: THE PRICE AND PREY OF MAGIC
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steve0discusses · 4 years ago
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S5 Ep 3: Apdnarg is Really Hard to Spell
 Yo guys, people are getting vaccinated, the sun is parting through the clouds, and I felt so nice that I even stopped listening to quite so many throwback 00′s BTS mashups (and yet I keep clicking on these dissonant catastrophes thinking “this time it’s got to be better. This time they’ll figure it out.” and like, no. Turns out you can’t match Brittany’s Toxic with BTS’ Black Swan. You can’t do that.)
This must be a sign that things are getting better. If anything, it means my personal tastes are improving. I mean I only clicked on like 3 “Dark Academia” Playlists where I could pretend I’m some sort of spooky witch in an abandoned library with a bad music player and basic taste in classical music (like can we ban Satie from Youtube for a little while?). Hell, I might even do a prompt update to this blog!
Yeah, you heard me, I’m actually going to stay ahead of the update schedule for Yugioh Abridged (maybe. I haven’t actually watched cuz of spoilers, I just noticed the thumbnail pop up on Youtube and was like “Damn it, they came out of hiatus??? I got hurry UP.”)
Anyway, speaking of the sky parting.
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I’ll have you know my bro said this is actually more like a circumcision and it was one of the worst thing I have ever heard.
We get a chance to take in this lineup of confusing and varied character designs, and Joey. who is...still Joey.
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The animators probably had to hold a strike in order for them to put Yugi in the audience, lets be real. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE in this shot and one is wearing a turban where you draw every single wrap. I hope those artists charged by the line.
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Tea has a subplot where she’s just very frustrated with everyone she knows. They have been traveling together for like many weeks and got trapped in a foreign country so I get it. But at the same time, it’s kind of hard to picture Tea with female friends.
Because right now you got this 12 year old child, the other duelist who does not care about anything besides cards, and Kaiba’s 3 dragon cards that we’ve all collectively decided are female.
Hell it’s almost like the writers are asking themselves why Tea is here. Maybe they forgot. There’s no more ghosts to bus, no more people to knock out with her ass with random Olympic feats. Tea’s just sidelining.
(read more under the cut)
Mokuba is a itty bit bit taller this season, and so I guess that means he can legally climb on top of the cherry picker in order to give a riveting speech.
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Really says a lot about Mokuba that he is so unphased about talking to, I dunno...an entire planet of people. Kind of a shame we never see this courage from Mokuba used for anything other than talking really, really big and giving everyone around him a really hard time.
Mokuba takes a moment to dunk on Yugi Muto, as is Kaiba tradition.
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And then introduce the first pair of duelists, which obviously must be between the few people in this tournament that we actually know and care about.
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Thankfully, in between last episode and this episode, Yugi has figured out who his own Grandpa is. This is a relief, because Yugi is such a mess, that I was fully convinced it would take over half a season for him to recognize it. I mean how long did it take him to figure out he shares a body with a ghost? Like half a season?
Instead Yugi recovered gracefully from not recognizing his grandpa, but it’s not like he bothered to tell anyone else, so the rest of our cast is just gonna be like “Is he my hairdresser? The guy who delivers my mail? Who is this guy who made absolutely no significant changes to his outfit or voice?”
Like sometimes this show goes full Spongebob silly kid’s show and you never know when to take it seriously or not. They might be sacrificing the entire cast next episode. I really don’t know. But for now their big concern is who is grandpa??? Like an innocent card version of “Are you my Mother?”
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Faced with public speaking, Yugi decides to have a melt down.
We have seen him face monsters, we’ve seen him on TV dozens of times, he’s been in multiple competitions...but give a speech? Of course he can’t do that. The kid doesn’t attend enough school to know how to do that. Them’s learning skills.
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And that was when a newly assembled wife-jet spliced through the sky like a souped up razer scooter and deposited 1 fully equipped Seto Kaiba in a Buzz Lightyear jetsuit.
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THE RECOVERY.
Seto always watching over his Brother, ready to save this awkward party if it kills him (and it really should, that suit is held together by two seat-belts), making sure to get on that platform before Yugi starts going off about how he’s half an Ancient Egyptian. (Ah, life before social media. You could just be hella famous and also half a dead dude and people would just not know. I kinda miss the time before I knew literally everything about everyone.)
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Please admire how close those flames are to setting Mokuba’s heavily hairsprayed mane completely alight. It would be an unforgettable spectacle.
These were absolutely just random ass jet packs that Gozaburo Kaiba made to kill hell tons of people, right? Like Seto found it in the family cabin, clutched to the heart of some crispy fried corpse and was like “neat! Mokuba! I found a cool toy!” and just plucked that thing out of that skeleton’s clutches and has been flying around for months?
Like this is Seto Kaiba’s Butter Glider, right?
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Seriously what type of vehicle license do you need for one of these things? RIP My ‘Seto only has a scooter license’ headcanon.
Which I’m only even thinking about because I’ve had to try and make an appt with the DMV for days to get a freakin REAL ID. I went to sleep in 2019 and I could fly on a plane. I woke up in 2021 and it’s like “Want one last screw you?” and just...can 2020 please stop screwing me over? It’s March.
Anyway, the Jet is removed soon after, so no, this is not part of his new outfit. He goes right back to his Post-S4-Trauma-Normcore.
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After wrestling this competition out of his brother’s hands and confusing everyone in the audience, Roland must have gotten the memo to cut the microphone before Seto got too excited and we were quickly ushered on to the next stage of the tournament.
One sec...the BTS Mashup playlist I just clicked on did a Black Swan X 7 rings mashup and it’s the worst thing my ears have ever heard.
Holy crap. I had to actually turn down my volume. Like...Ariana Grande already has music that has way too many overlapping singing parts on it--and then lets just stick a 52-person boy band on top? That’ll fix it. Yeah. Go ahead.
Wow. Even I had to change the song and you know how much I enjoy pop culture mistakes.
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Spot the Mickey but like a million times easier because it’s a Massive Dick Shaped Dragon.
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Yep. That’s my grocery shopping outfit. Except maybe not a lab coat and a duel disk. Wish I had a duel disk, that would make social distancing just a hell ton earlier. Just a “Yo, only one person in checkout, please” and then bap them on the head with a propelled discuss/hologram.
Anyway, Grocery shopping/Doctor man dueled the Purple Hair Boy, and considering that Purple Hair got screen time and shook Yugi’s hand once--I think that Doctor man doesn’t stand a freakin chance.
Good. I hate him.
Also, every time he breathes he’s gonna fog up his glasses. I have experience in this area. He can’t read his own cards in the same way I can’t read my phone if I’m in the refrigerated aisle.
So the way this tournament works, is everyone has to sit in the stadium to watch the show. Kinda like showing up to a football stadium just to watch a recorded TV monitor...but then again...that is how it feels to watch a football game at a football stadium when it’s live (at least with the tickets I usually get.)
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And as we watch Grandpa waiting for his competitor, we find out that his competitor (Joey) is too busy eating snacks to give him the time of day.
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Why do cartoon hot dogs always have lettuce? Is that seriously supposed to be relish? Or is there a place in the world where you put lettuce on your hot dog?
Sorry, bro has just informed of his favorite hot dog order, which is absolutely terrible so I will share it with you: a Five Guys hot dog with ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, mushrooms, pickled peppers, and you guessed it--topped with freakin lettuce.
My own kin. How am I over 30 and just finding out that my baby brother thinks it’s normal to walk into a restaurant with normal god-fearing law-abiding people and order lettuce and mushrooms on a hot dog?
I have fully failed him.
The rest of this episode is watching both Joey Wheeler and Mokuba have a shared panic attack while Seto does freakin nothing.
Please remember that Seto has both a jetpack and a dragon wife plane and could have easily solved this problem. But nah.
Then again, Seto Kaiba has given this crew so MANY rides, that maybe he’s tired of being the Soccer Mom for the team?
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Like they don’t actually say this episode, but Seto was the one in charge of like...this entire place, do you think he made the 2 for 1 special just to get Joey where it hurts the most? Or does it actually not take any subterfuge to screw Joey Wheeler because he’s just naturally this way?
Like Mokuba wasn’t there when Joey was told “stay right here, and then we will all go together to fight Dartz” and Joey was like “I’mma save Mai from herself although she told me not to!” and then he Hella Died. But, Mokuba did see the result, AKA, Joey’s dead body being carried on the back of Tristan. Maybe Mokuba never realized that Joey died because he went out of his way to be late?
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Lets do a tally of every time I can recall with my dodgy memory that Joey was threatened to be DQ’d/pretty much was DQ’d either by his own fault or no fault of his own
-When he wasn’t allowed to go on the boat to Murder Island because he was a stupid nobody kid who did not have a dueling glove
-When he wasn’t actually supposed to be in Pegasus’ tourney and was, in fact, secretly using half of Yugi’s entrance ticket the entire time
-when Bandit Keith stole the ticket that Joey got from Yugi so then Joey had to borrow Mai’s ticket although she had just used it so it really shouldn't have counted. Because, really anyone could have just piggy backed off of each other’s ticket until the whole boat went through that castle.
-When his account was hacked to get entered into Kaiba’s tourney when Kaiba very clearly told him he could not apply solely because he was Joey Wheeler.
-When he was late to his sister’s eye surgery because he got mugged by Marik’s Rare Hunters, so she almost refused to do the surgery.
-When Joey got possessed by Marik, and as Marik, threatened to murder everyone else in the tournament including both of the Kaiba brother’s who’s tournament it was, and then chained himself to Yugi Muto to throw both of them to the bottom of the ocean.
-I think there was a point when he threatened to attack Kaiba in Kaiba’s own tourney while not possessed? Like several times?
-when he got struck by Lightning and almost did not stand up fast enough after being struck by lightning, which is apparently a type of DQ in Duel Monsters.
-When he tried to save Mai from getting hit by a fireball, but then Yugi did it instead, and then so many people were standing on the dueling platform that Kaiba couldn’t possibly DQ them all.
-When he entered the restricted area of the blimp in order to hassle Kaiba into landing the Blimp, which Kaiba did not do.
-When Marik killed Joey before Joey could press the “go” button on his duel disk to play the card that should have won Joey the match.
-When he was dueling a lawyer in a digital universe but then the dice was like...weighted? So Noah had to walk over and be like “The hell is this weighted dice? This is my perfect digital world? How did you even do that?” and then Joey won because the match was no longer legit.
-When Joey yelled at Noah too much and so Noah turned Joey to stone for being a rude ass spectator
-When Mai was like “Wheeler and Valon, listen closely: do NOT murder each other” and then Joey did a murder on Valon so she was like “I guess I have no choice, I was very clear” and killed Joey straight up.
-When Joey decided to block Seto’s fireballs while Joey Wheeler WAS a playing card, somehow disrespecting both Dartz and Seto Kaiba at the same time.
-When Joey was playing cards but then got absorbed into a giant Leviathan and basically couldn’t play anymore after that.
-There’s probably hell ton of S0 stuff I just haven’t seen yet.
-This episode
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And Joey runs fast for a montage of wacky things that really have no business being in a theme park. Things like this:
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(remember when Bakura almost died from a rock that ended up being a balloon? It comes full circle.)
The stuff that the Kaiba brother’s think is normal and fun.
Anyway Joey fights off a bunch of hologram snakes and bats and everyone is like “Should we tell him it’s just holograms???” And it’s like wow, guys, how many times have these ‘holograms’ straight up murdered Joey Wheeler and everyone else on this cast? Too many? Because I have a google doc with so many deaths on it. 7,805,844,048, to be exact.
Anyway, he gets there with five seconds to spare and Mokuba’s like “well at least you were still entertaining while we filmed you in front of a live audience being a total spaz for 15 minutes straight, so I’ll let you go.”
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Grandpa and Joey start playing, Joey completely oblivious that this is just an older Muto, while Hawkins walks up awkwardly and is like “hey guys. I’m so sorry about this.”
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(welcome to my font choices, for those new here, I have to make weird font color choices to make sure it’s legible for the colorblind and also for the non-colorblind. This one is not much contrast, so I may change it up in the future, but for now, this is Grandpa Muto’s new font. I apologize to every graphic designer reading this. Please don’t tell anyone who has ever hired me for graphic design about this blog.)
What’s funny about this exchange is that after they find out that Yugi’s Grandpa is Apdnarg (HOLY my brain cannot get around the spelling for that, and I will not change it in the caps. I cannot do a ‘pdn’ ever again), they don’t stand on his side of the field or anything. Hawkins is legit Solomon Muto’s only fan during this exchange and like...damn. Way not to back your Grandpa, Yugi.
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Yugi immediately strides up to Mokuba to non-confrontation-ally inform him that he has stepped over a line and Mokuba is like “what are these things you say called ‘lines?’”
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According to Mokuba, Solomon Muto begged him to be in the competition so he could relive his glory days (glory days making no sense here, because the game has only been released for the past 15 years, so glory days is like...the before times that can only be referring to disgraced archeologists and Pegasus ((who is, in his own way...a disgraced archeologist, too))) and Mokuba was like
“You trained Yugi Muto, right? Hey that’s good enough for me. This drama is gold. People will eat it up. Hell yes. Don’t be afraid to abduct him a little bit. Maybe trap a couple people in a digital hellscape for a little while? Now we go by Pegasus house rules here, so fire as many lasers as you want, but just make sure not to hit anyone in the face. Oh man, we are going to be swimming in cash. Love it, Muto Sr, love it.”
But I dunno, I feel like Grandpa won’t make it past next episode. It is Joey. We kinda need him to make it past Ep 4 of the arc. If Grandpa Muto becomes the new Joey Wheeler, that will be a weird transition for this show to make.
But that’s all for today, as always, here is the link to read these in chrono order becuase there’s SO MANY that you don’t need to read backwards--don’t do it--just use the chrono tag (and I don’t know if you can add compound tags, but I did separate the Season from the Episode, so if you write S4, it should only pop up stuff from S4. I didn't’ do that to seasons 1-3 though because I just...didn’t.)
https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono
And because I brought it up: here it is, the best BTS Mashup that I found on my deep dive. Like legit--this one isn’t a mess:
youtube
Most of other ones are horrible in a fascinating way. Like I’m not even a BTS fan, I think I sort of age out of that metric, I’m just bored and quarantined. And lets be real, we all appreciate a good bop when we hear it.
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vimpse · 3 years ago
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Replies RE: game not working
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@teaite Yeah, I did both of these things - the RAM allocation fix was the first thing I did, because I know from Windows 7 already that you can’t make the game work without crashing if you don’t. I ran the HoodChecker, nothing abnormal showed up, which I wasn’t really expecting since the neighborhood worked perfectly fine pre-reinstall on Windows 10.
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@pixeldolly That’s the weird thing: I have glitches and things worryingly similar to ‘hood corruption on certain lots only. I’ve played probably about 5-6 households with absolutely no problems, then twice in a row now I’ve encountered bugs on two specific lots. One of them was a case of a sim “becoming pregnant” but not actually being pregnant... she’d been pregnant for 38 hours when I terminated her pregnancy with the SimBlender because what the fuck. I read something online about lot corruption though and I took the family off the lot (all of this is detailed in a later post in my queue, so this is the condensed version of explaining it) and rebuilt their house on a new lot, and that completely fixed her pregnancy issues.
I also have a problem with my PTs. They show up fine on the HoodChecker and I’ve never had a problem with them before, but they’ve disappeared from my alien children from last time I played on my previous installation. They’re just 1-parent-immaculate-conception-babies, according to their family trees... but they’re still somehow related to each other, even without having the same mother (in the post detailing this later I at first thought they’d been “disconnected” from their family ties completely, but I’ve since discovered that this wasn’t the case). NEW abductions work though, the PTs show up as the 2nd parent like they’re supposed to, so what gives?
I’ve also just today seen pink flashing objects in the current household, even though I haven’t seen them ANYWHERE else, so far. This includes but is not limited to “stuck” flashing pink mesh pose bodies when they go upstairs, the newspaper when they’re reading it on the toilet, some of the plants/ivy outside (but that stops after a while) and the plumbbob over their head (only on teenagers though?). I’ve read some stuff (like the entry by Marasims, here) about fixing this, but I honestly don’t see how I could have played for the last... many days without this glitch, then it suddenly appears...? I’ve tried deleting the thumbnails but nothing else so far, because I know I’m encountered flashing glitches before with non-regenerated thumbnails, but I haven’t been back to the lot to check yet (game is loading as we speak, c u in 6 years). If that doesn’t work I’m gonna try demolishing the lot and rebuilding the house (*big sigh*) next, maybe it’s another corrupted lot.
I’ve also considered deleting my documents->The Sims 2 folder, minus my Downloads and neighborhoods, since the folder is copied in its entirety from a backup of my Windows 7 installation. Maybe there’s something borky in there not compatible with Windows 10?
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@freemtariphe I did go through all of the things, allocating RAM (the equivalent of the 4GB patch), forcing the graphics card recognition etc... the game was running smoothly for several days, until it suddenly wasn’t.
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@treefrogsims​ (direct link for anyone interested) Most of that thread seems familiar, but there are a couple of things I have not touched on before, like allocating too much RAM leading to the flashing pink objects, but then again “everyone” seems to use the 4GB patch and that’s what my allocation is set to, so... how can that be the problem? I could of course try to downscale to 2GB and see if that makes a difference... If the stuff I mentioned in the previous replies doesn’t seem to work, I’ll read that thread more thoroughly and try literally everything in the universe because I desperately don’t want to give up on Westport :(((( so thanks for the link <3
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mult1tude · 4 years ago
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TWO STARS ✰ AN ETHAN NESTOR STORY — CHAPTER 1
story synopsis: adele belanger, an upcoming star begins to fall in love with a man named ethan nestor after doing a press junket to promote her upcoming series that’s going to push her fame further than she expected. will problems arise?
word count: 3k triggers: none
     adele belanger - the name spoke few and far on the dazzling and glamorous world of hollywood. celebrated for her roles in roles in indie films produced and created in canada, where she was born and raised, she is soon due a big break as she was in the process of getting ready for the rest of the world to know she was starring in netflix’s latest series.
saying the heat resonating from beneath her laptop was hot was an understatement, she didn’t dare to budge or move it in the slightest as she restlessly refreshed the youtube page waiting for the trailer to pop up, almost wearing out the button on her keyboard. the sable black strands at the nape of her neck that had evaded her grasp as she hurriedly tied a ponytail began to itch at her skin but she didn’t have time to fix it, not until the trailer was posted.
after what felt like a lifetime, her eyes were quick to notice a new thumbnail appear on the page and she reactively clicked it, pressing the mousepad button-down slightly too hard out of excitement. the entire video played, a beaming smile was plastered across her face, her dimples displayed prominently as she approached the end of the video. the young actress felt like a firework in a glass jar, so much excitement contained inside of her as she brushed the laptop from her lap, jolted from her rumpled bed and clenched her fists as she excitedly hopped around her tiny apartment and squealed. adele rushed to the dust speckled mirror that was hung near her front door that had a few dozen, in a hyperbolic sense, of her unused coats after moving from canada. she deeply exhaled as she examined her face, noticing her own excitement couldn’t even contain itself as a smile sidled upon her lips as she delicately let out a few words. “i’m going to be famous.”
her emotions shot off again like fireworks, her chest fluttering and her palms tingling and red from the nails she didn’t realise she had dug so deep into her own skin. but it didn’t matter, adele was finally making the biggest leap possible into her career - it was everything she ever wanted.
“ok, i need some water.” she softly spoke to herself, taking another deep breath as she headed towards her apartment’s small open-planned kitchen. her shaky hands picked up a bottle of water from the fridge; she vowed that she would never drink l.a’s tap water after hearing an endless conglomeration of negative things from acquaintances and friends after moving only 6 months ago.
swigging it back and almost completing most of the bottle, she slapped it onto the counter whilst letting out a satisfied gasp for air. a few drops making wet patches on her eggshell coloured sweatshirt that may or may not have a few foundation marks around the neckline. a sudden change of thought, she remembered she needed to send the link to all of her friends and family if they already hadn’t seen it. adele slid the phone from her sweatpants noticing she was already getting congratulatory messages from some of her friends and even people that she hadn’t spoken to in a while. moreso, a lot of the messages from her friends were them completely fangirling over the fact that she had in fact worked with henry cavill.
adele replied to and messaged everyone she needed to before opening twitter and the rest of her social media to find that they were starting to blow up, multiple people talking about how cool the show looked and how excited they were. a lot of them were generic but few mentioned how intricate and interesting adele’s sidekick companion character seemed which made her stomach twirl once more and she felt like she had her ego stroked enough it would last the rest of the week. she put aside her phone and began to practice her bedtime routine before throwing herself back onto her bed where she only was an hour ago. her head smacking her pillow must have activated a switch because adele immediately felt her eyes involuntarily shutter closed and before she knew it, she was fast asleep.
                                                         ✰
today was the first day of recording stuff for the press. needless to say, adele was super excited. from what the actress was able to gather from her manager jenna, since henry cavill was known to be such a huge gamer online, buzzfeed had organised the cast to play the game version of the new netflix series with a few special guests. it was undeniably going to be a great day and a great way to start the press junket as it progressively and eventually got more tiring and mind-numbing. plus, she had gamed a bit before so it would be funny if she were able to show up a few of her cast members, especially henry.
at 8am sharp, the assigned makeup and hairstylist, and wardrobe stylist arrived at her apartment. she was so giddy with excitement that she wanted to run around and shout and tell everyone but she had to sit silently for the meantime as the makeup artist worked on her face. edging elation bubbled through her every vein as they talked about varying outfits to wear, expensive designer brands she was allowed to borrow. she felt like a proper celebrity.
finally, the crew decided on a casual look for today. her slate black, silken hair was bundled in a half-up loose french plait whilst the rest of it waved down just below her shoulders, the front strands falling in front of her face. light and delicate makeup that made her eyes shine and sparkle like a glossy nephrite stone; the minimal makeup also allowed her ubiquitous, chocolate freckles to proudly be displayed on her face. polished, golden dangle geometric earrings to frame her heart-shaped face and overall elevate the look from simple to elegant. an ivory laced-back milkmaid top with puffed long sleeves, high-waisted, sun-bleached skinny jeans with a few sparse rips and shreds, tattered white thread entwined between the tears and loosely hanging like vines. to finish off the look was some pearly white stilettos and few rings as well as a similarly styled necklace to match the earrings.
“i feel, amazing.” adele faltered in disbelief as she longingly stared at herself in the mirror, turning to the crew exhibiting an approving smile. “thank you.” she softly spoke before squeaking with excitement as she danced on the spot causing her team to giggle in response. “time to get going!” she excitedly commanded herself as she made a poor attempt at trying to control her out of rhythm breathing. the exhilaration and eagerness began to convolute into a ball of anxiousness and fret. it was something new and different which was scary but she didn’t want it to hold her back. another deep breath and she made her way to the contemporary, modern lobby of her apartment block where she spotted the black suv through the towering glass front doors in which her chauffeur was waiting for her.
“per jenna’s request,” the chauffeur nodded towards the coffee in the cupholder. adele wrapped her hand around the starbucks cup — still hot. “vanilla oat milk latte?” she asked as she brought the almost searing coffee to her lips, the steam floating upwards and brushing past her skin. the chauffeur nodded as he put the vehicle into gear and started to head towards the destination. effortlessly, the sweet drink passed her lips as she took a few sips before she threw her head back in a satisfied manor. surely the coffee would help with the nerves and just overall elevate her mood. she scoured her social media for a short while, taking breaks to finish the rest of her drink before they arrived. it’s l.a, so it was always bound to take a while even if it just was a few blocks over.
discreetly, the car pulled into the back entrance where she was able to enter without getting noticed and was directed to a very bright and lively reception where the young actress signed in. her heels clicking against the laminated wooden flooring as she followed the operations manager who was indistinctively talking through the black earpiece attached to her ear and was clutching a clipboard to her stomach. a few corridors later they had arrived, the manager twisted the handle to the door and entered, allowing adele to trail behind her.
almost blinding, the room was filled with numerous studio lights. littering the floor almost completely, cables and all different sorts of leads and plugs lay disorganised on the floor. a huge monitor was placed in front of the white screen which was the focus of all the beaming lights. “hey adele!” vocalised the director as he approached her, also bearing a black earpiece. “so the premise of today’s shoot is quite simple. you’re going to be playing the game with our two guests over here,” he briefly motioned towards two gentlemen sat in the corner of the room chatting and chuckling between themselves clearly in a world of their own, “and we’ve paired you with henry because we only have two controllers and we want to get everyone to be involved so the others are being shot later. does that sound good?” he queried, concluded his speech.
“of course.” she eagerly spoke with a grin. “great,” the director spoke as he adjusted his wire-frame glasses, “let me introduce you to the guests. they’re going to be guiding you along with the game,” he spoke, leading adele over towards the boisterous men who were still conversing right up until adele and the director were stood only a few metres away.
“mark?” adele apprehensively suspected as she reached her hand out to his, inviting the suave gentleman to shake hands. “yes!” he answered in a shocked yet pleased tone as he stood to be polite and accepted the handshake with a beaming grin. “i think i watched a bit of your stuff a while back,” adele admitted before briefly catching eyes with the other guy who was staring up at her with gleaming eyes and a dopey yet adorable smile. “i’m honoured,” mark softly spoke before looking down at the other guy who was now standing to follow suit. “this is my friend ethan,” mark continued, placing a firm grip on his pal's shoulder.
“hi, nice to meet you.” ethan spoke in a much more gentle manner than mark did as he reached his hand out to replicate the greeting. “nice to meet you too,” she replied, reciprocating the greeting. “have you watched my stuff too?” ethan asked with a bashful smile as he ruffled his hair with his painted black fingernails. adele hesitantly shook her head not wanting to hurt his feelings, “no, but if it’s anything like mark’s stuff i’m certain it’s great.” she stated looking back at mark who had an affirming smirk on his face as he looked down at his younger friend who’s face had started to flush pink.
“henry is meant to be here right now, but he isn’t,” the director addressed somewhat annoyingly, “i’ll go and have a word to see where he is you can just stay here and talk to each other.” the director stated before hurriedly making his way to the door which adele entered through. she sat down in one of the spare seats that sat opposite the boys as they sat down once more.
“can i just say i watched the trailer this morning and i can’t wait to watch it.” he admitted as he began to pull at the strings of his coal-black hoodie. “thank you, it really means a lot,” adele’s cheeks blushed as she began to fiddle with the rings on her fingers yet still keeping her eyes on the boys. “seriously. we’re not just saying this it looks fantastic,” mark chirped in enthusiastically as he leaned forward in the seat, “i’m never usually this excited about a new series. so congrats!” he admitted with a deep chuckle, looking towards ethan who was nodding in agreement.
the conversation was silenced when a huge figure walked through the door followed by the director and operations manager. the director hastily wagged his fingers at adele and the boys who obediently made their way over. “adele!” henry happily bellowed in his charming english accent as he pulled her into a gentle hug, remembering he probably was over two times her size. “long time no see,” she affirmed as she hugged him back before breaking their embrace. her eyes involuntarily wandered over to ethan as the director began briefing henry. ethan quickly darted his eyes to the director as if he just hadn’t been gazing at her causing adele to grin to herself as she put her concentration back to the director.
“great, so follow me and i’ll seat you.” the director asserted as he walked towards the chairs in front of the white screen, two at the front and two at the back yet not parallel to each other. the front seats were more centred whilst the back two were offset so nobody would be getting in the way of each other when seated.
“adele if you sit in the front left seat, henry in the right.” he requested as he took a step behind the camera and watched the monitor to see if it was what he had envisioned. adele and henry sat which the director reacted with a thumbs up. “okay, ethan if you sit on the left and mark on the right please.” the director concluded as he continued to watch the monitor. the boys did as they were told before mark immediately remarked. “gosh it’s bright behind here,” he joked shielding his eyes as he laughed, eliciting a few giggles from everyone as the director adjusted some of the studio light placement with a few apprentices.
after everything was adjusted to the directors liking, they were ready to roll. the director placed his 3 fingers up as he counted down whilst mouthing the numbers. the thumb was up, which meant everyone introduced themselves and surprisingly it didn’t need multiple takes. “today, adele and i are going to be playing the symbols of shadows game which is very similar to the new series on netflix september 4th.” henry beamed, clutching the xbox controller in his hand as he looked over towards adele. “and i’m going to win. i’m going to beat henry.”
henry scoffed, dismissing adele’s statement as mark and ethan giggled behind them. “we’re also going to try to help, but it looks like they’re gaming experts,” mark spoke, wavering his tone with the last two words as he jokingly mocked adele and henry. “well, there’s only one way to find out.” ethan spoke energetically in a slightly goofier voice than what he was speaking in before. ethan looked at mark before they both turned towards the camera with a raised eyebrow. “okay great. we’ll cut there. let’s load the game up.” the director approved, leaning back in his chair, fixing his corduroy jacket as one of the apprentices loaded the game up and set up the first level. “we just want you to complete the first level so don’t try and rush.” the apprentice handed back the controller to adele as he quickly rushed out of view.
the camera began to roll again and the pair began to get a grasp of the controls and the setting of the game as they intentionally tried to set each other up in the game: pushing one another of the map, friendly fire, stealing points and collectables, and deliberately annoying each other which resulted in many laughs around the room. matter-of-factly, ethan and mark didn’t really do anything to help, however, they did make for a great commentary and supplied multiple belly-aching jokes.
the screen faded to black as they’d finished the first level; mark and ethan clapped and congratulated the pair in between giggles as adele and henry carried on the bit and refused to display any means of sportsmanship. “guys, i don’t know about you but i definitely won.” henry retaliated as adele shook her head and rolled her eyes. mark and ethan were laughing so hard it was almost silent. “this was a team game,” mark giggled as the pitch in his voice heightened. “let us know in the comments who you think won. because it was moi.” adele stated confidently, trying to hide the smile that wanted to appear on her lips so badly. the pair promoted their netflix series as they wrapped up filming. “okay, great. that’s everything. thanks, guys.” the director spoke as he picked up his macbook from the desk and began typing away. “if you just wait here until someone comes and collects you,” the director struggled to speak as he was too busy multitasking. he pressed the side of his earpiece and spoke to himself as he called for the cast to be escorted.
“you’re really good, i was impressed.” ethan spoke to adele softly, as everyone got out of their seats. “you really like to flatter me don’t you.” she joked which caused ethan to halter in his thoughts for a moment. “it’s not a bad thing,” she reassured him, “it’s really nice to hear. especially coming from you.” delicately spoke, eyes quickly moving over to see if anyone was listening but mark and henry were engulfed in their own conversation. ethan’s cheeks flushed pink again as he displayed a meek grin.
he was about to respond when the door re-opened and the manager stepped through, immediately grabbing everyone else’s attention. ethan bit at his lip as anguish washed over his face as he realised the conversation was over. adele was disinclined for a moment, lingering for a few more seconds as the butterflies in her stomach began to fade. “it was nice talking to you. talk soon?” she asked which brightened up ethan’s face as he nodded, “of course. see you soon.” he timorously spoke with a contemptuous smile as he waved goodbye, for now.
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