#and utility obvi

[dizzybevvie]

My anon opinion is that I didn’t know you did art until I recently saw a post of your art and I was like “holy shit Bev can DRAW!!!”

You’re so so so talented, friend! :)

AKSNDKJASDNKJSAND.. YOURE SO SWEET <33333333333 I'm getting there for sure!!!!!!!

[lala-blahblah]

I will never make this because it would be for an audience of one (me) but ever since reading "If we Were Villains" (story about serious drama kids in college who perform shakespeare and deal with a murder) I have been entertaining the thought of a crack fic crossover with High School Musical The Musical The Series where the staff decides they will no longer put on shakespeare after the tragic accident that happened at Thanksgiving, because Shakespeare plays would only increase the tension and drama. So they hire Ms. Jen who decides their spring play will actually be High School Musical (which exists in the 90s in this universe) and it ruins the vibe so much that everyone gives up on being dark and mysterious because they're universally pissed at Ms Jen for making them learn choreoraphed basketball dancing.

[petrichorium]

pluvi i impulsively pulled for jiaoqiu and i don’t know how to build him (and don’t even have acheron) do u know what works for him team wise and artefacts wise?

I will point u over to my beloved guoba’s vid on him if u want an in-depth discussion but for a tl;dr of that:

He slots decently well in any team where Pela does, so he’s good as a Dr Ratio support if ur hurting for debuffs w his team. Hes also an okay dot support (better w eidos so most wouldn’t bother at e0) and he’s pretty good in pure fiction due to ult spam—in general, probably think of him as a debuffing ult support, so he’s good w chars that need debuffs like Ratio and/or whose damage primarily comes from their ults like Argenti or Yunli BUT w the caveat that you’ll probably want Tingyun on there w them as a battery.

Here are the important graphics guoba gave wrt relics

Obvi his sig is his best lc but in lieu of that apparently eyes of the prey is good bc it gives ehr, and tutorial mission (the event lc from way back when silver wolf was introduced, im sorry if u don’t have it) or the Herta shop cone r both very good for ult spam, w the Herta shop cone especially good for pure fiction.

Hope that helps!!!

[themyscirah]

Yk those wonder woman fans who dont like Steve? That will never be me. Like that's my guy! Most importantly, that's DIANA'S guy!!!!!

[higuchisora]

Can I say that I didn't really like the Seven of prophecy as a group and felt like their only value as characters from a writing standpoint is to add diversity to the PJO series and that they don't really feel necessary without the rep they add and some of them feel purely constructed to fill archetypal roles/tropes instead of being constructed as whole characters with an actual function in the narrative that no other character could fill or will I be sacrificed at the stake for it

[crossbackpoke-check]

what are ur thoughts on the winners room trope?

ooooo okay surface level analysis: i like winner’s room fics :)

etwas tieferes: i think it’s cool that it’s (afaik) unique to hockey fandom and i enjoy the way it integrates a lot of unspoken rules in hockey with desire/makes them a physical/tangible reality… also the narrative potentials/world-building it opens up can be fun because there’s not really a set of rules for the “winner’s room” trope. are there in-universe rules? who gets chosen? who’s exempt? who gets to pick? where’s it going down? is it the entire room or one guy? what if your (ex)boyfriend is on another team? does somebody need to be taught a lesson or do you need to remind someone who got traded you still love them? also, most important, winner’s room gives you the chance to put two random-ass guys you saw interact for 0.002 seconds and went “hmmm. interesting” about into a Situation and i love that

[jazeswhbhaven]

Look ı knowwww this game is hentai but. Hear me out please. I cant do this anymore İT İS JUST TOO MUCH, look ı might fuck off if this game was pure hentai but there are good character designs and interesting personalities and dynamicsz so ı just cant piss of it is too catchy for me. BUT FOR SAKE OF GOD İT İS JUST TOO MUCH HORNY AND İT COULD BE MORE BAREABLE İF MC WASNT FUCKİNG SPİNELESS ı saw ur asmo selfie post and saw mcs saying keep fucking me is...very mc behaviour but it irrated me why? BECAUSE THİS BİTCH DOES THİS WİTH EVERY FUCKİNG PERSON dude you are way above keep fucking me okay? You are about to fuck every living thing on solar system please just have a red line. Ok i understand storys base concept was virgin and knowing nothing but in story wise THİS SHİT JUST KEEPS GOİNG WİTHOUT END AND MC İS SHOWİNG ME THAT THEY ARE NOTHİNG BUT A BRAİN MELTED SEX ADDİCT. İ swear im okay with sex but this game has soooo much potential and story but it is showing us end of the day this is a sex similator and nothing is changing end of the day there is no obvi relation or feelings towards mc besides few persons other than that it is always bonding with sex and horny and nothing more they are just 'living dildos' to mc mh yeah they show little bit of emotions here and there. But there is a reason why side stories and events are much more fun, because less horny and more characters acting like luving beings not everything revolves around long and white sprounting thing.

Nonetheless ı hope you say your opinion too i wann hear really. But long story short ı dont think sex is everything and relationships reveolvs around it. Sex is a helper and great thing in relationships not a hinderance or shameful thing, but ı cant help myself GET FUCKİNG SECOND HAND EMBARSSMENT when goddamn mc is on screen.

Hey anon, fair warning when it comes to asking my opinion so hopefully I convey myself properly... When it comes to MC and their behavior and mindset for this game, which it's very clear now that their personality is "i'm more horny in theory but when it comes time to utilize that i crash and burn and act like i've never seen dick in my life" and that's what makes me roll my eyes because it's like you're in Hell...you can be as unhinged as you wish please just do that cause everyone keeps saying so.

Now when it comes to the sex content in the game and the way it was advertised, I came in with the expectation that this would be pretty much sex, more sex, and basically more sex. I came here for demon pixel dick and whelp that's what I got. I personally would have liked more of a variety. Maybe devils that are submissive, switches, bratty tops, finally got a pillow prince with Belphie. just missing a damn threesome or something the five kings card was...anyway

But that's just me.

I tend to not bring IRL things (like me not even putting sex on the hierarchy of needs) to media I enjoy unless it's for joking purposes and me being unserious.

NOW I'm not saying plot/slice of life/wholesome content is boring, I pretty much enjoy that breath of fresh air when reading lore, seeing how the devils interact on a day to day basis with one another. At this point since it's been a year I want m o r e of that.

But at the end of the day...they're demons...beings not really meant to be wholesome or human like or behave like us at all. Any wholesome content is a plus, but I'm here once again to scratch an itch.

TLDR: I came to fuck demons. MC isn't fucking them how I would...which is a disappointment, but that's what I'm here for. Lore/Slice of Life content is nice tho and I do enjoy it.

[pojofi96]

Finally 😈 a chance to talk about my mans

Short answer is yes obvi but like his character, my thoughts on this are a bit more complicated.

In the flashbacks we see showing his life “before”, he was shown to be an exemplary dad - but of course, this would inevitably change somewhat with being traumatized. Hanzo at his core is a flawed person and the very essence of his story lies in his humanity - most notably, his mistakes and circumstances - and how he copes with his own earned consequences + just straight up awful luck. This is inevitably going to reflect on how he tutors/raises children and MKX Blood Ties illustrates this well with his treatment of Takeda.

Throughout most of Takeda’s shown upbringing, Hanzo is shown to be in a tetchy mental state and it makes him prone to being overly harsh when scolding him for a minor mistake. You get the feeling Hanzo is purposely trying to keep him at a careful emotional distance as strictly “teacher and student”, even though it’s evident that their relationship is more through their own shared needs of familial bonds. It’s not abuse by any stretch of the imagination but the distinction between a “tutor” and a “father” is important to remember when examining their relationship. There’s a plentitude of potential reasons that Hanzo could have for acting like this given his past and what he lost, so you can’t truly blame this aspect of his character for being any fault of his own. Again, he is only a man making sense of the circumstances that were thrust upon him. But this inevitably would affect how he “raises” people.

The comic goes deeper into Hanzo’s mental state and how his hellfire works in the first place - and it’s here that we see something crucial. At it’s core, his utilization of it (i.e. how he has to relive the most traumatic event of his life every time he uses it to put himself in a bad headspace) is counterintuitive by design to his own growth and recovery. His strength, his most defining battle trait, is also what’s dragging him down. Objectively, Hanzo would have to let down his own personal guards (not use his hellfire) to keep from falling back into bad habits. But the current state of his life - strife with combat and the constant threat of sudden gorey death - doesn’t allow room for his emotional growth. On top of that he’s responsible for the well being of a kid, so he doesn’t have room to think about himself - he has to put Takeda first. But that also begs the question of if he had the chance to escape that life - would he? Does he have the capability to let down his hellfire when it’s because of his hellfire that he’s still even alive?

He’s not truly doomed but Hanzo believes to his core that he is and this is one of his biggest obstacles to his self recovery - this belief makes him lash out and self-sabotage - and it keeps him from really making any remarkable progress in getting better.

That being said, I was genuinely surprised to see the reactions for this tweet mostly being unconditionally positive on Hanzo’s side. What I’m trying to say is that Hanzo is far from perfect, he’s far from a perfect mentor and a perfect father. He’s still a good person at heart though - he does his best and Hanzo’s biggest flaw at the end of the day is the result of being human in hellish circumstances. It’s worth noting that Takeda in the end grew up to be an upstanding young man who feels very positively about his father-figure-mentor… so Hanzo did remarkably well overall, a lot better than most people could do in those same conditions. But all the replies being like “Anyone who says no deserves to be executed” feels like they’re missing something crucial about him. Him being attractive doesn’t absolve him of accountability!

In canon, he’s more accurate to the relative that we know has had a rough life that we all have complicated feelings about.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 1: Building A Mystery]

The year is 1999. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life...but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

A/N: This is a work of au fiction utilizing characters from HBO’s House Of The Dragon series. It will have humor, drama, angst, danger, bears, bars, boats, boy bands, blizzards, dogs, 90s nostalgia, and lots more!

Chapter warnings: Language, lowkey sexual tension, alcoholism (obvi), poor life choices, minor injury to an animal but he’s totally fine.

Word count: 3.4k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

*** I’m going to tag like a bazillion people since this is the first chapter of a new fic, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to. I hope you are all doing well, wherever you are in the world. 🥰😘 ***

@aemcndtargaryen​ @crispmarshmallow​ @tclegane​ @daddysfavoritesexkitten​ @poohxlove​ @imagine-all-the-imagines​ @nsainmoonchild​ @skythighs​ @bratfleck​ @thesadvampire​ @yor72​ @xcharlottemikaelsonx​ @loverandqueenofdragons​ @omgsuperstarg​ @endless-ineffabilities​ @devynsshitposts​ @vencuyot​ @ladylannisterxo​ @cranberryjulce​ @abcdefghi-lmnopqrstuvwxyz​ @liathelioness​ @mirandastuckinthe80s​ @haezen​ @fairaardirascenarios​ @darkened-writer​ @weepingfashionwritingplaid​ @signyvenetia​ @crossingallmine​ @burningcoffeetimetravel​ @yummycastiel​ @lol-im-done​ @lovemissyhoneybee​ @nomugglesallowed​ @witchmoon​ @yoshiplushie​ @torchbearerkyle​ @sweetashoneyhoney​ @quartzs-posts​ @lauraneedstochill​ @nctma15​ @queenofshinigamis​ @rapoficeandfire​ @hinata7346​ @curiouser-and-curiouser-fics​ @meadowofsinfulthoughts​ @imjustboredso​ @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine​ @myspotofcraziness​ @bregarc​ @mikariell95​ @doingfondue​ @justconfusedperiod​ @mommyslittlewarcriminal​ @graykageyama​ @elsolario​

Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

“He’s going to hit the mailbox,” Jennifer says. She’s peering out of the window with her hands cupped around her eyes like goggles. “He’s going to hit it…he’s going to hit it…” There is a snapping sound, a crunch, squealing brakes. “Mailbox down.”

It’s mid-November and nearly 4:00 p.m., so it’s pitch black outside except for the dim, sepia luminescence of streetlights. Blazing high-beams skate across the window. Jen steps back, blinking.

“Who is it?” you ask.

“I don’t know. Some guy in a green Nova.”

A Chevy Nova? Front-wheel drive? Not advisable. Almost everyone here has an SUV…or, better yet, a pickup truck. Outside, the high-beams die and a car door slams. Five seconds later, he bursts into the lobby carrying a massive golden retriever. There’s blood all over the dog’s head and chest, drying clumps snared in his fur; still, his tail is wagging. It starts wagging harder when he sees you.

“You’re a vet, right?” Nova guy asks frantically. He’s wearing a black turtleneck sweater, a red flannel shirt, light-wash Levi’s, and black Converses. Another bad choice; he should have boots. “I saw the sign outside.”

“I sure am.” You point him to the exam room. “Right this way.”

Nova guy staggers through the doorway and heaves the golden retriever up onto the high metal table. Jen follows you both into the exam room with a clipboard to record her notes. She is the all-purpose assistant and your sole employee. The veterinary clinic is otherwise empty; your last appointment—a routine and uneventful checkup of Mr. Sullivan’s cantankerous tomcat Biggie Smalls—ended twenty minutes ago. You begin to evaluate the golden retriever. He has a laceration on his muzzle, but seems otherwise unharmed. His tail is still wagging. Head wounds bleed a lot and can thus incite disproportionate panic. Oftentimes, they aren’t half as bad as they look.

“You can fix him, right?” Nova guy pleads. There’s a streak of tacky crimson blood on his cheek, you notice now. “A bear got him. Clawed him, I think. I let him outside when I got off work, and next thing I knew I turned around and he was chasing off a bear. A goddamn bear. Like a huge bear. A Smokey Bear bear.”

“Yes,” you say, amused. “We have bears here.” Then you add: “Your dog is going to be just fine.”

“Oh, thank God,” Nova guy exhales, clutching his chest. You numb the golden retriever’s muzzle with lidocaine and begin disinfecting the wound with povidone-iodine solution.

“What’s his name?” Jen asks. She is busily jotting down notes.

“Sunfyre.”

Jen pauses, pen hovering in mid-air. “Sun…fire…?”

“Sunfyre,” Nova guy repeats irritably. “One word. With a Y.”

“…Where is the Y…?”

“In fire.”

Jen frowns down at her form as she fills in the letters. “Why would you spell fire with a Y?”

“To make him more awesome, obviously,” Nova guy murmurs. He leans down to rub the golden retriever’s shaggy ears and wobbles as he does. Sunfyre’s tail thumps on the exam table. “You’re gonna be okay, buddy. Yes you are. You’re gonna be just fine, the nice vet lady says so.”

You catch a whiff of him, dark bitterness and sweetness and spice: rum, a lot of rum. “Did you drive here drunk?”

He narrows his eyes at you. They’re bleary and royal blue. “Maybe.”

“It’s like 4 p.m. on a Monday, why are you drunk right now?”

“I’m sorry, are you a people doctor? Because I thought I came here so you could fix my fucking dog.”

“He’s getting fixed,” you assure the man calmly. You’re accustomed to dealing with rather unhinged pet owners. To some people, animals are like children; and you wouldn’t expect someone to act rational if their kid was lying here bloodied from a bear attack, would you?

“How old is he?” Jen asks.

“I don’t know, like, young?”

“About five,” you say, checking Sunfyre’s teeth. Then you begin suturing. Nova guy moves to pet the dog’s side to give you more room to work; Sunfyre is so relaxed he’s nearly dozing. “Has he had his rabies shots?”

“Yeah, he’s had them, he…” The man pats his jeans pockets. “Oh shit, I mean I don’t have the paperwork with me or anything, but I know he’s good because he got vaccinations in San Francisco and that’s the last place we were. Less than a year ago. Like eight months tops.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because this is important.”

“Look lady, I don’t even know if I’m up to date on my shots, but I know for a fact he is.”

“Okay,” you concede.

“What’s your name, sir?” Jen asks Nova guy, relieved in anticipation of a nice simple human answer: Jason, Michael, Daniel, Brian, Steven.

“Aegon,” he says.

“…Aegon?!”

He glares at Jen with a dreadful sort of resignation, as if he’s repeated this moment a thousand times in a thousand different universes. “It’s Greek.”

“You don’t look Greek.”

“You don’t look like a genealogist.”

Jen recoils and continues her notes. She has a point: Nova guy—Aegon, you mentally amend—has pale sunless skin, dark semi-circles under his eyes, hair so light a blond it’s nearly pure white. Jen begins her next question tentatively, like she’s afraid to ask. “Last name?”

“Targaryen.” And then he adds: “Also Greek.”

She stares at him. “Tar…?”

He sighs. “T-A-R-G…”

As they go back and forth—again, Jen is baffled by the placement of a Y—you instinctively glance up at the flier on the wall. The police have plastered them across every business in town: Report suspicious activity immediately! Beware of strangers! Help keep Juneau safe! The words are bright red beneath the sketch of a menacing, scarlet-eyed specter in a trench coat. The first body was found almost exactly a month ago. The second was found two weeks after that. You and Aegon catch each other looking at the flier and then pretend you didn’t.

You finish stitching and give the golden retriever an encouraging pat on the head. His tail thuds rhythmically against the table. “Alright, Sunfyre is good to go. I’d like him to stay one night so I can put him on an IV just in case. And he’ll have to wear a cone until his stitches come out. Your total is $300.”

“$300?!” Aegon exclaims. “What are you gonna put in the IV, cocaine?!”

“Antibiotics,” you say. “And they had to be shipped in from Seattle.”

“Jesus Christ. Okay, Pablo Escobar, hold on, hold on…” He pulls crumpled dollar bills out of his tattered leather wallet. “I’ve got…fifteen…uh…sixteen…” He starts counting quarters.

“Jen can write you up a bill,” you offer.

“Oh, yeah. Great.” He replaces his cash with palpable relief. “I can pick him up tomorrow?”

“Anytime after noon.”

“Cool.” He plants a loud smacking kiss on the crown of Sunfyre’s head. “I’ll see you soon, buddy.” Then he lurches out into the lobby. You tell Jen to put Sunfyre in one of the kennels and bolt after him.

“You can’t drive home like this,” you tell Aegon, horrified.

He whirls. “…Why?”

“Uh, because you’re drunk?!”

He drums his palms against the front door and groans dramatically. “I’m not gonna hit anybody. There are like six people in this whole town, I live ten minutes away, what’s gonna happen?”

“You can’t drive home,” you insist.

“I’ll go super slowly.”

“Don’t make me take your keys. I’ll do it.”

He throws up his hands, exasperated. “Fine. I’ll walk.

“It’s dark, it’s 30 degrees outside, you’re not even wearing a coat. You could get lost and freeze to death. Or eaten by a bear.” Or murdered by the Ice Fisher.

“Lady, what do you want from me?!”

You grab your parka off the coatrack. “I’ll drive you.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Jen can watch Sunfyre and I’ll start his IV when I get back.”

Aegon considers this, considers you. He’s not suspicious; he’s more…how can you describe it? Caught off-guard. Out of practice. “Okay,” he says finally. “Oh. Also.” He scratches his chin, avoiding your eyes. “I think I ran over your mailbox.”

“That’s fine. My dad will fix it.”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah, he lives next door. He’s recently retired and always looking for new projects. You might have done him a favor, actually. Saved him from a night of Dateline and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.”

Slowly, cautiously, Aegon smiles. “Happy to help, I guess.”

Your Jeep Cherokee is brand new. It has grey upholstered seats, cupholders, a Starfleet Academy bumper sticker, and automatic windows. The license plate is blue and embossed with Alaska’s state motto: North To The Future. There’s a Sarah McLachlan tape in the cassette player. Heat blasts through the vents; Building A Mystery tumbles out of the speakers. Aegon tells you that he’s renting a place downtown near the harbor and gives you vague, generally unhelpful directions. You listen as he speaks, of course, but you study him too, as much as you dare to without being too obvious, stealing rapid-fire glimpses. He talks with his hands a lot: clasps them together, touches his face, gestures lethargically, runs his fingers through his hair. There’s a lock that keeps escaping from behind his ear to rest on his right cheek, the one with the bloodstain. You have this strange compulsion to tuck it back into place.

“Cupholders,” Aegon remarks as you pull out of the small gravel parking lot, banging his fist on them. He has a British accent, but it’s diluted somewhat, understated. “Nice.”

“Yeah. I hate to tell you this, but the Nova was a really bad idea. You’re going to be snowed in half the winter.”

“Fantastic,” he quips. “I just bought the cheapest thing I could find when I got here.”

You peek over at him. Streetlights illuminate the bruise-like shadows under his eyes, the height of his cheekbones. “Your people don’t usually stick around this late in the year. Tourist season is over.”

“I’m not a tourist,” Aegon replies with a crooked grin, and does not elaborate. And then, when your Jeep rolls to a stop outside his apartment building: “Look, I know this is super random and all, but…like…” He stalls. “Can I get you some hot chocolate or something? I happen to be an aficionado of truly exceptional hot chocolate.”

“Oh, really? Homemade?”

“Swiss Miss,” he says. “But I have a secret ingredient.”

“I’m really not interested in getting roofied this evening.”

He laughs. “The secret ingredient is not roofies. It’s French vanilla coffee creamer.”

You hesitate. The words from the flier blare in your skull like a neon sign: Beware of strangers! Help keep Juneau safe! “I really shouldn’t.”

“I’m not gonna murder you,” Aegon says with probably too much bluntness. He starts turning out all his pockets. “You can search me, I got nothing on me except my wallet and keys. I just…well…” He smirks guiltily. He is sobering up. “I feel like I made a really bad first impression.”

“You definitely did.”

“And I want to make up for that because you helped my dog and everything. And now you’re helping me. And I just don’t want you to think I’m a horrible person.”

“Are you?”

“What, a horrible person?”

“Yeah.” You’re only half-joking.

Aegon doesn’t appear to be joking at all. “I think I’ll let you figure that out for yourself.”

You should go back to work. You should definitely go back to work. You should definitely not follow this weird drunk man up to his apartment. “Okay, but I can’t stay long. And I’ll ask you to remember that Jen has your full and highly unusual name and is more than capable of telling the cops that you’re the last person I was seen alive with. So it is in your best interests not to murder me.”

“Deal,” he says, and scrambles clumsily out of the Jeep.

Aegon’s apartment isn’t even a one-bedroom; it’s a studio with a couch and tv at one end, a bed at the other end by the windows, and a practically microscopic kitchen. As he bangs around in the cabinets locating a pot and two mugs, you admire his collection of refrigerator magnets. They represent a kaleidoscope of American cities: a dolphin from San Diego, the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, a blue crab from Baltimore, a boiled lobster from Portland, a gold nugget from Denver, a cowboy on horseback from Dallas, the Sears Tower from Chicago, a cactus from Phoenix, a pair of dice suspended in glittery pink liquid from Las Vegas, many more.

“You’ve been to all these places?” you ask, awed in spite of your explicit intention not to be.

“Yeah. I found Sunfyre in Phoenix. That was three cities ago.”

“Found him?”

“Wandering emaciated and terrified on the side of a highway.” He’s stirring the pot over a red-hot electric burner. On the counter wait two mismatched mugs: the blue one is bigger, but the green one is more opulent, gilded with tiny gold stars. “You ever been outside of Alaska?”

“I got as far as Colorado for vet school.” Not far enough, you almost add. “How long have you been here?”

“Seven weeks. No. Eight.”

“So you’re the Ice Fisher.”

He tosses back his head and cackles wildly. “You are not the first person to think it, but you are the first to ask.” His smile dies and he looks at you directly, deadly serious. “No. I’m not the Ice Fisher.”

For some reason, you believe him. “Why Juneau?”

“Because it’s really, really far from Miami.”

“What’s in Miami?”

“Beaches. Bikinis.” You stare at him, waiting for further explanation. He stares back, offering none. He returns his attention to the hot chocolate. “I’m here for the winter trolling. Chinook salmon.”

“So only six months.”

He nods. “Only six months.”

“Where are you going next?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll let Sunfyre pick. I’ll dip a bunch of travel postcards in peanut butter and see which one he eats first.”

“So you just bounce around like that? Constantly? Perpetually?”

“Yeah.”

“It never gets lonely? You don’t miss anyone? Family, friends…?” A girlfriend? A wife? Five charming white-blond children?

“No,” he says flatly. He yanks open the refrigerator and pulls out a small glass bottle with a yellow label: 99 Whipped, Whipped Cream Liqueur, 49.5% ALC/VOL. He holds it up to show you, to offer it to you.

“No, I’m good, thanks though.”

“You sure? It’s whipped cream flavored.”

“I’m majorly sure.”

He unscrews the top with his teeth and takes a swig. Then he dumps the rest in the green mug. He flicks open a cabinet, produces a jar of French vanilla coffee creamer, and scoops a generous amount of the snowy powder into both mugs. He lifts the pot of hot chocolate from the stove and empties it into the mugs like molten metal into molds. He stirs the contents: separate spoons, oddly considerate. You move to take the blue mug, but Aegon stops you.

“Not quite yet,” he says. He rummages around in the refrigerator until he finds a can of whipped cream. He tops off both mugs with a fluffy white swirl. “One last thing…” He grabs a Hershey bar from the freezer and a flat metal cheese grater from a drawer. He leans over the mugs and—with startling, painstaking, somehow vulnerable care—shears just enough chocolate off the bar to dust the whipped cream with fine dark shavings. He passes you the blue mug and grins triumphantly. “You have to freeze the chocolate or it’ll melt when you try to grate it. A girl showed me how to do that.”

“Wow. You’re literally Martha Stewart.”

He is waiting for you to take a sip. You do. The hot chocolate is, in all honestly, ridiculously good: rich, creamy, smooth. He sees this on your face. “Told you.”

“Maybe you’re not so horrible.”

“Don’t be hasty. The roofies haven’t kicked in yet.”

You stand in the kitchen together drinking hot chocolate under dull, flaxen lights; Aegon doesn’t own a table or chairs. Your gaze roams around his apartment and settles on a jade green, extremely battered electric guitar propped against the wall by his bed. “Do you play?”

He turns to look. “Oh, that? No, no way.”

“Why do you have a guitar if you don’t play guitar?”

He grins, holding his mug with both hands. Steam curls up around his face like fog, like smoke. “Makes chicks think I’m more interesting than I am.”

“And yet you told me the truth,” you say. “You are really blowing this.”

“Yeah, that sounds like me.” He slurps his hot chocolate and licks the whipped cream off his lips. There is a deep, not entirely unpleasant silence that descends over the kitchen. Still, you feel compelled to break it.

“You seem to like green a lot.”

“I guess so.”

“Why? Because it’s the color of money…or trees…or Subway…or Heineken…or…?”

“Or…” He contemplates this for a while before he decides. “Camouflage.”

The silence reappears, less comfortable this time. “I really do need to go,” you tell him. It comes out like an apology, a regret. “Jen is supposed to get off work at 5:00 and I don’t want to make her stay too late.”

He replies with an unexpected question. “You ever go to Ursa Minor?”

Ursa Minor? The little bar beside the harbor? No, never. Your best friend Heather has been trying to cajole you into going—her brother Trent is always asking about you or something—but you have yet to succumb to her peer pressure. You aren’t really a bar girl. You’re a stay up half the night comforting sad animals girl. “Yeah, totally, sometimes. Why?”

Aegon smiles, a little dazedly, a little pleased. “No reason.”

All the way back to the veterinary clinic, your brains are wrangling with Aegon: everything about him, parts you wish you didn’t care enough to notice. When you enter the lobby—along with a gale of ice-cold wind peppered with snow flurries—an incredulous Jen is waiting for you.

“You drove him home? Alone?!” She jabs an index finger at the flier on the wall, one of so many. “While that lunatic is still out there somewhere?!” The cartoonish figure in the trench coat leers at you with red eyes. They call him the Ice Fisher because of what he does with the bodies. He goes out to Dredge Lake, drills a hole in the ice just wide enough for the shoulders to fit through, shoves his victim down into the frigid water to wait there in the dark and the cold until they are brought up. He leaves blood smeared on the ice. That’s how the police found the bodies, how they’ll keep finding them.

You shrug. “He needed a ride.”

“He needs an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, that’s what he needs.”

You sigh loudly. “Thank you for your sage advice, Jennifer. You are free to go.”

“Yeah yeah. I’ll give the cops his name when you go missing. Tell them to look for the drunk white-haired loser with the Nova.”

More forcefully, you repeat: “Thank you, Jennifer.”

“Take a chill pill, I’m going.” She pulls on her parka and disappears out into the night. You stand in the lobby—in the silence, in the solitude—staring at the flier for a long time.

In one of the kennels, you find your lone current tenant. “Hey buddy,” you say to Sunfyre, using Aegon’s nickname for him, and the golden retriever perks up. You pet his silky fur (well cared for, you observe), ensure he has enough food and water, get him an extra blanket, and start an IV: antibiotics with a light sedative so he hopefully doesn’t manage to wriggle out of his cone. You’ll set a few alarms and get up throughout the night to check on Sunfyre…although your dad will almost certainly volunteer to do it for you. This clinic used to be his, after all.

Before you leave, you spend fifteen minutes sitting with Sunfyre: brushing his fur, humming to him, letting him lick your knuckles like wordless little thank you notes. Not for the first time in your life, you find yourself wishing that animals could speak as well as we do, could spill secrets like blood or falling snow.

“Interesting human you’ve got there,” you say.

Sunfyre, peering up at you with his trusting umber eyes, only wags his tail in reply.

[navy-leader]

Latest episode enabled me so heres my cooking/eating habits headcanons for the sticks:

[Color Gang]

- Blue cooks the most (obvi) for the gang, the best cook all around

- Green does it the second most, hes the substitute when Blue is too busy

- Green's the type of cook to get really pissed at other people being in the kitchen when hes cooking

- Blue on the other hand doesnt mind company and help but he cant be responsible for what happens to them if they come uninvited

- Yellow is officially banned from cooking in the kitchen without supervision

- Yellow is often too distracted with working on things to the point where they forget to eat, the others often have to remind them

- Red likes baking more than cooking

- Second doesnt do it very often bc theres usually someone else doing it but hes pretty good at it

- Purple is a pretty good cook as well, though when he's low on energy he tends to whip up the weirdest fucking combinations of simple processed foods ever, though they somehow taste? Good?

- Overall the ones who eat the most are Red and Green, being gym rats they tend to burn a lot of energy pretty quickly

- Green drinks protein shakes 👍

- Red is a sweet tooth

[Hollowheads]

- Chosen and Dark when they lived together had a very "fulfilling what the other lacks" dynamic when they cooked

- Chosen has awful motor skills so hes pretty shit at cutting stuff up meanwhile Dark excelled on that

- Dark has no sense of temperature, having only fire powers so he tends to run hot and has a natural resistance to heat. So things are never hot enough for her and ends up burning their food more times than they can count

- Chosen on the other hand had more of a balance with his ice powers so he's better on that end

- They tried utilizing Chosen's laser eyes as a microwave at some point. Didnt work out.

- More than once did Chosen try using his fire breath to cook but swiftly gets reprimanded by Dark for "breathing on the food"

- Chosen's really lazy and would only eat simple foods unless someone drags him to cook something (that person being Dark)

- Those two only know simple recipes but its enough for them

- Victim has GOD AWFUL eating habits, similar to Chosen he'd just not eat anything but simple processed foods and often forgets to eat altogether. He really only eats if someone buys food for it/cooks for it

- Victim has never set foot in a kitchen ever and god knows what'd happen if it did

[AvM]

- Orchid had awful eating habits and made the weirdest food combinations and called it a meal. After getting with Cobalt she basically forced Orchid to learn how to cook properly so shes better now but every once in a while,,, old habits die hard

- Cobalt cooked for the household the most

- King was a decent cook, enough for him and Gold

- That is until Gold died, King didnt really took care of himself and ate very much, let alone cook. Probably takeout if he remembers

- Post-avm 30 hes getting better and tries cooking again every once in a while but yakno,,,depression

- Purple cooks for them when hes like that

[Mercenaries]

- None of them cook very often because theyre usually on the job so they tend to get takeout most the time

- When they get a chance to, Paleo and Warn are usually the ones to do it

- Pivot and Ballista are coffee drinkers

- They all drink protein shakes

[runwayrunway]

MISS CONENGINALITY - BRITTEN-NORMAN BN-2 ISLANDER

Remember when the UK made the best airplanes in the world? Me neither, I wouldn't be born for several decades. Anyway, Britten-Norman Islander.

image: Air Seychelles

The last holdout of the UK making really fantastic planes, the Islander is a popular regional airliner and utility plane used for things like skydiving and air ambulance service as well as the typical passenger and cargo flights. At first glance she's a pretty regular high-wing twin-prop that seats 10, but look closer and you may begin to notice things.

Upfront, I love the Islander. (Obviously, or I wouldn't be making this post about it.) My love for this plane isn't solely organically developed, because it does also hold a special nostalgic place in my heart for being the first propeller plane I ever flew on, with Cape Air in 2015 from San Juan to Vieques. (As Vieques Air Link also operates these, they're a common sight down there! The name of the model is, as it were, very apt.)

image: Cape Air This is the exact plane that I flew on!

Now, from this image you can already see that the Islander has some lovely features, from those absolute bollards coming out of the engines to the wildly pointy nose (not the first plane I've discussed that's giving DUKW), but despite looking goofier the closer you look at it this thing is an incredibly beloved and reliable plane.

image: Bonham's Behold, a Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander.

Also of note is the Islander's extremely low wing aspect ratio, and I've always thought the tailplane looked a little too small for the tailfin from the side despite looking giant from below. The general ratios on this plane, in every single possible place, look just ever-so-slightly off, and I love it.

image: Mark Harkin I mean. She's just blocks.

Still, this is an incredibly well-designed plane. It's cheap, rugged, utilitarian, reliable, versatile, and remarkably stable in flight, which is why over 1,000 have been built to date. (Personally, I didn't find the cabin to be the roomiest even for an aircraft of its size, but I remember it being a comfortable enough flight.) The Islander is still in production today despite first flying in the mid-1960s, which is something few models can claim. You can use an Islander for basically anything, with their big doors and STOL capability, and it's even used for the world's shortest flight and an entry on my bucket list, the two-minute hop between Westray and Papa Westray operated by Loganair.

image: National Museum of Flight Scotland Despite being shown outside in this photograph, she currently lives in the civil aviation hangar, a top pick on my list of places I would like to secretly live in for the rest of my life.

image: own work, taken inside the civil aviation hangar at the National Museum of Flight, Scotland

In late October I visited the National Museum of Flight, Scotland. It was an incredible experience and I will be discussing it across several future posts due to the sheer variety of preserved airframes they had, including everything from a Puss Moth to a jump jet. (The general museum will probably get a dedicated post as well in the future - suffice to say I had a fantastic time.) Among their preserved aircraft is a BN-2 Islander registered G-BELF, painted a vivid highlighter-yellow which pictures really can't do justice in homage to Scottish air ambulances which serve isolated island communities in the North Sea.

I was absolutely delighted to see her in person. Seven years after I last stepped foot in an Islander, it felt like something of a reunion to just stand next to a mothballed airframe and admire how...really strange-looking these planes actually are.

own work, obvi

I mean, for one thing, they're a lot shorter than you might think they should be. Pictured for scale is a 165cm/5'5" tall human with a PSA Lockheed TriStar for a face. I couldn't get that good of an angle on it, but my head is only a few inches short of the wing, and you can see that I'm well taller than the cabin windows. An entire Islander is shorter than a single Concorde tire.

Plus, that wing chord is so long I could use her as a shelter in the rain.

So, yeah. That's the story of how I met my favorite commuter airliner. I hope to fly on one again someday, but for the moment I'll have to be content with looking at pictures of these weird-looking planes that can fool you for a moment into thinking they're regular.

Also they tried to put propeller shrouds on one once.

[mmmmalo]

The chapter 5 title "Stuck Pig" obvi refers to the chapter's climactic cop killings, but it's also a Z-centric gangbang joke. Her appraisal of the newly arrived Jubilite flotilla is eroticized: "[Simps] with completely different utility than Percy. Ones that aren’t nearly as soft. You begin eyeing some of the hardware they brought. // They came well equipped, just as instructed." Having established that her horde of immigrants are Hard and Well Endowed, she prods the allusion to demographic anxiety by reassuring the implicitly Soft and Chodish Percy that he isn't being replaced. ("Percy. Sounds like the name of a cuck," Z said in chapter 1).

The gangbang scene, as it were, is probably Z's illness -- the influx of clowns is followed inmediately by the intensification of Z's covid symptom. The virus (and its delerium) becomes the new rhetorical invader. "And when [your immigrant parents] die, that lifetime of manic energy, the striving and struggling, the failures and disappointments, the things they wish they became but never did, all of it has nowhere to go when the body dissolves. So it all flows right into you." Z being a Stuck Pig overwhelmed by the expectant prongs of family is our porn scene -- Z likens first this guilt, then the Jubilite movement itself to "a bunch of psychopathic, inhuman algorithms, firing, firing, firing," to invoke the invisible onslaught of cocks and cumshots.

Chapter 9 repeats this by replacing Z's simps with Hussie's simps, the diegetic reader figures injecting commands into the narrative. "as a clown gendered individual, any pronouns may apply to you, a single person //but all the same, many people at once can fit into the single pronoun, 'you' // just like a clown car! lol // how many people can fit into the clown car pronoun labeled 'you' // millions of clowns? BILLIONS?" The threat audiences and immigrants (Other) pose to autonomy of artists and nations (Self) is undergirded by allusions to an ungodly number of dicks stuffing your holes. For symmetry's sake, I assume the chapter 1 page 1 reference to the colonial population of Nantucket as "ten thousand people deep" is similarly pornographic. Thank goodness this game is only for players age 18 and up!

[bananamansims4]

SUPA SUBTLE: Base and Blush Set

Here's a new series I'm starting. Hopefully you like it and try it out in your game. I'm still learning/improving on my process, so if you don't like it....my bad.

This makeup set it meant to add a little something special to the natural beauty of your sim's face. The highlight is brightening, but not too bright. The contour/bronzer is light and rests with the natural shadows of most sims' faces. Finally, the blush adds a little pop to bring some life into the face.

PERFECT FOR: Any occasion; for a sim who doesn't like to wear a lot of makeup.

This comes in 6 shades, 3 light and 3 dark: Snow White, Fair Play, Sun Kissed, Fresh Coffee, Hot Chocolate, and Fudge Brownie. See the pics below for a look at the shades.

I highly recommend utilizing color sliders in order to achieve the look you want for the desired skin tones. I also recommend downloading thepancake1 color sliders because sometimes sims is stupid. Here's a link: Thepancake1 Color Sliders

The blush comes in 7 shades: Pinky Pie (Pale Pink), Sweet Tart (Pink), Hot Hot Pink, I'm Flushed (Red-Pink), Berry Babe (Pink-Purple), Orange Crush, and Grape Juice (Purple), going from lightest to darkest. Each model is wearing the shade appropriate for their skin tone (nobody has on Hot Hot Pink), but obvi you can mix and match.

Okay here is le link. Next up will be a full glam beat face (much, much better than my last one)

Download (Patreon and free. Yippee).

[sugoi-and-spice]

Hi! I’ve been planning on sending you an ask ever since I binge read the Play Nice!

Like I don’t think I can ever describe well enough how much I love and enjoy it! I can see how much effort you put into every chapter and conversation as it flows so perfectly! And the rollercoaster of feels was just mwah! Exactly what I’ve been looking for! Like my heart really jumped up my throat and my mouth fell open when Shiggy asked her about her boyfriend’s dick?! Omg!😄 Ahh and how bad I felt for her when they had sex for the first time. After their feelings became more clear, I waited the whole time for her to break up with Mirio. You portrayed Shiggy’s character so well and I especially liked when he was pretending to be nice to her friends!😄 Of course we hate AFO in this too for being a dick obviously, but Kurogiri🫶🏽 Ahh he was so lovely! And I liked the little details you added, like her forgetting what Kurogiri looked like as if he was just a dark mist, you know! I also love how you pointed out the fact that red is a color that suits perfectly for Tomura🥹 I also find myself reading the parts where Spinner makes Shiggy realize how horrible he was to her at first and how he apologized her about the pain he had caused. The realization and his apology is actually something I’m interested in to hear how you planned it and if it was difficult?

I think there are much much much more I like to say, but so that this won’t end up too long, I’ll also send you a ⭐, so pls tell us about what you yourself have been dying to comment🤗

OOhhhh my gosh thank you so much for all of these kind words!!! I'm so glad that you love the fic and especially that you noticed all the fun little callbacks and details to the OG series that I threw in. For the Kurogiri one, I was really proud of that ref, but also, it was a way for me to get away without describing what he looked like without a quirk! Lmao!

And oooh yay, thank you so much for the Director's commentary request!! I think I'd like to use this time to talk about MC's hometown: Sukari!

A Google search will quickly inform readers that this is not a real place lmao. I was thinking of going with a real town in Tottori or Shimane prefecture - very heavily considered Iwami as a little throwback to my days in the Free! Iwatobi Swim Club fandom lol (Iwatobi is based off of Iwami), but ultimately I decided that I wanted to have a little more freedom with the location, since I'd already locked myself into this dumb location research whirlpool by having the main story take place in Tokyo. (And I'm stupidly detailed with things like that).

And especially since in the potential sequel I'm brewing up, MC and Shigaraki are going to spend a pretty meaningful amount of time there. 😉

So I decided to make a new location! Fans of Shig/Reader fics are obviously familiar with the fic Griefing and I LOVED what Rotpeach did in that fic with their original locations, continuing with the Star Wars naming conventions. (Reader's neighborhood of Sabuterra being a play on Subterrel) Horikoshi utilizes in the original series. So I adopted that into mine too.

Sukari is a simplification of Sukarifu - which is how you pronounce Scarif in Japanese!

Scarif felt like the best one-to-one for the type of beach town that MC grew up in. The only other beach we see in Star Wars I believe is Kashyyk, which obvi, already has it's own namesake in the main MHA series, Kiyashi Ward. And I guess there's Wasskah, but I thought the vibe of Scarif was a lot prettier and more fitting.

(Only beaches we see in the movies and The Clone Wars at least. Lol sorry, I don't keep up with the books or comics.)

Plus, Rogue One is probably one of, if not my favorite Star Wars Movie so it all tied together nicely.

Thanks again for the Director's commentary ask! I'm having a lot of fun with these so if anyone else wants to get some quick behind-the-scenes on any of my fics, go ahead and send in an ask!

Original prompt here!

[what-gs-watching]

“Speaking of not being able to move. I too have had trouble moving. Lately. Past the poverty line.”

Maybe I’m predictable but I’m still settling into this new job and it’s hard to focus on other new things when everything during my day is new so the other night I decided to restart Superstore. 

Which is another one of my ‘this show deserves more love’ shows. Maybe one of the last sitcoms I picked up from NBC before I went full on feral for streaming services. It’s charming and stupid and I’m weirdly a sucker for the guy who plays Jonah.

Wherein, we follow the lives of associates of Cloud 9, a big box store, while they deal with working in retail and all of the absolute ridiculousness that goes along with that (COVID, included). 

Amy (America Ferrara, who is perfectly utilized here honestly) is a 30-something shift manager at the store with a daughter she had at 19 and a lazy husband. She’s obviously disillusioned with her monotonous life until Jonah (Ben Feldman, who I JUST realized I recognized from ‘Drop Dead Diva’ like whoooa) shows up, a dude who washed out of business school and is annoyingly pretentious but also adorably fun. Hijinks ensue. 

I really do love the entire supporting cast of this show. Dina is the psychotic assistant manager who owns a ton of birds, is brutally honest and kind of a bully but ends up being a really good friend. Cheyenne starts out as a ditzy pregnant teen mom but her storyline with her ridiculous wanna-be gangster boyfriend turned husband with a mustache is hilarious and weirdly endearing. And her friendship with Mateo (who is fussy, snarky, undocumented, and has a terrible romance with district manager, Jeff) is life goals. 

Y’all know I’m all about the relationships in shows, and I do enjoy the Amy/Jonah slowburn because, like, obvi any slowburn is always gonna get me, but the friendships are really just chef’s kiss. Garrett, the chill dude who does the in-store announcements, loves videos games and doesn’t generally give a fuck, ends up as Jonah’s reluctant best friend. Dina ends up finding the perfect frenemy in Sandra, who is everyone’s punching bag but also creepily FIERCE at times. I also love Cheyenne and Garrett - there’s an episode where the store has amnesty to admit roles they’ve broken and neither one of them have so they dig into the employee handbook to find one, but end up focusing on ‘no hats’ even though Garrett insists “we’re not hatting this!”

The dynamics are perfect. 

Basically, I feel this show deeply in my heart. I worked retail for years, it was my first job in high school and I worked at a Burlington Coat Factory entirely through college. The appeal of the show is that they’re a bunch of random ass people that bond over the fact that the store is terrible and minimum wage jobs are demeaning but they make it fun and I’ve totally lived that.

I had two work moms. And I met one of my absolute best friends there. We had adventures following shoplifters,  dancing at the registers singing made up songs, throwing parties for holidays, waking up too fucking early to work black friday shifts or doing inventory.  We bitched about unfair corporate policies and I saw a few of my friends have babies and have to scramble on how to support themselves. I saw all of the hidden talents my coworkers had and the dreams they wanted to achieve. We suffered through customers treating us like shit, and we lifted each other up. 

Working retail is a brutal undertaking but it can also be an oddly beautiful tapestry and that’s what I love about Superstore. 

I also appreciate that they talk about the real shit. There’s a walkout/strike after Glenn, the high-pitched, god-fearing, somewhat buffoon of a store manager gets fired for sneakily trying to give Cheyenne paid leave after she gives birth in the store. The associates band together eventually to try and unionize. There’s a bit about Amy asking for a raise, which results in the whole store sitting through a lecture on proper “budgeting” which includes a section about how “Uncle Sam has your food, now go get it!” At one point, there’s an ICE sweep in retaliation to unionization whispers. They follow Amy’s struggles in trying to climb the ladder and make something of herself. It’s real but also exaggerated, and sad and funny. 

It’s absolutely a snapshot in time and it lets me romanticize a period of my life that I spent desperately trying to escape. You know that dream people have about sitting for an exam in a class they didn’t know they were taking? I never have that dream. I have a dream where I show up to Burlington as I am now, a thirty-something with a ‘career’, and I know I haven’t worked there in years, but I’m panicked because I can’t figure out what my schedule is and everyone is annoyed I haven’t been coming in for my shifts. 

Working a job like that shapes you and stays with you. I managed to escape, I’m the asshole who just spent nine months on the couch pouting about my cushy job being taken away and doing nothing other than trying to force myself into another one, but maybe that’s okay because I lived that retail struggle for a good bit. I understand it, and I am never one of those asshole customers. 

All that to say, Superstore depicts that struggle flawlessly. And it makes me miss that unique camaraderie that you’ll never truly get working a tech job. It honestly cannot be duplicated. And if you’ve never experienced it for yourself, at least you can through the absolute ridiculousness that is the gang at Cloud 9.

[haysgrove]

i’ve run into the same problem before !! these are some things i’ve done to try and fix my no-skirt character outfits ! i hope these help :)

1. statement pants/shorts: utilize texture, pattern, and points of interest (eg. patches, pockets, straps, rips, bagginess/folds, stains, etc.) to make the pants more “interesting”

2. statement shoes or tops: pull attention toward their shirt/jacket, or shoes by making THOSE more interesting. not *every* part of their outfit has to be bold. sometimes less is more and makes the other parts of their design pop :3

3. accessorizing/layering: you can always rely on jewelry and bags! non-skirt wearing folks still like bags and jewelry,, give them a cute bag and jewelry! adding onto previous points- not enough people take advantage of things like adding jewelry to shoes/pants! that can make the shoes/pants pop in the same way that a skirt/dress usually would. PANTS CAN BE SHINY TOO!!!!!! you just have to make them shiny!!!

4. take elements of what you like from the outfits with skirts and dresses and mix and match with outfits that have a similar vibe but have pants/shorts/etc instead. it also makes the outfits more “yours” and not a carbon copy of a cute outfit you found online. there’s nothing wrong with that obvi, i do that too some outfits are just too cute, but it’s also good to freestyle a little bit and not rely 100% on reference. plus it’s fun :3

examples of the things i was mentioning above:

this is sosososo helpful actually omgggggg thank you