#and i just deleted the original post instead of editing it

[wizardofgoodfortune]

good times, for a change (ch. 5)

Rating: Mature Chapter: 5/?  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Slow Burn, Single Parents, POV Alternating, Dream is a sculptor, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Bullying, Descriptions of Violence, Smoking, Drinking

Hob felt the blood rush through his ears like a river in a storm.

She passed away.

The baby, too.

(read on ao3)

[liquifiedfurby]

literally giggling and kicking my feet rn from researching birds.

[simkoos]

as a cc creator you often look back at your old creations and think "yea i could've done that so much better lmao". that's kind of been my mindset for the last couple of months. so i decided to clean up and revive (yet again) some of my older cc collections!

meshes have been fixed (some objects didn't even have all lod's or shadowmaps smh) or moderately edited to conform to my current aesthetics

textures have been hugely improved along with better color palettes, neater normals and speculars

please delete all old files before adding these! they will replace in-game but you cannot have the old versions and the new versions installed at the same time. 

~~~

12pm includes 6 items just as the originals. the panda bank is now functional if you have ravasheen's 'in your safe piggy bank' mod installed.

fps includes 3 items. (you can find the originals here) both video game consoles require city living.

home includes 8 items, originally 6. both the shelves and desk have way more slots for extra storage!

liselotte includes 6 items. the original set is still available here if you prefer that instead. not a lot has been changed except for minor edits to the folded towels and a mesh replacement of the toothbrushes. also i've left out the bath robes since i personally don't have a use for them since that one bg recolor update lol.

plant mom includes 11 items. one of my all time fave sets, which can be found here, again if you prefer that.

study group includes 14 items now, 6 more than the originals.  i've added accessory backpacks for all ages except infant and toddler. and now the deco backpacks can be used as storage if you have ravasheen's 'hoarders simnonymous' mod installed.

switch includes 11 items. everything is basically the same as in the original post. only a few minor touches here and there. i added a thermostat, which requires seasons. and a newly added electrical outlet with safety plugs. all light switches are functional if you have the bathroom clutter kit and littledica's functional light switch override.

~~~

download (always free on patreon)

[userpeggycarter]

i was requested by anon to make a tutorial for this gifset and here it is!

DIFFICULTY intermediate/difficult. basic giffing knowledge is definitely required.

while my gifset has a fair amount of animation, the only handmade animations can be found in the second and fifth gif. the rest are assets (the checkmarks, the sharpie circles) (either gifs or videos) i found on the internet and pasted over my gif.

THE BASICS OF TIMELINE GIFFING

if you gif with frames, you will need to use a timeline for the animation to work (keyframes). i’m a timeline giffer anyway so this was another Tuesday for me. if you never used that method of giffing, however, it can be confusing, especially if you never used a video editing software before (the timeline works like video editing). 

so, here’s a breakdown of what is the timeline:

the player icons work like any video/music player in existence. ignore the volume icon.

the gear icon indicates the quality of the reproduction while editing it, not the quality of the end product. think like it’s Youtube reproduction settings on a video in order to save your 4G data, but with RAM power instead. this is very useful if your computer isn’t very powerful to begin with and gifs with VFX are very heavy to handle. 

i always click the loop option inside the gear panel because i like to see how the gif will be viewed by the public, i find watching to play only once isn’t very productive. you can stop and restart the reproduction by pressing the space bar on your keyboard.

every layer of your PSD file will have its own bar. the length of the bar means the duration of the gif, so a longer bar means a longer gif and a shorter one, a shorter gif. for everything that isn’t your gif/screencap-based (ie, coloring, typography, lightning, shapes, etc) can be dragged by the extremities as much as you want, making the asset last as long as you want. the only layer that is limited by its maximum duration is naturally your gif, but you can also drag it to make it shorter.

you can also drag a whole layer bar by clicking it and dragging it, making the start and finishing point different from the rest. be careful while doing that otherwise you will end up with blank frames, messing up the looping of your gif completely.

there’s a needle you can drag across the timeline and it works just like on a vinyl disc, the moment the needle drops, it’s the moment/frame Photoshop will show you.

you can also trim your stuff by cutting and deleting snippets of the bar. for that, you will drag your needle to the desired moment, use the scissor tool and then press delete to erase the unwanted bit.

it’s important to point out that the timeline only allows 0.03x or 0.07px speed, no matter what the speed the gif was before converting to that method. if the original speed is closer to 0.03x, then PS will define the new speed as 0.03x. if it’s closer to 0.07x, then it’s 0.07x. i always change the speed to 0.03x before converting to timeline for the sake of not screwing stuff up, which means i see my gif looping while editing in a faster way than Tumblr users will see when the gifset is posted. this takes a while to adjust to if you’re new to timeline giffing, but eventually you don’t think it’s jarring anymore.

that also means you will need to correct the speed after your gif is completely finished. to do that, i use this action.

you can zoom in and zoom out using the little mountain sliding bar. this will be useful later in the tutorial.

if you zoom to the max, you will see all the numbers above your layer bar. these are time marks. the thing is, they seem a bit weird at first. the bigger numbers indicate SECONDS (01:00f, 02:00f, 03:00f, etc), while the smaller and repetitive numbers indicate frames (5f, 10f, 15f, 25f). that means that the smallest drag of your needle possible (from point A to point B) refers to an interval of 1 frame. you will need to take this into consideration while animating stuff.

you can color code your layers, if you think that makes it easier for you to see what you are doing. this is something i do, not only in Photoshop but every Adobe product with a timeline. to change the color of a layer bar (the default is purple), you can right-click on your layer in the layer panel and click the color you want. the colors are the very last thing in the list when you right-click it.

another organization tip is the use of folders. if you create a folder in the layers panel, a folder is created inside the timeline and any layer inside of that folder will disappear from the panel until you click the little arrow next to the name of the folder in the timeline panel. you can color code your folder as well, making every layer inside of it the same color or even different colors.

THE BASICS OF KEYFRAMES

every change related to any property selected (transformation, opacity, style, text warp, position of the layer mask, activation of the layer mask) will be computed in the exact moment in the gif you change it. if that doesn’t happen, you can force Photoshop to do it by clicking the small diamond next to the property name.

let’s say you want an animation to start 0.5 seconds after the gif starts, so you will drag your “needle” to 0.5 seconds and then make the change (making a text bigger, moving a shape, etc). 

Photoshop will automatically bridge the gap between the state of the gif at 0 seconds and 0.5 seconds, thus animating your gif. 

to start animating, you will need to click the little clock next to the property you want to animate. make sure you click the clock while your needle is at the exact beginning of the gif.

every change (keyframe) will be marked with a small diamond under the layer bar, at the exact moment you changed it. that means if you make jarring changes in a short amount of time/frames, the animation will be quick and abrupt. if the interval is very long, the animation will be slow and smooth.

the selected(s) keyframe(s) will have their diamond painted yellow, while the unselected ones will be grayed out. 

you can right-click the diamonds to delete or copy them. if you have many diamonds and want to delete them all, you can click and drag to form a square and select all of them just like when you do to select many files at once on a PC folder. there’s also the option “select all” under the right-click panel.

you can also drag them and change their timing that way. if you have more than one diamond selected, if you drag them, their interval will remain the same, but the starting and finishing point of those two diamonds will change.

THE SQUARES BAR

the easiest of the two animations. this one doesn’t require keyframe animation, but i put this in the last bit of the tutorial for the sake of its flow.

first, i added the empty squares. they last as long as the gif lasts. after 6 frames, i added the first colored square and made that square last until the end of the gif. i repeated this in a staggered manner (+2 frames delay each colored square) so the colored squares appear at equal intervals. 

THE STATS BAR

the most difficult of the two, but don’t worry, you got this. 

first, you will need to structure your stats, ie, add the text, the dividing line and the pointed lines. that is, if you want to follow the exact design i used in my gif, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.

next, you will create rectangles that fill the entire stat bars. you will add a layer mask to each one of them and with a layer mask selected, select a rectangle about the size of your original rectangle, then paint it black. you will notice the original rectangle will disappear. if you delete the layer mask, the original rectangle will appear again. that is because you didn’t delete the original rectangle, you just hid it by using a layer mask.

there’s a chain icon between the layer and the layer mask in the layers panel, click it to unlink them.

click the clock next to “layer mask position” with your needle at 0 seconds/frames. drag your needle to the moment you want the stats to end and use the arrow keys to move the layer mask. you will notice the original rectangle will slowly be revealed by you moving the layer mask. you will also notice that a small diamond will appear in the “layer mask position” line in the timeline. you created a keyframe!

if you press play, you will see the animation from the bar going from null to full!

FURTHER READING/VIEWING

this tutorial uses layer mask animation to reveal text too!

a video tutorial for better visualization!

another keyframe tutorial, this time focusing on coloring!

if you still have any questions, feel free to contact me!

and if you (or anyone) else want, i can go in depth in animating each property, i just did a quick overview + explained the stats animation.

[pixelplayground]

Ahh to the anon whose message I just accidently nuked, I'm sorry!! That was really sweet, and I messed up one of the floorplan images for you, but deleted the post instead of editing it so I just lost your whole message *sigh*.

Anyway, here is the floorplan for Derring Hall that I just went ahead and mocked up. I'm not sure why I didn't post it originally with the build, usually I do. For the Basement room, I would personally make that a library or recreation room. It could also be split into more bedrooms too if you needed ❤

[jovial-thunder]

Lancer Tactics devlog

I'm gonna try out posting my ~monthly devlog roundup here as well. These suckers are glorified changelogs with anecdotes and gifs galore. Let me know if this is something you like seeing show up on your dash?

Map Editor

Got units able to be placed/deleted/moved in the mission editor

Can paint/remove command zones in the editor

Can paint minecraft-like terrain blocks in the editor

Can paint/rotate multi-tile props in the editor

Can edit unit character sheets and portrait via the editor

3D maps

Did a bunch of art tests with 3D mech models, provided by GeneralChaos, which we ended up deciding not to go with to keep things simple.

To avoid the can of worms that is animation, we'd have to lean into a static "tabletop minatures" aesthetic which we decided is not a style we want to be stuck with. By sticking with 2D sprites, we avoid falling into a sort of uncanny valley; it's easier to get away with not animating a 2D sprite than it is for a 3D model.

 We also experimented with 3D terrain. We decided to make a rule that the visual style for a piece of terrain should match its mechanical effect: obstructing terrain that you can't move through, such as rocks or buildings, will be in 3D, while non-obstructing terrain like trees will stick with 2D sprites.

Hooking up the 3D camera to follow events like movement and attacks did a LOT for making it starting to feel like it's cohering into an Actual Game™

Implemented cover! And an attack preview! Cover works by aiming a ray from the target to the originator (technically to and from each voxel of each, respectively, to handle size 2s shooting above size 1 cover) and tracking all the terrain blocks it hits (how we'll handle non-terrain hard cover TBD). I think I have it working according to Perijove's cover rules manual, but I'm sure there'll be edge cases to work out. This is a case where things are significantly simplified by working in squares instead of hexes; hexes have a lot more possible weird angles you have to deal with.

Re-added what I'm stubbornly calling Combat Popcorn; little bits of text that pop out when you use abilities and attacks.

UI & game screens

Added ability for the engine to show UI that's anchored to the game world via a little word bubble line but also stay on screen as the camera moves around.

Got word bubbles working; you can now write dialogue in the mission editor, hit playtest, and see it work in a mission! (it does actually translate correctly now; this gif is just from a bug I thought was funny)

Got ability effects mostly behaving appropriately again, including muzzle flashes. The easiest way to handle them ended up being NOT billboarding them so they always face the camera (like all other 2D sprites in the game); instead, I put them on a plane parallel with the ground and just spin them around the unit to point at wherever their target is.

Did some work ironing out our tooltip system. The standard in CRPGs these days is this kind of nested labyrinth of tooltops that you see in Baldur's Gate 3:

I Did Not Want to try and figure out how to wrangle that much UI, so we're instead opting to cap the nested tooltips at the second layer. You can lock a general tooltip for e.g. an action and then mouseover various items within that tooltip to get glossary definitions...

...and then instead of having those glossary tips be lockable/mouse-overable themselves, I collect all related terms to that glossary definition and let you tab through them.

Added skin overlay functionality to the portrait maker, enabling textures like scars, tattoos, stubble, and vitiligo to be applied to just the skin and not extend off into space.

Midway through writing this update, Carpenter sent me this gif of the randomization button working! There's a still a bunch of skintones/assets missing and a few are a bit janky, but it was exciting to start seeing the range of these lil freaks (affectionate) that this editor can create.

Mourning cloak license!

This is the one I'm probably most excited about: I did a bit of a content dive and implemented a basic character sheet + all Mourning Cloak traits and equipment. They don't have fancy graphics yet, but the weapons and systems can be added via the character sheet and used in-game.

It took a little under a day, including adding soon-to-be common mechanisms like bonus damage. This is great news in that it means the engine we've been building for so long in the abstract seems to do a great job in handling comprehensive actual game content, and that it looks like we've set ourselves up for success when it comes time to buckle down on churning that out.

I'm sure other licenses will come with unique difficulties (I fear the day it comes time to do the Mule Harness // Goblin CP) but I'm feeling good about it!

Vertical slice?

Taking a step back, the pressing question on my mind has been "when will we have a playable early access build?"

I was originally hoping for Feb/March, but what we've internally been referring to as the "3D cataclysm" has pushed everything back by at least three months, so the target for the first alpha build is now in May. So, ah, thanks for your patience! Seeing things come together, I've become more and more convinced that moving to 3D was the right call.

[fortunelowtier]

I was gonna reblog my original post but I didn't wanna spam people with a long ass post (this post is already long enough) so instead I'll just link the previous post here and if yall wanna go look at it you can, but the short version is that a few days ago I made a post talking about HBs incredibly high turnover rate, and apparently within a few days it got enough traction to where it started spreading to the higher-ups of Spindlehorse, including Viv herself. I decided to make this update post just as a way to debunk what I can and as clearly as I can. 

First tweet:

So for starters, they say this as if IMDB's numbers aren't publically available, it's not like I pulled these numbers out of my ass without merit, these are numbers I got off of IMDB. And I know some people might pull the high school English teacher card of “Anyone can edit that!!” and to be honest I dont feel like going into the semantics of one of the most non-arguments you can possibly use so all I’ll say is that the process of editing a Wikipedia or IMDB page is not as easy as your English teachers taught you to think it is. Sure you can edit it but it's another story if the edit will be saved. There's moderation, it's not a free-for-all.

Also, I find it interesting how this tweet was made (and subsequently deleted) mere days after their promotion to Animation Director, and if there's anything I've learned from Spindlehorse controversies it is that if someone is in any real position at the top of the companies proverbial food chain they shouldn't be allowed to speak for the experiences of employees lower on the ladder than them, especially when a lot of them seem to have a habit of denying certain claims despite the public availability of numerous pieces of evidence pointing toward the contrary

It's like if you visited a bunch of former employees of a restaurant with a high turnover rate with proof that they had worked there and for exactly how long they worked there and then the manager comes along and tries to basically say “NUH UH” despite information proving the contrary being publicly available (maybe not the best analogy but you get what I mean)

—

Ok now onto the second one by Viv herself:

There’s a lot to dissect here so I’m gonna break it down bit by bit.

Firstly:

"They’re listing every single credited person in EVERY art department"

So the way I got my numbers was by going to the Series Animation Department section of HB's IMDB, highlighting every name from the beginning of the section to the end, and then pasting them into this website which gave me the line count of 444. Was that the most optimal way of doing so? No, especially after I learned after the fact that there's a way to just see the numbers straight up, but that hardly matters considering the fact that there are allegedly more people in the animation dept who were uncredited, however, I'm still waiting on some more info from my source as to the validity and the scale of these claims (How many people were uncredited, how little were they paid for their work, etc etc) to make a proper post about it, so until then ill just leave it at that as to not make accusations without merit.

So, humoring Viv, I added up the total IMDB credits for the Art Dept and Visual Effects Dept, as well as the Sound Dept since I qualify sound as a form of art and because I wanted to give Viv as fair a chance as possible and actually tally the total credits of “every art department” as Viv claims I did, and it still only equals 155 total credits, a little over a third of the credits in the Animation Dept

Secondly:

“That includes the TC and Chaos credits”

So these are in reference to Toon City and Chaos Emporium, 2 companies known as a source for outsourcing animation, and just to humor Viv I decided to go onto IMDB and tally up all of the Chaos and TC credits since according to her that's where I got most of my final number.

After doing so, Chaos Emporium had a total of 15 credits, and Toon City had a total of 45

So Viv is making it seem like the TC and CE credits make up a large majority of them, which is why I got the number I did, when in reality when combined they only equal 60 credits. 14% of the total (technically it’s 13.5% but I’m rounding to the nearest whole for the sake of convenience)

Thirdly:

“We dont even have 400 people. Simply Misinformation.”

You’re right Viv, you dont have 400 people, because I never said you did, nor did I imply you did. I said you've had 400. Of course you dont have 400 current employees, your company burns through them like paper because you underpay them while you go burning your Amazon and merch money on cruises and vacations and continuously post photos of you buying from zionist companies knowing full well that they're part of an active boycott.

—

So yeah, that's my 2 cents. Sorry if this sounded like some shit you'd see on a Twitlonger but after Viv was made aware of the posts I made about the turnover rate (and subsequently blocked me within the hour after seeing it) I knew that it wasn't gonna be long before I had people DMing me about how wrong I was because “Viv said it was wrong so it must be wrong”. 

One more thing I wanna add because I've gotten a lot of angry messages/asks about this, a lot of Viv stans seem to think I have this bizarre hate boner for Viv when I really don’t. I don’t hate Viv, I hate what she’s become. I hate how ever since the HH pilot she’s become a bully who can’t take criticism. And not just on the surface level of “criticism makes her upset”, because yea no shit, criticism makes everyone upset at least a little, and it's why I hate it when people see someone being upset at criticism and going “ERMM, CANT TAKE CRITICISM?”

When I say “Viv can’t take criticism” I mean she actively tries to shut down any convo about it without trying to learn from it. She blocks anyone who talks poorly about her or her company and makes baseless claims knowing full well her fans will follow her to the ends of Hell regardless of whether or not what she’s saying is even correct.

That’s all I got for now

[syninplays]

So uhm... I did a thing...

✨Character Info Template✨

Been meaning to do this a long time ago (and actually started it but never finished it, lol) as a way to share some more information about my ocs without needing to use a custom page theme, but mostly because I haven't found any page theme that looks exactly as I want and allows this much customization.

There are two versions and both are almost exactly the same; but the example shown in the left has an 'appearance' section which is small and has few quick facts regarding the oc's appearance; while the example on the right has a 'moodboard' section instead which allows you to add more info about your oc.

You can change every section/title to fit your needs like I did in the examples below; I personally removed some categories as well and got rid of some connections as this oc doesn't have that many close friends/partners to fill the original template. However, I also included an extra separated 'connections' section in the download in case you want to add more people and more information.

I recommend you stick to square-shaped pictures so it's easier to fit them to each section. Also if and when you edit the information or section titles, please select only one line at a time to replace it so you don't lose the text format. (Titles shouldn't change because that's a single format/font within the same text box, but should it change you can always hit ctrl+z hehe) When you're done, I strongly recommend you save this as a .png instead of .jpg so it's the best possible quality!

Last but not least, this is a .psd file. So you'll need either Photoshop (I did this with Photoshop Portable, but it supports newer versions of PS and it *should* support older versions too) or Photopea to open and edit this file.

Credits: Adobe Photoshop, Inter font, Golften Vintage font

>DOWNLOAD< (patreon but free :p)

(note: I'm posting this with my gaming blog because I think my fellow gamers might be interested in this, but please consider giving credits to me if you use this template by tagging @synindoodles instead of this blog)

More info on how to use and edit this template below the cut!

Layers:

>Each layer is properly named and categorized. The general layers such as the background, the icon shape and background shapes are under the groups.

>If you don't want to see/don't need one of the connections' pictures and information, I recommend you find which one it is (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6) and click on the eye symbol next to the layer to hide it so that way if you ever need it, it won't be truly gone.

>To edit a text section, simply find the layer (such as General Information>Left Column) and double click on the 'T' symbol next to the layer. That way it will open edit mode and allow you to edit the text, just don't hit delete or enter while everything is selected or you'll erase it :p

>Main text sections aren't separated, they're blocks of text. I recommend you don't remove the amount (for example, if you downloaded the version with the 'appearance' section, which has 5 sections of information, don't remove the fifth line.) Either leave it empty or replace it with another data, otherwise it will look weird. The 'general information' section might look good even if you remove a few lines, just don't get rid of the whole block of text.

Pictures:

>To add a new picture, simply paste it over this document and move it using the Move Tool.

>To frame it (so it becomes a circle or fits over the shape you want), make sure the picture layer is over the layer you want, then while holding alt click between the two layers. [For example, if you want to add a new main oc picture: 1) paste the pic you want, 2) move it with the Move Tool so it's covering the big circle, 3) once you've fully covered the shape (if it isn't you can resize it by right clicking on it then on 'free transform', sometimes you might need to hold shift to proportionally resize it) make sure the newly pasted pic layer is over the layer named "picture goes here", 4) hold the alt key and hover your mouse cursor over the line between your pic layer and the circle layer until you see an arrow going down symbol, once you see it click it and tah dah! your picture should now have the same shape as the circle! - you can further move it if it doesn't fit the way you want with the Move Tool (;

Others:

>You can change every color, font and section to your liking, just don't change the general layout of the template.

>To hide/show the guides (those bright blue lines all over the document), click ctrl+,

>'Inter' is a free font and you can get it in the link above (linked with the credits), Golften Vintage is not, but you can get the demo version >here< (just scroll down and click the blue download button under license). I will not tell you how to install fonts as it might be different for everyone (for me it's C:/Windows/Fonts and I just drop the zipped files (except the .txt one) there), but google is your friend.

>I can't think of anything else that needs to be said here, but if you have any other question feel free to send me an ask or dm and I'll help you out!

>Last but not least, a like is appreciated if you plan to use this plus consider tagging @synindoodles if you use it <3

[loosiap]

Scalp & Hairline Overlay Box 2 - 17 PV2 recolours and round hairline

@pforestsims & @deedee-sims made this awesome Scalp & Hairline overlay box. Some creators already made recolours in their prefered hair systems BUT since these are all recolours using the same packages they all conflict with eachother and you can have only 1 box. I wanted to have one of Simgigglegirl's in my game and also separate one that would have colours I post therefore I made this box. Looks the same, works the same but doesn't conflict with original box nor it's recolours.

Box's object is the same as original (because I like it), only two colours are new: PForest's hair trimming accessories found in Buymode → General → Dressers, for 25 Simoleons:

Scalp's and hairline's textures and alphas are the same as in this second PForest's version with round hairline instead of original widow peak (credits for the texture PForest's used goes to BillieLith). Recoloured in colours I usually upload: Poppet's V2 natural and unnatural colours as well as BerryNooboos’ Cosmic, Wyxii’s Mint, Furbyq's Afterglow and PMG's Amphitrite; aditionally I added Volatile and LightGrey colours that @rudhira's adding to her custom hair retextures.

↑ Shown on base game's hairbald mesh using PForest's mesh default and my hairbald texture default. I recommend downloading PForest's no shine default or Rudhira's v1 default or my hairbald texture default so colours won't look dull on this mesh. Swatch included in the download. Avialable for all ages and unisex.

DOWNLOAD: MF | SFS

Textures are in standard size (512x512px), format DXT5, I included all textures in the download in png format just in case someone wants to edit them or recolour or smth (delete them otherwise)

There are some additional informations in the README.txt file included in the download, you check it out 👉👈 (lmk if you think I should add some more info)

Also Thank you @themeasureofasim for great tutorial!

[yoitsjay]

(This is a screenshot of the original ask because for some reason my drafts glitched out and instead of editing the tumblr it posted it when it wasn't ready and I had to delete it, so whoever requested this I am sorry! And I hope you read this and like my story!

Cuddle Buddies

Pairings: Simon "Ghost" Riley x M!reader

Summary: you and Simon have always had your differences, but the one thing you did have in common was the fact that you couldn't go to sleep without being in each other's arms every night. So, you and him made a habit of cuddling every night.

Warnings: fluff, touch starved? Confessions

Word count: 1621

December had settled in after a long and dreadful November, luckily enough for the soldiers, December was their month off from work. Some soldiers left, Soap went away for a bit to spend Christmas with his family, he had invited you and Ghost but you didn't Really know soap that well so you declined. You had been a recruit for the 141 for about a year before you finally “graduated” in the eyes of the team and became their combat medic. Your family lived all the way up in Northern Canada and you were all the way in London so there was no cheap way to see them, so instead you stayed on base and face timed with your family.

It was the day before Christmas eve and you were on the phone with your mother, it was late, maybe about 11 pm for you whilst it was much earlier for your family as there was a 7 hour time difference. It was just you, Ghost and a few recruits on base so it was very quiet, quiet enough that you could hear a pin drop from another room entirely. So when you heard footsteps approaching your barracks you said some goodbyes To your family and promised to call them for Christmas.

You set your phone down on your night table after the call ended, running a hand through yours freshly washed hair, it had definitely been a while since you really had a good scrub down so the shower you had taken the night before really made you feel good…

A sudden knock on your door broke you from your thoughts and you stood up from your bed, making your way to the door before opening it. And much to your unsurprise it was a recruit. “Sir- Ghost asked me to fetch you, he's in his quarters.” the recruit relayed before walking away. A sigh escaped your lips and you returned back to your bed, grabbing your phone before heading towards Ghosts bedroom.

See, for months you and Ghost teased each other back and forth, at first he was just straight up bullying and you wouldn't react, but as soon as you hit the three month mark of being a rookie, which was typically where rookies bailed, you started reciprocating the same energy back to Ghost and he took that as a personal challenge, so whenever you were around each other you would bicker and insult each other.

However one night during a game of very drunk poker, you had passed out against Ghost and he had taken you to your room to sleep, however you wouldn't let him go, and that started your almost daily routine. When everyone else was asleep Ghost would send a recruit for you or send you a text, and the moment you entered his room you were in his bed. It was nothing sexual, intimate but not sexual. But every night you and Ghost would hold each other, and on bad nights you would cradle him to your chest and tell him stories to make him forget about whatever dream or nightmare had plagued him that night.

Tonight was no different. You were cuddle buddies now, supposedly.

Or maybe it was different.

When you reached his bedroom you had heard some shuffling from behind the door, followed by a grunt and a curse from the British man's lips. You raised an eyebrow, knocking on the door to alert him of your presence. “Ghost? You're gonna let me in or what?” You asked in a joking tone. “Hold on! Wait a minute.” He replied back to you and some more shuffling could be heard before finally Ghost opened the bedroom door a few minutes later. However before you could see what he was doing Ghost tied a blindfold around your eyes. You jolted at the sudden blindness and the larger man let out a soft apology, taking one of your hands in his while his other hand went to your hip as he guided you into his room, making you stand in a certain spot before he closed the bedroom door and came back to you, gently untying the cloth around your eyes.

When you saw what he had done to his bedroom your jaw was on the floor. He had candles lit and strewn about the room, his bed was neatly made (which it never is) but on top of that there was a large tray of your favorite food. But that wasn't even the most shocking thing. Ghost was standing in front of you in just a T-shirt and sweats, he had his Balaclava on of course but no black makeup surrounded his eyes. You could also see the tattoo on his arm alot better and honestly you loved it. You had a few tattoos of your own but not a sleeve.

“Ghost wha-”

“Simon.” He blurted out, his eyes reflecting nervousness almost as he looked at you. His interruption baffled you as you blinked at him once before opening your mouth again to speak. However once again he beat you too it.

“call me Simon. Please.” He muttered to you, clearing his throat before grabbing your hand and leading you to his bed. He sat you down, pushing the tray towards you. He was quiet, more quiet than usual. He always had something smart to say but- not now. “Simon.” You whispered, and watched as he visibly got shivers by you just saying his name. You grabbed the tray of your favorite food, scooping up some of it on a spoon as you took a bite. This wasn't store bought, but homemade.

Your eyes went wide at the realization and you stared at Ghost- Simon. “Did you- did you make this?” You asked him, and all he did was nod. You could see him fidgeting, but he quickly tore your attention away from that as he spoke up again. “If you don't like it you don't have to eat it-”

You quickly interrupted him before he could say anything more, shaking your head. “No Simon it's delicious. I cant- I can't believe you remembered me ramble about this dish- how did you even find the recipe?” You asked, taking another bite from the dish, well- more than one, you were absolutely devouring this dish. “I uh- I found your moms Facebook and I contacted her for the recipe. She's a very kind woman- gave it to me immediately…” He trailed off, watching as you devoured the meal.

You finished it quickly, placing the food tray on Simon's bedside table before turning to him again. However instead of saying anything you pulled him into a crushing hug. Which he actually reciprocated. “Thank you Simon.” You whispered.

You don't know why he had done all of this for you, but as you and him lay down together and you rest your head on his chest, you can hear just how much his heart is racing, even hearing it skip a beat when you adjust your hand or touch his chest. Was he sick? You had no clue.

Silence filled the room, it wasn't comforting, no the way Simon was acting, or more so how he wasn't acting was off-putting. So you abruptly sat up, shifting your body so you now sat atop his lower abdomen. You stared down at him into his widened eyes, and you huffed. “Spill it Riley, what's got you so weird today? Are you sick or something?” You asked him, leaning forward as you placed your hands on his face to try and feel if he had a fever or something. Simon then grabbed your wrists, keeping you in place as he stared up at you, but in one swift motion you were on your back and he was on top of you, his face extremely close to yours, Close enough to feel his breath filter through the mask and fan across your face. It smelt like mint, and chocolate. “Simo-”

you couldn't even blurt out his full name as he pulled the mask up over his nose and he kissed you, moving his hands from your wrist to your hips instead. You were in shock, eyes wide and lips somewhat Agape. He pulled away after a few minutes, his expression now worried that he pushed you too far. “Y/n?” He called out your name, squeezing your hip gently.

You blinked once… twice… you looked up at him as you licked your bottom lip, taking the remnants of whatever lip chap he had on. You sucked in a deep breath, moving your hand up to his bare cheek. He flinched slightly, but didn't pull away as you gently felt the lower half of his face, your hand traveling to the nape of his neck where you rested your hand there for but a moment before pulling him against your lips again, reciprocating the kiss that he had given you less than a minute ago.

Simon melted into your touch as he held you and kissed you, hundreds of bottled up feelings smashing into you like the dam that held it all in broke. After a few moments he pulled back, staring into your eyes. No words needed to be said, and this time he got comfortable beside you with his face pressed to the crook of your neck, his mask was still up over his nose, which was good enough for you.

His arms around your waist, his face against your neck and the feeling of his hot breath against your skin, combined with the food you had ate had started to make you sleepy. And within moments you had drifted off with Simon following suit.

Cuddle Buddies indeed.

[bethanydelleman]

Sometimes you just don't communicate well online and what you said is taken very negatively. I would delete this but it was re-blogged too much and I don't want it to have zero context, so I'll edit instead. All the original text remains.

I love you Fanny Price (Mansfield Park) for wanting to look the best in your ballgown.

Explanation: Fanny really cares about looking good for a ball. This is never mocked, it's taken as a real and sympathetic concern. So often I feel like women are dismissed for even caring about their appearance.

I love you Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) for going to court in a pink dress.

Pink often is seen as girly and infantile. Also, I love that we actually see the effort that Elle puts into being pretty. She cares about it and it's an investment. What we seem to get now is instant make-up and fashion from characters who don't actually care about it. Like you have to look the best at all times but it should also be effortless.

I love you Beth Harmon (The Queen's Gambit) for using your winnings to buy nice clothes.

I thought they would throw Beth Harmon into the frump category (ie: A woman only has brain cells to be smart OR pretty, not both, think Amy from The Big Bang Theory). Also she's not shamed for spending her money on clothing and not more important stuff.

I love you Joan Harris (Mad Men) for showing a woman can be both sexy and very good at her job.

This one has probably been taken the worst. Joan's character is fascinating to me because she falls into a bunch of "sleep your way to the top" stereotypes but they subverted those expectations. She is sexy, she does use it or attempt to use it to her advantage (it mostly ends up hurting her), but she is also very smart and very good at her job. It makes me so angry that most characters, even Peggy at first, dismiss her as just trading on her looks. I loved how complex a character she was and that she wasn't just a "bimbo"

I wish there were more of you, instead of an endless trope of Strong Women TM acting and dressing like men.

Edit: This post was taken as an insult by people I did not intend to offend. I would be more than happy to see women of all types in media. What makes me sad is that it's still rare to see a woman enjoying being feminine without being portrayed as stupid.

[anonimityblog4000]

I actually hate having to post this, but

I feel like I have to post this in response to some recent drama stirring. I will cop to making an alt blog to post this because the hate around this has been virulent.

Recently this post has been shared regarding another artist creating locked tomb fan art

In this post which you should read they make the claim that the creator of these pieces 100% for certain created them with AI image generation software generating quite a lot of attention. The problem is that their supposed supporting evidence is INCREDIBLY flawed to the point of contradiction and nonsense. For example both of these cropped images

are given as evidence of AI generation, claiming that the smudge is the result of AI failure and that the hand is CLEARLY ai generated…except that even a cursory examination and familiarity of what AI image generation ends up looking like would make it obvious that these aren’t AI hands and are just…normal hand drawn hands. As for the smudge we could easily explain that as the artist not noticing a mistake in one of their layers before posting, but we don’t know that. Except we do.

Because if you were to look at the artists blog now you might notice they have made some corrections and small edits to the original piece and lo and behold…no smudge. Now here is where things get properly silly, instead of drawing the obvious conclusion from this that the artist being able to go in and fix the layers of their work means that they actually drew it THEY CLAIM THAT THE ABILITY TO DRAW AND EDIT IN THE EXACT STYLE OF THE PIECE IS FURTHER EVIDENCE OF AI.

WHAT.

I don’t think I need to point out to most people that AI image generation tools do not work that way and they certainly don’t allow you to make subtle targeted fixes and edits.

There is also a claim that the artist admitted to using AI to produce the piece which is a gross distortion of what they explained, the artist openly stated that they have tried using image gen tools to assist with their thumbnailing process. Let us be clear that thumbnailing is NOT producing any sort of final piece but is simply the process of brainstorming ideas and concepts. It’s seriously gross to flat out lie and claim the artist said anything different. Thankfully someone else screenshotted this so there’s actual evidence that accusations are being made that are straight up lies.

It is also at this point we should take a look at some of the artists other publicly available work.

I chose this selection because another accusation in the post that is hard evidence of AI is that because the posted pieces are “too different” in style from other earlier work posted on their blog, it should be fairly obvious how silly this is with even a small sample of what they have produced. This is an artist who obviously has the ability to work in a wide range of artistic styles and mediums but instead this is being used to claim they…can’t art? It’s also worth pointing the obvious that there are plenty of works in that artist’s portfolio in the exact same mucha style, including ones that are literally hand drawn on paper. Works that literally predate the availability of image generation software going back years. It is a complete farce to suggest this person CANT DRAW HANDS.

Frankly it is incredibly disappointing that the community is barraging this artist with insults and hate because of one persons incredibly flawed accusations. A person that I might add has deleted comments on their post that disagreed with them while at the same time castigating the artist for blocking them and deleting their post as evidence of their guilt.

While this isn’t conclusive in and of itself I’ll end with this.

It’s more effort than the accuser went to before rallying a witch hunt against someone else.

[roccinan]

Snowfall 冰雪谣 (Uncut)

Translating/sharing some things I saw on this Douban thread for anyone interested. It includes details about important plot points that were cut/edited based on evidence and speculation from netizens. Some things were more obvious than others.

The takeaway was that Tencent could have had a really special show (and it would have been waaay more popular on the platform) if they weren't forced to cut out so many things :'D

^Starting with this. One of the MOST important plot points was edited out: Shen Zhiheng is afraid of sunlight, hence the umbrella + hat + sunglasses getup. As the thread points out, he's never seen in sunlight without some kind of covering. As the show goes on, he would have become more and more sensitive to the light.

This is why he had that random wound on his face in ep. 24. The sun burned him, but he went to rescue Mi Lan anyway.

Other changed/removed things below the cut:

Ep 10 originally had footage of Shen Zhiheng revealing his fangs and sucking the blood of all those soldiers. Remembering all the blood he took is what caused his breakdown later. His wounds healed so quickly because he gorged on so much human blood here. Around 20 min. were removed.

Whenever Situ Weilian visited Shen Zhiheng, he was carrying blood in his bag. He only does it in the nighttime because doing this in the daytime draws too much attention. All of this was removed.

In ep 1, when Mi Lan originally meets Shen Zhiheng, there's a scene of Shen Zhiheng being tempted towards sucking her blood and resisting. That was removed, but you can still see a shot of him opening his mouth.

The scene where Mi Lan rescues Shen Zhiheng in jail by "kissing" him should have been longer. He apparently reached out to cup her head, but that was removed. --> Later in the thread, someone adds on to this: in one of the original shots, there was blood on Mi Lan's lips, further implying she bit herself. This is guesswork, but it's very probable- since she gains sight briefly in a later ep/scene, it means she also bit Shen Zhiheng after he couldn't resist biting her through the kiss.

A scene of Li Ying Liang staring down at Shen Zhiheng from another floor was removed.

Shen Zhiheng didn't recover from his wounds in ep1 by sleeping. That was an excuse Situ made up. Originally, Situ gave him blood instead of just doing surgery, but the blood part was removed.

After healing, Shen Zhiheng goes to meet Li Ying Liang and shouts loudly when talking to him (My note: I think we all remember this part). It wasn't a random choice. Shen Zhiheng felt too close to Li Ying Liang's neck and wanted to drink his blood, so he gave that shout to distance them.

Situ Weilian is the second male lead (this is confirmed!). But it feels like all his scenes revolve around Jingxue because the majority of Situ's scenes revolve around blood and vampirism, so when they cut all that out, the only thing remaining was his subplot with her.

When Situ's dancing with Jingxue during their first meeting, a part was deleted (so the show skipped directly to them already dancing). Situ likes her so much because he's a pureblood vampire and doesn't understand human emotion, so every time he comes across an emotion he doesn't understand, he goes to her.

Miss Mu (the villainess) and the corrupt officer guy (Li Ying Liang's boss) were originally Japanese. They wanted to capture Shen Zhiheng for the 731 experiments (fair warning: project 731 was a real atrocity that happened, where the Japanese medically experimented on Chinese prisoners). This was all edited out.

A lot of lines were changed in post, so that's why sometimes the dialogue doesn't match the lips

When the stepmother (Meng Ziyi's character) slaughtered the Shen family: the reason the grandmother wanted her burned was likely because she was caught feeding on human blood (the show changed it to "chicken" blood). If you look carefully at her speaking to little Situ, you can see her fangs.

In ep14, Situ and Shen Zhiheng say the stepmother's death had to do with the blood stone. Their lines don't match their lips so the dialogue was originally completely different. Op notes that in the novel, the stepmother was a pureblood vampire who died after her loved one (Zhiheng's father) died and she lost the will to live.

The conversation Shen Zhiheng has with Mr. Mo about the blood stone was also different in the original cut. Again, their lines don't match their mouths.

When Shen Zhiheng finds the blood stone in his grave, there was originally a shot of him opening his mouth and showing his fangs. That was removed.

When Shen Zhiheng turns Mi Lan, there was originally a shot of him coming close to her neck with fangs. That was removed and replaced with shadows.

With all of the above in mind, this is why a lot eps were only around 30 or so minutes when they should have all been 45. This is also why it feels like Li Ying Liang has a disproportionate amount of screentime, because they likely had to make up for all the lost time with his scenes (or maybe he was always meant to have that many scenes, but the loss of Situ's scenes just makes it more obvious). And unfortunately, why Situ Weilian has so little screentime, which I personally think is a shame because he was amazing in the role.

As you can imagine, everyone in the thread was NOT happy about this. My favorite comment was someone going, "So they think if they remove all references to blood drinking, we won't know he's a vampire? Do they think we're stupid?" Lots of people rightfully disappointed we never got to see Shen Zhiheng vampiring.

Also, apparently the final cut of Snowfall we got takes place in a timeline where WWII never happened(???) since they were forced to remove all references to it and all references to the Imperial Japanese. It's a little murky, but I think the reason has less to do with trying to do pretend Japanese war crimes never happened (most "serious" Republican era c-dramas are about defeating the Japanese or KMT anyway) and more to do with the fact that the censorship bureau has a rule about not mixing history with "fiction." So you can't have vampires with the Republican era, a time grounded in history. But you can have all the immortals and demons you want in stories that take place in "unspecified" ancient times.

*I still think that's Stupid because nobody is currently living in the Republican Era, come on. It's as much in the "past" as your average xianxia, and nobody's going to watch this and think "oh yeah, vampires existed in 1930s China!". Someone at the censors just has too much time on their hands imo!

*I can't tell if that whole mess with the gemstones was part of the original cut or added in as a backup plan though. On one hand, if you have the Japanese and vampirism, they don't need that subplot anymore. But Mu's minions were very clearly "ninja" coded, and that crazy lava scene was apparently always part of the original cut (but they removed a fight between mind-controlled Li Ying Liang and Mi Lan for some reason). It'd also be very odd to give Li Ying Liang a redemption arc if his whole schtick was selling out his own people to imperial Japan. Plus, someone in the thread also mentioned an IMPORTANT plot hole- "If Shen Zhiheng is this powerful, why doesn't he just kill the Japanese army?" They're not wrong! I think the idea of corrupt Kuomingtang officers makes more sense in that context.

Some of Mi Lan and Shen Zhiheng's "romantic" shots were cut, maybe to play down the romance(?). Personally, I might be in the minority, but I think this edit worked in the show's favor- the repression elevated the relationship to something more memorable and graceful.

People pointed out that the last scene in ep24 felt abrupt, like the ending should have been something else and that the director likely shot something different originally. I think it's still 50/50 on who to blame for That ending lol, the director or the censors.

Lastly, I'll say that not everything can be blamed on the censors. For instance, the weird cinematography during the "fast" fight scenes would still have been the same. The writers could still have come up with something less clunky than the gemstone drama and lava climax. Li Ying Liang (I think he did a decent job, not fantastic but decent, and I wasn't bored during his subplots but there really was too much time spent on him) would likely still have all those scenes irrelevant to the main trio. And I doubt it was the censors who told the director, "hey make the last scene as abrupt as possible so you can piss off all your viewers lol!"

But IMAGINE what could have been :'D Who knows, maybe one day they'll release the uncut version or somewhere else will buy the rights and release it. At least we now have more context thanks to the netizen detectives.

[theoutcastrogue]

the internet is rotting, as Jonathan Zittrain noted in an important (but paywalled) 2021 Atlantic article. A huge percentage of the links on the internet are broken, and there is no single authoritative, accessible universal repository that keeps track of everything. It is frighteningly easy for crucial information to slip away. ...

The practice of making changes to an article without noting that you’ve made them is called “stealth editing,” and even the New York Times does it. ... The existence of stealth editing means that it’s difficult to trust that the version of an article you click on at any given moment is the article as it was originally published. ...

I also, to my alarm, realized just how dependent we are on private publications themselves to give us access to records of their own work. Often, they keep it payawalled behind locked gates and charge you admission if you want to have a look. There are lots of sources in the Chomsky book to which you have to subscribe if you want to verify, such as this 1999 story in the Los Angeles Times about NATO’s bombing of a bus in Yugoslavia. This is a story of national importance, far too overlooked at the time, but if you don’t subscribe to the LA Times, you need research library access or a workaround if you want to read it.

Thank God for the Internet Archive, whose Wayback Machine preserves as much of the internet as they can and is invaluable for researchers trying to figure out what was once housed at now-dead links. But the Internet Archive has its limits. Social media posts, YouTube videos, paywalled Substack posts, PDFs—all can be very difficult to track down after they disappear. If a politician tweets something embarrassing, for instance, and then deletes it, it might be preserved in a screenshot. But we know screenshots are easy to fake. So where do you turn to prove satisfactorily that something was in fact said? ...

it’s very easy to lose pieces of information that seem permanent. E-books, for instance, can be changed by their publisher without the changes even being noted. You might read a book on your Amazon Kindle one day and open it up the next day to look for a quote only to find that the quote has disappeared without a trace. The Guardian, for twenty years, hosted a copy of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people,” an important historical document. After the letter went viral on TikTok, the Guardian removed it from the site entirely. The New Republic did the same after an article of theirs about Pete Buttigieg caused controversy. The documents in question can still be found, but only by digging through the Internet Archive. If that ever goes down, researchers will find that trying to piece together the online past is like trying to learn about a lost civilization from excavated fragments. ...

I think that in an age where people (rightly) don’t trust the information they’re getting to be true, it needs to be as easy as possible to do research. Instead, while we have better technology than ever for sifting through information, it’s still the case that the truth is paywalled and the lies are free. If you want to “do your own research” to check on the veracity of claims, you will run headlong into a maze of broken links, paywalls, and pop-ups. How can anyone hope to find the truth when it’s so elusive, trapped behind so many toll gates? 

[void-chara]

@mcytblrholidayexchange gift for @irrealisms !! you had lots of prompt ideas for writing, but not for art, so i hope you're happy with eclipse federation misery and agony compilation, plus song lyrics

lyric credits: Temporary - Chase Petra / Stranger - The Mechanisms / Easier - The Crane Wives (appears four times) / Two Birds - Regina Spektor / Little Soldiers - The Crane Wives (appears twice) / Heretic Pride - The Mountain Goats

feel free to ask if you want me to adjust some text to make it more readable or something, i think it looks fine but i know different peoples eyes and devices are different, and if i had more time i would definitely have spent more time messing with the colors on everything

speaking. of time. im really sorry i took so long ._. i kind of suck at estimating how long projects will take and how much time i have. thanks for being so patient!!

oh, also, some lyrics and drawings have story reasons for being grouped together, and some went where they looked good. uh. ideally id make sure everything had reason for its location, but this is one area where i did correctly estimate my time, instead of getting stuck in the planning phase.

also in the process of typing all this ive already gone back twice to change stuff in the images and re-add them to the post lol

OH also!! the part where vitalasy jumps off to his death! is as far as i can tell NOT canon accurate!! all the footage shows him jumping off the prison, since thats where he respawns. i didnt think to check this until after id already drawn most of the stuff, and already had the prison drawn, and i didnt want to reorganize the drawing. im telling myself that we only see a few of the later deaths and so theoretically the first one could have been jumping off a grassy ledge somewhere but its still bothering me and i needed to mention it.

anyway yeah really hope you like it i tried some new stuff with this one im not sure how well it turned out and thanks again for being so patient!!

EDITING TO ADD SOME MORE WORDS!!! i love talking about my art! so first, all the text on signs and stuff i did go back and look at videos and vods to make sure was entirely accurate, and i wrote all the words entirely by myself. for the lyrics and other text(death message and DELIVERANCE), i used a text tool first to make sure the words would be neat and where i needed them, and then traced over that on a new layer and deleted the original text layer. my handwritting fucking sucks always no matter what, this was a very necessary step. also! this is officially the first thing i have drawn entirely on my phone, rather than on my ipad like i used to do! also i dont use a stylus of any type i just draw with my finger lol.

[choso-ish]

Twilight's Embrace

--Suguru Geto x gn! reader

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

. ݁ ⟡ ݁ Summary: Suguru's breakup with you before leaving Jujutsu Tech.

. ݁ ⟡ ݁ Word count: 1.3k

. ݁ ⟡ ݁ Warnings: Arguing, angst, I think one or two curse words

. ݁ ⟡ ݁ A/N: If you saw the original post of this, no you didn't. It flopped a bit (undoubtedly because of my bad writing, sorry guys), so I decided to do some editing, delete the first one, and post this instead. Can't tell if this is better or worse ngl.

“You deserve someone better.” 

The dim rays of moonlight that shone through the curtains cast an ethereal glow on his face. His lips were pursed, his posture poor, and his gaze no longer lovingly on you. 

He was no student, no man; just your lover eroding into something less than human. But no, he was never human, was he? He was a Jujutsu sorcerer – bound by duty and destiny. 

Humans were now his enemies, after all. 

However, the physical repercussions of that fact were ones you had overlooked for far too long, only noticing them for what they were in this moment, as the two of you were left face-to-face in his room. 

As he stood with his hands in his pockets, his arms suddenly seemed thinner, the shadows beneath his eyes deeper, and his hair now greasier and unrestrained. Each detail painted a poignant picture of his inner turmoil.

It was suddenly so vivid that you were shocked by how long it took you to really see it all in the first place. 

Outside, the faint murmur of crickets filled the silence between the two of you, punctuated by the occasional rustle of leaves in the late night’s breeze. Fond memories created in this room were now losing their significance, and it hurt you too much to spend time mulling over that fact. 

You drew in a deep breath, your eyes drifting around the room, as if seeking refuge from your own swirling thoughts. A lone candle slowly flickered on the bedside table, its warm glow offering scant comfort in the face of looming despair.

"I don’t understand," you managed to say, the simplicity of your words betraying just how confused you really were.

“I mean,” you laugh anxiously, a hand slipping through your hair. “We were doing fine. More than fine…” 

So where was this all coming from? 

“You’ve been doing fine.” he slipped in smoothly, his eyes sharper than usual. The comment caused you to pause as another long silence fell across the room. 

"How long?" you questioned softly, your voice trembling with a mix of concern and apprehension. "How long have you been feeling this way?" Each word hung heavy in the air, waiting for his response to break the suffocating silence.

His eyes darted away, revealing a flicker of doubt behind his otherwise collected facade.

You knew, deep down, there was no way that he wasn’t bothered by this, too. 

“I don’t know,” he murmured. He fidgeted and readjusted himself before gazing out of the window and then back at you. “It’s been… pent up for a while I guess.” 

In the growing silence, a surge of emotions overwhelmed you. Doubt crept into the corners of your mind as regret splintered through your heart. 

Each word he spoke felt like another crack in the facade of your shared reality. 

His jaw twitched and for a moment, there was a glimmer of challenge in his eyes as he held your gaze. “It doesn’t matter,” he shot back defensively. “What does matter is that I’m dealing with it.”

But you weren’t hearing it. You were too busy replaying all the ways you felt you had let him down. You weighed up just how much worse things could get before the bleeding stopped. You were standing on the edge of something irreversible – you just couldn’t see the canyon below.

“It matters to me.” you retort gently, subconsciously leaning forward as you try to pry through his walls. You attempt to grab his hand, but he pulls away and looks in the opposite direction. Goddamnit. 

“I can’t help if you don’t let me in, so stop shutting me out.” 

“But I don’t need your help.” There was a furrow in his brow, a crease of frustration etched deep into his forehead. “I told you, I’m dealing with it.”

Rejection had never tasted so bitter. Each time he refused to open up, it felt like reopening a wound. Why won't he just talk to you? Why won’t he confide in you? 

All you wanted was to bear his burdens for him. 

Anger begins to stir within you, and you feel a sense of powerlessness. He's always been your shoulder to cry on, your ear to bend towards in times of distress. Now, he’s closed off when he needs you, as if you’re suddenly a stranger in your own relationship. 

Your fists ball themselves at your thighs, nails piercing your flesh as you fight to hold back the mix of emotions raging inside you. Unshed tears begin to sting the corners of your eyes.

“I… I don’t know.” You manage to whisper, your heart thumping in your ears. “We’re supposed to be a team. You know, in this together." 

But he doesn’t say a word – a stinging reminder of the growing distance between the two of you. With a heavy heart, you realized that perhaps some wounds ran too deep to ever truly heal.

You never thought that would apply to the two of you. 

You cast a fleeting glance around the room once again, searching for something, anything, to anchor you in this moment of uncertainty – but all you found were echoes of memories, now tainted by the harsh reality of your shattered relationship.

The distance between you felt insurmountable, a gaping chasm widening with each passing moment. And though you longed to bridge the gap, to find your way back to each other, you couldn't shake the sinking feeling that perhaps it was already too late. 

"I don't want to lose you," you confessed, each word tinged with a raw vulnerability you hadn't anticipated. "But I can't keep pretending everything's okay when it's not."

"I don't know," he muttered, his tone edged with frustration. "Maybe it's better if we just... let it go."

His words landed like a punch to the gut, the finality of them sending a chill down your spine. It was as if he had slammed a door shut that you had desperately hoped to keep open. 

Your eyes widened as you took another step closer to him. No way. 

"Then let's fix it together," you pushed, trying to ignore the tremble in your voice. "...Because I refuse to believe that we're beyond repair.” 

In the silence that followed, you held your breath, hoping for a positive response, a sign that he was willing to try along with you. 

But he remained stubbornly silent, his gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance. It was as if he had withdrawn into himself, building walls where bridges should have been.

It takes you a moment to realize that you had been crying. 

You quickly wiped away the tears that had begun to pool in your eyes, resigning yourself to the painful truth. "I can't do this alone," you whispered, the words a final plea for understanding. 

"I know," he finally murmured, his voice barely audible. "And I... I'm sorry."

His apology hung in the air like a hollow echo, devoid of the warmth and sincerity you had longed for. It was a bittersweet acknowledgment of the pain he had caused, but it offered no solace in the face of your shattered dreams.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, bringing his palm up to his jaw and running his fingers along his cheeks. “You know it’s not your fault. It’s mine.” 

He wasn't asking for forgiveness; he was grappling with his own emotions, aware of the consequences of his actions – and that terrified you. 

He slowly turned and approached the foyer. After grabbing his coat, he gripped and twisted the doorknob open. 

“Don’t leave me, Suguru.” you stood a few feet from the doorway, showing the last amount of desperation you had left. 

“Please.” 

His eyes caught yours for a brief second before he looked away. You heard the click of the door shutting in place as he exited, creating the final rift between the two of you.

The candle on the nightstand extinguished, the room going dark. 

How swiftly it had become yet another night with only the moon offering its consolation. 

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