#but in 2007 it was kinda hard to find stuff

[casgirlsam]

[spencerreidenjoyer]

insatiable | spencer reid x reader

Spencer learns how amazing sex is with you, but gets caught up with work. You show your boyfriend how good it can feel even if you’re not together physically, and he shows you how much he misses you when he gets back.

part 1 - addicted to you | part 2

wc: 4.6k, rating: 18+/explicit

tags/warnings: established relationship, phone sex/video sex, mutual masturbation, public (bathroom) sex, brief mentions of typical BAU stuff (not in detail), meeting the family (literally reader meets the BAU), brief mentions of alcohol, making out, vaginal sex, getting caught (not in the act but afterward lmao)

a/n: this is what an insane person does when they're sick for two days and have nothing better to do over the summer. this is a second part to addicted to you (you don't have to read the first part but it does provide some context for some details within the fic), with inspiration taken from a lovely comment I got on ao3 that made me feel kinda crazy. i included some textfic elements in this fic as well which i hope reads well (bold text is spencer)! also I know early seasons spencer technically sets this around 2005-2007 but they have smartphones and video calling (aka present day) so please suspend your disbelief for the length of this fic lmao (p.s this fic is also on ao3!)

Your boyfriend gets whisked away for work sooner than you expect. Spencer’s supposed to have time off the rest of this week, but you suppose killers aren’t exactly respectful of an FBI agent’s time off of work. It’s downright cruel when he’s called in to work on a Friday evening, when you have dinner and wine set at the table, having gotten ready to spend a quiet, romantic evening in with Spencer. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says, rushing to change out of his sweatshirt and joggers into his typical work attire. You stand in the doorway of his room, mildly amused while Spencer panics to put an outfit together. “I know you had a whole evening in planned, but–”

“Don’t be, baby,” you assure him. “You have a killer to catch. Oh, that one– the blue cardigan looks good with those pants. It matches your socks.”

Spencer smiles as he looks up at you, reaching for the navy blue cardigan to his left. He tugs it on rather hurriedly, comes up to you and presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’re the best. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

You shake your head. “Just find the bastard quick and come home to me.”

“I know. I will,” Spencer says.

After the both of you found out just how much Spencer liked fucking you, you were really hoping that your weekend together could be spent in his bed, but duty calls. Technically, JJ had called him in, but you’re not concerned about specifics right now.  

You spend the evening alone in Spencer’s apartment, half of the wine finished and his TV playing reruns of some show you haven’t been paying attention to. Your eyelids feel heavy, and Spencer’s bed is so comfortable you can’t bring yourself to leave it. That is, until your phone buzzes on Spencer’s nightstand, and you’re suddenly very alert.

I miss you, darling. > hey, i’m surprised you have the down time to text. i miss you too I’m really sorry I had to leave so suddenly. We’re on the jet right now.  > i told you it’s okay! i’m surprised the jet has wifi lol Taxpayer money, I guess? We land in LA in a couple of hours and we’re heading straight to the PD to work on the case. > my poor boyfriend is working so hard instead of cuddling me in bed :( How you tempt me, lovely. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Are you going to sleep soon? It’s late. > yeah i’m staying at yours for the night and maybe until you get back? really miss you already Okay, that’s good. I know. I’ll call when I’m in the hotel and settled for the day? :-( > yes please. also stop sending emojis with noses they aren’t supposed to look like that!!! They aren’t anatomically correct without them. The way you send them > babe they’re emojis it’s ok if they’re not anatomically correct Hahaha I love you. > lol i love you too! Goodnight, love. > goodnight spence <3 <3

You can imagine, especially from the way Spencer recounts it, how his coworker Derek must be teasing him about smiling at his phone, about how pretty boy’s lucky lady must be one hell of a woman to get Spencer so smitten. 

You would say you’re rather independent, especially in relationships, but Spencer has you acting like a clingy girlfriend. You can’t help but feel an ache in your chest as you long for him while he’s away, feeling like a military wife whose husband is out instead of being normal. To be fair, being with Spencer has never been “normal” – he always has something interesting up his sleeve, or some quirk that makes you even more enamoured with him. 

Your Saturday is relatively uneventful, milling about Spencer’s apartment. You laze around in bed for way too long, enough where Spencer would’ve definitely hauled you out of bed himself an hour ago if he were here. You make yourself breakfast, unsurprised that Spencer only has cereal in his pantry and almond milk in his fridge. You sit down with one of his very sophisticated literature books but you don’t get very far with it, and opt to clean Spencer’s apartment instead. 

It’s when you’re sweeping the floor that you realise just how much you like Spencer, feeling so strongly attached to him already. You’ve said your ‘I love you’s, given him his firsts. You were staying in his apartment even while he was away– hell, you’re even cleaning his apartment for him. 

Just for a moment, you let yourself fantasise about this being your apartment – yours and Spencer’s; about waking up to him every morning, about making breakfast for the both of you that isn’t cereal and almond milk, about coming home to each other instead of an empty apartment. 

You sigh and get back to cleaning.

You’re settled into his bed, surrounded by the comforting scent of him when Spencer finally does call. You almost drop your phone in your excitement to pick up. 

“Hey! Hi, Spence,” you say, unable to help the smile that’s forming on your face. 

“Hello, love,” Spencer answers. He sounds a little tired. You can imagine the little furrow in his brow, obviously exhausted and dissatisfied from a full day’s work of catching some bastard in LA, and you wish you could be there to kiss his frown away. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Spencer. Long day?”

“Absolutely,” Spencer sighs tiredly. “This UnSub is so slippery. No convictions, no paper trail, nothing, and he’s killing every other–” Spencer starts to ramble but he catches himself. “Sorry. I won’t talk about work right now. It’s pretty grim.”

“It’s okay,” you hum. “Do you want to talk about work right now?”

Spencer makes a little noise. “No, no. I don’t want to bring that to you. Let’s talk about you. How are you, honey?”

Honey. The name makes your insides feel all gooey, soft and warm and lovely. “I’m- I’m okay. I stayed at your place, cleaned up around here. I’m thankful it’s not as much of a man cave as I thought.”

Spencer laughs through the phone, a breathy chuckle. “Thank you for cleaning up for me, love. It’s just a lot of nerdy stuff, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s endearing. I tried to read one of your books earlier and could barely get past the first ten pages.” You tell him, garnering another chuckle from Spencer. “I like your place a lot.”

“I miss you,” Spencer says again. “Waking up to you and having you around is so much nicer than this dingy hotel room I’m in.”

“Aw. Taxpayer money couldn’t upgrade you to a better room?” 

Spencer snorts. “No, but I lucked out on getting the room all to myself.”

There’s a pause as you figure out what to say, and Spencer is quick to follow up, “I didn’t mean–”

“Does this have something to do with you missing me, baby?” You can’t help but grin. Spencer makes a distressed little noise over the line.

“Well, I– Maybe, but we don’t have to–” Spencer stammers, unable to find the words. He’s absolutely adorable. 

“I want to, Spence,” you coo. “I miss you so much.”

You hear Spencer exhale shakily. “What– What do I do?”

“A genius like you hasn’t forgotten how to touch himself, has he?” you tease, Spencer whining on the other end at your words. “Does that eidetic memory of yours come with an overactive imagination too?”

“Surprisingly, no. Hyperphantasia is more of being able to visualise different types of situations in one’s mind, and that’s what usually is associated with an overactive imagination. Having an eidetic memory is more about high-precision recall after seeing something even just once. I think having an eidetic memory pretty much ensures you don’t have aphantasia, or the inability to see and create mental images, but yeah.”

Ah, even his nerdy ramblings turn you on. 

“So does that mean you can recall the way I looked in bed a few nights ago?” you prod, and you wish you could see how red Spencer must be by now.

“Well, yes. Of course I can. How could I ever forget how beautiful you looked then?” Spencer’s words are sweet, earnest, and you melt. 

“Then picture that,” you barely get the words out because you’re so smitten. “Imagine I’m right there with you, Spencer.”

You hear the rustling of the sheets, and Spencer’s little telltale whine as he wraps his hand around himself. “O-Oh–”

“I miss you, Spence,” you drawl. “Miss the way your cock fits inside me. You miss my tight cunt, baby?”

“Your mouth is filthy,” Spencer laughs breathily. “But yeah, I do. You always feel so good around me.”

“You’re touching yourself, yeah?” you ask. You get a little whine from him as an affirmative, but your imagination is running wild – you want to see him. “Can you show me?”

“Yeah, I just– Do you wanna switch it over to a video call? I can’t–”

You laugh at your boyfriend’s lack of technical prowess, tapping at your phone screen until the top half of his face comes up. “Hey, I’m just trying to find a good angle–”

“Don’t just flip the camera and show me your dick, please. That would be so unsexy.” You say.

Spencer furrows his brows. “I was not planning on doing that, for the record.” 

You watch the phone move until Spencer comes into frame, the phone likely propped up at the foot of the bed and exposing all of Spencer to you. You might be drooling right now.

“This is… a lot,” Spencer laughs nervously. “I feel so naked.”

“You’re mostly clothed,” you quip. 

“Ha ha,” Spencer laughs dryly. “I’ve just… I’ve never done this before.”

“Phone sex? Or calling your girlfriend so you can jerk off for her?” 

Spencer gives you a deadpan look. “Both, honey.”

You grin. “I’m glad to be your first. Now, show me how you make yourself feel good, baby.”

Spencer’s cheeks are a gorgeous rosy red when he takes his cock into his hand again, his tip leaking as he strokes himself slowly. With his eyes fluttering shut, Spencer’s lips part as he indulges himself in his pleasure. Like this, you indulge yourself in admiring all of Spencer – the flush on his cheeks that runs down to his neck, his breathy panting as he touches himself to the thought of you.

“Spence,” you sigh. “You’re so pretty.”

His eyes shutter open as he looks at you, somehow even redder than he already was. “You’re the pretty one, darling. Are you– Will you touch yourself for me?”

You hold back your moan as you nod. You were already in your underwear when you had slid into Spencer’s bed, but now all it takes is you sliding your fingers past the waistband to feel how wet you already are between your legs. “Oh, Spence.”

“Do you feel good, love?” he hums, voice only a little bit strained from his immense pleasure. 

The embarrassingly loud squelch that results when you sink your fingers into yourself is enough of an answer. Spencer grins, and you’re red in the face as you rock your hips down onto your own fingers. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything, honey,” Spencer laughs. “But I wish I could feel you right now.”

“I know, I miss the way you feel inside me,” you pant. “Please, Spencer–”

“Take off your underwear,” Spencer’s voice is breathy as he pleads with you. “I want to see you.”

You prop your phone up so your angle matches Spencer’s, both of you on full display for each other. You watch the way Spencer’s eyes widen when you slide your panties off, the way his eyes are trained on your figure through the screen. He says, “You’re so wet…”

“All for you, baby,” you sigh, leaning back as you slide two fingers back into yourself. You scissor them rather hastily, craving the hurried way Spencer fucks you. “It’s not the same without you here.”

“I know,” Spencer hums. “You look so good like that. I wish I could make you feel good right now.”

You moan, pushing your fingers into yourself deeper, barely hitting where Spencer reaches easily. The squelch from between your legs is obscene. “You do, baby. You’re making me feel so good, just thinking about you.” 

In practically a whisper, Spencer admits, “I want to fuck you so bad right now.”

You let out a weak cry, impossibly turned on by your boyfriend’s filthy admission because you didn’t even think he had it in him to say it so bluntly. You slide your fingers in and out hurriedly, your palm giving you the friction on your clit that you crave so desperately. “Spencer–”

Spencer lets out a strangled cry, muffled behind his hand, when he comes. It’s sudden, Spencer’s load painting the soft skin of his stomach, his cock twitching. You moan as you follow suit, wetness drenching your hand as you ride out your own orgasm, imagining his cock inside of you. 

“Oh, fuck.” Spencer gasps, head thrown back as you watch his chest rise and fall as he breathes heavily. His forehead and neck are covered in a light sheen of sweat, and his cock out against the rest of his rather soft, innocent looking outfit is making you giggle just a little.

“You look really hot right now,” you say instead, wishing you could be laying next to him while he recovers.

“I think I should be saying that about you,” Spencer laughs. “You’re gorgeous. You’re so stunning.”

“How long are you going to be away?” You pout. “I like it when I can actually kiss you after you compliment me.”

Spencer smiles sympathetically. “I’ll be back soon, my love.”

“I’ll take phone sex with my boyfriend as a consolation, then.” You wink, making Spencer laugh. 

“Remind me not to get too loud, though. I think Emily is in the room next to me and I really hope these walls are thick enough.” He says, sounding vaguely concerned.

You laugh, and stay on the line a little longer just to relish in a peaceful moment with Spencer.

The next day, when you’re out getting groceries to stock up Spencer’s fridge, you get a text from Spencer.

I don’t know how much Emily heard last night, but she’s been looking at me funny all morning. > lol oops? If we call again tonight, we might have to keep it down.  > if? not when? :) I love you so much. > i know and i love you too :) and you should probably apologise to emily about last night Well, if we’re calling again tonight then maybe I should just give her one big apology when all of this is over. > good idea. now go catch your killer so we can go back to having sex irl Okay!

Unfortunately, Spencer gets too busy to call you again that night, the team working overtime to catch their UnSub, whose kills were escalating exponentially. You don’t find yourself bothered by it, by Spencer disappearing for the night with nothing more than a message sent your way, instead relishing in the fact that it’ll feel even more rewarding when he comes home. 

You’ve never felt this way before, craving Spencer so desperately while he’s away at work. While you’ve only been together a couple of months, you respect that Spencer’s work takes up a lot of his time. It doesn’t mean you don’t miss him, though, as much as you enjoy your alone time.

All of the team’s hard work pays off, though, because they’re storming into the UnSub’s lair by Monday afternoon, and Spencer texts you when you’re just clocking out of the office.

Great news! We caught the guy. We’re packing up at the PD and coming home soon. > omg!!! that’s so great The team wants to go out for celebratory drinks.  > you should totally go ahead and celebrate with them spence! you guys worked your asses off on this case We did. But I’m telling you because I want you to join us. I want you to meet the team too.  > oh? i would love to but are you sure they want me there? Of course, sweet girl. Derek wants to know who has me smiling at my phone half the time, and Emily is asking who I’m calling in the middle of the night. > omg so she did hear you … I think so, love. > … i will apologise to her tonight then I’ll send you the address. Love you > love you too spence <3

There’s just enough time for you to get home and change into a nice outfit – a tight, red dress that hits your mid-thigh, your hair curled and your makeup touched-up before you head to the bar Spencer’s sent you the address to. While you know Spencer’s team is lovely, you do want to make a good first impression.

You see Spencer’s gangly form at the bar when you get there, the rest of his team facing away from you as they get their drinks. You see Spencer’s face brighten as he spots you, raising his hand and waving to you excitedly. The rest of his team notices, and turns to look at you too. You would be shy at all the attention, but Spencer’s unabashed adoration of you, especially in front of all his friends, is giving you more than enough confidence to walk up to the group.

“Hello,” you smile, and the warmth you feel from the team makes you feel welcome already. “It’s nice to meet you all.”

You shake hands with Hotch and Rossi as you introduce yourself. While you had heard of Hotch as a rather cold, serious Unit Chief, the way he warmly smiles at you makes you feel at ease. “So, you’re Spencer’s girlfriend. It’s great to finally meet you.”

“It’s great to meet you too, sir,” you answer rather instinctively, making both Rossi and Hotch laugh heartily. 

“Aaron might be Reid’s boss, but he certainly isn’t yours,” Rossi chuckles. 

Before you can feel embarrassed by it, you get pulled into a tight, warm hug by Penelope, and when she lets you go, JJ hands you a drink, and Derek and Emily are regarding you with knowing smirks. 

“Reid, you are one lucky man,” Derek says, after pulling you into a welcoming hug. “Don’t mess this up, lover boy.”

“I know,” Spencer says, his hand reaching for yours. You lace your fingers with Spencer’s, squeezing his hand comfortingly. “And I won’t mess this up.”

“Lover boy is right, considering what I overheard the other night,” Emily says, looking at you and Spencer pointedly. JJ also has a knowing smile on her face, and you feel your cheeks get hot.

“I’m really sorry about that, Emily,” you smile sheepishly. “I hope Spencer’s apologised for it too.”

“Again, I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Spencer says, purposefully avoiding eye contact with Emily. “I would say ‘We won’t do it again’, but…”

You shriek amidst the laughter of Spencer’s coworkers, Spencer laughing along as he holds onto your waist. You feel adored, so readily welcomed by Spencer’s friends, and you feel like you belong, by Spencer’s side.

After you chat with the rest of the team for a little more, they eventually disperse to do their own things, leaving you and Spencer alone. Spencer looks at you with such adoration in his eyes and you feel like you’re going to melt. “Hi,” he says warmly.

“Hi, Spence,” you say. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Spencer smiles. “But I’m here now.”

“You are,” you breathe, giddy with excitement, and lean in to kiss him. It’s a quick peck, but Spencer pulls you back in like you’re the air he needs to breathe. He kisses you deep, eager, pouring every drop of himself into you. His hands cup your face sweetly, kissing you until you feel breathless. 

“Oh my God, Spencer,” you giggle when he finally pulls back, eyes wild as he regards you. “You really missed me, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Spencer laughs. 

“Do we need to pretend to keep our hands off each other or do you just want to go and make out in the bathroom?” You say simply. You don’t expect Spencer to be down, considering how quickly he’d rattle off the statistics about the germs in a public bathroom, but Spencer smiles at you and pulls you toward the single stall.

You’re thankful it’s a relatively big, clean-looking single stall bathroom, Spencer locking the door behind you as you lean back against the sink. Spencer’s taller figure crowds you in with ease, and you feel swallowed up by him as he kisses you again. He’s desperate, eager as his tongue slips into your mouth, his little noises so deliciously sinful as you kiss him back.

“Spence–” you gasp, in between kissing Spencer back. “Oh, baby–”

“What we did over the phone wasn’t enough,” he murmurs, eyes unblinking as he gazes at you. “I need you right now.”

Sure enough, Spencer’s hard in his pants. He pushes his hips forward, pressing his erection against your thigh. You whimper, drawing your lower lip between your teeth. “Please, Spence. You can take me right here, right now.”

You feel just as desperate as Spencer seems, his hands eager as they roam up your body. He’s eager to touch and squeeze and grope whatever he can get his hands on, and you relish in the way his large, sturdy hands grab your thighs, your waist, your breasts.

“You look so good tonight, my love,” Spencer grunts as he presses his face to your neck, his lips kissing up the column of your neck hurriedly. “So gorgeous. Letting me show you off to all my friends too– Thank you, you’re so perfect–”

“Spencer,” you gasp, hand sliding down to rub at his hard-on. You’re so turned on by how aroused Spencer is already, from just kissing you, from just touching you. “Fuck me, please?”

Spencer exhales shakily, lifting you up slightly so you can sit back on the countertop, your legs spread to accommodate Spencer between them. You’re soaked through your underwear, and you watch Spencer marvel at the sight. His hands are shaking slightly as he undoes his belt, pushing his pants down just enough to get his cock out. He’s hard and heavy and leaking, and you find yourself drooling as he strokes himself momentarily.

Spencer’s biting his lower lip in utter concentration, pushing your dress up and out of the way. You expect his hands to slide your panties off, but instead his fingers push the fabric aside, revealing your slick, wet entrance that he presses the head of his cock to. “Oh–”

“Like this,” Spencer says, breathless, his sentence not even fully coherent but you understand, especially when Spencer pushes the tip of his cock into you. You muffle a sob into your hand, feeling so on edge as you accommodate Spencer’s length. 

The burn is perfect, the slow drag of his cock inside of you teetering between pain and pleasure. It’s a primal urge the both of you desperately need to fulfil, and the way he presses into you satiates you so perfectly. Your arms slung around Spencer’s neck, you cry out weakly as he rocks his hips into you, already brutal and hurried with the pace. 

You’ve never felt this undone, so desperate that you’d let yourself get fucked in a bathroom stall. You barely have any alcohol in your system, for you to feel reckless enough to do something like this. Hell, Spencer hadn’t even taken your panties off before he’d started fucking you. The fact that prim and proper Spencer of all people is making you like this makes your head spin. 

“Oh, fuck, baby,” you whimper into his shoulder. “So good, Spence, oh–”

“You feel so good,” Spencer groans, hips stuttering as he tells you just that. “You’re so perfect. I love you.”

“I love you so much,” you hiccup, feeling Spencer drill into you, the muffled slap of his thrusts hitting the back of your thighs. You’re so overwhelmed, pleasure zipping through you from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, as Spencer fucks you like you’re the only person in the world that matters right now. 

“I’m close,” Spencer gasps, pace growing uneven, hurried, as he chases his pleasure while trying so hard to make you feel good too. “Please, I–”

You cry out as your orgasm hits you, too sudden, too quick. You clench around Spencer as your body shakes, Spencer fucking you through it with desperation. You don’t expect to come so quickly, but you suppose missing Spencer has an effect on you. 

You squelch obscenely with your release as Spencer continues to fuck you, needy and hurried, moaning in your ear as he stumbles into his orgasm too, wracking through his body like he has no control over it. You feel his load spill inside of you, hot and messy, his hands trembling as his thrusts slow.

“Oh, fuck,” you say, laughing slightly. “Holy shit, Spencer. We just had sex in a public bathroom, this is crazy.”

“We just had sex in a public bathroom,” Spencer echoes, sounding mildly panicked. “Oh, my God.”

“It was very fucking hot.” You assure him, holding his face in your hands to look him in the eyes, stopping him from overthinking. “But we should probably go home, because I’m a fucking mess between my legs right now.”

“I might need to take a shower,” Spencer says, his voice wavering slightly. “The sink is technically the most germ-ridden surface in a public bathroom, the damp environment makes it a–”

“Spencer, I love you so much, but for your sake and mine, let’s not talk about germs right now.” You shudder at the thought. “I think I need to take a shower after that too.”

“Let me clean you up, and we can go home.” Spencer, despite his germ anxieties, is rather sweet in cleaning you up. Your panties are ruined with fluids, and you’re starting to feel Spencer’s load trickling out of you when you stand back up, but you relish in the fact that you’re going to be back at his apartment soon enough. 

(The fact that Spencer hadn’t corrected you when you called his place home, makes your heart sing.)

You clean up your makeup and make your hair look as presentable as it can be, especially after your boyfriend has literally fucked you in a public bathroom, and when you both look presentable enough, you try to slip out of the bathroom casually.

Unfortunately, Derek and Emily are right there, catching you in the act of leaving, obviously noting the way you and Spencer look absolutely dishevelled. 

Derek raises his eyebrows, grinning. “Damn, lover boy.”

“Shut up,” Spencer retaliates weakly, his voice slightly shaky. 

“We’re heading home first,” you say with all the confidence you can muster, trying very hard not to feel extremely embarrassed in front of Spencer’s very smug friends. You’re still holding Spencer’s hand, and you feel a little less afraid. “It was fun getting to meet you guys.”

Emily shakes her head playfully, smiling. “We’d love to hang out more with you another time. Maybe when Reid isn’t so desperate to get alone with you?”

Spencer makes a displeased noise, but you smile and nod at her. “Definitely.”

Derek and Emily let you slip out of the bar without saying much else, and you hope that the rest of Spencer’s team doesn’t hear about it. 

As you and Spencer step out of the bar and into the cool, evening air, you kiss his cheek once more. “I love you. Now, let’s get home so we can shower. And then we can have sex again in the comfort of your bed?”

Spencer grins, any earlier embarrassment seeming to melt away. “That sounds perfect. God, I love you.”

[normal-internet-user]

Hello, i how you’re doing well and staying safe, can I request a 2007!Leo x Fem!reader soft headcanons. Like what’s it like to date him, does he get jealous, what kind of love language does he have and etc. I just love your writings and the 2007 movie too! It’s so cool to see someone writing about the 2007 boys!

Of course I can dear nonnie!

DATING LEO HEADCANONS

Ok, to start us off, I really don't see Leo as a jealous person.

He trusts you whole heartedly and knows you would never do anything to betray or hurt him.

Obviously, he'll have moments of jealousy,

Everyone does.

But when it happens, he makes sure to talk to you about it and what sprouted the feelings.

Talking about that stuff comes easy to him since he knows how important communication is.

On the topic of his love language,

I personally feel it would be words of affirmation,

Both giving and receiving.

He loves you and wants to make sure you know it, and being on the revceiving end of the same kinda love will literally make him melt.

Being the leader is hard, and sometimes he just needs to hear that he's doing a good job.

But if he ever makes a decision that wasn't the best call,

You make sure to let him know your opinions.

He appreciates that.

He has no problems with PDA,

Stuff like holding hands, hugging/holding eachother, even just short kisses.

You know the "I have to leave but I love you" type of peck on the lips.

That kind of stuff is perfectly fine.

Repeating my previous Leo headcanon,

If you guys are dating before he goes to Central America,

You'll be having plenty of emotional talks about it.

Like I said, he isn't a particularly jealous person, and he trusts you completely,

But he is going to a completely different continent for god knows how long,

I feel like most people would be even just a little worried that their S/O might find someone better than them while they're gone.

Just let him know he's your one and only and that you'll wait for him until he comes home.

When he does come home,

You guys will probably be reluctant to let go of each other.

I mean, you obviously missed each other.

Like alot.

But the those stupid war lords go and use him for a freaking battery.

I swear to god you are ready to fight them all yourself.

You actually tried to.

Raph managed to stop you from getting yourself killed, but you were shouting some not so nice things at those stupid rocks.

After everything with Winters is settled and you can all go home, you and Leo are practcally inseperible.

You just want to finally be together in peice-

.........................................

There you go Anon! I hope you like these! 💕

[autisticempathydaemon]

your match up game looks so fun ‼️‼️‼️‼️ i wanna try it out hehe (rambling ahead)

1. beast of blood by malice mizer :3 i honestly don't have a reason other than it being chaotic enough that it fills up empty noise in my brain lol

2. 5w6 !!

3. ohh i LOVE youtube essays/analyses whether i'm fully listening or have em as background noise, i love horror youtube deep dives, particularly about analog/digital horror series and that one creepypasta iceberg hehe

4. i don't think i've ever had one ? to be honest i don't think i ever thought abt it until i saw it in like . cartoons n shit , never rlly knew about the concept of imaginary friends as a kid 😭

5. recently i use redacted sleep aid audios but most of the time i just . stay awake until my brain shuts down 🤞

6. honestly? i never thought abt this . but the first thing that came into my mind was veronica (idk either!!) though if i genuinely wanted to change my name i'd want it to be gender neutral, and tbh i doubt i'd have any important meaning behind it i'd just pick whatevr sounds nice

7. guy's sleep audio !!!! i joke about wanting guy angst a lot but to be real . this audio of his is so vulnerable .. like before that we only saw him being a goof and stuff yaknow . . idk that one forreals hit different 4 me

8. as much as i love every character, i do not understand why gavin is the most popular😭 don't get me wrong , love him, maybe it's because i haven't listened to the fl series but i do not get the hype💔

9. i don't know all the words per se but i would have to say mean girls . . as problematic as that movie is now its iconic and i love it and i need to rewatch it BAD .

10. damien tbh . haven't gotten to his other audios but i think i would want 2 be besties w him i relate 2 him a good amount (he also seems like the type id be intimidated into doing well in school for)

11. to be real i wld not be able to ramble if im tired LOL i think i'd be more quiet bcz i have a hard time sleeping to begin with

12. tbh just a soda (coca cola bcz i am basic) i go to convenience stores n stuff after school so im only there to pick up something quick before i go home so im in and im out 🔥🔥

13. the 2007 sweeney todd soundtrack 🤞 i cannawt find the movie ANYWHERE and its nostalgic to me so listening to the songs is the closest i'll get to scratch the itch in my brain

14. fnaf tbh EHWHEHW i've been into fnaf ever since i was a kid and it's stuck with me because it's what got me into horror n stuff  🫶

15. i'm a saggitarius, my mbti is INTP, i love horror and fashion, despite wearing a lot of darker alt fashion, my favorite color is pink (my phone case is decorated to the gods its very ridiculous) i like doing my own nails (funnily enough in bright colors) , i think i relate to honey the most in terms of personality, and i like to analyze most of the media im into!!

So part of my thought process is based on your personality types, the Troubleshooter and the Logician. However, I have to admit a bigger part of my reasoning is I think Asher would love your fashion sense and would contrast you so cutely.

Like, on a deep, core level, your personality types give me the impression of someone who’s thoughtful and analytical and capable of solving problems. Those are good traits for a beta’s mate, especially when Asher can have more social, impulsive tendencies. On a funsies level, I imagine Asher dresses like your typical So Cal dude, kinda surfer chic, and he loves your style and what an odd pair you make. Like, on all levels but especially physical, you are the embodiment of the black cat/golden retriever couple.

Asher loves everything about you, so many things about you he finds it hard to pick a favorite. He loves the contrast between your dark clothes and your bright nails, loves asking you to paint his while you’re at it so y’all can match. He loves watching FNAF theories with you, because he was definitely a FNAF teenager. He even loves watching scary movies with you though he’s terrible with them. (Asher’s the type that loves the adrenaline rush while it’s playing but regrets it once it’s time to lock up the house.)

Song:

In the car, I just can't wait/ To pick you up on our very first date/ Is it cool if I hold your hand?/ Is it wrong if I think it's lame to dance?/ Do you like my stupid hair?/ Would you guess that I didn't know what to wear?/ I'm just scared of what you think/ You make me nervous so I really can't eat/ Let's go/ Don't wait/ This night's almost over

Given we canonically know Asher to be a FOB fanboy, it’s hardly a leap to assume he’s a Blink fan, especially this song. I think this particular track is not only fun and nostalgic to him but captures his energy and vibes, how he felt when he first fell in love with you. It’s also catchy as hell, so you know he’s singing this at you full-volume all the time.

Runner-ups:

Anytime someone says they’re a horror fan, I’ve got to put Guy in their big three; one of my top headcanons is that he writes some gripping horror and loves it as a genre. (I also think he loves FNAF lore and finds it so fun, though he was not impressed by the movie.) I also love Lasko for you because I think he admires your bold, authentic fashion choices and finds them inspirational.

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[house-on-sand]

!!!

any comic you read recently that has been on your mind and you'd like to talk about?

YES ACTUALLY A FEW!

are you scared of darkseid? (2021)

its a halloween one-shot ft. damian n the titans! it's a silly little collection of "spooky" stories they're telling each other while they're out camping (presumably damian's idea) and its genuinely so cute? + the way the titans all vibe together is great & the stories are all pretty great! the first one feature harley quinn and darkseid akshsksv hunting down bloody mary & then the last one is rlly spooky, it's about clark n lois helping locate missing twins who are the kids of one of clark’s childhood friends & they find them at this weird house where a guy is like. finding people / kids to bring to his "wife" so it can drain them of their lives and the "wife" almost drains superman its so wild

my favourite story from it tho was kid flash's! it was rlly intriguing and i wish it was a full story somewhere. basically there was this set of stairs and a man who would come down them to bring people (usually anomalies) home as he told them. he leads a whole town of people away bc they've been exposed to magic and they're changing n stuff so it's not necessarily safe for them to be around and idk it's such a good story it had me gripped man

the question (1986) issues 9-11

idk man i can't think of what i want to say about these ones or the series as a whole other than it drives me fucking insane /pos

these ones were really good bc it kinda shows a different side of vic almost? like he's really self aware about how his friendship w tot was up until that point kind of one sided? in the sense that he knew hardly anything abt tot whereas like tot did know quite a bit about him! + yknow kind of aided in him becoming the question (provided the artifical skin stuff that makes him look faceless among other things!) so it was just really cool to see an arc where he went after him after tot had been kidnapped

+ the bad guy for it was? wild? he was trying to witness a miracle of like alchemy or whatever bc he thought it would change his soul essentially so he wasn't such an awful person anymore. and its kind of vaguely implied at the end that it did work

can't remember the issues exactly but booster gold (2007)!!!

the lengths he was willing to go to so he could bring ted back was so :(

even when rip tried to teach him that sometimes time really is set in stone and you can't change things, he still ended up going back to save ted (granted it was part of a whole Evil Plan and he didn't know that at the time but still)

like rip sent him back to the day that babs was shot, claiming it was never supposed to happen and it was one of the anomalies they were supposed to fix together, bc they both knew that ted cared about babs a lot! (granted pretty sure they only met after she became oracle but whatever) and booster tries so hard again and again, pretty much getting tortured by the joker just bc he's trying to keep this person who his person cares about so much from being hurt. even when it's so clear he can't change it! bc it's cemented in time and they world needs oracle! he still tries. to the point that rip finally has to stop him bc booster is hurt so badly and the booster is so fucking angry and hurt and he doesn't totally get why things have to be this way and he's angry with rip for lying to him and telling him if he helps fix time then they can go save ted and booster would have his best friend back its UGH

people don't understand how much booster gold cares! even in universe sometimes! no one can see past his outward persona n stuff to see that he cares so big and he was willing to fuck up TIME bc he wanted to save his best friend bc he didn't think he should've died! nd yes sometimes how big he cares n loves goes badly (once again fucking up time) and it hurts! ted knew what had to he done and knew he needed to die in order for things to be okay again and booster was so desperate to find some way around it. all signs pointed to that being the only answer but he didn't want to see it.

i also wanna talk about how rip hunter seems put out and annoyed by booster n their relationship is pretty difficult but he cares! bc that's his fucking dad! even though booster doesn't know that and can't know that (at least not yet), he's rip's dad!!

after everything with ted is resolved and he knows how badly booster is taking that n how shit he's gotta be feeling, rip surprises him with someone booster thought was gone forever!! rip was able to save michelle, booster's twin sister!! and they were both so happy to see each other (she was dead for booster, he thought she was dead forever) & one of their first adventures together involves them stealing babs' batgirl costume aksgakvsjs with michelle posing as batgirl (originally when i saw the preview image in the issue before it i thought it was BOOST dressed up as batgirl and i LOVED that, that's what we deserved)

^^ the aforementioned image. genuinely had my hopes up i thought it'd be fun tbh i loved the idea of him trying and failing to convince people he is in fact batgirl

OH AND!

alfred straight up tries to shoot him and michelle ajakbsksb that's the context for this panel if you've eever seen it before. boost n michelle break into the batcave bc their plan a was for them to steal the batsuit n boost was gonna pose as batman (terrible plan) but things go terribly terribly wrong. they do end up stealing the batmobile! which leads to a very confused dick coming down into the cave wondering if bruce left without him.... at day time.

still not over how down alfred was with potentially maiming these people who found and broke into the batcave like i get it i do but on god if it isn't a little funny. like my boss might not kill people but i sure will lmao

booster does end up posing as killer moth. and dressing like elvis bc somehow that was a good disguise to him

[vlovebug]

Valentine headcannons because I can.

turning and after (I can't find why he was turned so I'm making my own way) and general

(I'll be honest some of these don't make sense but neither do I)

(I'm taking things from other vampire movies and applying them to monster-high vampires, mainly The Little Vampire ( 2007), all Hotel Transylvania movies, and some things from redacted audios ( yes I pulled this card so what)

he was turned only because of that old vampire dude (I forgot his name but he was the bad guy that was in charge of the vampire heart thing) needed a soldier and he had a magic core, so he was chosen with his mom

he had his magic core (power core or something) before his turning.

old vampire dude taught him that stealing love was the only right way to get it.

he was forced to train in many ways. ( fighting, torture, self-defense, etc)

at first, he refused to drink any type of blood because he was disgusted with himself, so he only went off love but that soon changed as he wasn't getting enough.

he was told if he didn't do something right, he would be starved ( cruel)

he struggled with his strengths for a long while, breaking things and bending them without warning. because of this, he has to keep a very good hold on his emotions ( news flash, he can't do that very well)

his fangs would cut his lips and tongue constantly so they had to put stuff on his fangs to protect his mouth ( modern stuff includes foram and just hiding his fangs in his gums)

he has to make himself look more human when going out ( fangs back into gums, sunglasses, something longsleeved or something that covers his skin from the sun rays, he will also just make glamors( magic covers) over himself if he's feeling lazy)

he can heal himself and others if needed (I've seen vampires be able to do that so all vampires that learn it can do it)

all vampires' eyes do that thing where the pupils shrink ( predator stare), some do it on purpose and some only do it when threatened.

his eye color can go from red to pink depending on if he drank blood or went off love. his eyes are pink 80% of the time

he can make illusions but depending on the size it can only last so long.

he can fly ( more like float but it is kinda of the same thing)

all vampires have bat forms ( we know this where am I going with this?)but they can also have a pair of small bat wings and tails on their forms at all times ( kinda like a hybrid of sorts, this is only the case if they get their bat form and go through a transformation ( vampire puberty )

he makes bat sounds (I love bat sounds, they itch my brain)

he likes putting his hair in styles his mom used to wear in BC ( or was it AD?)

he has daggers hidden on his person at all times because of monster/ vampire hunters

he likes to make fun of and torture hunters

he artistic

15 languages ( both verbal and nonverbal)

he can't sing but boy can he hum

has had his core touched and he punched the shit out of the person that did the touching out of shock.

he doesn't use his arms or hands in fights often because he likes kicking people

cries blood instead of water

has a pet reptile ( haven't decided which one)

has a HUGE soft spot for animals ( less for flying monkeys but he still loves the nice ones)

absolutly hates tomaotes, apples, bellpepers, anything with a bad texture, smell, or colour ( same)

we know he has a sweet tooth but I think he wouldn't like dark chocolate (I'm just giving him more of my traits at this point)

he bites ice cream and then whines when it hurts his teeth from the cold

he accidentally locks himself in places you wouldn't expect ( expert in finding spots that get you stuck 🤝)

in the comic thing, he's not seen till he's ready. based on that I would think that He is really hard to find when he doesn't want to be seen and can hide his presence ( how does that work? We will never know)

He can't spell nor remember easy words but can somehow be completely fine with large words ( ah yes another of my problems given to my comfort character)

he has a heart on his chest ( did I say this already?)

hes flexible as fuck ( military training ?)

he teaches spelldon and others he knows stuff that they wanna learn ( if he knows how ofc)

he never lies ( after the movie ofc) because he knows the truth will only hurt more with lies.

can be protective when with people

Mom friend ( mom friend)

( if they become friends) Draculaura tottled his car once and he's banned her from driving his car ( I would too)

can braid hair like no other, you need to fix your hair? he's there with a hair tie ( only if you tell him the can ofc)

I'm done, my brain is fried and I'm losing my ability to spell.

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

rant, anti-capitalist internet hot take

the worst thing about old games is that they are hard, but the best thing is that there are game guides online that are actually helpful and correct bc they were made before articles on the internet were all just for making profit :( i'm playing RE1 remake rn and i've looked up walkthroughs bc i keep getting confused and i just find lil guides on neoseeker and game faqs (also steam community, but that's newer i assume?), but i see stuff from 2002 posted on the internet and it's so cute to me and also "wow" bc we didn't have the internet at my house until maybe 2007? (I was born in 2000, so obviously i wasn't using the internet in 2002). it's like your friend's big brother or dad sitting on the couch with you and your friend and helping you beat a hard level of a game 🥹 like it's just some cool guys you know and look up to when you're a lil kid playing the gamecube and they help you out and idk shit like that gives me happy tears bc everything sucks these days!!!! (in my holden caulfield era, my therapist called it)

instead of big companies (ew capitalism) like ign and gamerant which consistently give 1. less information than what i needed and 2 wrong information - verifiably incorrect, like, i was looking at something about RE4 remake (mind you, i have 150-200 hours, and i'm working on getting 100%, so i know a lot about the gameplay at this point) and there was something blatantly wrong on one of those sites, plus, they have fucking endless ads, so if i'm on my phone (bc i don't wanna use my computer on the couch) loading it is impossible!!! (i have horrendous wifi bc i live in SC).

i hate that like every article on the front page of google is written for profit (and half of them by AI)!! i look up writing advice a lot and i almost never find anything useful. but once I found like the best page ever and i looked to see when it was published and it was clearly a super old webpage (tbh kinda hard to read) and it was someone's advice from their book published in 1999. back when we could have good advice.

also, people really discount fanfiction but all the romance related fanfiction that i've read is so much better than contemporary romance writers (colleen hoover et al.) and it's bc we don't get paid to do it! we're literally just getting excited about things we like and bonding (and even the people who do commissions and stuff are people who actually care, not like a big shitty corporation)

i should ask ign/gamerant for a job as a fact checker of some sort. i'll be like "please, ill literally do it for free bc it pisses me off so much". me emailing them: your articles are so bad i want to kms

also, fuck ign for giving until dawn a 7.5/10, that game was at least a 9 if not a 10 and i'm strict with my 10/10s!!!! reading that article i can truly say, wholeheartedly, that i rarely see worse opinions than that

basically, in conclusion, the industrial revolution and its consequences yadda yadda

[pyrrhocorax]

Hetalia ask thing— 8,9,19,37,38

sorry for not responding to this sooner, universe has tried to destroy me the last few weeks but i am stronger and i won. 8 - Who doesn't fold their socks? it's america for me. i think he folds them sometimes but he's also just kinda like Whatever about it. i mean i am american and i fold my socks, but going by vibe of this country as a whole, We Def Do Not. 9 - Favorite fan-made video? LORD okay gonna reveal my age here. i spent a ton of time on niconico (basically like japanese youtube) when i was first into hetalia in like 2007-2010 and there was a song/video meme of this high tension/low tension song, and someone did it with dennor and i Loved it. idk how the hell i would find it now. I also remember there being a lot of cool cosplay group videos back in the day, or actual model U.N. sessions at cons with hetalia cosplayers RPing their characters but with actual national policy stuff they tried to resolve Issues Somewhat Seriously (and as a former M.U.N. kid myself before i was a hetalia fan, i Loved that for us). just ain't the same as it used to be. 19 - Who owns the shittiest phone by choice? i had several immediate thoughts 1. austria because he's 1. fairly frugal and 2. he prob doesn't know what a jpeg is and 3. has better things to do. he just doesn't seem to be like a guy who super cares about technology that much and i can see him having the same phone he's had for ages as a result. 2. there is one version of america that has the latest iphone and trades his phone in constantly for the biggest and best phone on the market and is Tech Obsessed, but there is also another version of america that would have the crappiest phone whose protective case is duct taped together and the screen is terribly cracked and somehow it is still working even though it keeps flinging out of his pocket at violent speeds when he's doing donuts in a ATV. but honestly they are probably one and the same america. he keeps getting great new phones and then destroying them equally as fast. that sure does sound like some shit this country would do. 37 - Who has the most pets? depends on what you mean by pets since i think a lot of nations have some cool/significant relationships with animals, but those animals are not always officially Owned by them? like greece is around a lot of cats in canon, but are they His cats our just cats that are around him. is there a difference???? so i don't know. i will say i don't see norway owning any pets in modern day, personally, but i have reasons for that. 38 - Who needs a phat joint? fucking everyone. you know how hard it is to be a nation. the horrors they have witnessed over and over again. give them a break!!!!!!!!!!! if i have to choose one, it's ned, but not because i thinks he needs one more than everyone else. i just really want to be in a blunt rotation with the netherlands, but i also know that would probably Kill Me Instantly.

[yuichiroswife]

Get To Know Me Meme.

Favorite Color(s): I personally love the color black, always have since I was a child. I just find it very... I dunno how to explain it exactly? It's just mesmerizing to me.

Favorite Flavor(s): I love sweet flavors, but my all time favorite flavors are anything that's sour and I mean SOUR. That extremely sour candy? My favorite. I have eaten so many sour things that I have grown immune to most sour candies. I don't pucker my lips, my eyes don't do the squinty thing, nor do they water. This is probably bad since too much sour stuff destroys your mouth, but I have a bad habit of eating sour stuff to the point the roof of my mouth and tongue are all torn up.

Favorite Genres: Horror and mystery are my two most favorite genres! I also enjoy psychological-horror and some of that really old timey adult humor. I dunno, supposed "humor" nowadays just isn't funny to me, it's pretty bland.

Favorite Music: You see, I've listened to a large assortment of music from the time I was little so I don't really know if I have a favorite music type? Though I can say that I enjoy metal music from back in the era of when my parents were growing up, same with their pop music. I also enjoy more... dark styled music too.

Favorite Movie(s): This is a hard one for me because I don't really watch movies anymore, but since I'm a big ass nerd I'll just list some video game movies/anime movies (and a few actual movies I can recall) that I've enjoyed — Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Train to Busan (2016), Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), My Hero Academia: Two Heroes (2018), My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (2019), and My Hero Academia: World Heroes' Mission (2021) is the last one I'll list because I don't wanna make this too long.

Favorite Series: Just like I did with the movies, I'm only gonna list a few because it'll end up getting WAY too long (I also assume this means any series, whether it's real or anime or video games): Kimetsu no Yaiba (2016 - 2020), Boku no Hero Academia (2014 - Ongoing), Code Geass (2006 - along with any new additions), Sailor Moon (1991 - along with any new additions), Attack on Titan (2013 - 2023), Shugo Chara (2007 - 2010), Resident Evil (1996 - Ongoing), Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 - Ongoing), Kirby (1992 - Ongoing), Stranger Things (2016 - Ongoing), and Fire Emblem (1990 - Ongoing).

Last Song: Take Me Back To Eden - Sleep Token

Last Series: Jujutsu Kaisen because my sister is forcing me to watch it with her. Help me.

Last Movie: Resident Evil: Death Island

Currently Reading: I am currently reading the Boku no Hero Academia manga (and awaiting new updates) while also being forcefully read/show the Jujutsu Kaisen manga by my little sister.

Currently Watching: My answer for this is the same as my answer for the question about the last series I've watched, Jujutsu Kaisen, because my sister is dead set on making me get into the series with her.

Currently Working On: Nothing really at the moment because I'm still in one of my phases where I can't seem to get anything done without feeling like I'm dying on the inside, hence I've just kinda been gaming to try and lift up my writing mood.

Tagged by: @neglectedbond Tagging: I don't really have many people to tag anymore or know who to tag exactly so just go ahead and steal this from me if you wanna fill this out, make sure to tag me as well so I can see it!

[harapeveco]

miss harapeveco since we are in the topic of anime pls drop some recommendations I don’t have anything to watch 

Omg oks so I have a very shitty taste in anime so this will be a very disappointing list but the ones I mostly recommend are:

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun: literally every scene is funny and iconic, it also invented m/f yaoi don’t ask it makes sense

Owari no Seraph: I mean this very unironically this anime fucking sucks but in a good way like nothing is ever explained, nothing makes sense and they gaslight you into believing the main boys are gonna be endgame by showing you a homoerotic scene of blood drinking. Just roll with it and don’t ask questions it’s better that way

The Persona 3 movies and the Persona 4/5 anime: the movies are really good they did a good job condensing +80 hours of gameplay in 4 movies (except the third movie but we don’t talk about that). Now when it comes to the persona 4 anime you can tell they didn’t give a shit that thing is just 24 episodes full of jokes and comedy the game wishes it had holy shit it’s really funny for no reason. The persona 5 anime is more complex in the sense that it’s very unwatchable if you go to it expecting something good. It’s bad it’s very bad it’s poorly animated and rushed and it’s just borderline unwatchable but it is really funny if you wanna have a good laugh about how bad something is I recommend it

Osomatsu-san: the first episode of the first season being yeeted into oblivion bc it was very much illegal to show all of it makes it worth it. Keep in mind this is an adult show (even if it doesn’t look like it) so there’s a lot of crude humor and sex jokes but all the characters are such trashy people I like to see them suffer 

Kiss him not me: if you are a shipper this one is for you. Basically the MC is a yaoi obsessed fan girl who wants to see her classmates date each other yaoinly but they want to date her instead 

ID Invaded: really good anime with a really good mystery and plot! Main character did everything wrong but I still love him also Sou did the opening for it 

Happy sugar life: very fucked up horror about a high schooler in love with a literal child but it doesn’t go like you think it goes, they don’t portray it as romantic or cute they very much portray it as the fucked up thing it is and how wrong it is. It’s good if you like feeling unsettled and like to watch things go from 0 to 100 real fast

The promised neverland: amazing series with an amazing mystery and atmosphere! It’s a shame it only has one season tho I hope they make a second season of it in the future but it’s a shame it only has one

Dr stone: it has science, it’s horny, you have over the top characters, what more do you want

Natsume book of friends: you love to cry? You wanna cry after watching every single episode? Ofc you do! This shit will hit you in the gut so hard you will never recover. A beautiful story about acceptance, platonic love, found family and yokai with the best and most realistic character development I’ve ever seen 

Gegege no Kitaro: this one is very broad bc no kidding this anime gets a new adaptation every decade. There’s a 60s version, a 70s version, an 80s version, a 90s version, a 2007 version, a 2008 version that is more adult and follows the manga and a 2018 version too if you like recent stuff more. Most of these are lost media tho good luck trying to find any version that is not the 2018 one. I forgot about the plot of it yeh uhhh basically a kid ghost is a medium between humans and yokai but he mostly play favorites with the yokai and sometimes fucks the humans over so idk if he’s really a medium, he’s very biased about it

The dangers in my heart: I talked about this one before but I’m talking about it again idc. Really cute and wholesome the MC is kinda horny but he’s like 14 boys at that age are pretty horny we have to stop pretending they aren’t. The first 3 episodes are so cringe they are very painful to watch but if you can go through them you will witness what I think it’s the cutest romance after horimiya. I don’t usually read manga bc I have the attention span of a rock but even I did a binge read of it bc it was just so good

King’s game: edgier than shadow the hedgehog 2006, it’s painfully bad like I can’t even begin to explain how horrible this anime is but good lord it made me laugh all the way through 

Chuubyo gekihatsu boy: one of the main characters is a catboy called Rei Tsukumo and another character is a cringe Utaite what more can I say? It’s just dumb cringe kids being dumb as fuck for 12 episodes and you know what? It’s very good at it

Horimiya: just watch it for the love of god just watch it

Sasaki to Miyano: you have miyano who is like “I wonder if I’m gay??? I’m not sure???” While he reads gay manga and straight up imagines himself kissing his guy friend in the mouth like bestie COME ON

Thats all the anime I can think of the top of my head, well adding anime classics like fullmetal alchemist brotherhood, haikyuu, my hero academia (I only follow it bc the Todoroki family drama is the only thing well written in it), dragon ball (not dragon ball z bc as much as I like it I prefer dragon ball and the cutesy adventure aesthetic it has) and ofc how to forget sonic x 

[mer-se]

(Part 1) Hey! I love your photos and blog so much that I’m anonymously embarrassing myself here. Thing is do you have any tips when starting out? Having my work be seen etc. I don’t have a big platform. When did you start your photography work? Hey I know that I’m on anon so that is a contraction but my page and work is far from ready but I’ll messge you off anon when it is..

I appreciate that so much thank you. I’m not sure I started taking pictures in like early middle school days, maybe even earlier. My dad took a lot of film photos when he was younger and did all that dark room stuff, he has boxes of pictures and I think it’s cute that I can see similar styles in his photos and mine. I think it’s always just been in me. I was the friend taking pictures of everyone at every after/school event (I have some veryyyyy old photo albums it’s cool to look back on because I’m like damn I was the same person back then haha) I had (and broke) several digital cameras as a kid/preteen) but I didn’t get my first dslr until I think 2007?

I had my first film camera gifted to me during this time, too. Which is a whole other love. I immediately started advertising myself on Craigslist (idk how I’m alive) and did a few jewelry/portrait/wedding/engagements shoots as a teen and that was pretty cool and huge for my age and experience level looking back. I’m like damn, I did pretty well for myself as a dumb 17/18 yr old. I’m trying to work my way back into that now actually, slowly this time though. Bless all those people who gave me a shot and believed in lil ol me then. Lots of cool memories from that time period but it’s wild to me that I did that.

Anyway. I’m not sure on tips aside from ones that are personal to me because I don’t know what kind of photography you’re into? One of mine is like don’t take ten pictures of the same thing because it’ll make you have a mental breakdown when all of them are good but subtly different and you can’t pick one - but that’s me - I also have ocd and that helps nothing. When starting out that’s probably a good idea though to learn angles and lighting. Take pictures of everything. Learn your own personal style, everyone’s is different even if it’s similar, we all see different things. Learn your camera, learn about lighting and how to edit eventually. If you want to shoot people there’s a huge social aspect so you can work on that. There’s things I don’t even know after 100 years because the technical side doesn’t rly do it for me, I just run on intuition and vibes. We’re all always learning still. Its ok! I don’t have a large platform either especially on here, half my followers are deactivated - it’s dying out on here and I also won’t be on here eventually all together. But if you’re talking about notes/likes I’d suggest tagging your pictures! I find it kinda embarrassing but it’s necessary if that’s what you’re after.

That’s something I actually struggle with because I don’t worry about that stuff much, especially on here. I’ve never cared about that sort of validation, tumblr and instagram even facebook have always been just a photo diary to me - everything’s a diary haha. Even if it seems I overshare I’m really actually not? I’m super private and things make me uncomfortable. (I don’t share my writing either..) Notes are never why I post or even take photos it’s all very personal to me, there’s a deep private love there for me that I can’t put into words but! It’s ok to care and when you want to switch over to working with the public and getting back/into freelance photography (which I do, and maybe you will too someday) advertising is absolutely important, it’s hard for someone like me that finds it extremely cringe to self promote/overly tag everything because that’s never been my vibe or why I do it but I’m slowly working on it because I have to - it’s sort of a large mental obstacle for me. But don’t worry about that right now. Don’t get caught up on things like that honestly, it doesn’t mean anything. If people see and appreciate your pictures that’s lovely but there’s tons of reasons why you may not get notes that mean nothing to the quality of your pics. I see posts circulate with 10000 notes of a blurry eyeball and see an incredible picture of something with 5 notes. On tumblr notes mean nothing, don’t let it influence anything. You’re just starting out and your work is for you right now, and in my opinion it always should be in a way. Give it time. I post way more on my Instagram than here and my account is private, like I said I’m working on that aspect myself still haha. I am working on a different account though and slowly a website! So yes keep at it, and yes tag away, can even pin your posts even if it feels embarrassing - not everyone sees it that way, promise.

Don’t stress just do your thing. Find other photographers on here. But I wouldn’t really worry about tumblr too much, there’s other and better sites to get your work seen.

[80sfinalgrl]

OMG ISNT IT!?! i love Rocketman so much!!! i love musicals too, and I love how perfectly they made it movie musical and made it super fun and flashy, but it was never cheesy or silly and the serious moments really hit home. It was like the perfect balance of everything! and the costume!!! ahhh the costumes were fantastic!! and the acting too…i could go on and on about that movie hahaha and you mentioned liking musicals! do you have any other musicals (movie or stage) that you like?

i get that! sometimes it can be kinda the same for me, but swapped tv shows with movies…i can work my way through a series chunk by chunk, but sometimes it’s hard to take 2hrs to sit down and watch something. but i like doing movie nights so that i can be like yeah i’m gonna plan to watch a movie tonight haha growing up we used to do this thing called “Dad’s 80s Movie Night” where my Dad would pick an 80s movie for my brother and I to watch, which is where a lot of my favorite movies come from!

no shame here, they’re so good! i’m familiar with quite a few of those too, and my favorite old TV show to watch is The Andy Griffith Show—ultimate comfort TV show for me right there! I also really love Seinfeld, Schitts Creek, and NCIS (my mom thinks that show is so cheesy, but i love it, I get attached to the characters and sometimes all you need is a whodunit!). i also have shows that I like for background noise, mostly stuff that doesn’t have a “storyline” like Rupaul’s Drag Race!

-🪩

hello!!! just a few more days until christmas omg, i am so excited for my secret santa reveal honestly!!!! i’m outing myself as a former high school theater kid with this but i love musicals/movie musicals honestly 😭 they’re so much fun to me!!!! i love little shop of horrors but that’s also just one of my favorite movies in general, i love the 2007 hairspray film, chicago is so much fun, i LOVE the 1992 newsies film and i love moulin rouge!!! those are ones i find myself going back to most of the time :-)

that is so cute omg!!!! 80s movies are so much fun, my mom was a teen in the 80s so as a kid i loved a bunch of the movies she loved when she was younger too :’) my favorite movies as a kid were back to the future and raiders of the lost ark and i would rewatch them CONSTANTLY lmao

i also love kinda mindless shows with no/minimal plot honestly, it’s so nice to be able to shut my brain off and not have to focus on something too hard!!! i’m a sucker for those cooking competition shows too, although as someone who loves to cook if i’ve had an especially rough day i catch myself getting mad at the choices they’re making on tv which is so silly tbh 😭

[pikarawr2000]

Brief Preface

Tumblr. A hellhole of a website which has made a name for itself since it first launched back in February of 2007. If you've never head of Tumblr, you probably haven't been on the internet long enough. Anyways, I've chosen Tumblr for my culture project. I chose this because:

1) My only other options would be talking about my Mexican heritage or having to tell you a lot of personal stuff/trauma/things I don't need my English teacher knowing. Like, I /really/ doubt you want to read a whole project about autism or Homestuck or what it's like growing up without a dad during crucial development years.

and

2) I thought that a project about Tumblr would (hopefully) be kinda cool and/or interesting.

Also, I think that tumblr is an aspect of my personal culture that I have a lot of attachment to. Not necessarily because it's a huge part of my life, but it's more that the popular/common interests here, the types of people that are here, they are the people I feel I can most closely identify with. Because where else on the internet other than Tumblr will I find people who have the same super obscure and niche interests I have? Like the show "Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja, a cancelled Disney XD show that aired from 2012-2015 that Ben Schwartz voice acted in. Definitely won't find people that like it on TikTok or Instagram (believe me, I tried).

So rambling aside, I hope you have fun reading my blog, Mr.Martinson! :3

(p.s. sorry for the kinda long intro, this technically isn't even an intro, it's more of a "this is why I chose this topic" kind of thing. also sorry this whole paragraph isn't that coherent, I have a really hard time putting my thoughts onto paper. ok I'll stop going off on tangents now, have fun reading the assignment)

[rabbivole]

sorry i have to ramble about this *somewhere* or i'm going to die. this mysterious ripmaster has a bunch of even the weird shit that was basically made bespoke for a server i played on, so presumably someone i used to know sent him some stuff. (he has a collaborative halloween map a bunch of us submitted houses for and i might literally have a house i made in there.)

i went looking for something on a whim and: he has avbar1. this is the picture he's provided, and the actual bar the map is named for is behind the camera, but this room is the other half of the map:

that's a big working accordion. i had completely forgotten until seeing this, but i am intimately familiar with this room. i have run circles around this room chatting with people i was way too young to be talking to many, many times.

the other thing i remembered upon seeing this was that accordions and polka were sort of a meme (it was the era of weird al, you see) and there was something you could do in this room, some hidden button you could press, to play a polka song. and from the detritus of my brain from 20-odd years ago i'm thinking... john jeski - sailing? definitely jeski and sailing. i can't really remember the song well but i'd know it if i heard it.

i go to youtube and find nothing. i google 'john jeski' as a flailing attempt and find the obituary of John Jeski, the 'Polka Master'. he lived in connecticut and passed away in 2007. he started the John Jeski Band in 1974, apparently performing throughout new england and receiving a congressional plaque. his obituary fondly remembers him as 'one of the best accordionists in the Polish American field'. i dig a little more and i find a raw html 1998-ass page for him on polkas.org, and sure enough, something's labeled Sailing. i somehow remembered this perfectly. and it's only a 30 second clip, but jesus christ, this is it. the map had a much longer excerpt, but this is it, hosted by nancysplaceforpolkas.com. please join me in enjoying 30 seconds of what i can only describe as joyful oompah music that i had forgotten, remember perfectly, and never expected to hear again. (and cursory googling suggests finding the whole song may be tough. hmm.)

it was just this weird polka song that was included in a map that the guy must have heard somewhere and included as a half-joke, the way that meme songs live on beyond being memes because 'well, it's a meme song, but it kinda goes hard, though'. we wouldn't have used any of those words at the time. i probably said it pwns j00.

god, avbar1.bsp is probably old enough to drink. avbar1.bsp can probably fight and die for its country (canada, i think? i think he was canadian)

fuck. this is so much and if i'm able to get even 10% of these running i may have to start thinking about taking pictures of them

ok well. as of like two weeks ago, some absolute fucking hero i don't think i've ever crossed paths with has uploaded a rip of ~5gb of team fortress classic maps. the number of these i remember intimately is fucking insane and i thought a lot of them were lost forever

a) i'm like weirdly emotional about this b) after a quick glance in my old SIERRA folder, i think i have a few things he's missing. so uh i should. probably send this person a message

[i-imade-a-thing]

Amphibia The Hardest Thing Details!

I cried like 3 times this episode and a mess emotionally rn, this one of the greatest cartoon finals I've ever watch. It is such a bittersweet ending and knowing that there won't be another episode is...really hard. I really love this show and all the details and themes put in to it. Here's to one of the greatest cartoon of all time!

Core being the embodiment of not wanting to change, fearing of being irrelevant (idk y but its kinda similar to ss1 hop pop)

Toadie in the crowd is in his old uniform (animation error i guess)

When the camera is turning we can see the amphibian(s) that took care of their respective girls in background (plantars for anne, grime for sasha, olivia yunan and andrias for marcy)

Sasha's design is similar to her beta designs

Anne's boots and crown have leafs theme over it

During the Calamity fight scene, No Big Deal leitmotif is played throughout the fight

The power they use reflect who they are: Anne summoning tennis racket, ball, cats and having leaves aura when summoning stuff....Sasha summoning pom-pom and wings (like her sword) and moving like cheerleader.....Marcy summoning the DND dice, the background being the pin that she gave to andrias and the fluffy character from her fav game, and the explosion being in shape of weapons from her fav movie

Also Anne's cats missile thingy is similar to Andrias' lizard lazer thingy from the last episode

Andrias saying "Something I should've done a long time ago, standing up to you!" parallel Anne during reunion

Plantars, wartwoodians, wally's dad, the small frogs, olms, apothagary, percy and braddock, beatrix, trintorio, newtopian townies, EVERYONE IS HERE!

"you're my everything, you've change my life" "and you've change mine" ;-;

god damn sprig's crying destroyed me

After gaining all stones power, Anne's body start to crack

When Sprig said "Cmon, you'll be ok" he was smiling and coping, hoping everything will be ok

This look exactly like the painting in Anne's room

There's tennis racket, plantars sign, tennis ball as small will mill, the thai-looking post box, small farm, and anne's glowing sowrd

Picture of Plantars, her parents, domino, and her friends, the pen and cane (from Cane Crazy), sprig's figurines, the plushie (from the domino effect) and figurine (from froggy little christmas) that sprig made, the tea pot (from hopping mall), glowing stars from her room, donut pillow (from beginning of the end), the lamp having butterfly theme, her curtain having the flame pattern (similar to her ss3a outfit), and the wallpaper being leaf pattern

Anne seems to born in 2007

When Anne chat with the Guardian, music box's theme is played

"I have my whole life ahead of me to make bad choice and learn good lesson from them," kinda summarize ss1

DOMINO IS THE ALPHA AND OMEGA (mentioned adventure in catsitting)

Anne gonna lived up to 91 years old lol

Frobo learning not to tackle hug ppl this time, also Anne's theme played

The girls receive the crown with the same color as their gem

When Marcy receive her crown, Marcy's theme played

YUNANLIVIA CANON

Andrias is surprise that Marcy somewhat still care for him

When Sasha start crying after receiving the crown, Sasha's theme played

Sasha still cares about Percy and Braddock

During the scene where Anne said goodbye to Plantars, Anne's theme played

HOP POP CALLING ANNE HIS GRANDDAUGHTER

"Family always finds each other" (from The Day at Aquarium)

"Spranne against the world" is the final message between Anne and Sprig

I will not emotionally recover from this

Andrias having Barrel's warhammer, Leif's pin, Marcy's pin, and leaves in his beard(similar to anne)

Triple B can be seen helping Andrias regrow plants

The dude that was kidnap by dragonfly in the first ep is still up there lmao, also that scene playout similar to first ep: camera panning down on Stumpy's and Wally leaving

Stumpy's now serve Thai Tea Pancakes with maggots

Bog & the boys now have job as moving junk & service with Jacinda (kinda make sense since, u know they move stuff out of wartwood back in ss1)

Polly have a wrench in her pocket

Chuck now have a Tulip Emporium

Jeremy is now with the other mushroom (in a pot)

GRIME BEARD

BESSIE AND JOE HAD KIDS

HOP POP KEPT HIS AVOCADOS

Hop Pop and Sylvia hanging out~

Bunch of callbacks/reference: moss man, Amphibia theme song lyrics, domino 1 & 2, calamity anne form, cursed Anne, roadtrip arc map, anne's leaf, tomato monster, grub hog, Thai Go, and the runes that we never even figure out what the letter "v" and "z" is

The hidden continent Ivy mentioned later seems to be on west of mainland

Ivy still abushing Sprig...and got the red seashell to match sprig's blue moon shell~

When Ivy talked about hidden continent, Anne's theme played

Anne Boonchuy's statue sign also said: "We miss you, girl!"

Marcy having Sakura(naruto) and Bakugo(my hero academia) keychain

Sasha having the 2 swords symbol on her jacket, the 2 swords keychain, bi heart sticker, and her guitar sticker

Marcy is a web comic artist!?

Sasha is a kid therapist!?

Anne having leaf pattern scrunchie

Anne's theme playing in her monologue

each species exhibit reflect Amphibia: frog's modeled after Plantar's house, toad's after Toad tower, newt's after newtopia, and olms after Proteus

End credit stuff:

The end credit cycle from Marcy's theme to Sasha's then to Anne's

Anne's tennis racket, Sasha's pink sword, and Marcy's crossbow was placed where they left Amphibia

Toad tower never seems to be rebuild....plus there's plants growing on it now

จบบริบูรณ์....which means "The End"

Also notice how Anne's is in middle of the picture now

Annnnd that's the end of the show! This show is surely smth special! Can't believe we spent 4 years with this show and seeing it from beginning to end is just...quiet bittersweet. Seeing how everything came together and make this master piece is just, WOW. I really hope we can see these characters and this world some day again in the future, but for now it's time for a rest.

On other notes, thank you for reading the Amphibia Details posts throughout the show lifespan, I really do enjoy looking for details in each episode and cherish everything the crew gave us. So, once again, thank you, and I hope we see each other again in some random post in the future.

...

Also I've been crying for around 6 hours straight my eyes feel so dry AHHHHHHHH-

[felassan]

Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.” 

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game 

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively 

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’” 

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’” 

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.” 

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde 

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine 

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures 

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development