#are more than capable of fitting in a completely different box

[chambers003]

mumbo’s grown into such an amazing builder ♥️♥️♥️ he’s so cool ♥️♥️

he’s always been better than he thinks but he’s really grown into it now. like i remember looking back that . in season 5 his seaside town project. it wasnt. great. like we knew what it was but… it was so bland. very 2017. part of that was the biome, sure, and it was also very much a secondary project at the end of the season, but the megabase was all prismarine and quartz and clean lines. geometry. hard to detail - except for the storage system and the aquarium and he popped off with those. but he didnt get time or really.. have the skills? to grow it all to its full potential.

and then in season 6 everything was all hypermodern/futuristic clean lines again that detailing isnt really possible with. he did well with what he could detail, but everything was so smooth, it was hard.

and season 7 it was basically.. just one big build. again, he did really well with it, but it was such a monolith that it was hard to add these tiny details to it. and there was no easy way to look closely? no real places to add them. the golden heart is the exception here.

season 8 we saw the start of something incredible, with the arm chair mountain. the tiny houses on the cliffside were there to provide colour. but they were… empty. again, i get why, and i dont know how to add something to them other than to maybe up the scale and that wouldve been REALLY hard.

we didn’t see much of him in season 9, but he fell back on the geometric designs and clean lines. it looked good! i loved the colour scheme. but the most detailed part of that build was the moat. the screeching crevice. and no one really looked at that after it was all built up.

but he didnt lose the skills from s8. in fact, he improved them.

because now we’re here and he’s making concept art and detailing with shadows and odd block choices and. i honestly think. if he puts his mind to it and keeps this up. we’ll have another heavy hitting builder. this build feels alive. it feels real.

[lemotmo]

I was hoping someone would ask her this. I know that makes me terrible 😅

Q. I don't know that you can look at it as the show or Tim not bothering to use him. It might actually be they're just being selective about when and how they use him. That might be a good thing.

A. Okay, I understand that at this point you all don't really have a lot of cards left to play so I get the need to make 'they're being strategic with how they use him' sound remotely plausible. It's not. That is not at all what they're doing. Mentioning his name costs them nothing. A line here or there to establish his presence, especially with Buck, costs them nothing. It's the easiest way to work a non main into the narrative. The problem with giving Buck and Eddie love interests separate from one another was always going to be figuring out how to work that person into the narrative consistently enough to compete with the BuckandEddie thing. On paper Tommy is the easiest love interest, by far, to work into the narrative. It's not hard at all to find places you could realistically slot him into. Look at how much they have inserted Brad into Bobby's narrative. And he doesn't fit in nearly as neatly as Tommy does. But the show has done it, and they've done it believably. He doesn't feel shoehorned into his scenes. They make sense. The show is more than capable of using Tommy effectively. If that's what they wanted to do. They're not using him because they don't need him. Tommy was never the point. Him being male was the point.

It was always going to be difficult to bring in someone and get the audience to a place where they would want Buck or Eddie to have the moments or conversations, that they would normally have with one another, with their love interest instead of each other. It was going to take effort. You don't need a ton of scenes but you need meaningful scenes. Scenes that show a genuine connection. And the show has made a point of not giving them any kind of emotionally connecting scenes. Oliver has even basically confirmed that in all of his interviews. Their relationship is not deep. They're avoiding that connection, or most likely Buck, is avoiding that connection. The reason why Buck is avoiding those conversations is the point of his story, and what we've yet to learn. Tommy is the amalgamation of every relationship Buck has had throughout the series. He is all of his love interests rolled into one. The age difference and teacher role of Abby, the fun doesn't want anything too deep and messy of Ali, the we're completely different and incompatible but attracted to one another and Buck wants to make it work of Taylor, and finally to the relationship in name only of Natalia. Tommy is all of those things. The only difference is he's male. His maleness was and is the only important thing about him in terms of Buck's storyline. He is the last piece before Buck figures himself out. There isn't a nicer way to say that. His only important trait is being male. He's a walking, talking plot device.

They're not being subtle about where this Eddie storyline is going. They're not. It's not hard to follow the yellow brick road here. Last night was the official start of his coming out arc. You can pretend you didn't see it. You can pretend the subtext and undertones of his entire plot last night wasn't what it clearly was, but it won't change the reality of what we all can see coming. My ask box indicates most of you can see what is happening here. Some of you can keep denying, that's your fandom right, but it won't change the storyline. If Tommy was ever going to be a genuine factor they would have leaned into him more, especially where Buck is concerned. They didn't do that. They leaned even more into Buddie. They have added an unnecessary Buddie moment into each episode so far. And that dates back to the start of last season. To make any other love interest remotely viable they needed to adjust the way they write Buddie and instead they doubled down on them. Buck's entire plot last night was how differently he reacted to and dealt with finding himself in the very same position Tommy was in back in season 2. They spent the entire episode highlighting how differently they handled the same situation. That's the point. And it wasn't a point in their relationships favor. They are massively different people. I have said all along that I don't think they're going to turn Tommy into the bad guy on his way out the door, and the way they handled Gerard last night, gross, further proves that belief. They're just incompatible. Something Buck probably already knows but is avoiding dealing with at the moment. Allowing Buck the agency to make the breakup about what is right for him, and only him, is the correct way to go. Giving him the ability to identify, recognize and finally walk away from the pattern is the growth he's earned. And having it happen an episode before or even during Eddie's big moment is deliberate. This is only going to go one way. Pretending you don't see the train coming isn't going to make it stop.

Thank you so much Nonny! As always, much appreciated.

And thank you Ali for saying the things we have all been repeating into infinity, but summarizing it so neatly and making it easy to understand for everyone who desperately needs to hear it.

I'm just leaving this here without adding anything. I feel all that needed to be said has been said and to be completely honest? I'm tired of talking about the guy. 🤷‍♀️

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[cr4yolaas]

blue spring — wonder

prev: guilt | masterlist | next: spaces inbetween

he’s a little startled to see her already inside the studio, waiting for him. her attire is a bit more comfortable than what he’s used to seeing her wear in public, but he pays no mind to it. instead, all he can focus on is the task at hand — hauling all of the paintings to a museum thirty minutes away, before their dinner reservation.

her panic is clear on her face. a box of wrapping that’s almost clear and a handful of translucent brown tape sits on the ground beside her, where she stands with her fist to her lips and her hand against her hip, as if deep in thought. he takes a moment to observe, just as he always has. there’s a few more paintings placed against the walls, each of them imprinted with her signature on the side. those weren’t there a few days before. he wonders how much she went through to get it all done.

slowly, he traverses around the room, strings of sunlight spilling through the small windows a few feet above him and illuminating his path. he traces each detail, each line, each hue that’s been embedded on every canvas, and he thinks about what it was like for her to paint them. he thinks of the hours she’s spent in here alone (he hasn’t seen many other students come to this building, after all), and he questions how she puts up with it; how she can bear to sit on a stool for an eternity painting and sketching whatever image comes to mind.

each work tells a different story, ranging from soft and delicate bodies to scenes that are more saddening and gore-y. the girl and her two-headed lamb sits in the center of the line. it remains his favorite of all.

“i’m sorry to call you here on such short notice,” she says once she notices his observations are complete. “i’ll pay you back tremendously. not just for this, but for putting you through so much over these past few days.”

“it’s no problem,” he reassures her. the words spill out instinctively. “you did a lot for me already. you know, with the tutoring and all.”

his remark has her pausing in her tracks. “oh,” she begins, her memory of the exam (that they were supposed to prepare for together) dawning on her. “how did the math exam go for you?” to combat the guilt crawling up her spine, she draws her attention to the packing materials and gets to work while waiting for his response. her hands drift across the surface and trace each line made by her own hands before concealing it all beneath the wrapping. she watches as he copies her movements.

“it went really well,” he exclaims, seemingly proud about his score. “i scored much higher than i thought i would. thanks to you, of course.” the sentiment catches her off guard, and she pretends it doesn’t affect her. it’s sickening, how malleable she is when it comes to him. she swears she was a mess just a few days ago. but now, everything seems fine. it feels like she’s capable of getting better.

he’s much stronger than her, she realizes, and he goes through the wrapping process with ease, contrasting her struggle to fit the material over the entire canvas. eventually, his hands find hers and lift the plastic over the edge she can’t quite reach, and for a moment, she feels his breath on her skin. it’s electrifying. it’s horrifying. she wants more.

but she can’t have more. so, instead, she begins to open the back door of the studio, the afternoon sunlight seeping into the room as the heavy metal creaks open. she did ask tsukishima for permission to borrow his car, thankfully. the vehicle waits outside the backyard, conveniently parked right against the curb. kageyama is already taking the artworks from the studio before she can say a word. she nearly smiles at his eagerness to help, to be there for her.

instead, a small frown finds its way onto her face.

she’s not meant to be attached, she reminds herself. it’s the same words she told herself a few weeks ago. and yet, regardless of how often she repeated it in her head, she managed to fall victim to his generosity.

it feels wrong. she isn’t sure why — maybe some subconscious in the back of her head is telling her that she’s undeserving of his kindness, or maybe it’s the bitter taste on vulnerability on her tongue. she was meant to work, to strive, to succeed independently, but something about him fights against the methodology that’s been ingrained into her since she was young. for a moment, she watches him pace back and forth between the car and the building to bring each canvas into the trunk, and despite his strenuous efforts to ensure each one makes it inside safely, he doesn’t ask her for help once. as if he’s content doing these little things for her.

the guilt comes crawling back, once more. she lifts the last few pieces into the back before he can do it himself and closes the door with a soft thud. kageyama sits at the driver’s seat — another overwhelmingly nice surprise he throws her way.

“why are you driving?” she questions him, as it’s in her nature to oppose what falls against her routine. he only smiles at her, softly, the corners of his chapped lips curling up ever so slightly. he seems to be out of breath, and she feels too bad to let him drive but she doesn’t have the time nor patience to argue. begrudgingly, she finds her way to the passenger seat, and as soon as she buckles herself in, he’s already leaving the campus. the directions are already on his phone, and a soothing playlist is already on the speakers. he already knows her too well. it’s haunting, but she can’t find it in herself to complain.

when they pull into the staff parking lot (as directed by her lovely event coordinator), a handful of people and a person she assumes to be the director stand at the door. they’re already rushing to help her with her items by the time she can even step foot outside the car, and briefly, she feels special. the dreams from her youth once contained in her little heart of fancy dinners and a group of her own servicemen are being showcased before her, just in a more mellow fashion. the remnants of that little heart blossom at the sight.

kageyama sits back as the staff carries the canvases away and watches as she converses with the director. she’s nervous, as told by the fiddling of her fingers against the hem of her shirt and the constant shifting of her posture, but it’s clear that she’s even more excited. he likes seeing this side of her — the one overflowing with love for the arts and an unrivaled passion. it’s refreshing to see hints of a smile on her face as opposed to furrowed brows and baggy eyes (although, the baggy eyes never quite go away), and he longs to see more of it. he yearns for toothy grins and heartfelt expressions and genuine joy out of her, but his heart and mind can’t handle that realization just yet. so he shoves it back down to the pits of his stomach, acts like he isn’t discovering just how much he likes being around her, and observes in silence as she returns to the car, the air around her much lighter.

the drive to the restaurant (which yachi picked out as soon as the plans were made) is silent. it's an hour away from the art center, but with the afternoon traffic, it may as well be two hours. however, she doesn't stress over it, so he doesn't either. there are hints of exhaustion riddled all over her face, and he wonders, again, what it must be like to see the world through her eyes. to live so dangerously within a tango of self-destruction all for the sake of a dream to create. he admits his obsession with volleyball isn't very different, but within her, there's something more than just that. it's something he can't put a name on, and yet, he sees it within her every time — when she's studying, when she's working, when she's conversing about the thing she loves the most — it's always evident.

he thinks, for a moment, that he likes that part of her the most. whatever he had buried deep down within himself resurfaces, this time stronger. in his peripherals, she's fast asleep, her head limp against the window just as it was when they picked her up from the studio a few nights prior. he wonders why she didn't choose to dress up for an occasion celebrating herself. he wonders why she's so drawn to the arts. he wonders why he's so attracted to her passion, unwavering and quiet all the same. he wonders why he can't bring himself to hate her, even if her inability to prioritize herself over her craft hurts both herself and those around her in the process.

he doesn't want to admit his lack of immunity to her. so instead, he continues to drive. his eyes stretch across the horizon of cars before him, and the scenes of the city on his left and right, as if to distract himself from whatever cognizance is coming upon him now. but no matter how hard he tries, he can't escape it. so much so that, when they pull into the parking lot beside all of her friends (if she considers most of them that), he doesn't get out for a while, nor does he bother to wake her up. all he wants to do is bask in her presence. it's terrifying.

it only takes a few minutes for her to stir from her slumber, and when her consciousness slowly slips back into her grasp, she's almost startled to see him still sitting beside her.

"what are we waiting for?" she asks, the remnants of sleep still laced in each syllable.

he doesn't want to look at her, in fear of doing something he definitely shouldn't do. he looks straight ahead into the fancy double doors and replies, "nothing. i just wanted you to rest up first."

she doesn't question him any further, and slowly, she begins to collect herself. she removes the hoodie she's wearing to unveil a slightly more formal top, adorned with a ribbon in the center of the neckline and bits of lace peeking out from the short sleeves. it's the version of her he had grown accustomed to before he bothered to speak to her. before he got to truly know her.

he waits patiently as she straightens herself up, delicate hands smoothing out wrinkles in her pants and the stray strands of hair. they exit the car together, and when their presence is made known to the group (who have been waiting inside the lobby for a little too long), there's an amalgamation of complaints regarding their tardiness and excitement at their appearance.

it's peaceful. he looks to his right and sees her smile, once again, although this time, it's full of warmth. he can’t stop staring. he wonders if she truly feels happy, at this moment in time. he hopes she is.

𝜗𝜚 blue spring is half written half smau atp

𝜗𝜚 yn in her healing era after going thru the worst breakdown of the century thank god !!

𝜗𝜚 btw everyone gets drunk at the party except for yn tsukki and kenma (two of which are designated drivers)

𝜗𝜚 tsukki yachi and yams were struggling on their commute to the restaurant since they’re so used to driving tgt. they kept arguing over which stops to get on and off at

𝜗𝜚 kageyama’s last text to her was genuinely the most impulsive decision he’s made in relation to her so far. he sent it with one hand over his eyes his phone far away and his face turned away

𝜗𝜚 yn almost went on an unprompted rant to the director about her exhibit but remembered the dinner party </3

𝜗𝜚 i’m so sorry for making kags n yn so dense but it had to be done. awkward unable to comprehend own emotions guy x passionate cold-shoulder shoves all her emotions so far down she doesn’t even recognize them anymore girl is the trope for this one

taglist: @mfcherry @eggyrocks @scxrcherr @yuminako @girlkissersco @diorzs @causenessus @kyo-kyo1 @k0z3me @shironagi @lovingvi @bunninio @hisfuture @lilchubbyyy @gsyche @ghostreader0307 @gumiiiiezzzz

[alchemistc]

goon | chapter one | bucktommy

check out the hockey glossary here read from the beginning or read chapter one here

It takes Tommy a few breathless seconds to remember to skate in and hug the rest of his team, and another five to realize that technically the assist is his. He stopped caring about stats so much the second year his time in the box exceeded his time on ice for more than five games out of the season, but it sits there, in the back of his mind, his name next to Buckley’s on the score sheet.

There’s a rush that comes with division rivalry games, a certain something in the air when the crowd noise rushes in after the anthem, a call for blood and guts and gore and glory.

Tommy’s been in the league for almost two decades. He’s played for every division in the league, at one point or another. This isn’t even his first time in the central, although the configuration of teams is different than the last time.

Sometimes one team is shit (more often than not he’s on that side of it) and the other is on a tear. Sometimes they’re battling it out in four-point games to keep their points lead in the division — or knock the other team down to second. Sometimes it’s a scrape to pull out the wildcard spot. Sometimes the game itself is meaningless but they’ve played each other often enough that there’s friction. Sometimes there’s just one fucking guy on the opposition that the fanbase harbors some deep resentment for.

And this one actually means something — there’s some extra bad blood between these two teams, a star goalie with a grudge on the far end of the ice, three first round matchups in the last ten years, a run of wins that was bringing tonight’s opponent a little too close for comfort to the Avs divisional points cushion.

Tommy shifts his weight and settles the nerves, accepts the smack to the back of his helmet, and watches Binnington throw a fit between the pipes when the stripes don’t whistle the play dead and call an icing when the puck trickles in behind his net.

They’re five minutes in and everyone’s getting testy. He can feel it.

This is where Tommy does his best work.

It’d been a task, ten years ago, a part of the job he’d accepted because he was good in a fight and fully capable of taking a few punches. Under the thumb of the old boys club it’d just been expected of him — the ability to throw his weight around was what had kept him from complete obscurity in a lower league that would have worn him down much sooner. Tommy’s fists and his ability to drop his shoulder just in time to knock a guy flat on his ass were the only things that mattered when his agent settled him down with two offers, a few years into the league, and he’d chosen the team most likely to make his dad proud.

Never mind that his dad had come to three games when Tommy was a bright eyed rookie, seen Tommy get his ass handed to him by a man twice his size, and stopped bothering to show up.

He’d turned that around, in recent years. Longer stints with the affiliate teams, less time under the microscopic eye of the national press (even as a role player he’d had his moments under that eye) — he’d learned when to pull his punches, when to turn the other cheek, and when to lock his ankles and aim for the fucking chest. He had friends up and down the continent who knew him as the guy who’d take them all out to dinner after a bad loss, find something stupid and entertaining for them to do after, and then go into the next game with a chip on his fucking shoulder.

There were three kids with insane star power in the league who had him on speed dial even though he hadn’t played with them for a year or more, because for some fucking reason he had the ability to talk them off a ledge when the pressure drove them towards it.

He’d never tell a soul that Crosby still sent him gym selfies so they could compare the relative size and plumpness of their ass during the offseason.

There was still a reverence for real enforcers, in the league, even if they’d fallen by the wayside as teams got smaller and quicker. They were more a deterrent than anything else these days, but that usually meant Tommy got to lumber around on the ice for a few minutes a game, remembering what it had felt like the first time he’d laced his skates and stepped out to a roaring crowd, before he took another dumb penalty and spent the next forty-five minutes riding the bench. He’d been instructed not to take any dumb penalties, tonight, because St. Louis didn’t tend to get sloppy until the game was on the line.

Thirty-six minutes in, Schenn takes a chop at Diaz’s knees under the guise of a poke check and the home crowd gets loud, and ornery.

Nash smacks him on the shoulder on their way back down the tunnel for the third, eyes a little wild, and Tommy immediately recalls the old highlight reels of Nash shaking hair out of his eyes while he squared off against a guy twice his size, motor-mouthing his way into getting the other guy to take the first swing. Minnesotans and their right hooks weren’t something to fuck around with. Too much time in the cold not to have a little crazy in them.

Tommy rolls his tongue over his teeth, tilts his head to where Diaz and Buckley are bent over the boards together on the bench, already prepared to hop out the moment Bannister tries to get a matchup that’ll tilt in the Blues favor.

Nash sends him out with the rest of the fourth line, and Tommy doesn’t waste any time.

It’s immediately clear that they’ve all been warned to keep level heads. Schenn won’t engage, Buchnevich barely acknowledges Tommy when he hip checks him into his own bench — he goes ass over tea kettle and Tommy gets nothing more than a few shifty looks and some smack talk from the guys sitting.

There’s an easy way around that, though.

Tommy clambers back over the boards and waits out the next shift, practically vibrating with it when a shot pings off the crossbar and Greenway skates right through Binnington’s crease chasing after it.

Kyrou tries to take out Buckley against the boards, looks livid when Buck skates just free of it, and Buck does some ankle breaking in a rush to the goal. It hits the post, and when the whistle gets blown fifteen seconds later Tommy watches level heads not prevail when Binner says something snippy to Kyrou that has him rolling his eyes on the way back to the bench.

It takes another minute and a half for Nash to set up the line matches the way he wants them, but as Greenway skates off in relief and Schenn’s line stays stuck in their own zone spinning their wheels, Bobby smacks a thick hand down on Tommy’s shoulder. “Kinard, you’re up!”

Tommy takes an awkward pass once he’s past the blue line and goes full tilt towards the net. Full tilt for Tommy isn’t anything special, but it’s not what the Blues are expecting, and most of them have been out for two plus minutes at this point, hemmed in by their third and fourth lines just shoveling the puck back in every time it nears the blue line.

The snow shower he aims at the goal, half an inch into the crease when he fully stops, isn’t anything to write home about, but it has it’s intended effect. Already short on patience, Binnington watches Schenn intercept and send the puck careening down the ice — a third icing in a row — and lashes out with the butt end of his stick, a glancing blow Tommy laughs at as the rest of the players start to circle up at the whistle. Tommy’s laugh pisses him off. The laugh pisses him off so much.

It’s so fucking easy to rattle him when he’s already two goals down. There’s some shoving, a few hockey hugs to keep things from escalating, but Panikkar has apparently cottoned on to Tommy’s plan, and he says something under his breath that has Sundquist in his face, and Binnington skating around behind the net in irritation while the zebras break up a few of the more reticent shoving matches.

Tommy wins about one face-off out of every fifty, but that’s not the reason he’s bending across from Schenn now at the circle.

“We could end this before he loses all his cool and breaks his stick on the pipes,” Tommy goads, and the linesman with the puck rolls his eyes towards Schenn expectantly. The other man shifts, readjusts the grip on his stick. “Or I could just keep taunting him for something that isn’t even his fault, this time.”

Schenn’s not a particularly bad dude, just a little gun shy about fighting when his coach has clearly told them all not to engage.

Tommy wants him to fucking engage.

Schenn waits for the puck to drop, and miraculously, it’s Tommy who scoops it up to a fresh-faced Buckley just in time for the man to wind up and sneak it through about four bodies on it’s way over Binnington’s shoulder.

It takes Tommy a few breathless seconds to remember to skate in and hug the rest of his team, and another five to realize that technically the assist is his. He stopped caring about stats so much the second year his time in the box exceeded his time on ice for more than five games out of the season, but it sits there, in the back of his mind, his name next to Buckley’s on the score sheet.

And then Schenn gets sloppy again, a check into the boards that has Panikkar limping back towards the bench while the crowd boos the refs — no call, again, which is fucking typical and normally Tommy’d be in his face about it, ready for the unsportsmanlike just ready to tumble off the refs tongue, but not tonight, tonight he’s got other plans — and Tommy doesn’t give Schenn any time to think about it when Nash sends him out in the immediate chaos.

He catches Kyrou mid-ice with his head down, a shoulder right to the chest that sends him reeling back, skates leaving the ground as he crashes backwards, and Schenn is on him in the next five seconds, gloves off and a resigned look in his eyes. Tommy grins and shifts his weight back, tossing his own gloves and reaching for the neck of Schenn’s sweater.

In the heat of the moment, man to man, the noise of the crowd always dies away, blood pounding in his ears and his entire focus on keeping his weight balanced and his fists loose. He’s been a heavy-weight for over half his career, and Schenn knows he’s outmatched but someone has to answer the bell.

There’s a ref circling them, and Tommy gets three right hooks in before Schenn can even get a hand out to hold Tommy back.

Hen’s gonna be pissed when she sees the state of his hands, but Tommy doesn’t really care, all that much, as he tightens his grip and yanks him close enough for an uppercut aimed at his ribs.

The refs break in before Schenn gets a hit, and the roar of the crowd rushes back in, loud, raucous, the mob appeased as Tommy skates his way to the box with a grin on his face. He’s a little disappointed that they’d broken it up so quickly, but — he’s probably got twenty-five pounds on Schenn, so fair enough.

Diaz scores a shorthanded goal three minutes into the major and Chim holds the line through the deluge of pissed off Blues who are now down four goals.

Tommy spends about ten seconds out of the box before the refs assess him a game misconduct for tapping his glove along the visitors side gate, and he accepts it with all the grace he can muster, smacking his fist into a screaming kids palm as he heads off down the hall.

The cool off doesn’t take him as long at it used to — sometime in the first ten years of his career he’d figured out how to shake off the hotheaded temper that made him so fucking good at getting under people’s skin, and by the time the rest of the team returns with a victory on their shoulders he’s relaxed and loose-limbed again.

Diaz makes a beeline for him, smacking his bare chest, hands curling over his shoulders so he can shake him a little, and he gets a few hoots and hollers as the rest of the team trickles back in. Someone names Tommy third star, but Nash has a rule about keeping up appearances, and he had technically been tossed from the game, so. He keeps his seat and waits until Buckley and Chim both return from taking their bow.

They’ve got a tradition, going back a few years now, a game puck tossed from player to player throughout the season for whatever the hell the previous recipient wants to acknowledge someone for. Tommy’s spent a few weeks hyping up the recipient with the rest of the team, but tonight Diaz calls for silence and every eye in the room swivels towards Tommy.

“Next time we’re getting you the full Gordie Howe,” comes the concise speech, and Tommy chuckles when Diaz leans in for a half-shake, half-hug where he admits in an undertone that Binner had definitely done his best to hold on to this particular puck at the game horn, so Tommy had better appreciate his efforts in acquiring it.

It’s not even March, but there’s a string of tension running through the whole group of them, a line of unspoken expectation as their home record extends to fifteen games — but as they trickle off to the showers with pats on the back and the giddy adrenaline of another win, Tommy can feel something brewing in the room.

He’s halfway through stretches, twenty minutes later, when Panikkar parks up next to him and knocks his knee against Tommy’s.

“That was some pretty decent work, Kinard,” Ravi says, like he hasn’t spent two weeks annoyed that Tommy can’t keep up with him when he’s on a breakaway, barely holding his tongue when Tommy lumbers down the ice after him. Diaz has made some noise, in recent days, about running suicide drills at the start of optionals, and Tommy is absolutely gonna get his ass handed to him. He’ll be there with bells, but he’s gonna be feeling that shit for weeks.

“Not so bad yourself, kid,” Tommy tells him, and Ravi ducks his head around a grin.

“Hen’s pissed I didn’t keep my mouth shut,” he admits, and gestures to his ribs, where Tommy can already see some nasty bruising. Tommy cocks an eyebrow.

“I’d have gotten them there on my own.”

Ravi’s grin brightens, and when he stands, Tommy can’t quite help the way he wants to stand as well, maybe give this kid a noogie, tease him about the height difference for a second. He’d grown up without brothers, but he’s found about a million and two in his time playing up and down the continent. “It’s more fun when you’ve got the whole team to move it along.”

He’s halfway out the door when he spins on his heel to give Tommy another look. “Hey, you know Gardiner’s had it out for Buckley for like, four years, right?”

Tommy shifts. Panikkar doesn’t need to know that he’s had the calendar date circled in his mind for three weeks, now, since the moment he’d hopped on the plane to Denver. He’s not going to admit to knowing every single guy in the league who’s ever set their sights on 18. He’s certainly not going to admit to spending most of his first evening in his rental watching highlight reels of Buckley (and Diaz) until he’d fallen asleep on his surprisingly comfortable sectional. He knows enemy number one for every game from now until the end of the season, but he knows Buckley’s best of all.

It’s what they’d brought him over for, Tommy rationalizes, again, and if he spends the drive home thinking about the wide slash of Evan Buckley’s smile when he’d skated in to celebrate Buckley’s goal, no one but Tommy has to know.

[willofwinnie]

Baticul is a Safety Nightmare

Baticul is a city full of pride, fontech, nobles, and safety violations. Looking at the city it is easy to tell they prioritize fontech over safety. From the first step into the city, this is clear. I know much of this could be graphical limitations, prioritizing certain areas, and assets that were more important to go elsewhere. 3d and game design are super difficult but this was fun to go through and notice all these things. This is a long post.

The Docks:

First entering the city, you are met with an enormous concrete or stone dock likely mainly used for cargo and large ships. Aside from the potential slip hazard from the material, I likely wouldn't have paid much mind because Baticul needs the ease of transporting these freight boxes. That would have been my mindset if this also wasn't used for public transport and a general public meeting place. This entire front portion of the dock is completely unfenced except for the areas reserved for the cargo. That fence-looking structure in the first picture extends out to the side next to the guard and is not a fence along the edge to keep people from falling like I originally thought. This man next to Luke is one wrong gust of wind or shoulder bump from dropping 35 or so feet, during low tide, into the ocean (approximate dock height is assuming the guard is around 6 feet for reference). This is also the place where you meet the little kid cowboy, Misika, who has the same falling risks as the man. I am curious about how many people fall in when it is a busy time of year. However, looking at the line across the side of the dock, it is clear that this is at low tide. The difference between the top of the dock and the high tide line seems about 10 feet or so. Ocean tidal range difference for low and high could be 30+ feet, so a 25-foot difference checks out. The ramp shown in the right image may extend left far enough so that, if people happen to fall in, they can get rescued by the guard. Even if death risks aren’t as high here, open water can be dangerous. And even if people can get easily rescued, that does not mean the rest of Baticul is safe.

The First Level:

As we move on to the main portion of the city, we get dropped off by the gondolas. Directly to the South, we see a kid looking over the edge of a non-roped-off section of one of these drop-off points. He is also one wrong gust away from being a Baticul missing person statistic that was solved by looking at the bottom of wherever this leads. None of the gondola entrance points have it roped off when the gondola is not present. At least the fences surrounding this area look solid, unlike the rest of Baticul.

The next biggest point is the large fence gap at the base of this staircase to the East. This seems like an unfortunate series of events waiting to happen, let alone the safety risks of having a large gap leading to a long fall.

The third, more nitpicky, point is the simple railing found around Baticul. The gap in that could easily fit a small child through it and could pose some potential risks for parents not keeping a close eye on them. But at least those sections have a form of railing at all.

The Second Level:

This level seems fairly okay even if the fences are simple railings. Plus this area seems more of a military section than a public place. I will give this one a pass.

The Third Level (The Palace):

Starting strong, The palace has many fence gaps next to stairwells. The first is the edge of the stairwell leading to some guards near the top of the first set of stairs. The second point is the lack of fences next to large fall areas. In the first picture above, you can see the gap in the fence from the top of the stairs and the remaining fence. There is also a large flower patch between this fence and the drop-off. I’m sure Baticul gardeners are capable of standing on their own two feet, but this seems like a blatant disregard for worker safety. I suppose Batical has no concept of OSHA yet. Or that Baticul cares more about people stepping on their flowers than the safety of their gardeners working on said flowers. The third fence gap is near the palace, as seen in the second picture. This is mirrored on the other side. This drop seems a little too much of a drop and could cause some damage, especially since people can break bones from simply falling down some stairs. The last point for safety is the open body of water for the monument with the tiniest, likely slippery walkway. I will give Batical some leeway because of the fences and guards surrounding it. If only they surrounded the drop-offs with the same care.

Fabre Manor:

I know this is also part of the Third Level, but this deserves its own section for safety hazards just to give it the context needed. The main issues come from the open water shown all over the center courtyard space of the manor. It looks to be around two feet based on Luke’s 5’7” height. Two feet of water is very easy to get submerged. The open water is concerning because of Luke, and how he was a baby when he first arrived home, a baby that can’t swim. It is also slightly questionable if Luke knows how to swim at all since he was locked in the manor all his life. In the picture, the cube decoration goes all the way into the water. This is important because it shows that the walkways only sit on top of the water. With a baby replica running around that doesn’t know how to swim, getting trapped under the walkway seems like a surefire way to get to the Fon Belt early. Yes, there are guards and maids around, but drowning is largely silent and can take only a matter of seconds if someone were to not pay attention. One can only hope someone is around to hear the initial splash.

It is also odd that Luke's room is fenced with simple railing rather than ornate fencing like the rest of the courtyard. Yes, this is likely due to drawing more attention to Luke's room and the curved edges of his porch. In general, his room seems out of place, like it isn't supposed to be a bedroom at all. But that is a different discussion altogether. Right below his room is more open water and a sizable drop for a potentially curious replica toddler.

Baticul, only the strongest may survive this city!

Anyway, I hope you found some enjoyment from this long ramble! I simply think too much about random potential safety issues with fictional cities haha.

[rorywritesjunk]

(buggy just wants to give sunny a gift that's it, that's all. he doesn't know how to do this courting stuff)

pt 1 + pt 2 + pt 3 + pt 4 + pt 5 + pt 6 + pt 7 + pt 8 + pt 9 + pt 10 + pt 11 + pt 12 + pt 13 + pt 13.5 + pt 14 + pt 15

pt 3

It was about five months until Buggy saw Sunny again. His captain needed something else fixed with his clothes and was insistent that Miss Pins and her staff were the only ones capable of doing a satisfactory job. Buggy really didn't care if the captain's clothes fit properly, he was more concerned about seeing Sunny.

He had stashed away a little box of gifts for her that he had obtained during raids they had completed, keeping a share for himself but squirreling away things for her that he thought she might like. And to be honest, he wasn't sure what she would like. He... really didn't know her when it came down to it, only spending a day with her when they first met only to spend a week visiting with her when he saw her again.

Was this dating? What was this they were even doing? Did she just pity him or care about him? Honestly, Buggy thought she must have a boyfriend or something already, she had to because she was so wonderful, but why was she so excited to see him again?

When he followed his captain to the shop, hoping the anxiety that had his stomach in knots and heart pounding would cease once he got there. The two entered the shop, his captain greeting Miss Pins while Buggy glanced around for Sunny. She was sitting at the table, cutting out squares of fabric for patches. Buggy swallowed heavily when he saw her. What should he say?

Sunny looked up from her work, her eyes lighting up when she saw him. She didn't hesitate in pushing her chair back from the table and rushing over to Buggy, throwing her arms around him for a hug.

"Buggy! I didn't know when I'd see you again!" She squealed in excitement as she tightened her arms around him. "I missed you!"

He turned red and glanced over at his captain. The old man was giving him a thumbs up while Miss Pins narrowed her eyes at the teenager. His captain seemed to approve but the old woman... not so much.

"I..." He trailed off as she pulled back. Without a word he shoved the little chest out to her, hoping she would take it. As mouthy as he could get Buggy was at a loss of words as he stood in front of her.

Sunny took it from him and smiled, looking at the box. "What's this?"

"It's for you, open it, okay? There's stuff in there for you!" It all came out at once, words jumbled and rushed, sounding a little more harsh than he needed to but he couldn't help it. He hated how nervous he felt and how he could feel the two adults staring at them. He would have rather done this in private but he wasn't sure how to even ask.

"Oh! Thank you!" Sunny smiled as she opened it. There were earrings, several bejeweled bracelets, necklaces with different sized stones, and a little bottle of what she thought was perfume. "Is this all for me?"

"Y-Yes! All of it, and there's more to come!" Buggy insisted as his face turned bright red.

"You're like a magpie." She giggled as she went to set it down on the table. "Giving me shiny things. Thank you." She smiled at him and Buggy was a little pleased her cheeks were pink. He wasn't he only one blushing through this entire ordeal. "I'm just glad you're safe, Buggy. I'm happy to see you again."

"Really?" He hated that his voice cracked. He hated there was an audience. He hated he couldn't stop blushing. But Sunny was smiling at him which for a moment made him forget about everything else. "You are?"

"Of course!" She reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. "I'm always happy to see you, Buggy. You're important to me."

He turned redder at that, started to sweat even, and he glanced over at his captain who was mouthing Give her a kiss! while Miss Pins had picked up her shotgun, already loading it. Buggy wondered if he could handle his own against the old woman but it was debatable.

[drop-the-curtain-123]

Headcanons about the Nagisa - Kataoka duo, plz.

Hi, thanks for the ask! It's an interesting pair I never really thought about. But I did write a one-shot about Kataoka a couple weeks ago, so I'm geared up.

Nagisa & Kataoka:

I feel like they do get along, though. They're not really close, per say, because their friend groups are different, but they're definitely on the same wavelength.

They're both levelheaded, rational people who try to come up with solutions in a logical, thought-out manner.

Since Kataoka is more assertive and socially involved than Nagisa, he sort of never goes out of his way to talk to her.

She's genuinely appreciated, and admired for her charisma.

Kataoka appreciates Nagisa's "backseat" efforts though, and is admirative of the Koro Sensei weakness list, for example.

It's noted in the Roll Book Time that Nagisa actually is one of the few who is capable of stopping her when she goes on a bit too much on lecturing and ordering.

I think he'd be one to tap on her shoulders and try to derail her mind from what is upsetting her (probably Okajima's hijinks). Probably offer her a candy and a reading of his notes and observations. She deserves that down-time.

More on their dynamic:

There's quite a bit of parallels between them, when we think about it: Nagisa obviously has issues with being percieved and respected as the man he is, and his masculinity is often put into question. On the opposite end, Kataoka struggles with her femininity.

He's the shortest guy in Class E, and she's the tallest girl. They canonically had an arm wrestling match, too, that Nagisa completely lost, much to Megu chagrin.

As to activities, or situations where they'd actually spend time together, I'd like to think quiet, revising sessions would fit them; they both enjoy order and calm, and would probably make a great team.

Beyond Class E:

I can see them having the same sort of low-key time, touring the city mall, overall staying in their own bubble, and enjoying to be far, for once, from their more energetic friends.

Nagisa would win the claw machines games for Megu, making her overjoyed (think, a dolphin plushie).

Kataoka would in return use her mastery of knifemanship to win at games that revolve around quick-thinking, and dexterity. Darts, maybe?

I can see them go for clothes shopping too; they both trust eachother, and know of the others issues regarding how they're percieved, but also the fact they aren't BFF helps with honesty when chosing a piece.

In the future (think, the 7 years timeskip), I think that Nagisa (who is busy, due to his teaching) and Kataoka (when she lands back in Kunugigaoka, being a flight attendant) they unexpectedly end up having a free hour to spend together, at a café.

Doing things like catching up, sharing anecdotes from cabin crew and passagers, or from colleagues and students. They definitely would do it, lightheartedly, with Kanzaki too, who'd talk about her patients.

I hope you liked it :) There's not much to go off from in canon, but I genuinely think they would have a mature, 'stable person I can rely on if needed' sort of dynamic, despite everything.

My ask box is still open for headcanon requests!

[quietwingsinthesky]

(@transgenderdoctorwhomst )

looks at you with my big eyes and holds out my hand. would you like to be normal with me about master!rory?

yes yes yes yes so badly hold on hold on.

okay. see. what’s got to activate my brainworms about master!rory is the moment we all know and love, this little speech here:

You know what's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around.

which, already one of the best rory moments on its own. with regular rory, its an immediate tell of just how insightful he is about the doctor—the guy whose whole thing is being a mystery man in a mystery box. he reads him for dead there, and he’s right. but god. think about that with the context of master!rory. maybe even a master!rory who is still currently fobwatched or whatever, who doesn’t know just how well he knows the doctor. because doesn’t that just cut to the core of their relationship. as much as the master is perfectly capable of doing evil shit all on his lonesome, there’s a part of him that wants the doctor to see. to be impressed by just how far the master can go, has gone.

i mean s3 and end of time are practically him shouting LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! until he’s gone far enough to put his own face everywhere on the planet.

and then, of course, the way that this line could also reflect on missy’s future(?) arc (assuming that at some point rory is gonna regenerate into her. which. extremely funny if you hold to the EU fact that missy is also one of amy’s childhood therapists. missy, that’s your wife what are you doing-) What’s more undoing than wanting to be better because the Doctor knows you can be, promises you can be, and you reach and reach and never quite get a hold on what he’s saying you must. you don’t want to let him down. and you will. inevitably.

you know?

and we gotta get into amy/rory we gotta. okay. again presuming fobwatched!rory -> him getting his memories back. i mean, what’s that like, right? because rory’s world revolves around amy, it really does, but the master has centuries behind him. how do you fit a universe inside you and still love one girl so much. i don’t think he could stop, i don’t think he could help himself. above all, i don’t think amy would let him. that sounds uhhhhh but what i mean is: i don’t think amy would watch rory become someone else and think that she, she who believed the doctor back into existence, couldn’t force a little of him to stay rory, just by holding onto him. very tam lin of her, if she held onto the master as he snarled and spit and lashed out until he ran out of energy to fight it and let himself be rory again just to be in her arms a little while longer.

i think you’re right. i think she really could just go ‘you’re being an idiot’ and he’d completely bluescreen processing that he, the master, is being spoken to like that. that he’s listening to her. he can’t help it, he’s whipped. oh the insane things that would do to him and the doctor both if the doctor couldn’t talk him down from Evil Plan Of The Week but amy could. a compelling parallel too, assuming that somehow fobwatched rory grew up from being a kid (the way yana did?) alongside amy, remembers that still alongside memories of growing up with the doctor. two very different childhood friends, and the real one, the older one, is someone with whom the relationship is so banged up it can never be good or simple ever again. and his childhood with amy wasn’t even real but the love is. the love is.

i think that would be a wonderful way to fuck him up forever. the doctor spends all this time picking up humans and ghosting when they grow older because he’s terrified of facing that and the master mocks that, and then all of a sudden. here’s his human. she’s going to grow old. and he never will. a new kind of fear for him to experience, the horrible understanding of exactly what the doctor does and why. he’d probably bring it up more in response, lash out at the doctor with names of people he hasn’t visited in centuries because he’s so scared, and then turn around and see amy and get cold and shaky because it’s happening to him and he can’t stop it.

ohhhhh river. what do we think the odds are that master!rory would let his daughter be taken away from them? zero, right? and like hell would amy, no matter what the show seemed to believe. so let’s steamroll the doctor’s opinions on the matter, commandeer his ship, because its his future he wants to preserve but its the master’s/rory’s/amy’s present they both want to save. amy’s got a vicious streak that could burn through the galaxy if given enough reason to, and that’s her daughter they took. but alone, the doctor could stop her, because at the end of the day, it’s his ship and he’s got more power over everyone’s lives then is reasonable. with rory, she couldn’t do it. but with the master? the stars are gonna learn to shake when they hear she’s coming.

so yeah. i have. a few thoughts on master!rory. hopefully good ones lmao.

[i-need-of-a-hobby]

So we all know the theory that Gravity Falls, The Owl House and Amphibia take place in the same universe right?

its a pretty well know theory (even if you don't believe it) in all three fandoms but if you don't here's the gist of it:

so basically that theory is built off easter eggs, like willows dads having a book with Hop-Pops face on it

and references to the other shows like that entire Gravity Falls episode in Amphibia,

that imply that they’re taking place simultaneously, with gravity falls taking place in 2012 and TOH and amphibia taking place in 2019-2020 (without the covid the lucky bastards) with Camilla reading an article about a girl returning from a frog world in the season 2 finale of TOH

but that opens the door for a whole lot of inter-dimensional *shenanigans* and so many plot points i can and will argue reference and overlap with each other.

now theres the obvious similarities like how bills minions fit the description of beast demons from the owl house:

(ignore the circling its not my screenshot I found it on google)

and bill himself is on one of kings posters when he tries to teach Luz about demons:

Bill is also in the book that tells marcy about the calamity box:

a book I believe was written by ford since the cover says its by "Dr. P" (P-ines anyone?) and has eyes that look awfully familiar, which I think are a reference to either the cores eyes, the portal doors eye from toh, or Bills eye (and the fact that this eye symbol is so similar across shows feeds the theory that they're all in the same universe)

meaning the Bill is a semi-universal character/figure throughout the different realms

if the other realms (Bill's realm, the several Ford got trapped in, the Boiling Isles, and Amphibia) have access to each other, and Bill is as universal as he seems, he probably interacted with some citizens of those realms, and probably left a mark

now it's finally time for my personal take/add-in:

we never get an origin for the core 

or the newts relation to the core

we get an episode about Andrias's personal history and his individual relation to the core, and how he came to be the guy who manipulated and then stabbed a very vulnerable teenage girl, but it seems like the core has just been with the Leviathan lineage since at least before Andrias's dad (who's over a thousand years old since thats how old the flashback is)

so, what am I rambling about?

well, if bill, a dream demon, made his way to amphibia, the core might have been the newts attempt to artificially replicate his powers

NOW HEAR ME OUT: on top of being incredibly powerful once he’s released in gravity falls

he also has the power to go into other peoples minds and search their memories like he does to Stan in his very introduction

which is an awful lot like what the core tries to do, since Andrias says the core is the hive mind of a dozen of the greatest newt minds and when Darcy happens it has complete access to her memories

not to mention how when it talks to andrias what physically appears when it talks are it’s eyes, which is what changes on dipper and Blendin (time travel dude) when bill possess them

the amphibians (powered by the music box) were an incredibly advanced civilization capable of a lot of damage (as seen by the literal frobot army they created

so i don't think it would be crazy to say that when they (specifically the newts) saw what a being like Bill could do, they would try to replicate it.

Obviously, the core and Bills mind-jumping powers are not the same, which is a way I'd say the Amphibians failed: instead of popping in and out of peoples minds like Bill does, the core completely takes their minds, more like a parasite.

we don't know all the parameters since we know basically nothing about the other newts in the hive mind, other than that each mind shows up as an eye on the cores "head" before and after it possesses Marcy. and speaking of the girl, she has no control or consciousness (that we know of) while under the cores control.

but we do get one and a half-ish examples of people who are very aware of the cores presence in their mind (unlike Bill) but are physically controlling their own bodies (we think) (unlike Marcy) and those two are Andrias and his dad, who both communicate with the core more like it's just a very dangerous, intrusive thought.

so.... yeah...

idk how to end this but please reblog and tell me if you think im crazy or not-

[lavendarlily]

ectoberhaunt day 3: white crow @ectoberhaunt

breaking the curse

words: 1868

read it on ao3

valerie's life was going downhill until the universe decided to give her a hand.

(white crows symbolize good omens I guess?? the more you know)

Life felt pretty fair for Valerie, until it didn’t.

And when it didn’t, it spiraled down fast. She lost her friends, her home, and her sense of normalcy all at once. Surely, the scale could only tip so far. 

Lo and behold, balance restored itself in the shape of a mysterious package. Valerie curiously popped open the box - inside was a cryptic note followed by folded red fabric and what appeared to be weaponry. She had a hunch of what it was for, and her lack of experience or knowledge didn’t dim her excitement at all. She could learn. She would learn. The universe was extending an olive branch, and she’d be a damn fool not to take it. But this had to be her secret.

Valerie put on the suit, and admired herself in the mirror. It was sleek and flattering, provided lots of movement, and completely rendered her anonymous. The helmet’s computer was intuitive - the operating system was easy enough to figure out. She tested the feel of the weapons in her hands. They were light but sturdy. Now she just needed some field practice to see what they were capable of.

Her dad was already out, working his night shift. That meant she didn’t even need to sneak out. Valerie headed towards the Elmerton Community Park - a sad patch of grass, but it’d serve her purposes adequately. She did a quick lap around the park, making sure it was empty, then activated her suit. The helmet buzzed with life and she could feel the energy vibrating throughout her body. Maybe she should’ve been approaching this all with more caution, maybe a normal person would be a little more afraid. But after opening that box, Valerie was never so certain of something - that something being eliminating every ounce of spectral energy that invaded her home, and sooner than later at that.

First thing first. Valerie needed to at least keep pace with her prey; speed would be a huge factor in her success rate. Following a prompt from her helmet, she stomped her right heel twice against the ground, and as if by magic, a hoverboard generated under her feet. Some people would probably question this more, feel alarmed by the unnatural way the suit provided for her needs, but there was too much to learn, too much to take care of for her to give it much thought. Thinking wasted time. The important thing was she had a way to chase down those damn ghosts - the board was just what she needed, who cared where it came from?

The board hummed and levitated a few inches off the ground. Valerie leaned forward, and shot off. OhmygodhowdoIstopthisthingwhatthe- 

She shifted her weight back and the board came to a halt, jerking her body but not hucking her off. Thank god for that. She tried moving the board again, this time only slightly pressing forward. It felt much more natural now - Valerie began to find her balance and focus on learning to turn and dive. After practicing this for a while, it was time to check out those weapons. 

There were a handful of different projectiles that had been delivered to her, ranging in size and power. Best to start small, she figured, and grabbed the light pistol. It fit perfectly in her hand, as if it were made specifically for her - yet another happy coincidence. 

No need for a safety - it was only meant to harm things using spectral energy. Valerie found a wide-trunked tree and settled into a firm stance. She raised the pistol and her helmet activated in guiding her airm. She pulled the trigger, and watched a bright pink beam sail past the tree and into the park fence where it dissipated harmlessly. 

Yeah, she was going to need to work on her aim. 

Sticking with the pistol for now, Valerie shot again and again, hitting the tree more consistently over time. When she was ready to increase the challenge, she focused on an area of the tree that was slightly off-color, and worked on hitting the smaller surface area. 

She lost track of time as the focus on her practice consumed her. Now she was able to pick off individual leaves, and had begun familiarizing herself with the larger guns. Only when the first signs of daybreak showed did she check her watch. 4:30am. She had just enough time to beat her dad home and get a few hours of sleep before school.

Valerie felt like her head had just hit the pillow when her alarm went off. She took a deep breath and allowed her brain to catch up for a moment, before going into autopilot and preparing for the school day ahead. She was careful not to make too much noise - her dad had been working all night and was surely asleep. As she moved towards her bedroom door, she looked back at the box that housed her suit and weapons, and, thinking better of it, hastily shoved the suit and a weapon or two into her school bag. 

School dragged. Valerie was barely able to keep her eyes open through most of her classes and her brain felt fuzzy and full of static. Of course she didn’t succumb to sleep - she would rather be caught dead than have her peers compare her to the likes of Danny Fenton, the loser who often dozed off in class. 

Valerie heard angels singing when the final bell rang. She hurried towards the exit, almost grateful that she didn’t have any friends trying to stop her to chat or make plans. 

Walking from Casper High to Elmerton was…not ideal. Thankfully, she now had a much quicker way to get around. Valerie slid into an alley and threw on her suit, activating her hoverboard. Immediately, her helmet started beeping.

There was a ghost nearby.

Excited by the opportunity to put her new tech and skills to the test, she let her suit guide her towards the source of the spectral influx. 

Once arrived, her blood boiled.

The very thing she detested. The very reason she had a thirst to hunt down every ghost until they were no longer a plague to Amity Park. 

That god damned ghost kid.

He was just…floating there. An easy target. Valerie honed in her aim on him and waited for the right time to strike. She faltered as he made a move - surprised as he stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Curious, Valerie waited. Soon enough, a green dot emerged out of nowhere and quickly approached the ghost kid. If Valerie was angry before, now she was absolutely fuming. He was terrorizing the park with his freaky dog, no doubt scheming ways to ruin the lives of other Amity Park citizens the way they’d ruined hers. Letting her emotions take over, she activated a missile from her board and sent it straight their way. At the very last moment, the ghost jumped out of the way, leaving a large crater in the park. While he went over to examine the damage, Valerie took the opportunity to sneak behind him and launch another set of projectiles. 

Missed again. 

The ghost looked up at her wide-eyed, and despite her failed attempts so far, Valerie felt smug that the spirit feared her. In fact, it encouraged her. She grinned under her helmet and dove towards him. He took off, engaging a vicious chase. 

Without a second thought, Valerie surged forward, similarly to her first attempt at flying the night before. There was no time to check how fast she was going - her need to capture the ghost kid pushed out any fear. One thing she quickly realized was the ghost kid’s leg up on her in agility, considering his ability to move through solid objects. He made a precarious move that Valerie could not follow, and she was thrown from her board, much to her surprise. Perhaps the physics of her board still followed some natural laws. 

Valerie caught a glimpse of the ground far beneath her, trying to think of a last ditch effort to save herself. She couldn’t die now, not like this, at the hands of a wretched spirit. That was unacceptable. 

Her need to think dissipated as the hoverboard circled back and caught her with no more than a gentle thud. She resumed her stance and carried on the chase, instantly back in the game.

Valerie felt invincible.

She fired off a few more shots, still not nailing her target. Fortunately, she was finally closing in on him. So close. Valerie went for a Hail Mary and threw out some shurikens. Thankfully, one grazed the ghost just enough to distract him, and Valerie geared up what she hoped to be her final shot. When it fired, though, the ghost boy was gone, speeding off with his destructive hound. 

She bolted after him, shooting quick and hot. She would not miss. She could not miss. Raged clouded her vision, and taken over by her own ambition, Valerie slammed into a tree. Shit. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, the impact knocking the wind out of her. Her head spun - that was definitely going to be a concussion. But concussions were temporary. She only had right now to get her ghost. 

Valerie ignored the throbbing in her head, and struggled a bit more than before to remount her board. It was fine. She’d get over it. Fate had given her an unshakable motivation and a set of weaponry for one reason, and it wasn’t to wimp out over a small bump to her head. She swiftly moved towards where she thought the ghost kid had taken off, and heard a rustling in the bushes behind her. Got him. She whipped around, a wide grin hidden by her helmet, gun raised and ready, only to see Danny Fenton and Sam Manson making out in the woods. Yikes. 

Valerie shamelessly voiced her disgust (those two losers were meant for each other, but they were still losers) then flew off, hoping to still catch up to her prey. Her helmet had lost the signal, though, so it seemed like it was time to head home. Her heart sank.

Valerie flew home, engulfed in her disappointment. She had to be better. Failure was not an option. Hovering outside her apartment complex, she could see her father through the window, making a cup of coffee before his shift and preparing dinner for Valerie. She had to do this for him, for them. For everyone whose lives were upended by the invasion of ghosts. 

Suit deactivated and once more a prisoner of gravity, Valerie approached her front door where she found another mysterious package. She quickly grabbed it and stealthily made her way to her room, locking the door behind her. After carefully removing the tape, she found a first-aid kit and practice targets. Incredible. Valerie may have failed today, but there was someone out there looking out for her, someone who believed in her. Ghost hunting was something she was meant to be doing, and she wouldn’t stop until every last one was eradicated from this plane.

It was only fate.

[carrionmeat]

Periphery (shadow&rouge)

ao3 link

summary:

Shadow pushes his friends away and resents them for not reaching out.

word count: 1,566

tags: Shadow the Hedgehog & Rouge the Bat, Identity issues, character study, trust issues, mental health struggles, timed writing

Shadow didn’t know why he was like this.

He didn’t have the typical awareness of his own personality, one that typically accompanied some sort of archetype as you’d see on a television show. Some people intuitively knew ‘who they were’. Like knowing you liked soccer and team sports, or knowing that you were an artist because you enjoyed drawing. He saw this trope often. After all, it was easy to identify with predisposed boxes. 

He didn’t have that, though. He didn’t have a box that he fit in. And he didn’t quite understand if he was born into the role of an outsider, or if he was made to fit it. 

Amy was a baker because she liked baking, or that Sonic was a hero because he saved people. Fitting those he saw with these roles only really served to disarm him further.

What was he? He carried out the orders that Gun entrusted him with. Did that make him a grunt? The title was so impersonal. 

Shadow found the idea of being a grunt, just a grunt, only a grunt to be disappointing. It made his chest swell with not rage, but a forthright agitation. This was soothed at his real title: The Ultimate Lifeform.

But he was the Ultimate Lifeform because…? 

Because what? 

He could run fast. So could Sonic, and much better than he could. He was strong– Knuckles was stronger physically. He could regenerate… but didn’t he get that capability from the Black Arms? He was supposed to save people. Look how that turned out. 

(Besides, that was another thing Sonic was much better at.) 

Impossible by definition only, he was impersonal with himself. Every accomplishment that he had, or edge that he had over another, was easily explained away by a different shortcoming. The only thing he was good at, the only thing he really excelled in, was carrying out orders with complete efficiency. 

… But then, even OMEGA had him beat. Shadow wasn’t a robot. As much as he related to his team members, more than any other mobian, they just weren’t the same. Sometimes when he watched Metal Sonic interact with Sage, Eggman, and even Belle, he was hit with the most self-assured wave that the imposter robot had more emotional depth than Shadow could ever possess. 

How pathetic was that? 

He was beat by a robot? 

It’s not like he could share his doubts with anyone. The only scrap of face that he held onto was exactly that– saving face. So he stole away to the corners or walls to lean on during Sonic’s get-togethers. Watching the dynamics of cliques like Team Sonic interact, or the care that Team Chaotix had for each other only served to rot the hole in his soul. 

The soul. What a concept.

He was made in a lab. Did he even deserve one? 

Shadow didn’t think anyone ever noticed when he slipped out through a window or brazenly walked through the front doors to leave. If they did– well, no one ever pursued. Or asked. Waving it away, shooing wayward concern with ‘That’s just how he is’. 

At the back of his head, he knew he was putting his hands in the dirt of a graveyard and digging his own grave. Bits of filth condensed under his nails. He was the only one making this persona for himself, creating this facade. He never told anyone goodbye. He never greeted anyone with a smile or engaged in small talk. But wasn’t it also up to them? To share concern for a friend, or even acquaintance, and make that gap? 

Not to say some of them didn’t. Sonic would shoot him a “you alright?”, but if he so easily accepted a head nod, did he really care? If Sonic was so easily assured, wasn’t it just a courtesy? 

None of them wanted to hear about how Shadow really felt. Besides, Shadow wasn’t quite sure himself. He wouldn’t be able to give them a proper answer. 

So on a night like this Saturday night, he found himself mindlessly pacing the concrete sidewalks of Tails’ neighborhood. Sonic’s get-togethers were always at the fox’s house. The blue bum refused to get his own abode, something Shadow couldn’t begin to understand. 

“Hey handsome,” And Shadow was surprised that he heard Rouge’s voice before the clicking of her heels against the pavement. “Out here moping around? Typical.” 

“I’m not moping.” He shot back, and in his peripheral watched as she met his stride. Although another quip sat at the front of his teeth, Shadow pursed his lips instead. He couldn’t think of the last time he had seen her so casual. 

“Well I just so happened to be in town,” Her voice was low, sultry. She crossed her arms under her chest as they walked. “Sonic said you left in quite the harrumph.” 

His eyes wandered. Not avoiding the topic, he said to himself, just thinking. “I had somewhere to be.” 

“Oh, walking around in his neighborhood until the A.M.?” 

“... I was just about to leave.” 

“Don’t give me that,” Rouge turned her head, and he felt teal-green eyes lock onto his side profile. “What’s going on in your head, Shadsy?” 

Shadow paused. The cork to his shaken champagne bottle was threatening to pop, to allow himself to pour out a frothing well of insecurities and angst, but he couldn’t. His lips were tight and his muzzle had an uncomfortable twitch. Rouge’s presence– the warmth of her next to him on what was an already sticky and humid night, the strong waft of her expensive perfume and makeup– it was already embracing a small part of him that needed attention. But it wasn’t enough to break down the walls he’d built up so high around himself. 

It wasn’t enough to lower his guard. It never was.

“Nothing,” And the word unfurled from his tongue as a sharp thorn, “I was just thinking about the work I need to catch up on this week.” 

“What work?” Her voice was indignant at first, her wings jerking as if to batter the air– before she regained her composure. He was left out of an important cue here, obviously enough. “Shadow, you’ve been given the month off.” 

“What?” His head turned. He let the visible duress of confusion scrunch his brows, and steel his glare. “Elaborate.” 

She rolled her eyes at him. The gall. “Not because of anything in particular, prince. I just happened to have a little leverage on the commander.” 

“Why?” 

“You needed the time,” Rouge’s hackles didn’t raise, but it sure felt like it. “Honey, you tend to work yourself to death’s door. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.” 

“I didn’t want time off,” Although her words were a reassurement, his heart still quickened in his chest. When he wasn’t working, when he wasn’t following or succeeding, he wasn’t anything. “I like working.” 

“No one likes working,” Rouge raised her brow at him and emphasized the point with a jab of her index finger. They stopped walking. Stopped under a yellowing streetlight. Accompanied, but still alone in the night. “And that’s a fact.” 

“Well, I do,” He bore a little too much teeth in the remark, but he didn’t know how else to show that he was upset. Shadow didn’t know how to show anything unless it was through clenched teeth. “And I don’t need you meddling with my business.” 

She paused. Looked him up, and down, and back up again. Unamused, unimpressed. “Just because I take a little vacation doesn’t mean I’m out of your life, sugar cube. Your business will always be my business. Besides, I’m back and better than ever. So get used to it.” 

Her words were too straightforward for him to dismiss them as dishonest, as much as he wished that he could. She was being far too blunt for him to believe anything else. Manipulation was a tactic best served with honey, and this wasn’t coated in the slightest. 

Maybe it was a small mercy that she didn’t mess with him too much. The brief bafflement, the way she caught him off guard was plain with his mouth opening and closing. Not quite finding the right words. So it was a relief when she slung her arm around his shoulders, pulling him into her. 

The smell of expensive perfume, and makeup, and the uncomfortable heat in the already-humid weather. 

“You don’t need to say anything, Shadsy. Everyone has rough nights. Even me, and I’m basically perfect.”

That wasn’t true and he knew it, but he didn’t say anything to discredit her claim. He let his lips close, to gnaw on the inside of his cheek while they walked in a direction that seemed more like to her apartment.

“We can talk about it in the morning.”

Shadow didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know why he was made, or what purpose he could serve besides being useful to someone else. He knew that people didn’t really care about him– why would anyone care about a tool besides how sharp they were? And Shadow certainly wasn’t very grateful for those that he knew in his life, or even the half-hearted bonds he shared with acquaintances and coworkers.

But Rouge saw him a little better than he thought anyone else could. And that was starting to chip at the weight on his shoulders. 

[trapny]

Item #: SCP-7548

Object class: Safe

Special containment procedures: only one SCP-7548 instance should be kept in a facility, except for special cases. Under typical circumstance, they are to be rotated between foundation sites at regular intervals.

The instances are to be referred to as SCP-7548-a, SCP-7548-b, and so on. Instances are labelled.

SCP-7548 instances should either be kept in an item storage locker in facility sector 12, or in an arts and crafts room if the site has one. Personnel of clearance Level 2 or higher are permitted to use SCP-7548 unsupervised.

Personnel with security clearance of Level 0 and Level 1 may be granted supervised access to an SCP-7548 instance at any time. Well behaved D-Class may also be permitted to use it outside of testing, if they ask.

Senior researchers and senior security staff can request to keep SCP-7548-1 items as office decor. Any SCP-7548-1 items not being researched or used as decor are to be kept in any available storage space until pickup day, which is on the twelfth every month.

On pickup day, the SCP-7548-1 items in storage are to be put into padded boxes and carefully loaded onto the foundations disguised "mover" trucks.

The specific type of boxes used should be the foundation's #71, #98, and #433 type padded boxes, as these are 30.48 by 30.48, 91.44 by 91.44, and 60.96 by 60.96 centimeters respectively. If any SCP-7548-1 items are unable to be stored in a padded box of any of those sizes, then the item can simply be held by a non-driving worker for the duration of the trip. Each non-driving worker is to hold only one SCP-7548-1 item at most.

In the instance of too many large SCP-7548-1 items and not enough workers for all of them, the items can simply be left in site storage where they are until the 12th of the next month.

The number of trucks should be as few as possible, but in the instance that there are enough SCP-7548-1 items to fill more than 12 trucks, then 12 more trucks should be requested, and the items divided between all 24. In the instance that there are too many to fit in 24 trucks, then the process should be repeated.

The SCP-7548-1 items are to be transported to the SCP foundation front known as "Steve's Clay Pottery", which is a pottery store in North Carolina. The SCP-7548-1 items are to be transported into the basement, removed from their boxes, and carefully placed on the available shelves.

In the instance of an SCP-7548-1 item breaking, you are to get out of proximity as quickly as possible and wait an hour before returning. Upon returning, the remains of the item are to be quickly bagged and sent to Steve's Clay Pottery. Upon arrival, they are to be taken to the basement and tossed into the bin with anomalous properties* tossed into the bin labelled as "oopsies".

The foundation knows the locations of all 11 wheels, and keeps tabs on them as well as possible. Currently, there are 7 wheels kept by the foundation, 4 wheels kept by different groups of interest, and one wheel that has been "decommissioned" by the GOC.**** Several researchers have stated that there is more than likely a twelfth wheel somewhere, but this wheel is yet to be found.

SCP-7548 instances have shown a "fondness" for the number 12. It is advised that if a situation or event not covered by the special containment ever occurs, then the number 12 should be a constant in the surroundings of the objects.

Information about the origins of this precaution can be found in the addendum for test-0127.

Description: SCP-7548 refers to a series of white pottery wheels. There are a total of 11 known wheels, each has a diameter measuring 30.48 centimeters. The wheels each have a line cord measuring 3.658 meters, with a three-pronged plug at the end. The SCP-7548 instances are operated by pedal. By design, all instances of SCP-7548 appear to be completely identical, in both appearance and operation.

The wheels operate best when plugged in, but when unplugged they are still capable of twelve additional hours of continual spin. It is currently unknown where this power is stored, as the wheels contain no trace of a visible battery.** This is considered an anomalous property of the wheels.

The ability to hold a charge makes them somewhat useful during breaches or GOI attacks where the power may be cut off, as both the act of creating and the act of watching somebody create pottery has a calming effect.*** This reduces the likelihood of mental breakdowns and panic attacks in SCP staff in the proximity of SCP-7548 instances during stressful situations.

The main anomalous property of SCP-7548 instances is found in SCP-7548-1.

***the calming effect of creating pottery with SCP-7548 instances was originally regarded as an anomalous effect of the wheels. This however has since been proven by multiple psychologists to be an effect consistent with creating regular pottery using non-anomalous wheels. Dr. ████████, who was the head researcher at the time was quoted saying "in hindsight that was probably kind of obvious."

SCP-7548-1 refers to the pottery created using an SCP-7548 instance. SCP-7548-1 instances display minor space-bending properties. When measuring length, width, height, diameter, circumference, weight, and volume, the instance will show different measurements depending on where they are measured, measurements that should be completely impossible.

Addendum: [access currently only permitted to employees with clearance level [REDACTED] or above]

*section crossed out due to confusion. There are multiple bins in the basement of Steves Clay Pottery, but only one actually has anomalous properties. This resulted in multiple catastrophes due to non-anomalous bins being used by accident. Steve has since marked the correct bin with the word "oopsies".

**the current accepted theory is that the capability of holding a charge is an anomalous property. Considering the findings of test-0029, it is very unlikely that there is some battery that researchers have yet to find.

****the "decommissioned" wheel is actually a wheel currently owned by the foundation. The Global Occult Coalition has been led to believe that SCP-7548 consisted only of one instance, and were subsequently led to believe that they had successfully destroyed it. With information from test-0029, the wheel was successfully repaired. It is now one of the seven held by the foundation.

[mattydemise]

I've never been a weekend person but recently I'm finding the most purpose on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. When the bar is alive and it’s just me and a near endless list of drink orders, I feel vital. Talking to patrons, flirting, and being engaged in good conversation. I push my body before work. The workouts are gruelling and I either start or end a workout with close to an hour of boxing. My back and shoulders in particular are transforming, getting thicker and tighter. The muscle is hard earned. It still feels as though I need to do more though, find new limits to push for. Generally, putting size on a tall frame isn’t easy and anyone tall that lifts will tell you the same thing. I have fitness goals in mind though, I have a certain physique that appeals to me above all else, and most importantly, my strength and conditioning must be functional. There’s no point being absolutely fucking massive if you have terrible cardio and can’t run around your block without facing death itself. I think back to the centuries upon centuries of warriors that trained and honed their bodies even without optimal nutrition and “poor living conditions”. In reality were their living conditions that bad though or is it simply the fact that these cultures lived so differently to the modern Western man that it’s difficult for us to imagine living that way? I know it’s the latter. Society has softened and weakened us. I know this. I think back to that old anarcho adage, “You want to improve society and yet you still participate in it?” It’s easy to critique that mindset, after all are we expected to drop out of society and govern ourselves? I say yes. I say fuck the hierarchies of institutionalised power. I say fuck those that seek out power like moths to the flame. I don’t seek power, I seek total freedom. I wish to live as I please and be only accountable to myself and my own sense of honour and integrity. I’m tired of living according to the wills and whims of gelatinous, overbearing, weak men. Men in cheap ill-fitting suits that lounge around and treat other human beings like pawns on the global chessboard. I’m not just some figure on a spreadsheet or a statistic to be brought out and used to illustrate a point. I’m flesh and blood and I’ve more drive and will, than in the entirety of Parliament. I’m clearheaded and completely lucid. I’m not beholden to anyone and I’m not rendered useless and docile by some disgusting fucking habit. Moreover, I don’t need a fucking gun to prove how much of a threat I am to these established ideals. I’m charismatic and intelligent, capable and strong, in other words, I represent the converse of virtually every elected official in this country. You should fear the amount of burden I can carry, the weight I can hold on my ever strengthening shoulders. I’m no politician nor am I a boy, I’m a man. Fear the men that have the will to seize the world within their hands and cradle it like a newborn. Let’s lay siege to the institutions that wreak havoc on this planet, let’s become the sworn enemies of the human blobs in power, and hold a vendetta against the foundations and fundamentals, that’ve corrupted our cultures and societies. The time for change is now, and change doesn’t come when men and women wearing symbols of peace join hands and sing about revolution, change comes when threat is imminent, violence is swift, blood is shed, and the weak men that hijacked this world are brought to their knees and forced to submit. The age of weakness is over, and the age of strength is here once again.

[kithcrafts]

Now for something completely different. Below the cut is a bit of ADHD poetry I mostly wrote a few years ago, found in my documents folder recently, still liked it, and gave an editing pass. There's a cut because of the format: it's a single sentence composed of more than two thousand (>2000) (2K+) words. Tumblr has compelled me to break it into several text blocks due to some character limit, but it's meant to be continuous.

If you like this sort of nonsense and want to see more, let me know!

Blueberry Muffins

Neither do I recall what compelled me to purchase an extra large blueberry bran muffin (now deceased) from that one little store on the southwest corner of the Center Square where, sitting in the slightly grimy window I would sometimes see a tiny and exceedingly creepy porcelain doll with bright, too-real eyes that seemed to follow you down the road long after you passed the place itself and that had you looking over your shoulder to see if the doll might somehow be back there with some sharp object stolen from the bakery in a fit of kleptomaniacal murderous intent, that object chosen for the particular way the light dripped in silvery darts from the steel blade and trickle glittering down the streets like liquid violence made solid and dangerous by the hellish forges beneath the land of Quilt where the flaming flamingo people carry strange luminous orbs that some rumors say hold their most precious memories but others claim are just another kind of weird folksy decoration with no real purpose except to establish the sort of communal identity that the Quiltish people so desperately needed after the last Textile War almost destroyed the entire country with those new Bass Drop weapons that came tumbling out of the bellies of the dreaded Duvetian planes,

plummeting thousands of feet through the smog-choked air before landing with a certain kind of thud that could vaporize any liquid water that happened to be close enough to get caught in the destructive radius determined by the size and volume of the device's "Drop Drivers", so called by the scientists who had the dubious privilege of naming the work that they never intended to be weaponized, of course, because no scientist ever wants to be responsible for a government gaining new destructive capabilities that they will invariably abuse by turning their shiny new weapons against some poor hapless group of people just because they have some philosophical disagreement or a piece of land they want or don't want or whatever motivates the enormous barely-conscious entities we carefully build out of the bones of ones that came before them and the ideals of the people whose descendants will eventually discover that the great machine created by their hallowed ancestors is now chewing them up wholesale and spitting out mindless corporate zombies with no creativity that operate not on rational thought or ingenuity or even instinct but only by playing back the pre-recorded programs that they have been carefully steeped in their entire lives like some perfect cup of tea (but horrible) but who will nevertheless eventually rise up to destroy that great machine, tearing its pieces cog from axle, mechanism from housing, and spring from escapement only to pack all those pieces up in neatly labeled little boxes and hide the boxes away in a cave somewhere on the west coast near the cliffs that catch the waves thrown by the uncaring ocean in the kind of weather where being out on the water is likely to result in the deaths of anybody unfortunate enough to have that sort of thing for a job since they couldn't get a safer job further inland like programming or data entry because all of those jobs were taken by the factory workers after the factories shut down when, after far too many generations had been exploited to exploit them, the mines finally dried up leaving only dust and cracked lives blowing in the wind like the leaves of the trees in the northern forest late in the fall after the colors have faded and the air has gone from pleasantly crisp to almost-painfully chill and dry enough that the moon and stars begin to stand out stark against the black sky like the bones left lying in the sun by the sanguine vultures that fly lazily though the sky day by day waiting for the sign of the flamboyant turquoise snail frog to appear writ in the sands of the place where the ruddy desert meets the golden beach to create an orange gradient like the one on the underside of the peach sitting in your grandmother's window because it wasn't ripe when she bought it and she thinks that putting it in the window well help even though so far it only seems to have attracted the fruit flies that plague every house from time to time regardless of whether or not there were any actually in the house before the fruit (that wasn't quite ripe anyway) came in on the backs of their riding sausages to conquer the sunbeams just so the cat is slightly less comfortable in the living room that is always just slightly cooler than she likes (owing to her tropical ancestry) so that she can never quite feel contented except when the sun spills onto the floor in splotches and shards stained to Technicolor brilliance by the glass of the window that was made to commemorate some long-forgotten event in the history of the old town where you grew up but can never go back to because of the entirely too personal way the people there treat you even though (and perhaps because) most of them haven't seen you since the day you graduated high school and left that place behind you - maybe forever - in the hopes of finding out who you are deep down inside where the squishy bits of your feelings (your hopes,

dreams, and fears) are keeping a constant vigil near that one closed door in the corner where the light has been burnt out for such a very long time and that now even the spiders have given up living in the borders between the light and the shadows, on those invisible lines where the dust motes wink in and out of visibility making you wonder briefly if it's really safe to breathe this obviously-polluted air if there's that much dust in it before you realize that you've been breathing it the whole time so it must be at least safe enough that you can live on it, unlike the sweet phosphorescent breezes that flow through the land of dreams whose effervescent vapors might draw you in with their spicy fragrances like fresh baked pineapple and piperine orange juice and trap you forever, not quite drowning you beneath the flowing waves of blue and yellow grasses on the hills behind the castle with those glistening banners whose threads come from the mysterious threadworm caverns beneath the lake on top of the mountain on the horizon to the west beyond the city of Baa'urg with the buildings whose roofs are tiled with a strange glittering stone that reflects the sun in three different colors depending on the angle of the light, and with the roads paved with a stone so black that light falls endlessly into it, warming it up so that even in the deepest part of the coldest winters the people never have to shovel the snow that instead simply melts away starting at any tiny bare spot of that wondrous road (which the people complain about so much in the summer) that happens to catch the light of the sun as it rises above the mountainous horizon bringing with it the strange music of the bird people whose fluting and trilling songs send cinnamon scented sounds along ancient and ancestral aerial avenues swirling and twisting the minds of some who hear them (or taste them with their ears, as it were) away from the subtle and carefully crafted dangers of their workaday working days and toward thoughts from wherein the mind swims swiftly among the stars and between the protons and becomes more vulnerable to other, even more insidious attacks from the many sources of psychic trauma that inhabit those worlds where such things prey on the innocent and unwary denizens who dare to wander out of their iridescent glass-domed cities and between the crystal spikes that in those places stand instead of the trees on other,

more verdant worlds, and that shine with their strange internal glows that seem so bright to look at but still somehow fail to illuminate even the nearest of the shadowed divots wherein dwell the mind eaters who lay in wait with their slime-covered tentacles so like those of the intelligent squishbeasts that inhabit the deeps of so many oceans on worlds lucky enough to have such life-giving expanses of water glistening on their surfaces instead of just barren rock or deep gas wells bubbling their own sort of life-giving poisons into the thick noxious atmospheres of those places, reminding many who see them of certain industrial processes that used to exist on their own worlds before their ancestors, recently or long ago, began to understand the interconnected nature of their environments and, often after much denial followed by eco-wars waged by the last of the great corporate governments those cultures would produce, finally took steps to correct only to find that much of the damage that had been done was irreversible (or would take many generations to repair) and that the only viable solution left was to scatter themselves to the stars (worlds like theirs being scarce enough that there were none close by) and take their chances in their smallish black-tipped ships where they would spend dozens of generations without contact from any other sentient lifeforms until they no longer resembled or even remembered their planet-bound progenitors or even those who had left on other ships, some of which had been destroyed and others captured when their particular shard of the unfortunate species-fracture encountered by chance a more hostile species among the endless voids of the universe, while a very lucky few found new worlds that would service their organic needs well enough to make a home with its own set of wonders and dangers, and yet others abandoned their organic bodies entirely choosing to become fully artificial so that over the years they could not only preserve and repair themselves better but improve on the technologies that now sustained and produced their minds in new and terrifying and amazing ways that eventually led to lifeforms entirely unlike any others the universe had ever produced before or ever would again despite its vast and undeterminable span, nor did the flowers in the grasses of that place produce any scent but instead bloomed in a most amazing array of colors and took advantage of the wind by changing their stems to vibrate with each passing breeze, producing sounds all up and down the frequency spectrum that sounded like a pleasant humming in a zephyr, but during a storm could sometimes take on a more banshee-like quality that the people told cautionary stories about to their children who, after many generations, learned to selectively breed new flowers that made specific notes that were more pleasing to listen to which gave rise to several new forms of music but caused the flies that the flowers had been depending on to pollinate to be much less effective leading to population crashes throughout that particular part of the food web until the flies (and two species of finch) were extinct and the flower came to rely exclusively on artificial pollination provided by the people who had changed the flowers in the first place because they could not bear to lose the "Music of the Buds" that had caused their culture to cohere into a post-technological utopia before ultimately dying out from uncorrectable genetic defects originally promoted by exposure to the pollen of those very same flowers and a dose of irony that could kill off an entire colony of elephants in just a bit more time than it takes for a leaf to fall to the ground from the lowest branch of the big tree on top of the hill next to the pond where those ducks played as the sun glinted off the water in diamond lancets toward the back wall of the shop next to the one that had that tiny doll that actually just wanted to be friends but was driven mad by being surrounded all day by those terrible blueberry muffins.

[finniestoncrane]

Lovely Finnie~!! Congratulations~!! 🎉🎊🎉🎊🥳🥳🥳🤩🤩🏆🏆 We're so proud of you~!!

If you've a mind, may I get a #9? Pretty please? 🥺

I am an American, I live out west, and I'm a nurse assistant! (If you've ever been to a hospital, odds are you met one of me! We work with the registered nurses to make sure our patients are well taken care of, clean, happy, healthy, and safe!) (At least I think so, we aren't exclusively American are we?) (Let me know if I'm talking too much >///>) My method of assistance is usually "Show me what you can do, I'll do the rest" mostly because they just got out of surgery. But I also know when to push my patients, and stand my ground if they get too mean or back off if they start getting physical.

In my free time I'm a writer, I write fanfiction, too~! On ao3! I started on FF.net about... lord in heaven, 15 or so years ago? (I'm turning 30 this year, ugh) I listen to music (a lot of musicals and Broadway), play video games (rpgs), and do 3d puzzles and wood kits (lots of them 🙃)!

Fun fact! Before I worked in the hospital, I worked in a prison! XD I have a lot of stories from working there, let me tell you. (Also a nursing home before that, so loots of stories from there, too)

(If it matters, I'm thereabouts 5'5, plus size, and pale. Dark hair and green eyes.)

(If you can't work with this, no worries, completely understand~! Again, congratulations~!! 🥳 have a treat special from me~! 🍪🍰)

🎀 No.9: Ever Fallen In Love With Someone 🎀

tell me a little bit about yourself and i'll give you a rogue pairing a/n: thank you so much!! ;-; 💚 ok this was difficult, i almost chose a different boy (a scarecrow, oddly enough) but then i just knew in my heart this was right 1k milestone info! 🔞minors dni🔞 • kofi • tag: finnie1k

ok i don't mean to make comments about his age but hello? when he reaches a point where he can no longer do his cool zippy moves with his gadget, a live in nurse wouldn't hurt to have around. and i think he would appreciate your methods. he's independent, but would be so stubborn and would never tell you he needed help. so you would be perfect for him in that sense

he can also be a but rude and a little bit stand-offish and you seem like you're tough enough to handle that, but understanding enough to know it comes from a place of hurt and discomfort more than hate or malice, which is important to him because he might find it difficult to control his emotions or reactions

he strikes me as the kind of guy who would be very much into quiet hobbies like reading and writing, so he would probably be very keen to read what you wrote, especially if it was a little risque (also side note, i'm also 30 this year and started on ff.net around the same time EEP!!)

and 3D puzzles???? wood kits??? are you trying to give him a heart attack? he can't possible love someone that much, but you whack one of those out on a friday night and ask him to join you and he'll literally be head over heels

the drama this man exudes? you can't convince me he isn't into musical theatre and wouldn't plan special weekend trips with you just to go see as many shows as you can possibly fit in

ah, ok remember i said you'd be able to handle him? with prison experience that just makes you even more capable. and honestly, as much as the various riddlers might not enjoy being held in blackgate, there might be something deeply erotic and kinky lurking within the surface that a commanding tone of voice would trigger well...

he's not very tall, so you're perfect height for him! he can still feel bigger, which would make him feel a bit more dominant (fragile ego, y'know?)

and the dark hair and green eyes? i headcanon that every riddler is so full of themselves that they would fall in love with someone who shares the same features as them, so tick that box too

and look, i think puzzle grampa deserves someone plush to snuggle into, he's all bones, he needs warmth and softness!!

[garaksapprentice]

Operation Stash-Down

This post was originally published on my blog: https://garaksapprentice.blogspot.com/2024/01/operation-stash-down.html

***

Last month, I spent a week thoroughly cleaning and reorganising my workroom so that I could actually get to all the shelves, and not have my back to the door. I even made space to fit a skinny bookshelf (I can finally have all my books out where I can reach them. It's been more than seven years since that last happened).

Last week, I watched one of my favourite YouTubers issue their now-annual "January is for working on The Pile" challenge. I considered my Piles (what a phrase) and decided this was an excellent use for the rest of January. I went through the mending pile, adding and subtracting as necessary, and updated the running list I keep of the things in there (it's the only way to stop things from disappearing into the aether). I tidied up the cabbage patch, taking the opportunity to go through a few boxes that were stored outside the workroom and sort their contents into piles.

Yesterday, I looked around my workroom (it had once again gone from clean and tidy with actual floor space, to One Big Trip Hazard within half a day), and decided that I have too much bloody stuff.

This was almost completely clear twelve hours ago. L-R, T-B: for coleslaw (green), cabbage once deconstructed (yellow), actual recycling (blue), and rag rug bits (red).

More specifically, I have too many supplies. Despite spending the last two years cleaning and decluttering and KonMari-ing and making a concerted effort to start with what I have before I go shopping for new stuff, I still have overflow.

There's an entire garage shelf in what is technically the spare bedroom (in reality it's my partner's room - they have their own place, but I have air conditioning and they don't) full of knitting yarn, embroidery supplies, and fleeces. There's more fleeces and some sewing notions on top of a bookshelf, and a couple more boxes of knitting yarn on a different bookshelf. To top it all off, there's a whopping monster of a raw wool fleece in the back room.

And, to be clear, this is all stuff left after multiple decluttering rounds. This is all stuff that I absolutely fucking love and have no desire whatsoever to part with. I just... haven't got around to using it yet.

Me when I go through my stash nowadays.

Even though I buy 95+% of my supplies second-hand (between the guild and the plethora of local op shops, I'm remarkably spoiled), I'm still not using things as fast as I'm capable of buying them. Saving things from landfill to repurpose later only works if I actually use the things I'm saving. (Yes, I still need this reminder. Frequently.)

Thus were the seeds from which Operation Stash-down was born.

The Goal

I want to fit all my fibre supplies in my workroom. Every. Single. Thing.

That means all the:

knitting yarn

fabric (stash AND scraps)

embroidery supplies

sewing notions

fleece

weaving, sewing, and spinning tools

leatherworking tools and supplies

whatever other random fibre-related gubbins I pick up along the way

The only exception is for things that need a more controlled climate than my workroom. It's on the western side of the house, with a window in said western wall, and it regularly gets above 30ºC in there during summer. So if I end up with any dyes or other heat-sensitive chemicals, I'll have to find a cooler spot for them.

The Plan

Donating, giving away, and selling things are all options. But that hasn't made a much of a dent the last six times I went through The Stash, so I'm not counting on it doing much this time, either. No, the thing I need to concentrate on right now is using the stash.

So instead of my current "shop the stash then go buy what I need when I don't have it in there", my standard needs to shift to "ONLY use stash things, and if they won't work with what I've planned, change the plan".

How does this translate to actual, practical projects for the year?

Longer warps, and more of them on the floor loom. Lately I've been defaulting to inkle bands, because they're 1) fun, 2) fast, and 3) easy to do in all sorts of cool colour combinations. But they don't use a lot of material - I could weave nothing but narrow wares for the rest of my life and still have yarn left over. And I want to start weaving clothing yardage anyway, so this is a good kick in the pants to actually do it.

Stop putting off those patchwork projects. I have a couple of big ideas I've been procrastinating on for a few years now. Sure, they'll probably take multiple years each to finish, and I'm not sure if I even have enough scrap for one of them (a crazy patchwork coat from all the wrap scrap I've been holding onto), but I won't know unless I actually take the time to start working on them.

Scour more fleece. Out of all the spinning stash, the raw fleeces take up by far the most room. Prepping them to spin might not reduce their volume by much, but actually being able to spin them sure will. (Unfortunately, this strategy will require equipment purchasing. My hand cards aren't fine enough to use with some of the fleeces I have.)

Obviously just doing any project at all will help reduce stash levels, too. Some of the things on my list will make a bigger impact than others, though, and I'm going to try to focus on doing those first. (After I've started to reduce the current WIPs, of course. My 2024 goals are still in effect.)

If all goes to plan, I'll update every few months with progress. Maybe even before and after pictures.

***

If you like my stuff, please consider throwing me a few dollars on my Ko-Fi in support.