#but it used to have wrong info and was barren

[pudding-parade]

Cactus Springs by poppikins

You know, I should probably subtitle this series "Plumbing the Depths of the Exchange So You Don't Have To." Because, yup, this is another world from the Exchange, though this one is recent, uploaded in April of 2022, found a little while ago when I was poking with a stick at the recent world uploads on the Exchange. This one has the generic CAW icon as its preview, but it said "Mid century" on the Exchange page, and its name implied desert, two things which are pretty much guaranteed to suck me in. (I promise the next one isn't a desert world. It's also tiny. LOL ) This world's file size was decently-large, so I figured it would be reasonably complete, so I gave it a shot.

And I'm glad I did! This is very much reminiscent of an affluent California desert town first built up in the 50s, with its densely-packed houses behind high privacy fences. I will say that I think the world could do with some more terrain painting, both in the world and on the lots, and that it could also do with some more deco, particularly rocks and some embellishment of the titular "springs." (But OTOH, I'm unnecessarily picky about all that.) Since it's a recent upload, it's possible the creator is still working on it and will update it. But if not...Well, scenery might not be this world's strength, but it has fabulous lots.

The world has 41 community lots and 80 residential ones. None of the lots are EA, and most of the residential lots are pre-built with maybe half-a-dozen empty. All of the lots are different, every single one of them. A handful of them are apartments. I'm pretty sure the world creator built all of the lots in the world because they're just too uniform in style to have been downloaded separately. This was a ton of work, so I can totally forgive the lack of scenery. I'd say about half of the residential lots are fully-furnished while the rest only have kitchens and baths. If nothing else, if you like the mid-century modern style, this is a good world to download even if you only pilfer lots from it to use elsewhere.

There's no info about this world's requirements, but you definitely need Lucky Palms for this. Without it, you're missing some rabbitholes, pretty much all of the plants, windmills, and also build items like clerestory windows and slanted columns. The world looks barren and just plain weird without Lucky Palms. As far as EPs, I noticed nothing from Supernatural, Island Paradise, or Into the Future, so it might not need those packs. It's possible items from SPs were used, but I more strongly suspect that the four mid-century sets from the Store were used because many of the furnished lots are missing some double beds, dining tables/chairs, toilets, sinks, and lighting. I could be wrong, but I'm betting the Store items were used for those things. It would make sense, after all. If you don't have those sets, you can download them in .package format here.

The world does have a pet store, so if you want it to function as such, you'll need the pet store register from the Store.

The title of this post is a link to the world's Exchange download, but if you don't want to deal with the Exchange or sims3packs, I have uploaded a .world file here, too. That file goes in your install files at GameData > Shared > NonPackaged > Worlds.

OK, that's enough up-front blather. More info and pics are behind the cut.

The world is 2048x2048, but its playable area is compact. Here is the entire playable area in Edit Town:

Since the world is unpopulated, when I loaded up the world to take pics, I had NRaas Story Progression create 20 families, just to see how the world would run when decently populated. The world ran for a total of 10 simdays, some kids were born, people went to school/their jobs, blah blah, and I noticed no lag or weird issues. Granted, my machine is decent and the folder I'm using to take pics of these worlds has some defaults, the items from the Store worlds (because I wanted to see this world properly and I suspected it was missing Lucky Palms stuff) and NRaas mods only, so YMMV. I didn't get any notifications of any stuck sims, not even horses, so the routing appears to be good, which makes sense because it doesn't have any of the things that often cause routing issues. The world does have subway stations, but even if it didn't, it doesn't take sim-hours to get from one end to the other in a car or taxi or even on a bike because the playable area is so compact.

The world has all spawners except for the Island Paradise and Into the Future ones. It does have the fish spawners from the World Adventures worlds.

So long as you have Lucky Palms, the town has all rabbitholes except for the Into the Future ones, an equestrian center (none of the lots are big enough for horses, anyway), and the Supernatural ones. It does have the film studio. Some, but not all, of the rabbitholes are in basements to maintain the look of the town, and you can of course edit those lots and use rugs instead, if you don't like basement rabbitholes.

The world does not have any Showtime venues, and it only has one dance club. There aren't many empty lots and nowhere to add more, so if those things are important to you, this might not be a world for you. What it does have is cool lots, so the rest of this post is going to be about those. Not all of them, of course because I only get 30 pics in a post, but a sampling.

First some, but certainly not all, of the community lots:

This is the science area. The house in the lower right corner is a residential lot for a small household of nerds, with all the science stuff from University Life plus a chemistry table and other Logic items in it. Then there's the science rabbithole, and the military one is in the basement under the low octagonal buildings in the upper left. There's also that multi-station science thing from University Life. It's in the bottom left corner.

This is the fire station. So nice to not to see one of the EA ones. It doesn't come with a fire truck, though.

This is the salon. It doesn't have tattooing, but in addition to the stylist makeover stations, it does have four or five deco hairdressing stations. So, this would be a good lot to use the hairdressing mod on.

This lot also shows the only issue that I noticed with the world. It has Al Simhara's distant terrain, but it acts weirdly, which you can see in the picture above. I'm not sure if this is just my game doing this or not. Frankly, if I were to play this world, I'd just delete the distant terrain. It isn't really needed, IMO.

This is the arcade. It has bowling lanes and arcade machines.

This is the town's one and only club, and it's an exclusive one, so there's a bouncer at the front door. My testing sim got in via a bribe. :)

The vanilla-color building on the left is the pet store while the coral-color one is a shell with the spa rabbithole in its basement. If I was playing this world, I'd build an actual spa with the items from Sunlit Tides and a spa rabbithole rug, but this will do. The rainbow-colored building in the back is a sort of mall. It has little shops with WA registers in it (nectar, relics, general store, food) inside, and it has the grocery, bookstore, and theater rabbitholes in the basement.

The graveyard. The building with the asymmetrical roof on the right side of the pic is part of this lot, too. It's small and empty, but it could be dressed up for small weddings.

And finally, pics of a handful of the 80 residential lots, in a cross-section of sizes. Of course, the problem with them being tightly packed in and behind fences is that it makes it harder to take pics, but this will give you an idea of the types of lots in the world.

[mari-lair]

(part 1)

While still not appetizing, the sparkly potion was the least monstrous of the bunch, and Akane didn't want to risk becoming a mindless beast. He popped open the glitter potion, being greeted by a flowery fragrance that hid a deceivingly spicy flavor.

Akane coughed, his body rejecting the potion, but what little he swallowed was enough: It burned him like a fever, and his chest felt too tight. He was on the verge of panicking when Sumire cut the back of his shirt, stopping the pain and freeing wings that grew unnaturally fast from his shoulder blades. Akane barely noticed it, distracted by the way his heartbeat was inhumanly fast and all his senses keep growing stronger far too fast, his enhanced hearing hurting.

"There there, no need to fret. Everyone loves fairies." Sumire cooed after he calmed down, keeping her voice quiet as she fetched a cracked mirror "Just look at yourself, so fragile and pitiful, isn't it lovely?"

Akane can recognize the creature as himself but it still makes him feel... wrong.

"But beware, Akane-kun... Not being feared have its downsides. Most monsters would die to have you as a meal, and humans will want to use you. Your magic may be powerful, but you're defenseless without it." Sumire stretched his wings, humming "Even your pretty wings can't fly without magic, so watch your tongue: The more you lie, the more magic you'll lose. Avoid big cities, I promise you'll find it rather unplesant~"

Akane writes down what he is told when Sumire insists he should never forget it, listening to her advice again with more focus and reluctantly thanking her when she also provides supplies for his journey, visibly excited for him.

"I'm glad to be of help! but my services aren't cheap~" Sumire smirked, poking his forehead "I am a hopeless romantic, so I'll take your memories of your Aoi-chan as payment. Good luck, Akane-kun."

.

Akane wakes up on a barren field at the bottom of the cliff near his home. His head is a mess and there is a hollowness in his heart despite how overwhelming everything felt. He freaks out at the realization he is no longer human and at the very strong feeling that he should do something, what exactly he doesn't know. It makes him nervous.

He has a map that leads him to a mysterious place far away, something in his heart tells him to follow it. He also has traveling supplies, a journal with notes on places some girl named Aoi could be, and recent pages with info on fairies.

(part 3)

[nobodysdaydreams]

for the ao3 wrapped!! 1 & 29

Thank you for the asks, I’m so sorry this took so long!

1- How many words have you written this year?

I can’t answer that because people could use that information to guess my whodunit fic by subtracting the word count listed here from my visible AO3 word count and seeing which whodunit fic makes up the difference. But my SOS fic alone is over 300k so that should give a pretty good estimate.

29- Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I can’t choose. I’ve written 300k+ words. I have SO MANY. Some haven’t even been published and my favorite passages changes all the time, but I’d have to say that right now, I love the whole exchange between Nathaniel and his sister (Nerissa) that I wrote in that latest SOS chapter. After the show left us with “btw they have a sister” and no other info, it felt so nice to have something, anything, a name, some backstory, etc. to go with the concept. For those who don’t read SOS or don’t mind spoilers, here it is:

He’d heard the voice behind him in his office. An unfamiliar voice. A woman’s voice.

“Hello Nathaniel.” 

He turned and saw that no one was there, when he heard the voice speak again.

“It’s so wonderful to see you again after all these years. You’ve certainly been busy.” 

And then the world around Nathaniel began to change, and he found himself staring at a woman he’d never seen before.

And yet… there was something familiar about her. Incredibly familiar. Like something out of a dream.

Or a nightmare.

“Ah,” said the woman, smiling, as she saw the hint of recognition in her brother’s eyes.

“I see you remember me. Hello little Natty.”

Nathaniel frowned.

“Natty?” he repeated, too disgusted by the ugly and childish nickname this stranger had chosen to address him by to question anything else.

“Hm,” the woman smiled sweetly. “I see someone’s still not a fan of his nickname. Though I do hope you will allow me the indulgence. As your favorite sister.”

“…my favorite…what…” Nathaniel began, before pausing as he became aware of and processed whatever it was that had just happened to him and slowly took in his environment and the woman who stood before him.

Nathaniel wasn’t entirely sure where he was. He wasn’t in his office at the compound anymore, nor was he at the Institute. He was somewhere else now, though he wasn’t sure how he could have possibly gotten there without moving. Though wherever he was certainly seemed to resemble both his office in his compound and the one he’d had at the Institute. The walls were painted blue, and the furniture was expensive and high quality. There were couches, tables, a desk, and a bookshelf, which contained what appeared to be mostly fake books with spines that had been colored to match the room’s furnishings.

There was also a coffee table that was barren expect for a small vase of fake violets that had been placed in the middle. There were also a few paintings on the wall, mostly of nature scenes and bluebirds. In some moments, Nathaniel could have sworn they looked like something SQ had drawn. In other moments, they looked more like copies of his style of artwork.

The ceiling of the room was interesting too, perhaps the most beautiful and fascinating part of the room. It wasn’t the sort of thing you noticed unless you looked up, but Nathaniel was sitting on one of the room’s couches, and when looking up at the woman who’d addressed him, he’d gotten a glimpse of the ceiling.

And what a ceiling it was, painted with the night sky, all the stars and constellations dancing in patterns above him. The celestial orb in all its glory. For a moment, Nathaniel swore he saw the stars painted on the ceiling move, as if they were the real stars of the night sky. They did look incredibly lifelike and beautiful, as if one really was staring at a clear night sky, full of millions and billions of stars.

The room as a whole was nice, clean, bright, and well furnished.

And yet, something about the room was wrong. Of this, Nathaniel was completely certain. There was something uncanny valley about it, but he couldn’t for the life of him explain what it was. It was the sort of room that you just couldn’t quite relax in, though Nathaniel couldn’t think of a reason why.

As for the woman who stood before him, Nathaniel wasn’t quite sure what to make of her either. There was something about her presence that felt threatening and also seemed to upset him, which Nathaniel supposed was no surprise considering she’d apparently broken into his house and dragged him…or transported him…or…put him wherever he was now.

And yet, there was also something else about her that seemed strangely warm and familiar. Like seeing the face of someone and swearing that you’ve seen them before or seeing someone that you know you know from somewhere, and you just can’t think of where you met them or who they are, but you know you know them.

She looked around Nathaniel’s age, perhaps a bit older (though Nathaniel supposed it would be hard to tell her age by using himself as a comparison, given all the work he’d done to stay in shape). Her choice of clothing and style was also interesting. She seemed to have the same absent-minded professor look that Nicholas was always so fond of, though more feminine and neater, yet her style still felt whimsical, which somehow seemed to suit her.

Then Nathaniel fully processed what it was this strange woman had said to him.

“My…my sister?” he repeated.

The woman smiled and nodded.

“Yes. Oh, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already Natty; it’s only been a few decades. I would hope that you’d be able to remember me at least a little despite our separation. You certainly didn’t forget about Nicky,” she noted, a playful smile dancing across her face.

Nathaniel sat up, feeling suddenly and surprisingly protective.

No one else had ever called his brother Nicky. No one. And yet this woman did so with such ease and familiarity.

“My brother Nicholas had nothing to do with the Emergency, or anything else I’ve done,” Nathaniel asserted.

“If you try to harm him-”

“Oh please,” the woman interrupted.

“Natty, I’ve been watching you two play your little cat-and-mouse game for quite a while. Trust me, I am well aware he had nothing to do with your world domination scheme. And besides, it’s Nicky. He cries when you accidently step on a spider, he’s not exactly the world dominating type.”

“Stop calling me Natty,” protested Nathaniel, but this only made the woman look more amused.

“Even after all these years, you still have the same adorable little pouty look on your face. And really, I think it’s an adorable nickname, or at least a better nickname than “Ledroptha Curtain,” she countered dramatically, making sure to pronounce Nathaniel’s old name in the most theatrical way possible.

“You always did love drama and symbolism, so I suppose it does fit, perhaps as a pseudonym or an alias, but your legal name? Natty, I know method acting is a thing, but that really does take it a bit far.”

Nathaniel ignored her insults, forcing himself to focus on uncovering what this woman wanted and resolving not to let himself be baited into any pointless arguments.

“Why do you know about Nicholas? Who are you?” he demanded.

“I told you,” the woman replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’m your sister. Nessie.”

“Nessie?” repeated Nathaniel, his brow furrowing in doubt at the name that sounded like it belonged more to a small child or a beloved pet than the woman who stood before him.  

And yet there was something about the name that felt familiar on his tongue.

“Well, Nerissa Eurus Benedict, if you’d prefer my full name,” Nerissa clarified.

“Most people call me Nessa. Nessie was the nickname that you and Nicky gave me. You used it when you felt particularly affectionate. Though that was more often Nicky than you,” she recalled.

Nathaniel wasn’t sure what to say. This woman was crazy, she had to be. He’d done his research; he’d done everything he could to look into his family’s past. There was no mention of him having any siblings besides Nicholas.

Meanwhile, the woman in front of him began gazing up at the ceiling.

“I like them,” she noted. “The stars. They fit.”

“…fit?” asked Nathaniel, still trying to figure out how to best engage with this stranger claiming to be his kin.

“What our mother used to call you and Nicky,” Nerissa explained. “Her little sweetheart and her little superstar. I think you can guess who was who.”

Nathaniel certainly could, though he was floored by the mention of the word “mother”.

He’d had dreams about her, and about their father too. Dreams of them dying, of his mother leaving him and his brother behind, but… he never thought he would ever hear anyone, even someone who was obviously mistaken, talking about her as if they had really known her.

“No…no I’m sorry,” said Nathaniel, attempting to regain control of this strange situation.

“I’m afraid that there’s been a misunderstanding. I don’t have a sister. I was never adopted, and my brother was the only family I ever had.”

“And I’m afraid you’re mistaken on both those accounts little one,” objected Nerissa.

“Although they are no longer with us, you had a mother and a father, who (interesting bit of family trivia), were both identical twins themselves, just like you and Nicky. It runs the family I suppose, seeing as I was the only one who ended up without a partner. But having two sisters might have been a bit much for you, you always were a little attention hog, even back then. And even if I was the only one without an identical twin, I always had Seymour.”

“Another sibling?” asked Nathaniel, beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. 

Nerissa shook her head.

“Our cat,” she explained.

Nathaniel felt like he was spinning. A part of him, a part that had once longed for his family, for any family, and answers about his past wanted to cling to every scrap of information this woman was telling him, and yet, he knew it couldn’t be true. Clearly this was someone still upset about what he’d done, whether the Emergency or the Happiness Revolution he did not know, but Nathaniel did know that the information she was giving him could not be correct.

“That’s impossible,” he explained. “Years ago, I found the orphanage’s records for my family. There was no information about a sister, or any aunts, uncles, or other extended family.”

“Of course,” Nerissa replied. “I couldn’t very well keep our family’s information in the records for anyone to get their hands on. Surely of all people, I thought you would understand the importance of keeping secrets.”

“A convenient explanation,” Nathaniel observed. “And one that cannot be proven false, as there is no way to prove that you actually removed anything. Records can be falsified, so even if you have copies in your possession, you should understand my skepticism.”

Nerissa nodded.

“I do. You were always the skeptic. Very well. May I?” she asked, gesturing towards a pad of paper and a fountain pen that were sitting on top of the desk that she was sitting on.

Nathaniel nodded, though he didn’t quite understand why she was asking for his permission. Wherever they were, it certainly wasn’t his office, though it did bear a startlingly similar resemblance.

Nerissa began scribbling onto the paper, and then handed it back to Nathaniel, who glanced over the paper.

At first, it looked like a compilation of random information. Something about a car, lines of dialogue, a phone number, some addresses…and then Nathaniel realized what he was looking at.

It was an account of everything he’d done the day he’d gone to the records office, the day he’d snuck away from his friends to investigate his past. The address where he’d been living at the time. The make, model, and license plate number of the car he’d driven to get there. A script of the exact conversation he’d had with the receptionist, including the exact amount of money he’d offered to bribe her, and the phone number Nicholas had left behind for him. An account of the narcoleptic attack he’d had outside on the bench after he’d acquired the documents. And she seemed to have written a similar account for Nicky’s visit as well.

All of that had happened before the Institute. Before the Emergency. Before the Happiness Revolution.

This wasn’t about what Nathaniel had done to the world. Whoever this woman was, she’d been following him and his brother for a long, long time.

He looked up at her carefully, allowing himself to consider the possibility that what she was saying might be true.

Nathaniel had to admit…she did look like them. She was shorter and more feminine, obviously, but she had the same nose and similar facial features. Her hair was black and long. It was wavy, not quite curly like theirs, but the color matched. And there was something about the way her dark eyes sparkled, like she had an enticing secret that she couldn’t wait to share with the rest of the world. As if the whimsy and joy of Nicholas had somehow been blended with Nathaniel’s hunger and flair for the dramatic.

Nerissa smiled.

“I promised I’d come back for you little brother.”

Little? 

Nathaniel, who had always assumed himself to the be elder of the twins and thus the eldest in the family (despite what the obviously faulty orphanage records might have said) and had become accustomed to taking care of, protecting, and (for lack of a more polite term) infantilizing and patronizing others, suddenly felt like something had been taken away from him.

“You’re…you’re older than me?” he confirmed.

Nerissa nodded.

“That’s right little one.”

“By how much?” scoffed Nathaniel, who was beginning to grow tired of being referred to as “little” by a woman more than a few inches shorter than him.

Nerissa smiled playfully.

“Guess.”

Nathaniel sighed.

“Um…three years,” he speculated.

Nerissa shook her head.

“Seven.”

“Seven?”

There was no way that was accurate. The woman in front of the Nathaniel might be older than him, but by nearly a decade? Maybe it was her attitude or general demeanor, but she looked like she could pass for someone younger than Nicky! Well, barelypass, but that was still impressive.

Nerissa grinned.

“Well, seven and a half years older, if you want to be technical. Though I understand your surprise. I’ve tried my best to age gracefully. Glad to see my stress relief techniques have paid off.”

Nathaniel was surprised, but his surprise quickly gave way to realization.

“But…if that’s true then…you would have been ten when our parents died,” he calculated. “Ten or eleven.”

“That’s correct,” Nerissa confirmed.

“Then…” said Nathaniel slowly, “You’d remember our parents. Not just their faces, but details, their names, our address, our information…you’d remember us, you even found us years ago, so…why not contact us sooner?”

Nerissa seemed a bit bothered by her brother’s question but recovered quickly.

“It was for the best,” she replied simply. “But circumstances have changed, and now I can finally reunite our family again.”

She began to walk towards Nathaniel.

“It’s what I promised you all those years ago, the day that I dropped you and Nicky off at that orphanage. That I would come back. And now I have. I’m here Nathaniel.”

Her words were spoken gently, but to Nathaniel they were anything but gentle.

Suddenly, he remembered why Nerissa’s face looked so familiar to him. He’d seen it before, in his dreams. More specifically, his nightmares, the ones he’d had ever since the orphanage, of himself screaming and clawing up at his mother, begging her not to leave him and Nicky behind, begging her to stay as she forced him down, forced him to sleep and left him on the front stoop.

But…those were just nightmares. They weren’t memories. They couldn’t be real. Besides, the person in Nathaniel’s mind had always been a bigger person, someone much older than he was, surely it must have been their mother, an adult, it couldn’t have been another child.

Could it?

Well…Nathaniel supposed that to a three-year-old, everyone from a six-year-old to a teenager to an adult looked like giant. From that perspective, it was plausible that his mind’s memory had registered the person leaving him as an adult, and he’d drawn his own conclusions as to what that adult’s identity was.

“I had dreams,” he muttered to himself, feeling as if the floor had been ripped out from under him.

“I didn’t think they were real, but…it was real. It was you. You left us…”

“I had to. But it’s alright now,” comforted Nerissa, reaching up towards her brother.

“No.”

Nathaniel struggled to get the word out at first, but quickly found his strength.

“No,” he declared again, a stormy expression settling over his face.

Nerissa’s smile faded.

“You…you abandoned us. You left us in that horrible place?” Nathaniel asked, his voice filling with rage.

Nerissa took a small step backwards.

“Natty, er, Nathaniel, I…I was child-” she stuttered.

“But you must have known how bad it was, considering you decided not to stay there yourself,” snapped Nathaniel.

Nerissa backed away, and began breathing heavily, but Nathaniel continued, his anger growing with every passing word as he walked towards her.

“And you certainly weren’t a child when you hid our family’s records from us, or when you watched everything that happened between Nicholas and I play out for your own sick entertainment. Was this all a joke to you?”

“What? No! I-” gasped Nerissa, her eyes beginning to fill with tears, but Nathaniel ignored them.

“And if what you’re saying is true,” he continued, “then what about the rest of our family? The aunt and uncle you mentioned…where were they? Where are they? Or, let me guess, they probably abandoned us too.”

Nerissa put her hands over her ears and began shrinking into a corner of the room, but Nathaniel continued to advance towards her, driven by a frustration and pain he didn’t know he still had inside of him.

All these years he’d spent blaming Nicholas and even at times himself for what had happened during their childhood felt like such as waste. As did these past few weeks he’d spent accepting the fact that it was nobody’s fault what had happened. When in reality, it had been someone’s fault. The pain, the suffering, the hurt that had molded and twisted him, it could have been avoided this whole time! And…this woman, this sister, who had come out of nowhere and revealed everything she’d taken from him, just expected him to…welcome her with open arms? Pretend that everything was okay?

“You never even tried to reach out to us!” he yelled. “You apparently were fine spying on us and stalking us for decades, but you never made any effort to help either of us, when you knew what we were going through. Stop calling yourself my sister. You’re not my family. You’ll never be my family. And wherever or whatever this place is, I’m leaving.”

Nathaniel turned to storm off, abandoning Nerissa where she cowered in a huddled bunch in one of the room’s corners.

He had almost reached the door when he suddenly found himself unable to move his legs.

It was as if his entire body was being weighed down by something. As if someone had their arms around his legs and was pulling him back.

He struggled and tried to move forward, and finding himself unable to do so, painstakingly turned around.

“What sort of trick-” he demanded, turning to discover that Nerissa had gotten up from her huddled spot on the floor and was staring directly at him.

And she looked furious.

Nathaniel was not intimidated.

“If…whatever this is supposed to frighten me, you’re going to have to do more than that,” he scoffed.

Nerissa didn’t answer. She still seemed to be looking at him, but at the same time, looking through him.

“Well?” asked Nathaniel again in an impatient tone. “Are you going to continue to stare at me or are you actually going to be kind enough to answer-”

And then Nathaniel was silenced, silenced by what could only be described as the worst physical sensation he’d ever felt in his life.

It was as if his entire body was on fire, and yet being cut by a thousand knives at the same time, torn apart from the inside out.  

Nathaniel would have screamed, but he found himself unable to speak, feeling as if hands were tightening around his throat.

Nerissa never broke her gaze, but at the same time she still didn’t seem to quite be looking at him.

It was horribly terrifying, Nathaniel really felt as if he was in the middle of a nightmare now.

He gathered as much strength as he could through his pain and ran, or rather wobbled, towards one of the doors to the room, as fast as his legs could carry him.

He grabbed at the knob, only to feel his hand brush against something flat and solid.

He cried and pressed his hands frantically against the wall, but it made no difference.

The door was painted onto the wall. It wasn’t real.

Nathaniel made his way to the other side of the room, over to the other door, desperately praying that it offered salvation, only to let out a sob of despair.

It was fake too. Neither of the doors to the room were real.

So then...

…how would he get out? 

The window. He could jump out the window.

Nathaniel grabbed the side table and launched it at one of the room’s windows, only for the table to bounce off the wall.

The windows were fake too.

The room had no doors or windows. There was no exit.

She’d trapped him here.

Nathaniel felt his body temperature rise swiftly and suddenly, and he furiously yanked off his jacket and threw it across the room.

The invisible hands’ grip around his throat felt tighter and tighter, and Nathaniel fell to his knees, gasping for air.

This was it, he realized.

This was the end.

But, no, no, it couldn’t be! This couldn’t be the end, he had more to do, he…he’d just reconnected with Nicholas, he’d just started making things right, he had so many good years ahead to spend with his brother! And SQ...SQ more than anyone or anything else. He needed to talk to his son. He needed to apologize; he at least needed a chance to make things right with his son.

He couldn’t die. Not like this.

Nathaniel’s vision began to blur, but he still scanned the room, looking for any means of escape.

Instead, he saw something else.

A telephone on the desk.

He could still call his son. He could still say what he needed to say.

But he would have to hurry.

Nathaniel crawled towards the telephone and hastily dialed the number as fast as he could.

Nothing happened.

Nathaniel grabbed the phone in a panic only to discover upon closer inspection that the phone was made of plastic. It looked fancy, it looked real, but it was only a toy phone. Fake, just like the doors and windows.

The entire room was like a human sized doll house. An extremely realistic looking one, but fake, nonetheless.

Nathaniel furiously threw the phone towards Nerissa.

It bounced off her, and she acted as if she hadn’t been hit at all, the device breaking into little pieces as it crashed onto the floor, knocking into the glass coffee table, and instantly shattering it too, as if the table was made of the most delicate and breakable glass in the world.

Nathaniel caught a reflection of his face in one of the shards. It was beginning to turn purple. His vision started to go black. It seemed as if the room itself, its very walls, floor, and ceiling were closing in on him and collapsing around him all at once, as if the room was breaking apart along with him.

In one last act of desperation, Nathaniel began to throw any item he could find in the room at the fake windows and doors and at Nerissa, but his efforts made no difference. And he screamed, screamed internally for someone, anyone, to please hear him to save him, to give him another chance, anything, any hope of survival. He had to get out of here, he had to get to SQ, he needed to apologize, he…he needed to tell his son the truth. He needed to make things right. Please…it…it couldn’t be too late!

It couldn’t end this way.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

Nathaniel Benedict was back in his office, as if he had never left.

The jacket he’d thrown was on the other side of the room, as if he had thrown it off right here where he was sitting.

He was still incredibly shaken but slowly felt the air going back into his lungs. He fell to his knees and gasped, allowing the oxygen to reenter his lungs.

Once Nathaniel had recovered, he straightened himself up and timidly sat back in his office chair, debating what to do next.

Had this all been some sort of hallucination? It felt so real, but…perhaps it was a trick. Perhaps this was someone’s twisted idea of revenge.

But even if it was, how could they have known that much about him?

Nathaniel sat in silence for a long while, too nervous to move.

Then he heard his sister’s voice once more.

“I’ll contact you again soon Natty. I am so looking forward to seeing you and Nicky again. I promise it will be a lovely family reunion.” 

Nathaniel gasped, trembling in his chair.

Then he swallowed his tears and shakily rose from his desk.

He knew what he had to do.

[ailogomakerr]

Top 10 Logo Redesign Fails: Unveiling the Oopsies of Past Redesign and What it Taught Us.

What’s up, design go-getters! Today we’re up to learn another thrilling info in the world of logos and graphic designing. It’s another blog to guide you through your emblem-making and emblem redesigning journey. Whether you’re a total newbie in the scene or an expert with an undying thirst for knowledge, learning from the big guy’s missteps is always an effective way to learn! Strap in and as we all check out 10 of the most popular emblem redesign fails and learn from their revision mishaps as we go.

Uber (2016)

Uber or just a random geometric shape? The 2016 Uber rebrand gained diverse reactions. It features a sleek design completely barren of what Uber once was. Confusing the public about its connection to the emblem’s identity.

What to Learn From it?

Don’t scrap it, improve it! You can always collaborate with online tools or draw inspiration from other emblems just so you’re certain that your redesign would be a total upgrade all while not severing the connection to the emblem’s original identity.

AOL (2009)

Who is this? For a emblem with users that are mostly digital immigrants, AOL did a pretty clumsy job with their emblem design that happened in 2009. It left its users puzzled with its vague new emblem and unclear representation. This again, stressed the necessity of clarity and incorporating old elements in emblem redesigning.

What to Learn From it?

Aim for concise and relevant. Always reach out to your existing clients for feedbacks and most importantly; research! Research is key to source out what your audience needs to avoid keeping them in the dark and delivering what they need.

London Olympics (2012)

A emblem that left everyone, even outside of the sports world completely puzzled. The abstract design of the London 2012 Olympics flopped so bad and it was thrown with a lot of criticisms as it looked more of a labyrinth than a representation for the most major sporting event.

Far too complicated from the familiar Olympics emblem the crowd is familiar with.

What to Learn From it?

Make sure to not complicate your graphics! If you have trouble with your emblem designing, you can always utilize online emblem making tools to craft a design with a concise message, avoiding jumbled elements on your emblem.

Gap (2010)

Back in 2010 the clothing emblem giant Gap left the public perplexed with their emblem revision that gave a emblem a modern facelift. Don’t get us wrong, modernizing emblems is definitely an ideal mood, but making the letters bland, with a gradient-filled blue box completely drops the iconic white and blue combo Gap is known for by the public.

What to Learn From it?

Bit of advice, don’t mess with perfection and definitely show some respect with legacy. A sudden change from what the emblem is visually known for may alienate a loyal following base. You don’t want your patrons feeling like they’ve wandered upon the wrong store! When considering a redesign, an AI emblem maker like Ailogoemakerr can blend the perfect mix of newness and familiarity in one seamless transition.

Pepsi (2009)

As close to home Pepsi’s emblem revision may seem, it still gained a handful of comments from its critics. Some even went as far as call the new emblem “a swirl of confusion” as it blurred the line between modernity and a soda emblem.

What to Learn From it?

Don’t be afraid to make your emblem unique! But again, always do your best to pay homage to the emblem’s original image to avoid confusion on your loyal patrons.

The University of California (2012)

The epitome of control Z, The University of California refreshed its recognized symbol with a modern stylized “C” which faced a ton of backlash including from their stakeholders.

What to Learn From it?

Keep the crowd informed! Engage with your partners and audience, give them a sneak peek of what’s to come so they would not be too surprised with an upcoming facelift your emblem will go through.

Airbnb (2014)

Was that on purpose? Airbnb’ recent emblem redesign wasn’t a total flop but it did gain a wave of online humor as the uncovered new emblem seems to resemble something that’s usually kept covered!

What to Learn From it?

Examine your emblem design, flip it upside down if you need to. Just make sure there’d be no unintended graphic implications! You can utilize online emblem making tools if you wish to surely steer clear of unwanted visual representation.

MasterCard (2016)

Sometimes, simplicity is not king. Don’t overdo simplification because it can totally look like an amateur’s draft! It’s specifically such a careless move from a global emblem that highlights professionalism.

What to Learn From it?

Everything is acceptable in moderation so try not to overdo anything, not even simplicity.

Sydney Opera House (2009)

Another case of going for simple gone wrong! The iconic Sydney Opera House did a emblem revamp back in 2009. This said redesign also faced backlash as it made the emblem look vague and unrecognizable. This mistake teaches us the importance of paying homage to the emblem’s previous emblem whenever they are opting for a revamp.

The revised emblem that went a little too minimalistic

What to Learn From it?

Never lose the emblem’s touch! Ensure that the core elements are there to preserve the iconic look of a renowned emblem. The emblem’s personality should remain intact even after a emblem refresh.

Tropicana (2009)

Squeeze the juice, not the emblem identity! Back in 2009, Tropicana swapped their emblem-known orange with a straw for a lame glass of OJ. Needless to say, it left grocery-store patrons from all over the world fumble and scratch their heads looking for their go-to emblem that’s just right under their nose!

What to Learn From it?

NEVER underestimate elements that make your emblem iconic. Even if it’s just as simple as a piece of fruit! Try to preserve the symbols that recognizes the emblem. Keep those in mind during a emblem redesigning to ensure a smoother transition for customers.

What’s the Cherry on Top of it All?

Learning what these industry masters already went through is helpful in navigating the twists and turns of your own emblem redesigning journey. There is so much to learn with these redesigns! What’s your take on this? Let us know in the comments. Good luck on your emblem revamping journey and make sure to check out some of our latest blogs so you’re always on the know with the latest design must-knows!This blog is from Ailogomakerr.com

[dogcircle-scans]

Hey guys! As always a huge thank you for translating and editing Natsume for us!! 💖💖💖 I wanted to ask what you think are the main differences between the manga and the anime (in terms of Natsume’s characterization or anything else), thanks!

I find the wiki unreliable, but it once described manga Natsume as being more hotheaded. I personally don't see it, so I disagree, but if anyone thinks otherwise, I'd love to read why. In terms of physical characteristics, both Natsume and Reiko have white/silver hair and silver/green eyes in the manga.

A major difference in the series as a whole is that Sasada moves away after her introduction. The anime team decided to keep her due to the lack of women early on in the series. A decision I respect, but they don't develop her enough to justify it. I do find it hilarious that because of Sasada, barely anyone remembers Tsuji since most of his lines are given to her.

Another major difference is that everyone in the anime is a year older than their manga counterparts. This change was to fix a discrepancy that only exists in the manga, which was that Kitamoto was initially in the same homeroom as Nishimura and Natsume. Midorikawa later changed her mind about the class arrangements and moved Kitamoto so that he had the same homeroom as Tanuma because she didn't want Tanuma to be alone.

[mittensmorgul]

For anyone interested in long-term residence in the supernatural fandom, please have some observations I’ve made over the decade I’ve been here. Take it or leave it as you will, but I’ve found all of this info useful over the years I’ve been here.

I wrote this yesterday, and it achieved its mission of identifying the sort of folks who would react negatively to it (i.e. a lot of block lists have been updated), so now that it’s been edited for content, it’s going under a cut (because that is how we do things on tumblr in general, unless we have a deliberate purpose for annoying readers with excessively long text posts) for the sake of people who actually do care about the fandom and its history. If that’s not you or your reason for being here, then keep on keeping on with your own thing, I guess. For those who are interested, there’s a lot of fandom resources some of us have been building for years that you might enjoy knowing about.

First off, I’ve been informed by a few friends who’ve read through this for coherency’s sake that it sort of reads like a *shakes cane from porch* fandom grandma complaint, but honestly... I earned this rocking chair and goshdangit imma rock now. So apologies for any “back in my day” vibes or faint aroma of tiger balm this post might give off. Then again, it’s loosely based on a similar post from 2012 so like... time is a flat circle anyway I guess.

1. There is no such thing as “tumblr famous,” unless you’re referring to the hilarious and delightful fic of the same name (please go read it, you will cackle). Posting Hot Takes for imaginary Clout™ on this site is kind of pointless in the long run. Sure you can post solely for the sake of stirring shit and getting notes, but the majority of the folks who do aren’t long term residents of the fandom. They’re just tourists moving through our little beach town for spring break. If you’re actually intent on moving to this corner of the fandom for an extended stay, please bother to really feel out the permanent residents and understand the culture and general mood of the neighborhood. It bears no resemblance to whatever’s going on across town where all the bars and beach parities are happening, and those loud, drunken revelers are, again, gonna disappear back to their regular lives or on to the next party eventually. That doesn’t mean the fandom is dying, it’s just evolving.

(funny how I had several comments implying that I’m just trying to keep the fandom from evolving with this post, because I sincerely do want the fandom to continue on for years to come, and that is impossible without evolution. We can evolve without self-immolating, though. mostly i included point 1 for an excuse to push ancient but hilarious fanfic on you.)

2. Once you post something here, it’s been unleashed to the fandom winds. You never know where it will end up, or who will comment on it or add to it. Remember that time Misha tweeted the link to the Epic Cockles Love Story post? No? It was wild. That was 2012. They all know we’re here, and how to find us if they want to. Please don’t take it to their doorsteps.

Obviously if someone is being a dick on your posts, please feel free to block them, but the whole entire point of this site is to engage people with your posts. Being big mad that someone reblogged your post with comments or supporting evidence, or happy headcanons or “HECK THIS IS GREAT BECAUSE (insert personal story about their experience or whatever else made them Feel Things about your post)” is frankly ridiculous. If your goal is to avoid any sort of engagement with your posts, then maybe try instagram instead. From what I understand, there is a SPN fandom presence there, and nobody can tarnish your original posts with unwanted commentary. But the ability to reblog with additional commentary is a FEATURE of tumblr that builds community through conversation. Otherwise we’re all just talking to ourselves in a vacuum, and that’s what actually kills fandoms.

(and for the folks who just want to blog how they want to blog and don’t want people to engage on their posts at all, please feel free to block anyone you want, as well... nobody wants to step on your toes, but most of us also don’t want to walk on eggshells wondering if this post is one of the “do not add comments for any reason” sorts of posts, either. This is a huge fandom and most people can’t even begin to keep track of every creator and their url du jour, and what their personal rules might be regarding interaction with their content. Including a “please don’t add comments” note at the bottom of your posts-- and not in your tags that won’t even show up on reblogs, but in the actual body of the post-- would sincerely help avoid any awkward or unwanted interactions, too. At the end of the day, you are in control of your own fandom experience and the block button exists.

For the record, I block zero fandom blogs (which is why I posted this, I wanted it to reach a wide scope... refer to the opening paragraphs as to why).

3. Since this post was partly inspired by a tag I left on that post going around about how “previous tags” mean fuckall on this site (which you can read here), just a reminder that if you like someone’s tags or feel they add value to the post, part of the Peer Review structure of tumblr encourages you to PASTE THEM INTO A REBLOG. If you do this, then at least credit the person who actually wrote the tags! Don’t just copy someone else’s tags into your tags on your reblog of the post without credit either. They were not YOUR tags. (I have had this happen to tag rambles I wrote and someone else got credited with them on a subsequent reblog and it is FRUSTRATING). Just... don’t even bother to write “previous tags” because WHAT PREVIOUS TAGS?! Nobody is gonna bother to chase back the chain of reblogs trying to find where the mystery tags came from, friendos. That way lies madness.

(for the record, since some folks seemed to focus on this point solely, writing “previous tags” on a post isn’t inherently a BAD thing, but for anyone who actually is here for more than one-off shitposting, then it’s sort of a pointless thing in the long run. This wasn’t intended to suggest people who ARE here for one-off shitposting are bad or “doing it wrong,” but for people who might actually want to preserve that hilarious joke or insightful comment. People delete posts and entire blogs all the time around here. Links break. I get that the upcoming generation just shrugs at that and moves on with their lives, but heck... you don’t have to accept that all entertainment is disposable if you don’t want to. There’s a bizarre sort of nihilism plaguing us all about the impermanence of pretty much everything that feels like something we should be fighting against rather than buying into wholesale, even in our escapist entertainment. I’m just exhausted by the complete loss of joy in community.

*shouts from the peanut gallery* IT AIN’T THAT DEEP, JUST GET SOME FRESH AIR AND LOOK AT A PUPPY OR SOMETHING

Yes... yes it isn’t really that deep, but bigger picture in the state of reality we’re all entirely disillusioned with, are we supposed to just give up on everything, including the things we cling to because they bring us a tiny spark of hope that we’re not all just trapped in this dystopian nightmare and things might actually be worth living for?

*peanut gallery clinging to burnt husks of peanuts in a barren peanut field* but this is how we have chosen to cope

Okay... you do you... I feel bad for you but if that’s the case then this post is NOT FOR YOU. AND THAT’S FINE. I honestly do not care if you don’t care! I mean, I’m sorry anyone has to live in a world that drives them to that mindset, but I understand. This post is for anyone who might look at their lives and their choices and think “no wait, I unironically enjoy this and want more from the experience of that enjoyment than I’m currently feeling.” Everyone else can continue with their lives as usual.)

4. CONTENT THEFT IS NEVER OKAY. PERIOD. Things like “credit to the artist” or tagging gifs or images you found on pinterest as “not mine” isn’t actually credit. If you can’t source an image or gif set, DO NOT POST IT! We don’t REPOST (i.e. save an image and then create a new post with it as if it was our own creation). We REBLOG (click the little square arrows and reblog from the actual creator). That goes for gif sets, fanvids, screencaps, meta, fic... everything.

(hopefully everyone here already understands this one, but I felt compelled to include some “these are stupidly obvious” reminders anyway, since this is ostensibly some sort of advice column. This is the equivalent of the warning label on your toaster reminding you not to use it in the bath. Like... duh...)

5. Close kin of item 4 is SOURCE YOUR SHIT. 

(for 100% disclosure purposes, I specifically discussed this one in this specific way because of an influx of anon ask messages I received in the wake of the finale. Literally the inciting incident for creating this entire post was what I can only assume was a joking ask about a comment Misha made at a con years ago. Someone actually bothered to take the time to type out those sentences to me. I have no idea what they were expecting in reply, or what could possibly motivate them to send this comment about something so entirely random from, again, several years ago. Just a joke? No idea, but whatever... it got me thinking that there might actually be people who are new to the fandom who MIGHT actually care about the fandom history, and maybe they just don’t know where to go for that info, or how to even begin searching through 16 years of history for things they might actually find enjoyment in, rather than just hauling random out of context garbage out on main and pointing and laughing about it now. People are actually allowed to care about things. It’s not cringeworthy to actually care about things, and you are not alone in actually caring, and there’s this whole big room over here full of people who are thrilled to share in that with you. This post is intended FOR THOSE PEOPLE SPECIFICALLY, so if that is not you, please just continue walking by.)

Yes, I know lots of y’all are new around here right now, but dredging up stuff from years ago that fandom has completely debunked and presenting it as TRU FAX again is just exhausting. We’re not trying to be party poopers, but seriously, we have seen it all and are mostly done with extinguishing bags of flaming dog poop on our front porches for the umpteenth year in a row. I’ve seen a lot of posts that have the same tone as “I saw Goody Proctor dancing with the devil” or “I heard kylo ren has an eight pack” and just... the information is there for anyone who cares enough to find it.

This goes double for “why is nobody talking about this thing I just discovered while watching the show for the first time?!” And, oh hon, we have talked it all into the ground over the last fifteen years. We’re happy you’re discovering it again, but I promise we talked about it plenty when the episodes originally aired. We have such a rich meta history that lots of us have worked really hard to preserve. I encourage you to seek it out, if nothing else than as historical artifacts. The way we have discussed the show has been a 16-year evolution. People have written literal doctoral dissertations on this show. Your shitposts are fun! We love reliving our own experience through fresh eyes, and seeing your wonder at experiencing it all again for the first time! But y’all didn’t invent this fandom in the last six months, either.

Meta Sources and Minerals provided by our friendly neighborhood fandom archivist, @lets-steal-an-archive

Academic books and articles about SPN 

A collection of Meta Essays going back to s1 and organized by topic (all of this has happened before, all of it will happen again)

SPN Heavy Meta Archive (s1-3)

Mel’s Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-12)

Oranges8hands Dreamwidth archive of meta (s1-15, with many similar entries to Mel’s... though ymmv on viewpoint in a lot of these too)

Anyone remember Fandom Wank? Not the concept but the actual LJ... No? Okay have a link to SPN topics that ended up there. Through 2013. We have seen so much... including several fandom containment breaches.

for all your art sourcing needs, please see @theroadsofararchive, the repository for so much fandom art.

need to find a gif of something? canonspngifs is a vast repository of gifsets of the entire series. If the gif you want to use in your post happens to be the first gif in the gifset, in the tumblr gif finder thingy just paste the permalink to that post from canonspngifs (which is easily searchable by episode, character, location, situation, quotes, and sometimes even color and clothing items the actors are wearing... it’s really well organized, especially for tumblr >.>) and the first gif will be automatically linked with credit to the gif creator attached. It makes life easy that way. It’s also convenient when trying to remember something specific but can’t remember what episode it’s from. I’ve used the site to jog my memory before going to the superwiki armed with more specific search results to find episode quotes and references. Or sometimes I just scroll through all the nice gifs for fun, too.

Need a screencap of something and know exactly which episode it’s from? Try Home of the Nutty. You might not find the exact screencap you’re looking for, but they have a complete set of caps of every episode, and it’s an incredibly useful resource for quick reference checks and the like. Just give pages a chance to fully load before clicking on the next one. The site is easily overloaded, but it’s still free to use (and again, with credit... Pretty much every screencap on my entire blog is from HotN unless otherwise credited).

As you can see, this is a fandom built on preserving our history. You absolutely are not required to engage with any of this if that’s not of interest to you, but I can only assume that there are people who would be interested in it if only they knew it existed and how to find it. Well, now they do.

6. A few more notes on tags, and how they work on tumblr. The first 20 tags on your ORIGINAL posts are searchable sitewide, so if you want to be able to find something again, tag that thing first before going on general tag rambles. The only place tags on reblogs are searchable is on your own blog. So you don’t have to put 50 tags trying to get a post seen if it’s a reblog. You’re just spitting into the wind at that point. If you have a filing system for finding things again, then by all means add those tags (again, in the first 20, so they’re searchable), but you don’t need to tag a reblog “destiel” and “deancas” and “dean” and “cas” and “dean x cas” or whatever. Pick one for your personal blog’s filing system, that’s all you need.

(this was only added because tagging and searching on this site is so very broken... I get that a lot of folks don’t care about ever searching their own blogs again for anything, so this one only really applies if you do often find yourself trying to find old posts. If not, then it’s not really relevant.  It took me years to work out a decent tagging system, and at the beginning of my time here I never thought I’d end up camping out here for a decade and falling this deep into the fandom, and I regretted my lack of consistent tags only years later when I realized I actually wanted to be able to go back and find specific old posts again. So... for anyone who wants to err on the side of caution, working out a sensible tagging system really helps if you’re here for the long term. I personally tag content by episode, because some of my other general tags are so large as to be practically useless as a search term. But whatever system you choose to file stuff on your own blog, it really only has to make sense to you. And again, if this is pointless advice for someone who has no intention of settling here for the long term. Please feel free to ignore it. I just wish someone had explained it this way to me ten years ago and saved me the hassle of retroactively tagging something like 30k posts... especially now that using the mass tag replacer is the fastest way to get your entire blog deleted... oops? so yeah, don’t use the mass tag replacer either >.>)

7. Tags on Tumblr DO NOT WORK LIKE TAGS ON TWITTER. If you @ someone in the body of the post, it will show up in their notifications (if they’re the sort of person who even checks their notifications... not all of us do. For the record, I generally don’t...), but putting actor or ship names in the tags on a tumblr post does absolutely nothing. It’s not the same as tagging the actor’s twitter account in a tweet. Nobody’s getting notifications about you tagging a post about Jensen here as “Jensen Ackles.” There is a difference. Please learn it. (and don’t take headcanons and ESPECIALLY RPF or otherwise explicit art or fic from tumblr to twitter and tag the actors in it. That’s just... not okay.)

(I have seen the pearl clutchers getting all in a huff about the mere existence of RPF or even explicit content of fictional characters if it doesn’t meet their purity standards, but tagging those things allows people who don’t want to see it to actively avoid that content here. Nobody has a right to tell people their fictional content shouldn’t exist at all, or that creators of that fictional content somehow deserve harassment or threats for having dared to create such “immoral” content, won’t somebody PLEASE think of the children... and no... you do not do that here. Don’t be the problematic behavior you wish to ban from the world. Learn to use tags to protect yourself from, as i have attempted to emphasize here, fictional content you are personally upset by. That’s a you problem, not a problem for the creators of potentially upsetting content that they tag appropriately for.)

8. General formatting stuff: If you’re writing long text posts, visually break them up so people aren’t faced with one long wall of text. The enter key is your friend. Also, if you put long text posts under a Read More break and send people to your blog to finish reading, please ensure that your blog is actually visually accessible (tiny text, or light grey text on a dark grey background, or a visually busy background might be aesthetically pleasing to you but nobody can actually read it. Loads of folks won’t even try. Which is great if you don’t actually care whether people are able to appreciate your content or not, but something to at least consider if you *do* actively want to encourage engagement with your work. Confirm how your blog looks on both mobile and desktop and make sure it’s actually functional in both, too).

And since I mentioned that most of my experience on fandom tumblr has been in the SPN fandom, here’s a bit of a reminder for folks who are new around here. With the reminder that I have been here more than a decade and still feel like a newbie myself sometimes...

This is an OLD FANDOM. There are many, many people who have been at this longer than some of you have been alive. The average age for creators in this fandom is older than you think (I think of my friends in their 30′s as young’ins okay? okay). With that understood, you are responsible for the content you consume and are exposed to. Curate your experience. Ship and let ship. YKINMKATOK. Don’t deliberately expose yourself to content you find upsetting for whatever reason. Tags and warnings are your friends, not targets for you to attack in some sort of purity war. People will ship things you do not like (or in specific ways you do not like), will say things you do not agree with, and will find their happiness in things you abhor. That is not your concern. Find what you do like, and support and engage with it, and ignore (or block, or unfollow) the rest. Tumblr has a feature that lets you blacklist tags so the content you’re trying to avoid won’t appear on your dash.

Remember the paradox of tolerance.

It is not your job in fandom to police how other people enjoy the fandom. It’s not *my* job to police how *you* enjoy the fandom, UNLESS your enjoyment is in actively harming other real human beings in the fandom. If you don’t like their take on the character or the show or the plotlines or their ships or anything else, you don’t need to engage with their posts at all! The necessary corollary to this is that clarifying misunderstandings or correcting factual misinformation is not “policing.” 

(this is where the peanut gallery reminds me it ain’t that deep, and I plead with them to put down the social media and find just one (1) thing to actually believe in in this godforsaken life, find something other than disdain and cynicism and spite to live for. If those things motivate you to find a larger cause for yourself, then great, use them to your advantage, but use them to find something that makes you a better person or brings you a modicum of joy and connection to your fellow human beings despite living in a dystopian hellscape of a world)

I have seen a lot of posts lately that are founded on the sort of authority that comes with “I watched through tumblr for a few months and then watched the last three episodes of the series” and as such are just... missing the larger context of the entire show, and are unfounded entirely in canon. I 100% appreciate the new enthusiasm for the fandom that we’ve been living in here for years, and it’s wonderful to see new people enjoying the thing we love. Your headcanons are valid, you are valid, but recognize that your headcanons aren’t canon. All of us finale denialists have accepted this in some measure, so we feel you. We truly, truly feel you. But regarding actual canon, we have a resource for that: the Superwiki. Learn it, live it, love it, as Metatron would say.

(which you could discover he said in 10.17 Inside Man, thanks to the superwiki! accept no substitutes!)

(and again, there have been people who have been involved in fandom for years who haven’t engaged with canon in years, either! You can play in this universe however you choose, BUT FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT CANON AT ALL, WHICH I AM AGAIN POINTEDLY SAYING MIGHT NOT BE YOU, READER, AND I’M NOT SUGGESTING YOU ARE WRONG FOR NOT WANTING TO ACTUALLY ENGAGE WITH CANON, but if you DO want to engage with canon, please have some useful resources. Why do people feel personally attacked by being presented a list of helpful resources? Absolutely baffling.)

(also: words have definitions. “Canon” is a specific thing, meaning in this case “the finished media product that aired on television.” Anything beyond those limits is secondary canon (think: john’s journal, which is not canon but canon adjacent at best...), word of god (i.e stuff said by the writers and showrunners), or headcanon (which includes actor commentary-- they may have helped create the show with their acting choices and whatever, but they are not in control of the story overall). If there’s something you dislike about actual canon, you can reject it and supplement it with your own theories or preferred outcomes-- that’s basically what fanfic is-- but that doesn’t make your theories canon (much to all our dismay, that’s just not how any of this works. This is not to invalidate how anyone engages with the show or the fandom, just trying to clarify what seems to have been a source of unintentional misunderstandings. Your theories do not have to be “canon” to be legitimate interpretations.)

***I am setting this section apart, and did make a separate post of just this following information, because this is where we go from being relatively chill about different parts of fandom choosing to interact in different ways and you do you and blog however you want, to “hey can everybody please understand that the way you are interacting with this specific material might be harmful for specific legal reasons, and stating that you do not care about the consequences of your actions does actively make you the asshole here...” Okay, now that we have that understood:

The spnscripthunt collective has been steadily acquiring new scripts (which are posted in full on the superwiki for everyone to enjoy, for free). The language around how some folks are talking about these scripts is... concerning. For very real legal reasons, actually, and not because we’re feeling precious about the collection and don’t wike it when meanies use them in shitposts.

-First off, these scripts are not “leaks.” They are all verified and legally purchased (or gifted, in some cases, but still acquired entirely above board. we didn’t whack anyone over the head in a back alley for these scripts, or swipe them out of someone’s trailer on set).

(in case anyone was unaware, these scripts are the copywritten protected property of Warner Brothers. So yes, how we use them and share them with the fandom could have legal repercussions. We present them as a collected resource of fandom history which SHOULD fall under Fair Use doctrine, but this is untested legal water. Insinuating that the scripts are somehow not entirely legally obtained, or that posting them for public access involved less than 100% transparent and entirely legal transactions is incredibly concerning.

Once again for the peanut gallery, if you don’t care about any of that and are just having a good time with it, at least be mindful of the work and expense a large group of people have gone through to acquire and present the content you’re all too eager to exploit for cheap thrills. Some of us do actually care and are not exactly comfortable with the fact that others don’t seem to care about burning it all to the ground. We can’t force you to listen or behave as we’d hope you might, but at least be aware of the potential consequences of your actions. All we’re asking is for you to not be the douchebag who sets the whole neighborhood on fire with your illegal fireworks display. Is that too much to ask for? more on that in a second, first... a psa)

-If you see a script for sale and are unsure if it’s legit (or believe it might already be freely available in our collection), please feel free to ask us for advice. Our goal is to make as much of our fandom history available to the entire fandom, and we absolutely do not want anyone shelling out money for stuff you can already find for free.

(seriously, we’ve seen a bunch of resellers cropping up selling printed versions of the scripts we bought and uploaded for everyone to enjoy free of charge, or scripts that are otherwise of dubious origin. We’ve been at this for years now and know what’s actually out there. We don’t want anyone to fall for a scam if we can help it)

-Also, the usual reminder that the scripts we acquire ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE FINAL SHOOTING DRAFTS. In fact, the majority of scripts in our collection are NOT. Changes are made daily to scripts, even during filming. Comparing a Production Draft (white pages, effectively the first “final draft” of what usually becomes a series of drafts before filming wraps) to a much later revision (say... green or goldenrod revisions, several of which we DO have in our collection for comparison) and how those earlier drafts often differ wildly from the aired version versus how similar a much later green draft is to the aired version, for example, can teach you a lot about the television writing process. The link above to the superwiki scripts page has a nice little explainer about how this process works.

Differences between our posted scripts (many of which are white drafts, aka FIRST complete drafts, which will likely go through multiple rounds of revisions before filming even begins) and the aired version of the show are not all “acting choices” or a director or editor just cutting whole scenes on a whim. It’s insulting to everyone involved in production to suggest that’s the case.

(and yeah, fine... whatever, make any sort of posts you like regarding how those changes came about, but at the very least understand that it’s not actually the truth about how any of this works. Don’t care that that’s not the truth and want to make the posts anyway because shitposting is fun and that’s the extent of your sense of humor? FINE! You’re entitled to do that! But at least you DO know the truth now, and hopefully so do the people who engage with your posts. Deliberate ignorance isn’t cute, smooth lions notwithstanding)

There’s probably a whole other post to be made on fandom tagging etiquette, but again I don’t really use the tags enough to know what’s going on with that whole situation. I’ve also probably left a lot of stuff out, so please feel free to add things I’ve overlooked.

Thanks also to @trisscar368 and @thayerkerbasy for help compiling this, too. They were kind enough to escort me through the park to feed these pigeons. Now I need to take them out for ice cream. :’D

So I guess welcome to the neighborhood. Make yourself at home, but like... try not to trash the place while you’re here. Some of us live here by choice, lol.

[iamafanofcartoons]

Hey observation cheesecake… you wanna know what I find funny regarding the certain “critics” part of the RWBY community… they blame team RWBY for a lot of things but seem to blatantly ignore how Ozpin is the reason everything is going wrong in the first place

For example:

Ozpin character chose to elect ironwood as his major power in atlas not because he is skilled or a good leader but because he is someone that is naive, prideful, easy to control/manipulate, and won’t ask any questions.

He could have chosen clover since he is a much better choice and is far better leader figure but most likely didn’t chose him because clover isn’t at all easy to control/manipulate and would actively question Ozpin/go against him if need be.

You know for a fact he actively avoided dealing the faunas rights situation, despite his whole purpose being to unite the world rather than divide it, leading to the white fang turning into a terrorists organization.

Raised a entire part of a kingdom into the air despite having centuries worth of knowledge regarding kings, wars, and politics that would tell him that putting all your upperclassman on floating city with incredibly hard to beat defenses with looking like a luxury, would cause a huge divide with a large social class issue.

And finally, his use of the relics, like seriously, he was given tools by gods that were meant to help unite the world but instead did jack crap with them.

And you know for a fact that CRWBY and Monty meant for Ozpin to be like this since Ozpin is literally based on Ozymandius (a ruler who in a classic quote goes by look upon my works with might and despair but what is left of his kingdom is nothing but barren desert with nothing left) and the mad king Odin (who I shouldn’t have to explain since he is pretty well self explanatory).

Not only that, the story of RWBY is literally all of Ozpin past ghosts and consequences coming down on him because instead of doing the logical job of trying to confront the problem and think of a way to fix it or at least numb the damage, he decides to run from the problem over and over again while trying to delay the inevitable.

I need to look up Ozymandius as RWBY the show uses a lot of fairy tale references.

What I like about Team RWBY is them brining optimism and new ideas to adults who were close-minded and cynical.

Ironic that every "fixing rwby" fanfic involves a healthy dose of cynicism and dislike of Ruby's optimism.

Not to mention the obsession with making ironwood and roman "morally grey".

But yes..Ozpin does make mistakes. Its why yang was angry at him in v6, along with Qrow. Oz withheld info that could have prevented Summer Rose's death along with other factors.

But he doesn't try going about what he does in a different way, instead using whatever happens as an excuse to harden his beliefs...very much like Ironwood does with everything.

However...at the end of the day, Ozpin is a male authority figure. And when it comes to young idealistic women vs male authority figures? The critics will ALWAYS choose the male authority figure. Especially in their fanfics where their fantasy involves "hurting/punishing" team rwby.

[simpz-art-stash]

Late beginnings

Summary: Mac goes out for a drink, and happens upon some advice he takes into consideration about his skewered relationship with Wukong. Before finally taking some action to mend the long burnt bridge. (Author’s note: I barely did any beta reading for this so if it’s worded strangely that’s just how I write without the normal filter on. I’m country so HOWDY) Next Page ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The night was late, but he didn’t care, he might as well have been nocturnal with the way his whole life revolved around the whole stereotype of shadows and shit. He’d walked into a bar he’d passed through a few times before, donning his human disguise of course beforehand, and walked in without sparing anyone else a glance. Before planting his rear in one of the stools seated at the front bar, ordering a drink to get the night started. “I’m really looking forward to seeing that new Monkey King movie with the trailer they just released. You saw it too right?? The whole style of the film is on par with their most recent game- OH, you think they’re gonna make a game of it?? I bet you they wiiiill!~” Ugh, great, just what he’d come here to avoid.

Mac’s eyes glanced to the blabbermouth boasting about whatever new movie was being made about his ex, to see two girls residing a ways down near the other end of the bar a few seats away from him. Both looking to have had a fair night themselves already if any of the cups and plates hanging around their spot was anything to go by. “Probably. I hope it’s better than last game that came out on the Brick 360, the bugs in that thing were gross to deal with.” Their friend commented back. Before looking down at their phone and claiming that it was getting late and that they had to go. “Yeah I’ll see ya Monday!” The chick waved their friend off a lazy farewell after they’d paid their bill before going back to their drink, now taking less tedious sips as the mood seemed to smooth out from their conversation prior. “I see someone’s a pretty big fan of that ol’ man.” Macaque piped up from where he sat, earning the attention of the stranger he’d directed his comment towards. “The Monkey King yeah?” Sparks danced in the chick’s eyes at the recognition of the name, before the stranger perked up and beamed a smile back at him, “You betcha! I’m a total nerd for that legend.” ‘A legend, hah.’ “S’the whole reason I moved to China in the first place.” She jabbed a thumb at her chest, “All the way from America!” Mac whistled, “That’s a pretty far leap to take, even for a legend. What, you hopin’ you’ll get the chance to see em’ or somethin’?” He sneered, taking his glass and lazily swirling it in his hand. “I wish!” She laughed, “Nah I mostly just moved here for work. If anything though it’s cuz a them for where I am now. I’d never even heard of him till about five years ago!” Mac blinked, lowering his drink from his lips, “You’re joking…”

“Not at all! No one hardly knows the story back home. Only reason I found out was cuz I just started gettin’ into anything monkey-related as a hobby.” She pointed at him, “Don’t laugh either, it’s a wildly popular standpoint to have these days online.” Mac quirked a brow at that, he’d hardly touched the internet these days save for whenever he needed some quick info on something he couldn’t find elsewhere. He held his hands up, “Hey I ain’t judging…” He smirked a little to betray the look that he totally was though. It was kinda funny how ironic it was him being there right then. She squinted at him, “Anyways...Yeah, I’d seen stuff of him online, but I’d never paid much attention to it up until recently.” “What made you change your mind?” Mac boredly probed, taking a sip. She simply shrugged, “I was in a dark headspace, guy made me laugh.” He paused, “Wait, seriously??” “I mean have you HEARD half the crazy shit he’s done??” ‘Babe I’ve LIVED through half the shit he’s done.’ “Like, literally, the guy is HILARIOUS. My favorite story out of them all being one where he literally tricked THREE taoist immortals into drinking his own piss!!” She burst out laughing while Mac choked on his drink a little, not having expected to hear that of all things. Sure he’d heard a few of the shenanigan’s his peaches had gotten up to throughout his journey to the west but he’d never heard that one before. Nor had he the patience to read through all that mess of context that had been published either. “Ahhh man, it still gets me…” The chick sighed with a few leftover laughs as she wiped a tear from her eye. “What about you? What’s your favorite story?” She asked. And suddenly Mac felt like he’d been put on the spot as he stared back at her. “Come ooon, surely there’s one that’s gotten your gut rolling.” She pried. ‘Plenty, but there ain’t no way in hell I’d tell a soul.’ “Bahh...there ain’t the first one that comes to mind that I’d like. Honestly I’m not even much of a fan.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Whaaat?? Aw come on! There’s tons of cool n’ funny stories!” “Heh..can’t imagine what you find so charming about a guy who’s too good for his own friends.” Mac spitefully twacked himself mentally for spewing something so personal like that out. Ugh, and he hadn’t even finished half his drink yet… The chick sitting to his left seemed to tilt her head a little before she squinted at him. Her silence being what brought his attention from his drink to her as he blinked back with a quirked brow. “What?” “Your eyes, they’re like raging storm clouds.” She pointed out. He blinked, not really sure how to feel about that. The only one who’d ever really pointed that out to him before was… “...So?” “Nothing!...” She shrugged, turning back away towards her own drink as if no conversation at all had happened between them. Whatever...he had his fill of shit to drink to either way. The night might’ve been late but he was just getting started. “He makes me laugh though.” She pointed out, earning her a glance. “All his stories n’ stuff. If there was ever a man I’d want, it’d be one who could always make me laugh.” “Hmph, not one for strength?” He took a long sip. Ignoring the bitterness of others fawning over someone he’d come to love before he’d gotten so popular. “Strength is fine n’ all, but it can only take a relationship so far..you gotta have more pieces to put in that crockpot of a relationship if you wanna make it taste good. Stuff like patience, honesty, a little bit of everything to help it all come together to make it juuuuust right.” “Hm…” “It can’t be all just you putting the stuff in there either, it’s gotta be a contribution from both gardens. Otherwise you’ll just barren your lands and be left with nothing to spare yourself or others in your life with.” She glanced at Mac, “Relationships are tricky like that, but they should always be a 50/50 split~” She winked. That...actually sounded like pretty sound advice. Something he’d heard a little here and there before but never so simply laid out. Though it made sense from his standpoint, fairness n’ all that. But he’d been that way with Wukong before and it had never worked out, all the bickering and such, so what had gone wrong? “Can I...ask you something?” Mac inquired. “Shoot.” “What’re your thoughts on..a relationship that seemed fine, but then the other changed so much that everything about it fell apart?” “Mmm...care to sprinkle in a lil more context?” The chick eyed him. Mac’s face scrunched up a little, no idea why he was asking some random mortal for relationship advice of all things. “Hey man. We’re both probably never gonna meet again after tonight, so if you’ve got skeletons in your closet, your best place to let em’ out is here. Bartenders are known for being the most well kept secret keepers in all the world after all~” She winked at the bartender in question who simply looked the other way with a look that might’ve suggested such a fact as truth. “Hm…” Ah screw it, “Alright alright…” He sighed and put his drink down, “There’s..someone. We used to be real close, we were strong together but then uh..shit got real and he had to go deal with it. But when he came back he uh, wasn’t the same as before, an I might’ve sorta assumed he was cheating on me so…so we kinda fell out.” The chick nodded, “Ahh..the classic misunderstanding of change and cheating, a tale as old as time.” She seemed to hum a moment before she turned from where she was seated, if not to hop down off her stool and plop down on the one right up next to him. “Uh-” “Shhh, lemme see those eyes.” She squinted, leaning in and staring deep into his. It’d would’ve been really unnerving if she hadn’t said anything about them before, now he was a lil put off that he might’ve been asking a witch of all things for advice… “Right. Well, at least you feel bad about it. So there’s that.” He blinked and his brows furrowed, “Wh- of course I feel bad about it, it was his fault-” He suddenly had a finger pressed to his lips. “Nope! Nooononono, you do not get to throw all the blame elsewhere like that sweetheart. There ain’t no way in hell you’re gettin’ a second chance with them if you keep that up.” She pulled her hands back. His face scrunched up and he found himself crossing his arms, if he had his tail out it would’ve been irritably swaying behind him right then at just how annoyed he was getting at this weird lady and her words. “Oh yeah? An what do you think’s best then huh?” “I dunno if you’d be up for that kinda challenge…” She idly fiddled with an imaginative piece of lint off her sleeve, which only seemed to irritate Mac further at the thought of him not being able to handle Wukong of all people. Like sure he’d gotten his ass handed to him before but he could still hold his own! “Try me.” The chick glanced back at him with a smirk, which caught him off guard for a second before he shot her a glare back. “Alright, but it’s definitely not gonna be as quick or easygoing of a recovery as you might hope it’ll be. Nor is there even a chance of you recovering it in the first place. But, you at least got that spark enough to try so who am I to deny?” ‘Hmpt, dam right I got a spark.’

“First of all, no more blaming, if you’re gonna tackle this properly, you gotta do yourselves a favor an quit it with the blame placing. Sure it’s easy, but it ain’t gonna get you nowhere but back to square one. It’s all in the past, the now is now. So push forward to fix it and put it behind you two so you can focus on the more important things.” “Easier said than done…” “Hey man, even if they don’t follow the same ruleset at first you could always work things out to make it one later on. I’m just tellin’ ya right now so you won’t just go diggin’ yourself a deeper hole.” Honestly at this point he was pretty much six feet down under, death to him would’ve been a mercy right then. “Fine…” He rolled his eyes. “Next up, apologizing…” -----------~----------- “I thought I told you to stay off my island.” Mac didn’t really glance back from where he stood high up on one of the breathtaking ledges that which Flower Fruit Mountain bolstered. His arms crossed, eyes sternly held against the leftover warmth of the late afternoon sun as it shifted the skies hues from blue to blood red. Hopefully that would be the only tinge of red the Mountain would see after today. “I know.” “What, no witty remark? Give me one good reason-” “I just wanted to talk.” Mac stated plainly. “Why the hell should I give you the chance?” “...” Mac wasn’t sure if he could come up with a good enough reason after the shitshow he’d caused him the last few centuries, most recent being his spat with him between MK. “I’m sorry.” That seemed to catch the king off guard, as he paused in his vicious glare to stare at the other. “Excuse me??” “I’m.Sorry.” Mac turned finally to Wukong, that look of fiery malice having softened immensely upon meeting their eyes. “I was wrong for what I did and I’m sorry.” Wukong’s face looked like it had had a stroke with how frozen in place it was, almost like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Hurting everyone around you just to get back at you, I was wrong for doing that. And I just wanted to apologize.” Mac’s face twisted a little, the words coming out a little rougher than he’d liked, but he’d managed to get three steps in so far… “If you think a few sorry’s are gonna be enough to make up for all that crap then you gotta nother’ thing comin Mac.” Wukong finally shook off the surprise and crossed his arms with a steely gaze. “Nah I know they ain’t worth shit with as long as it's been...which it’s been..a really, really long time come to think of it..nearly 3000 years…” Fucking yikes. “What’s your point?...” Wukong raised a brow at him. “My point is...my point..” What was his point? To make amends and hope they’d get back together? To go back to the way things were? That couldn’t be done with the way things were now. Wukong had a successor, a moral compass, a lotta shit that Mac didn’t. A lotta shit that he wanted but never could figure out how to get his own. His face scrunched up a little and he sighed, “I..just wanted to make things right.” “Oh-hoh? After so long you finally decided to admit you were at fault? Sorry Mac, but it’s waaaay too late for that.” Wukong huffed, “Honestly, this is probably just another one of your stupid tricks if anything. The old Macaque would never throw himself down like that.” “Well maybe I’ve changed!” Mac exclaimed suddenly, his temper flaring a bit as his eyes flashed lightning. “3000 years later? As if…” Wukong rolled his eyes and turned away, “You’ve still got that same look in your eyes you always do whenever we fight. Do me a favor and just keep away from the hot springs this time yeah? The last time you were here you sent a whole dam boulder over there and smashed half the pools.” He waved his hand dismissively. “And I happen to take my once a month bath’s very seriously.” Mac’s nostrils flared a little at just how flamboyant Wukong was acting towards him and his attempt to make amends. How he just saw his attempt as a joke and nothing more, it pissed him off. Wukong had changed and everyone had accepted him, well not everyone, but still, why couldn’t the same be for him? Had he really fooled himself into believing that there was a chance he and Wukong could be together again? His shoulders slumped a little. Of course, who was he kidding. A 3000 year old pit of grudges wasn’t about to just up and disappear at the wave of a white flag. This was Wukong, the same guy who still playfully pestered the gods and demons around him for past conflicts that had happened between them. -----------~----------- “But you can’t just go, ‘ooo I’m so sorry for what I did.’ Nah, you gotta follow the five steps.” The chick claimed. “Yeesh, this a learning course now?” Mac tilted his head to the side. “It is if you wanna make things right.” She claimed matter a factly. “The five steps have never failed me before and have worked wonders for any an all my relationships. Might not quite have the same range of effect you’re going for but it’ll at least be a good start.” “Heh, you got the guts to back up that case?” Mac sneered. “I will if you don’t manage to screw it up.” The chick pointed out. “The five steps go as follows.” - express sorrow (I’m sorry) - own guilt (I was wrong) - name specific wrongs (I did X) - name impact (I hurt you) “And finally...” -----------~----------- “What can I do to prove myself to you?” Macaque asked finally. “What can I do to at least make it to where we can..not fight anymore..and just talk?...” Wukong stood there for a long moment, his features unreadable as their silence was muffled by the wind bellowing between them both from being so high up. “You really are serious about this aren’t you?...” Wukong’s head shifted ever so slightly, but not enough to where Mac could get a reading on his emotions. “I’m tired of fighting and waiting and thinking that if enough time passes things’ll go back to the way they were...when they never will. Trying to hurt you isn’t gonna make the old you come back, no matter how many times you beat me down...It’ll never be the same.” Mac admitted finally. A quiet gust settled down between them, before Wukong seemed to let out a dry chuckle and shook his head. “Can’t believe it took me 3000 years to beat the sense into you.” He turned and looked back at the other, where he no longer held a look of seething hate, but more akin to that of the same tired look just as the one Mac wore. Mac felt a sliver of guilt wriggle its way into one of the cracks of his heart and he glanced away, pulling a hand back and scratching his head. “Yeah well...your kid hit me pretty hard last time, enough to knock it in place.” A small smile crept a little onto his face. “Hm~ He’s gettin’ pretty good at hittin’ stuff with that old stick.” Wukong’s eyes glinted a little at the appeal of how proud he was for MK having taken Mac out the way he did. A little over the top and flashy, just like him.” “He’s got a pretty strong master to thank for that…” Mac found himself yearning a little for that same glint to be reflected on his memory the same way as MK’s. Not that he couldn’t see himself holding the same appeal for MK the way Wukong did, kid was strong, just a lil desperate in some of the cracks that shaped his outline. Something Macaque found that was easy enough to take advantage of, and something Wukong held a blind eye to. “Hm.” Wukong’s reply pushed him out of those thoughts for the moment as they shared a brief look between one another. A glimmer of reconsideration flashing between the two before Wukong finally turned his head away to drink in the sunset before them. “One chance.” Mac felt his heart nearly stop at that answer. “I’ll give you one chance, but if you screw this up, don’t even think about showing your face to me again.” Wukong replied, “I mean it this time…” Mac swallowed a little and nodded. Anything, he’d be willing to do anything to gain back what little trust he could from Wukong. “Good...you can start making up for it by apologizing to MK.” Mac blinked and sputtered a little as Wukong turned away and began to make his way back down the mountain. A smile playing on his lips while Macaque groaned to the heavens about his next trial.

[peachbear88]

As The World Caves In

A/N: Inspired by "As The World Caves In" by Matt Maltese.

---------------

"No! Let me go!" Wanda cries as Tony drags her out of the abandoned warehouse, her desperate grasps and cries breaking your heart. You begin your speech through the comms.

"I'm sorry love. I wish I could spend the rest of my life with you but I'm afraid these few scarce minutes will have to do for now. I'll love you forever with the whole of my heart and I'll spend the rest of my bleary, semi-conscious life floating in darkness without you, thinking of how what we could've been. So Wanda Maximoff, will you please marry me?"

---------------

"It's a quick mission. In and out. Intel tells us that HYDRA has recently abandoned the warehouse but might have left some important info behind in their haste." Tony reports, you, him and Wanda sat in the Quinjet, zooming towards the location. No sense in bringing the whole team on a such a small assignment. As the jet lands, you turned to give Wanda a kiss only to notice the distressed look on her face. You squeeze her hand gently, bringing her attention back to the present. She gives you a weak smile as the door opens, giving the three of you a look at the warehouse. It's barren, broken windows and graffiti sprayed all over the building. "Wanda, Y/N, you two take the inside, I'll watch the airspace." Tony commands, his suit expanding as he takes to the air. You smile at Wanda, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.

"I'll be fine. I have you with me." You reassure her, the cool metal of the ring in your pocket burning through the fabric and into your skin. She smiles and the two of you make your way to the warehouse.

"Y/N, you take point A, Wanda, go get the info at point B." Tony instructs. You give Wanda's hand one last reassuring squeeze but she pulls you in, giving you a passionate kiss which leaves you breathless as she runs to her position.

"I'm in position." She reports. You smile to yourself, your thoughts trailing towards the ring in your pocket as you jog to your designated area.

"Same here." You scan the surrounding space. True to Tony's word, the warehouse is seemingly abandoned. Any signs of HYDRA are from weeks ago. Wait. What's that red thing poking out from the chipped cement? Your eyes widen.

"Tony, this place is rigged to blow!" You dive towards the bomb, unearthing the timer. Tony's eyes widen and he swoops towards the warehouse, crashing through the roof and landing next to you.

"God we only have 2 minutes. What do we do? From the looks of it, it's powerful enough to level this building and everything within a mile radius. Quinjet isn't fast enough to get us out, I can fly fast enough but I can only carry one person..." He paces frantically, his metal feet clanking on the floor. Wanda runs into the room happily, waving a USB stick around, completely unaware of the crushing news.

"I got the info! Let's go!" She exclaims, her tone dying down noticing the somber expressions on your faces. "What's wrong?"

You lock eyes with Tony, practically pleading. His eyes widen as he understands your intention.

"No. Absolutely not." He stands firm and you get on your knees.

"Please Tony, I'm the only one that can defuse it." Wanda watches the two of you, confusion on her face.

"Y/N, what's going on?" You ignore her, still staring at Tony. He relents, a single tear trickling down his face.

"Alright kid..." You take the ring from your pocket, placing it in his hand, swift enough that Wanda doesn't see it.

"Give it to her if I don't make it out." Wanda's eyes widen at your words.

"No wait, what are you talking about? Y/N? Y/N!" She cries as Tony marches towards her, slinging her over his shoulder as you fall to your knees in front of the bomb, watching her pound against his metal breastplate, begging him to let her go. "Y/N! Tony let me go!" He ignores her, powering up his thrusters and soaring out of the building. You wipe the tears from your eyes before turning to the bomb, removing the case. It's a rat's nest of wires, all red.

"Shit." You curse taking a shard of glass from the floor beside you. You wrack your brain. You'd never been trained for this. Wanda's cries echo through your communication device. "Tony, I'm going to cut all of them." You can hear him protest but you cut him off. "No choice. They're all red. Are you guys clear of the explosion radius?"

"Kid no, I can drop her off, fly back and get you out, don't cut anything-." You stop him.

"Tony there's not enough time! 35 seconds left. Just tell me, are you out of the god damn area?" Silence ensues and you know his answer.

------------

Wanda punches Tony. It's unexpected really. She propells herself towards the warehouse, Tony hot on her heels.

"Y/N, no!" She cries as Tony grabs her once again. You smile sadly, despite knowing she can't see you.

"I'm sorry love. I wish I could spend the rest of my life with you but I'm afraid these few scarce minutes will have to do for now. I'll love you forever with the whole of my heart and I'll spend the rest of my bleary, semi-conscious life floating in darkness without you, thinking of how what we could've been. So Wanda Maximoff, will you please marry me and make me the happiest person in the universe for the last moments of my life?" Tony drops her gently, handing her the ring. Wanda clutches it to her heart, falling to her knees.

"Yes... I will." She sobs and you smile once again.

"That's all I needed to hear. I love you." You grip the shard tighter, blood trickling down your hand and you slice all the wires. You all hold your breath for a moment and the building collapses, a blinding light escaping from the windows. Tony rushes forward, holding onto the slim hope that you might still be alive but Wanda collapses into a sobbing mess, knowing your fate. Her heart wilts, clutching the ring.

"I love you too."

-------------

Man, that song was a really great inspiration. Might've made me shed a few tears.

Taglist: @username23345 @musicinourlips @gingerbreadcookieforlife @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @trikuismybitch @ima-gi--na-tion @nicole-rayleigh-hot

[thedollface221b]

A Touch Of Magic

Pairing - Younger Neville Griffin (Misdirection - Inside No 9)/Original female character (can be read as reader insert)

Rating - Explicit - Over 18s ONLY

Warnings - soft BDSM

Summary - You get a job working as an assistant for a young Magician, but you find yourself fiercely attracted to him. Can you keep your mind on the job, or will lust win out?

Dedicated to the amazing @barkilphedros-hat for being wonderful. I ❤ you!

I searched through all the available jobs pinned on the job centre noticeboard and sighed. Absolutely nothing, yet again. I was just about to give up when I noticed a small, type-written card in the far corner. It read:

“WANTED

Assistant to a young, up and coming Magician.

Must be flexible”

Beneath that, written in red pen as if an afterthought was, in brackets:

“(Both in hours AND body!!)”

Typewritten again for the following:

“Please call Neville Griffin for more details”

Below that were two numbers, which I presumed were his landline and his mobile phone.

Scribbling down the info in my notebook, I resolved to call this Neville Griffin later that day. I had absolutely no experience at being a magician’s assistant but I had always been fascinated by magic ever since I was a little girl, and I was always being teased by my lovers by how amazingly bendy I was in bed – so why not give it a go?

______

After a brief phone call where we spoke only to arrange a meeting place and a time - his warehouse at noon the next day - I was left to wonder what Neville might be like. I couldn’t help but pre-judge him, with a name like Neville he was bound to be a total nerd, or perhaps older than he was letting on. Still, he did have a nice voice...

Whatever, I needed the work and impressing him with my appearance could go a long way... even nerds liked pretty girls and you didn’t often see a plain magician’s assistant, so I needed to look my absolute best. I spent the rest of the evening exfoliating, shaving, deep conditioning my hair, and giving myself a mani-pedi and a facial in preparation for the following day.

Despite my best efforts I slept fitfully, nerves getting the better of me. Putting on a little extra concealer to hide any dark circles my sleepless night may have caused, I finished off my make-up with a pop of cherry-red lipstick. Something a little bit daring and sexy. It paired well with the knee length, floaty red summer dress I was wearing, its sweetheart neckline giving onlookers just a peek of my décolletage.

I arrived at the road the warehouse was situated on a few minutes early so I could scope the place out. ‘Number Nine', I read off the GPS directions on my phone. It was a fairly barren looking alley, the kind of place you’d see on police shows where murders or rapes had taken place. I double checked my bag for my pepper spray and my rape alarm. All set.

Taking a deep breath and fixing a smile in place, I knocked on the door. It took a minute before I heard the heavy, metallic clank of a lock sliding back and the creak of the door opening to finally reveal Neville Griffin.

Oh.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a young, ridiculously good looking guy. His long, brown hair - just reaching his chin - framed a classically handsome face. Azure-blue eyes hid behind wire-rimmed glasses, resting on a strong nose, and his lips were a delicate pink and looked deliciously plump and kissable. He was dressed in a dark blue hoodie worn partially zipped over a red t-shirt, black jeans and a pair of black converse All Stars. All clothes of a typical guy in his late 20s.

“Oh, hello.” he said, his forehead wrinkling in confusion as if he hadn’t expected to be interrupted.

“Hi? I spoke to you on the phone last night, I’m here about the...”

“Oh, the assistant job, of course.” He wiped his hand on his jeans even though it didn’t look particularly dirty. “I’m sorry I was working and lost track of time.”

He held out the hand and I took it. It was warm and soft, with several calluses on his fingers, likely from day after day of practicing card tricks. For a guy of relatively small statue – around 5ft 7 I guessed – and lean build, he had large hands and long, thick fingers. My pussy gave a small, involuntary throb at the thought of what those fingers could do if given the opportunity. His grip was firm and I idly wondered if he was one of those guys who looked slight but was actually deceptively strong. Fuck, I had to stop thinking like that and concentrate on the interview. This guy could potentially be my Boss, not a one-night stand.

“Do come in,” he nodded, standing aside to let me enter the warehouse. It was dark, despite the overhead lighting, and the entire place was cluttered with debris of various magic tricks, boxes, notebooks and unquantifiable detritus. I noticed a zigzag lady in the corner, and a very cool looking guillotine towards the back.

Neville guided us towards two old, shoddy-looking stools placed right in the middle of the room and indicated that I take a seat. I sat up straight, my knees together and my hands placed in my lap. I had read somewhere that it was how Royalty was taught to sit, and that it was supposed to make you look more elegant and sophisticated.

Neville threw himself down on the stool in front of me, our knees almost touching. I could feel the heat emanating from his body, smell his aftershave, which was a musky, woody scent and very sexy. Jesus, I had to stop thinking like that!! Concentrate!!

“OK,” he started, “First off, are you a fan of magic?”

“Oh yes,” I said honestly, “I’ve loved it since I was a little girl.”

From his nod and smile, I figured we were off to a good start. The rest of his questions were pretty easy to answer and we fell into a casual conversation rather than a formal interview. It was looking good.

“And just one more question,” he said finally. “Do you think you can drop ten pounds?”

The flat of my palm made a satisfying crack as it made contact with his cheekbone.

“No!” he cried, clutching at his reddening face. “You misunderstood. It’s because the spaces you have to squeeze yourself into are so tiny. You need to be as small as you can possibly get yourself, that’s all.” He rubbed at his cheek. “I think you look perfect as you are. I mean fine. I mean you look...” He stopped. The other side where I hadn’t slapped was turning red now too.

“Oh.” I dropped my head, kicking myself for losing such a great job in the dying minutes. Talk about clutching defeat from the jaws of victory. “I’m sorry.”

“It's fine.” He stood and offered me his hand again. I stood too and took it.

“Thank you for seeing me.”

“It was no problem. Well, almost no problem. Can you start on Saturday?” he asked, looking almost scared in case I slapped him again.

“You mean you want me?” I asked, shocked. I couldn’t believe that I had still got the job despite screwing up so heinously at the end.

“Yes, I want you. For the job!” he clarified. Together we walked to the door of the warehouse and he showed me out into the filthy alleyway. “Saturday at 4pm. Don’t be late.”

As the door shut behind me I did a little happy dance before setting off to catch my tube. I was going to be a magician’s assistant. What the actual fuck.

_____

I wasn’t really sure what to wear to my first day as a Magician's Assistant, so I just threw on what I normally wore to yoga. Skin-tight lilac leggings with a matching sports bra and a sloppy, cropped vest in baby pink. I chose ballet style trainers as I thought they’d have the most flexibility if I had to do anything particularly bendy. I covered it all with an oversized hoody to keep me relatively decent on the tube. I didn’t fancy having my ass groped by some greasy stranger.

The door to the warehouse was slightly ajar so I just knocked on it, called out a hello and let myself in, unzipping my hoody as I walked through the cluttered space. I tossed it over some boxes out of the way. I didn’t see Neville at first, until I spotted him kneeling beside the guillotine, tightening some screws. He looked good in his dark blue jeans and navy and white striped top and I took a moment to appreciate the view. He didn’t seem to notice me at first so I cleared my throat. Still nothing. I called his name again, louder this time and he jumped, looking up at me with wide eyes, scrambling to get up while simultaneously pulling earbuds from his ears.

“Sorry I didn’t see you... hear you come in.” he said, winding the cord of the earbuds around his phone and setting it on his desk beside him.

“I'm a few minutes early,” I said apologetically.

“No, it’s... fine,” he nodded. I noticed that he was still looking down at the phone he had placed on his desk. I wondered what was so important about it. Especially as it was switched off.

“I didn’t really know what to wear so I hope this is appropriate.” I indicated to my outfit and he gave me a quick glance before looking down again.

“It's fine,” he repeated. OK, so it was going to be like that. Still, if Neville was going to be weird and anti-social it was going to make it a lot easier to not be attracted to him.

“So what are we doing first?” I asked with fake brightness, trying to lighten the mood.

“First things first,” he tapped the table three times with his fingers and then finally deigned to look at me, “Your name. We need to change it.”

“What’s wrong with my name?” I asked indignantly, crossing my arms beneath my breasts. I knew this action would push them up slightly and make them more apparent but to be honest I wasn’t really caring about that at that particular moment. Neville, however, definitely seemed to notice as his eyes widened slightly before he realised himself and forced eye contact again.

“It’s not exactly showbiz, is it? You need something with a bit of spark, a bit of pizazz. So from now on, your name is Miss Ruby Jewel.” He moved his hand through the air as if performing some mystical action.

“Ruby Jewel? It sounds like a fucking porn star, no way!” I shook my head.

“Well, I was thinking more Bond Girl,” Neville sniffed haughtily. “Anyway it's too late now, I’ve already started designing the promotional material. You'll get used to it. Besides, it goes with my ideas for your costume.”

“Oh yes, I meant to ask, where do I get my costume? Is there some sort of dress shop that caters exclusively for Magician’s Assistants?” I enquired, half joking.

“Of course not, you silly girl!” he snapped.

I jumped. While I was shocked at his outburst, I was ashamed to say that a part of me found the dominance in his voice... kind of arousing. A shiver travelled up my spine and I felt my nipples start to harden against the soft fabric of my sports bra.

Oh please God let the two layers of my bra and vest be thick enough so my erect nipples don’t show through.

No such luck. I could see them poking out through my top like two tiny pebbles.

Neville cleared his throat and continued, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been working so many long hours trying to come up with new tricks... I just need something...” He trailed off and turned away for a moment before shaking his head and turning back to me with a smile, as if the previous moment hadn’t just happened.

“There’s a local seamstress who will make your costumes couture. Although we can only afford one for now. I’ve already sent her my design ideas and so I just have to get your measurements and email them to her and she can begin.”

My heart leapt into my throat and my legs almost gave out at hearing him say that. Surely that couldn’t be right. “I’m not going to her to be measured? Isn’t that standard?”

“Doing it this way will save us time and money,” he confirmed, already picking up the tape measure from his desk. “I think you’ll love your costume. It’s going to be ruby red and adorned with lots of sequins and jewels. And you will wear red lipstick like the one you had on during your interview, as that was...” He paused and swallowed hard. “Sufficient.”

“Does it have to be so... gaudy?” I asked, my nose wrinkling in distaste as he measured my height and my body length.

“We need you to be as bright and flashy as possible.” I quivered slightly as he fastened the tape around my waist. We were practically nose to nose, except he was looking down to read the numbers on the tape. I could smell his aftershave again but this time I was close enough to also smell his shampoo and his soap. He smelled clean, with that same woody, musky scent from before, but with a hint of coconut from the shampoo. Heady, sexy and inherently male.

My pussy was throbbing again, despite me telling myself that this was my Boss and nothing could ever happen. Unfortunately my body didn’t want to listen to my brain and continued to send signals of arousal south. I could feel myself getting wet already. Fuck, this was bad.

He whipped the tape away and stood back, and already I missed the heat from his body.

“The reason Magicians use beautiful female assistants in bright outfits,” he began, rolling up the tape, “is because we want the audience to be watching them here...” he waved his empty hand around in the air in front of me, “while the magic is happening over here!” He clicked the fingers of his other hand, then opened it to reveal that the tape had disappeared. “Classic misdirection.”

“I’m impressed!” I laughed, applauding. “OK so where is it?”

He leaned in and for a split second I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead he brought the tape out from behind my ear where it had supposedly been hiding. The disappointment of not being kissed must have shown on my face because he said “What, the old ‘behind the ear’ gag not good enough for you?”

“No, it’s great, really.” I faked a smile. “But we should get on, don’t you think?” I wanted this torture over with as soon as possible. Still, Neville had called me a ‘beautiful assistant’. That was something at least.

“Yes, quite right.” he agreed. “I just need to do your... ah... your top area.”

Wait, did he mean my bust? Was Neville really going to put that mother fucking tape around my breasts? Fuck!

Awkwardly he put his arms around me as I stood frozen to the spot like a statue, my arms stretched out wide either side of me like wings. I didn’t even dare breathe. After fumbling with and dropping the tape twice, he finally got it around the largest part of my breasts, touching the two parts of the tape together as quickly as he could. His knuckles brushed against my still painfully erect nipples so there was no possible way he couldn’t have noticed them. The movement was sending little zings of pleasure through me and I had to clamp my lips shut so as not to accidentally moan out loud.

I noticed that his hands were trembling and when his eyes met mine for a moment I could see how large and dilated his pupils were. Wait a minute... was it possible that he was finding this just as arousing as I was?

“OK, got that,” he mumbled, letting the tape drop to the floor and rushing over to his desk to jot down the details. “I’ll email those details to Sarah tonight and she can get started on your costume first thing tomorrow. I’ll give her your number and she can call you when she wants you to come in for a fitting.”

“Sounds good,” I said, eying up the bottle of whiskey sitting on Neville's desk. God I could really use a drink right now. But that wouldn’t be very professional and I was already walking a very thin tightrope there. Instead I went over to my bag, got my bottled water and took a long slug, hoping it would cool my ardour as well as my body.

The rest of the evening was spent explaining to me how most of his bigger tricks worked and what I would be expected to do as an assistant. I was actually quite excited to begin learning how to perform properly.

“We'll have our first proper rehearsal on Monday, but we’ll take it slow and I’ll just walk you through a few tricks to start with using the actual props,” Neville was saying as he walked me to the door. “Nothing too difficult at the beginning, maybe the zig zag lady, or I could saw you in half, show you the Rope escape...”

“That all sounds great. Well, bye then,” I waved, fighting the urge to grab him and kiss him goodbye.

“Bye, see you on Monday,” he smiled, and my stomach did a backflip.

______

I lay in bed that night thinking back to everything that had happened that evening. Remembering Neville’s touch, the way his knuckles brushed against my sensitive nipples, the intoxicating scent of him. Fucking hell, I was so aroused!! If I didn’t do something to take the edge off I would never sleep. Fumbling in my bedside cabinet I found a small bottle of lube and my trusty rampant rabbit vibrator.

I let my imagination run wild as I switched on the pink silicone device. I closed my eyes and pretended the long, thick dildo section was really Neville's cock as it stretched me open, and the tiny little ‘ears' buzzing rapidly against my clit and sending electric shocks of pleasure through me were really his fingers working me to orgasmic bliss. I recalled his domineering attitude from earlier and quickly made up a fantasy scenario in my head where I kept getting the trick wrong and he was shouting at me that he was going to have to punish me, that every time I made a mistake he was going to have to fuck me until I learned to get it right.

I came hard and fast, his name on my lips.

I felt dirty once the afterglow had worn off, and not the good kind. Neville was my employer and no matter how attracted to him I was, I shouldn’t be getting myself off thinking about him like that. Even if it was the best orgasm I’d had in a long time.

I turned over on my side and fell into a broken, troubled sleep, full of crazy dreams about being sawn in half, and Neville leaving me there, carrying the bottom half of the box away with my bottom half still inside it. OK, surely that had to be some sort of weird sex metaphor.

______

Monday came around quickly and I was back at the warehouse. Despite telling myself I wasn’t interested in impressing Neville, I had dressed in one of my cutest vest tops - a tight black ribbed number - and a short, ice-skater style skirt in a bright, ruby red fabric. It was probably totally impractical for what we would be doing but I figured I could always claim I was trying to match my new name if Neville made any comments about it.

As it turned out he simply gave me a quick glance up and down and then told me he was leaving to run a few errands but would be back soon, and that I should pick up a deck of cards and practice shuffling them while he was out.

After almost 45 minutes I got bored of shuffling and started to poke around the warehouse, snooping in drawers, looking through boxes, peeking in notebooks. Nothing was particularly interesting, until I opened the bottom drawer of his desk. There, hidden amongst papers and decks of cards, was a box of condoms, still unopened in its cellophane wrapper.

Why Neville, you sly dog.

Of course there was nothing to say the box was new. He could have bought them ages ago, stuffed them in there and forgotten about them. They could even be for some kind of trick. But maybe, just maybe, he had bought them since I arrived, and that could be confirmation that he liked me back.

I closed the drawer just in time as Neville came back into the warehouse. “What took you so long?” I pouted. “There’s only so much card shuffling a gal can do.”

“I do expect you to be fully proficient.” He grabbed the cards and shuffled them like I’d only ever seen Blackjack dealers in Casinos do, with lots of fancy cuts and flips. OK, so that was impressive.

“Can we start working on an actual magic trick now?” I wheedled, my hand in a light grip on his arm for that little extra peer pressure.

He was staring at where my fingers massaged the bare skin. It was unusual to see him without his hoody – I remembered he had left wearing it but now he was just in his black t-shirt and light blue Levis.

“Fine, let’s do the rope escape,” he said after a moment. I let go to allow him to cross the warehouse to get the correct prop he’d need. It was a large wooden X style cross about 6 foot in height and behind that was a slightly taller pole. At the top of that pole was another rectangular pole coming off it, rather like one that would hold a shower curtain. Only this pole held a thick, dark blue velvet curtain that could be raised and lowered at will.

“Let me explain how it works,” Neville began, wheeling the entire contraption into place. “You will stand in front of the cross and I will take the rope from where it is already tied off at the back here, loop it around one ankle, then the other, then up to your wrist, then the other, and then back down to tie it off tightly again. A member of the audience can come up to verify you’re securely fastened in.”

We moved around to the back. “But the secret is that this lever here can turn and give you just enough slack to get out. So the trick goes that I tie you up, I pull the curtain up, I twist this and free you and I climb in to take your place, you twist it back to tighten the ropes again and pull the curtain down to reveal that we’ve switched positions.”

He looked at me to make sure I was following. I nodded - it all seemed pretty simple.

“With practice we can get it down to a matter of seconds to make the switch.” He snapped his fingers on the word ‘seconds’ for extra emphasis.

“Can I try?” I asked.

“Of course,” he nodded, almost proudly, as if he was pleased to see that I was so keen. I lined myself up against the cross, both arms in the air and my legs open wide in an X shape. Neville expertly looped the rope around each limb, loosely to begin with. “Are you OK for me to tighten it?” he asked. I gave a quick nod of acquiescence and the rope immediately snapped tight against my wrists and ankles, causing me to let out an involuntary gasp. He tied it off at the back and came around to stand in front of me.

“How does it feel?” he enquired. I noticed his voice was gruffer than before. “Can you free yourself?”

I twisted against the nylon rope in vain. “No, I’m well and truly trapped.” I confirmed. There was nothing I could do to free myself. I was totally at Neville’s mercy. And oh fuck if the thought of that wasn’t a massive turn on. My clit throbbed, and I wondered if I dare push the envelope with Neville. If I was right about the condoms, he wanted something to happen between us and this might be the perfect opportunity to test the waters. But... if I was wrong, I could lose everything.

“I feel so vulnerable like this,” I said breathily, my voice dripping with submissiveness. “You could do absolutely anything to me and I couldn’t stop you.” I sucked in my bottom lip and looked up at him coyly through my lashes.

Neville let out a long, shaky breath and stepped towards me, placing his left hand on my hip.

“Anything?” he asked, his voice cracking a little. We both knew exactly what question was really being asked in that one little word.

“Anything... Sir.” I confirmed. And with that his entire demeanour shifted. Any trace of nerves were gone, and the dominant Neville I so fantasised about took over.

“Do you know the traffic light system?”

“I do,” I nodded. It was on.

His fingernails dug into the soft skin of my hip even through my skirt. I’d probably have bruises there later and I’d wear them like a badge of honour.

“I already had to take a very uncomfortable walk home this morning with my hoody tied around my waist to hide my hard-on, thanks to you coming into work dressed like a little whore,” he sneered at me. “I think we’re going to have to have a very serious talk about professionalism in the workplace.”

The hand that had been on my hip suddenly disappeared, only to reappear with a hard smack on the side of my buttock, the only part of my ass that was accessible. I gasped at the sharp sting and then moaned with arousal as the flesh burned. Another smack, only this time he slipped his hand under my skirt and groped at the still-smarting globe of muscle over the satin of my underwear.

“I’m sorry, Sir.” I moaned, wishing that I could cross my legs and put some pressure on my almost painfully throbbing clit. But I was still bound and completely at Neville’s mercy.

He stared at me, eyes fiery, licking his lips like a wolf licking its chops before devouring its kill. He obviously enjoyed me calling him Sir, the light blue of his tight jeans doing nothing to hide the thickening outline by the inseam of his right thigh.

He must have noticed me staring at his hardening cock, as he palmed at it with his right hand, admitting, “I already came once today thanks to you, you little slut.”

“Yes Sir,” I gasped, trying to push my pelvis forward to give him more access to my ass, his fingers kneading into the hot flesh. But I needed more!

He moved behind me and I could hear him searching through the drawers. “The good thing about being a magician,” he smirked, coming towards me with a small pair of scissors, “is that I can make anything disappear.” He reached up beneath my skirt and with two simple snips my underwear came away in his hand. He slipped the scraps of black satin and lace into his jeans pocket.

Because I still had my skirt on I wasn’t actually exposed, but because of my stance, my legs spread open so wide, I felt more naked than I ever had.

“This too.” He placed the scissors at the bottom of my vest and slowly began cutting. I protested at first but that earned me another spank.

“Sorry Sir,” I apologised. Just knowing that I was completely under his control was making me so aroused that I could actually feel my wetness begin to drip down my thighs. He cut the vest away completely, leaving me in just my sports bra and tiny skirt. At least the bra zipped at the front so he wouldn’t have to cut that.

He set the scissors and fabric scraps on the desk and came back to stand before me, eying me hungrily. “Please Sir,” I moaned. “Touch me.”

Agonisingly slowly he clicked the zip on my bra down, tooth by tooth as I writhed against the ropes. Finally my top was completely open, and he took one of my hardened nipples into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the hot, pebbled skin. His hand massaged the other breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. I groaned at being touched at last, my hands clenching in empty fists as lightning bolts of pleasure ran through my body.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he mumbled against the skin of my chest as his free hand found its way to my upper thigh. He rested it there for a moment and I whimpered, desperate for him to touch me more intimately.

“When I’m ready,” he scolded, biting my nipple as punishment.

“Yes, Neville.” He looked up at me through his impossibly long lashes with an angry look on his face, and I knew exactly what mistake I’d made. “I mean Yes Sir, I’m sorry Sir,” I gasped out, feeling my whole body flushing with arousal.

“Good girl,” he purred.

Torturously slowly, his fore and middle fingers traced a line across the smooth skin of my upper thigh, up under my skirt and then dipped down into the crease of my hip. He explored further still until he came to the delicate fold between my thigh and outer lip, where my juices had already dripped down.

“God, you’re soaked!” He sounded astonished that I could be so wet only from what we had done so far.

All I could do was moan in agreement, straining to try and force his fingers to slip closer to my clit. Thankfully he didn’t make me wait any longer and slid the two fingers either side of my dripping hole, collecting as much of my fluids on his thick digits as he could while still avoiding entering me, before at last rubbing his fingertips over that hot little bundle of nerves at my core.

I jerked and cried out at finally being touched.

“Easy, baby,” he cooed in a voice one might use to soothe a startled horse, all the while still rubbing circles on my clit. “I’ve got you.”

The ‘fuck’ that slipped out of my mouth was practically a sob. Neville really did have magic hands and I could already feel the beginnings of an orgasm building deep inside me.

It was killing me that I couldn’t reach out and run my fingers through his hair, but being tied up was turning me on more than I could have ever imagined it would.

“So fucking wet...” Neville moaned into my neck as he kissed down it, and I gasped as he suddenly pushed both fingers into my pussy without warning. The hot stretch of it felt so amazing and I just wished I could clamp my legs around him and grind into it. As it was I tried to tighten my muscles around him as much as I could. His thumb continued to work my clit and the tight ball of electricity started to grow deep in my stomach. Fuck, I was close.

“Gonna cum,” I gasped.

The thumb withdrew. I groaned in frustration and displeasure. I had been so close!

“You cum when I say so, babygirl.” he said assertively, biting and sucking at my collarbone as he slowly pumped his fingers in and out of me.

Finally the thumb returned and my pleasure built to a crescendo again. I couldn’t help myself, I moaned out, “Please Sir, let me cum!”

“As you asked so nicely,” he smirked. “Cum for me.”

I closed my eyes and allowed the white heat of my orgasm to overwhelm me, crying out as the waves of pleasure flooded through me, over and over and over.

Finally I blinked my eyes open, my body heavy and satiated. He was holding me up, as my legs could not do it for themselves and he didn’t want the rope to cut into my wrists. Reaching around behind me he pulled the lever to loosen the ropes and helped me to step out of the bindings, as I was wobbling like a new-born deer. Then he lifted me up and carried me to an old chaise lounge in the corner with half its stuffing missing.

“Are you OK?” he asked, checking my wrists and ankles for chafing. Thankfully there was none.

“I’m fine,” I answered honestly. “But what about you?” I nodded towards his crotch, where his very obvious erection was still waiting to be taken care of.

Once he knew I wasn’t hurt, dominant Neville came out to play again.

“Oh my sweet little babygirl, don’t worry,” he smiled, “I fully intend to take you.” He grabbed me by the neck to pull me into a deep kiss. I realised that despite him just giving me the most amazing orgasm, this was actually the first time we had kissed! His powerful tongue probed against mine, his hands roaming over my mostly naked body. Finally, with my own hands free I could touch everywhere I wanted to. They raked through his hair, across his back, cupping his tight buttocks. I was in heaven.

He stopped the kiss after a few minutes and stood up to pull off his T-shirt and jeans, while I slipped out of my last remaining pieces of clothing. I lay back and admired the view in front of me, this beautiful man all mine, his huge cock erect and already leaking pre-cum just for me.

He leaned down to kiss me again and then with one hand flat on my chest, forced me to lie back on to the chaise lounge. Both of us were now fully naked, our bodies shining in the dim light of the warehouse.

He reached down into the back pocket of his discarded jeans and pulled out a condom that he must have stashed there earlier when he was getting the scissors.

“Ready?” he asked, tearing open the foil and carefully rolling the prophylactic down his thick shaft.

“Yes Sir, please take me. I need you.”

His beautifully reddened, kiss-bitten lips twisted into a satisfied smile and he laid his full bodyweight on top of me, the blunt head of his cock resting against my dripping entrance. He teased me for a moment by circling the flushed cockhead around the hole before finally breaching my tightness, just with the tip at first. I let out a long, low moan at the delicious stretch and wrapped my legs around his back, trying to force him into me more quickly.

“Ah ah ah!” he scolded, his left hand flying to my neck. He squeezed lightly in punishment, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle so I didn’t need to use any of the safe words. “At my pace, little Princess.”

I kept my legs around his waist but I ceased any attempts to pull him closer. I threw my head back and mewled as he finally started to push himself in fully, enjoying that deep burning sensation of being completely filled. He bottomed out and began to thrust slowly inside me, drawing himself all the way out to the tip and then sliding back in again.

It was like sweet, divine torture. He obviously had no intention of rushing this, each stroke brushing against my G spot just enough to start building my orgasm but not enough to actually make me cum.

He kissed and nibbled at my throat, working his way up my neck to suckle on my earlobes which made me shiver with delight. I could feel my skin prickle with goosebumps as his tongue worked its way down again, finally ending up at my breasts. My nipples hardened in response and he sucked one into his mouth, his warm saliva leaving a trailed string from the pebbled skin to his bottom lip for a moment when he pulled away.

I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him down to kiss me again, and as we kissed his thrusts began to speed up. We moaned into each other’s mouths, the arousal building for both of us. He reached down between our writhing bodies and started to finger my clitoris again, and I groaned loudly as immense pleasure overtook me. Neville was grunting with the effort of fucking me now, his thrusts growing more frantic and erratic.

My second orgasm was building, the tight knot of pleasure in my core growing as Neville’s cock brushed my G spot with every stroke, and his fingers expertly worked my clit.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” I announced, my eyes fluttering closed, stars behind them in my vision.

“That’s it, cum for me my good girl,” he praised. “So fucking beautiful.”

I let the orgasm wash over me, pure pleasure spiking every nerve in my body until everything turned white and I shuddered in Neville’s arms.

“Jesus, uh, fuck,” Neville groaned, and I felt him stiffen, then he too shuddered as he came inside me, his cock twitching as he unloaded into the condom. After a moment he collapsed on top of me, completely spent.

We lay there for a few moments until the chill made me shiver. Neville stood up and turned away to dispose of the condom, seemingly embarrassed for me to see him do the ‘clean up’. Then he grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge and a blanket that had been thrown over some boxes in the corner, and came back to the chaise lounge, throwing the blanket over the both of us.

“Are you OK?” he asked me, handing me the water. I took it gratefully and took a long drink. He did likewise and then set the bottle aside.

“I am,” I smiled, snuggling into his arms. Even though the dominant Neville was a huge turn-on, I was glad that he knew how to do the aftercare as well. “So what does this mean for us?” I asked, even though I was terrified of the answer. “Was this a one-off, or...”

“No!” he said, a little to quickly and loudly. “I mean, if you want us to... I’d like... do you want to go out? I’ve always thought you were attractive.”

“Same,” I smiled, relieved that he wasn’t just using me as a one night stand. I wanted to be with Neville. He seemed like a really nice guy, and they had been few and far between lately.

“So do you actually want to go out with me?” I asked, reaching a hand up to curl it affectionately through his hair.

“I do,” he confirmed.

“So... a proper date,” I mused. “How about tomorrow night?”

“That sounds great,” he smiled, taking the hand that had been in his hair and kissing it. “Oh, but I’ll have to take a rain check I’m afraid. I’ve got a magician coming round tomorrow night to show me a trick I’m interested in buying.”

“Oh right,” I replied, feeling a little bit annoyed, but understanding that work needed to come first. “Who’s the Magician?”

“Some old guy called Willy Wando,” he said. “But it probably won’t come to anything.”

Even if Neville didn’t hold out much hope, I had a funny feeling this trick was going to change his life.

[threequeensss]

why taka’s ultimate isn’t useless

spoiler warning for trigger happy havoc and taka’s free time events!

HIHI SORRY FOR THE LONG INTRO SKIP TO THE SECOND PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT ,, ok lol so i only make an original post like maybe once a year AT BEST so here we go,, anyway, i’ve seen a lot of posts on tiktok, instagram, etc. saying that taka’s ultimate makes the least sense or that it’s a “useless” ultimate. maybe it’s because he’s my favorite DR character overall (which may be surprising if you don’t know me considering how barren my blog is of taka content), but after thinking about it a lot, i personally disagree with that and here’s why. (side note: i know the original translation of his ultimate is shsl public morals committee member, this is an analysis of his ultimate overall, not just the way the english dub titles it, so it can be applied to any translation :) )

most criticisms i’ve seen surrounding his ultimate is that it’s not a real ultimate or that it doesn’t have any practical use. a moral compass one’s means of distinguishing right from wrong and to follow the morally “right” path. taka is the ultimate moral compass, meaning he quite literally acts as a moral compass, guiding his peers. on the surface level, we see this through him scolding the other students for having dyed hair (leon), heavy makeup (mukuro presenting as junko), or for students sharing a room (aoi and sakura). sure, at first glance, this may seem like a silly or pointless ultimate, but if you talk to taka during free time, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s so much more than monitoring halls and scolding his classmates for acting like teenagers.

let’s talk about why taka behaves the way he does and why his ultimate is, in my opinion, perfect for his character. we can trace this back to his grandfather, a disgraced prime minister of japan and a “genius.” his grandfather abandoned his morals as one of the most influential people in the world, effectively shaming the ishimaru name and sending the family into enormous debt that would haunt them even after the former prime ministers’ death. through the way taka explains it and how upset he gets when a well-meaning makoto calls him a genius, unwittingly implying that taka and his grandfather are similar, it becomes abundantly clear that his grandfather’s scandal tears him up inside every day. he’s ashamed to be related to such a morally questionable individual and wants nothing more than to repair his family’s reputation, to step out of the enormous shadow his grandfather cast. 

taka’s way of doing this is for everything about him to be inherently “good,” so that the ishimaru name is no longer associated with scandals and disgrace. this is why he sacrifices any sort of self-indulgence (only wearing his uniform, staying away from popular media, etc.), to remain as seemingly “good” and unquestionably “morally upright” as possible. being a model student and leading the public morals committee are the most immediately accessible ways for him to begin repairing his family’s reputation, alongside guiding his classmates (whether they asked for it or not). this isn’t meant to be a commentary or judgment of the way he interacts with others, but he’s definitely not critical of others just for the sake of it. he genuinely wants to make the world a better place due to his trauma and his own ambitions, which i’m about to delve into next. 

ok so. now that i’ve dumped enough info that hopefully explains his personality and motivations, i’m going to talk about why i believe his ultimate is useful and deserves to be recognized as a legitimate ultimate by the fandom. the most obvious cases are when he takes on a self-appointed leadership role at the beginning of the killing game. if i remember correctly (i haven’t played thh in a hot minute), it was taka who had the idea of the morning breakfast meetings, and he was also the first to suggest that everyone announce their secrets at the beginning of chapter 2 to undermine monokuma’s motive. the latter example was unsuccessful given the events that proceeded, but it was him using his ultimate and position as a leader to the best of his ability. 

i understand that this next part is debatable as to whether or not it applies to his ultimate since it’s his untapped potential more than anything, but i personally believe it’s a central part of it so,, here we go! i feel like it’s pretty much agreed that despite being “super high school level,” an ultimate shouldn’t be a skill that someone can just drop after graduation. it should be able to be applied to the real world and society as a whole, hence why they’re at hope’s peak academy. it may seem like taka’s ultimate doesn’t hold up in the real world, since he’s the president of a high school club, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. taka already plans to use his ultimate after graduation to become prime minister and establish a meritocracy. 

taka has a vision of a society where it’s an equal playing field for everyone so that individuals can build their lives through their own effort, so the history pertaining to his grandfather can’t repeat itself. (this part is meant to analyze taka’s ambitions and the reasoning behind them, not meritocracies as a whole!) he has been so badly burned by immorality and the concept of geniuses (side note. his disdain for geniuses and ambition to create a society without them reminds me SO MUCH of edelgard’s ambitions from fire emblem. anyway sorry abt that) that he has chosen to take it upon himself to one day reinvent society. he wants to use his experiences and sense of justice, or moral compass, to better the lives of other people. if he has proven to effectively use his ultimate within whatever situation he’s in and has a dream pertaining to his ultimate that will take him far beyond his high school years, then i don’t think it’s fair to call it “impractical” or “useless.” 

taka’s ultimate title may not have the same immediate wow-factor as the ultimate programmer or ultimate pop sensation, but it’s not meant to, taka regards himself to be an average man ! he acts as a guide for those around him and truly wants to make the world a better place. all of these examples can be traced back to his ultimate, which in my opinion, is SUCH an interesting concept and has too much potential to be called useless. 

if you’ve made it this far, tysm and i’m sorry. if anyone has any thoughts at all, please don’t hesitate to share!! i’m the only taka stan i know lol

[bells-of-black-sunday]

Hell overview

This is organized by a brief summary then organization with sub headers for each layer (Pride being the most important with it’s own power structure)

While many versions of a place called Hell exist, Lucifer’s was made by himself as a safe haven for those that fall from Heaven. It is not where the dead go automatically if they commit sins, people’s souls are sorted by God into which place they deserve to be in the universe whether it be reincarnating, moving to a different soul planes (like Heaven) or ceasing to be entirely. Hell is mainly populated by descendants of those who first fell during Lucifer’s rebellion in Heaven, each one branching into it’s own unique species.

How hell is organized

Hell is separated into 8 layers, 7 for the deadly sins and 1 buffer zone mainly used for housing, each one is expanded upon as the population grows. This makes certain layers like Gluttony bigger than sin layers like Envy. Each layer has their own uses and population, even if the buffer zone is primarily housing. Each layer can be accessed through various bridges and teleporters, none are really off limits to anyone.

Layer of Pride

The pride layer is unsurprisingly primarily where royalty live, people here dress to the nines in wonderous handcrafted garments s from across the known worlds. Everyone is trying to show off just how much better they are than everyone around them, it’s primarily ruled by 7 major birth lines. (Mephistopheles, Leviathan, Lilith, Belphegor, Beelzebub, Mammon, and Abaddon) Constant political struggle among demon royalty constantly makes life in this layer uncertain especially as smaller resistance groups hoping to make a name for themselves are starting to pop up more frequently.

 Layer of greed

The layer of Greed is where all the money is at, it primarily deals in souls like all places in hell, but this is where the vast wells of them are stored as well as various entertainment industries and casinos. It’s a vacation spot for most, but there are demons that call this chaotic layer home though most belong to the Wealth of Mammon.

Layer of Lust

The layer of Lust is primarily a red light district, mainly home to the succubi and incubi and their various duties both sexual and not. This is the birthplace of demon kind, it’s where most demons are made and succbi and incubi being compatible with all demons, this is where you can hire out surrogates and donors for those that are unable to have kids and want them.

Layer of envy

The layer of envy is the primary fashion market, people who live here are constantly striving to have the best thing that month and envying those that do. It’s a very toxic layer making it the most barren save for a few who thrive in such environments or the order of Leviathan’s plotting.

Layer of Gluttony

The layer of Gluttony is primarily a party and work layer where most of the food is made and stored. It’s not uncommon for their to be lavish feasts or the fountains to run with wine. It’s quite the lively layer with one of the biggest populations though the self indulgence of Beelzebub certainly get first pick of all festivities.

Buffer zone / Hellish Planes

Primarily for housing, but also a great spot for hunting as it’s wide open fields span as far as the largest layer and expand as it does. Majority of demon kind lives here and moves to hte layers they need to for work or play.

Layer of Wrath

The layer of wrath is the power house of Hell, it’s a military district home primarily to Abaddon’s armies, but also other birth lines as well. It's considered a great honor to serve in this layer, though it’s undeniably hard depending on your station. 

Layer of sloth

The layer of Sloth is where a lot of things go on in the shadows. It’s the quietest layer, but no one will come looking if something goes wrong in the night. This is where the Lethargy of Belphegor primarily do their work, feasting on dreams to get as much info as possible before they sleep all day and repeat the next night.

[coffintownkids]

I've had enough of being a mopey bitch today!

So I finished Ch.33 instead.

It's a great “atmosphere” chapter in that we have arrived in Yì City. (Also why, officially, I’m not actually translating it as Yì City throughout - though I am probably too lazy to fix my own tagging system on this site lol!)

This might help any fic writers out there looking for more location info beyond what could be gleaned from the show. Or at least I hope it does.

The chapter opens with this:

Shǔdōng was home to a number of river valleys screened in by tall mountain peaks. Its terrain was rugged and unforgiving with scant wind. It was why much of the area remained shrouded in fog all year round.

So, a bit of set up first. WWX and LWJ pass through a very rural little village on their “body part quest” and are trying to figure out where the hand is pointing them. The stone slab serving as a direction marker is cracked so they can’t read the first character. WWX ends up gaining some intel from the locals.

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “This road leads to Yì Town. The first character on the stone slab is ‘yì’.”

Lán Wàngjī said, “Yì as in chivalrous?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “It is, and it isn’t.”

Lán Wàngjī said, “What do you mean?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “It is indeed that character, but the meaning is wrong. It’s not the yì in chivalrous, but rather the yì as in coffin home.”

As you can see, this is a bit hard to convey in English. The character being talked about for yì is 義 (义 in simplified Chinese, though it is referencing the more complicated traditional character here, which is why they couldn’t read the broken stone). The word for chivalrous LWJ mentions is written as 俠義. WWX corrects him and says it’s a coffin home 義莊.

Now, a bit of an explanation. Coffin homes were real places used in older times as, for lack of a better term, like equal part morgues and funeral homes. Dead bodies would be stored here while awaiting transport to where they were to be buried (ie person died in village A but their family’s ancestral graves are in village B, so the body would have to be brought there.) They were also used to store bodies of those whose relatives couldn’t be found or the bodies of those too poor to afford funeral services.

Wèi Wúxiàn continued, “A few of the ladies were saying for as long as anyone can remember, six or seven people out of every ten dies prematurely in that town. They either have a short life or a violent death. There are quite a lot of coffin homes within the town to store the bodies. Put that together with that they specialize in coffins, ritual paper money, and other funerary offering objects. Regardless of whether people make coffins or bound paper, the craftsmanship is exquisite. That’s why it’s called by this name.”

Going forward, as it’s meant to be read as a nickname, I’ll be translating it as “Coffin Town.” Notice I used town and not city? That’s because 城 (chéng) can be read as town or city. Based on what we learn about the place, while it seemed to be a decently-sized place compared to the village they just visited and at one point had some prosperity, it seems more “town-sized” than “city-sized” overall. And that, my friends, is where my url comes from!

When the left hand drew itself into a fist, a dilapidated town gate emerged at the end of the main road. The edge of the wall was missing tiles and some paint. A corner had fallen off. It was an exceptionally dilapidated-looking blight. The walls had graffiti from who knew what people scrawled all over it. Its red gate had nearly faded white, its nails rusted black. Its double doors hadn’t been closed securely and looked as if someone had pushed them open just wide enough to slip inside.

Even without entering, it gave people the sense that this was a haunted place where demons ran wild.

While Wèi Wúxiàn was walking along, he was constantly taking in his surroundings. When they arrived at the gates, his assessment was, “The fēng shuǐ is really lousy.”

Lán Wàngjī slowly nodded along, “It’s inhospitable here.”

Coffin Town was surrounded on all four sides by steep mountain cliffs with their slopes inclining sharply towards their centers. They were an overwhelmingly intimidating presence and looked as if they could come crashing down at any moment. Completely enclosed by gigantic pitch-black mountain cliffs and filled with wretched fog, it was more of a supernatural creature than actual supernatural creatures. Just standing within it made a person’s chest tighten and heart race as its intensely threatening aura suffocated them.

From time immemorial, it has been said that “a place reflects the glory of its people.” The opposite is also true. Some places, due to its terrain and location, have poor fēng shuǐ and stagnant energy lingers. The people that lived there were prone to having short lives that would end far too soon. Everything would go wrong. If one’s ancestors had taken root here, even their bones would rot. Moreover, these places were often breeding grounds for the paranormal. The probability of corpse transformations, phantoms, returning spirits, and other such events occurring were several times higher. It was obvious that Coffin Town was such a place.

So Coffin Town sure is scary! One little translation point about LWJ saying the place is inhospitable. His line is 山穷水恶, which is a bit unusual. It’s usually written as 穷山恶水. It more literally means “barren mountains and foul water” so an inhospitable place. Not sure if there is significance in the word order being changed. Though it did make me think of another similarly-written idiom. 山穷水尽 meaning the mountains are barren and the river’s run dry. Aka there’s nowhere else to go. So without getting too much into fēng shuǐ, it is the idea of keeping everything in harmony. So with this place having bad fēng shuǐ, LWJ can also mean that there’s nowhere for the bad energy (恶) to go. I might be overthinking this bit here, but LWJ is famous for being a man of few words and still manages to convey an awful lot.

The pair walked right up to the gates and exchanged a glance with each other.

“Creeeeak,” they undertook the extremely heavy load of the misaligned gate doors and slowly opened them.

What they saw before them wasn’t the heavy bustle of traffic, but they also weren’t assaulted by the stench of dead bodies. There was only the ever-present blanket of white.

Filled with thick fog, the mist was several times denser here than it was outside the town. It was barely possible for them to clearly see the main road right in front of them. There were buildings set up on both sides.

The pair unconsciously took a few steps closer to each other while they entered the town together.

It was still daytime now, but the town was completely silent. Not only was there no one talking, there wasn’t even the sound of a dog barking. It was enormously strange.

However, since this was the location the left arm had indicated, so it would be stranger if it wasn’t strange.

They followed the main road for a while and the deeper they went into the town, the denser the white fog would become. As if something sinister was permeating the air. They could barely see ten paces ahead to start with and later they couldn’t discern shapes five paces ahead. And even further, they could barely see their fingers. The farther Wèi Wúxiàn and Lán Wàngjī walked, the closer they leaned towards each other. Their shoulders were brushing together and they barely managed being able to see each other’s faces. Wèi Wúxiàn had a thought spontaneously pop into his head, “If someone were to take advantage of this heavy fog and quietly slipped in between us and our duo turned into a trio, I’m afraid I don’t know whether or not we would discover them.”

Definitely gives off some serious Silent Hill-esque vibes, doesn’t it?

We do get further into the plot after this, but I just wanted to share a cool setting post. Hope you enjoyed it!

[theimperialnuisance]

FFXIV Write 2021 Day 1

// FFXIV Write Info // Prompts // Master post //

(Heads up, this is LONG. I got kind if carried away as this is an ORGIN STORY! : D Set before ARR so Kien is 18 but is not known by that name just yet. Mentions of  speculated physical and mental abuse if you squint. Some of my personal headcanon’s of Meracydia are present in this! I hope you enjoy!)

Day 1 Forster

bring up (a child that is not one's own by birth).

encourage or promote the development of (something, typically something regarded as good).

Ranald had been to his fair share of places since becoming a merchant, but no place struck him as interesting as Meracydia.

It was a place people scarcely traveled to as it had been rendered a wasteland ever since the Allagan Empire declared war there during the last years of the Third Astral Era; a lot of regions were still uninhabitable to this day and those regions that could be lived in consisted of a rather recluse population that would attack any outsider on sight. However, some of the natives were still open to trade as certain materials from Eorzea were highly sought after and the rare gems found on the southern continent could sell for a hefty sum of Gil in Eorzea but one wrong move in the eyes of the natives meant an ambush or death, so Ranald never stayed for long or ventured too far from the shores whenever he decided to come around to try his luck with a trade.

With every visit, the Hyur could never quite comprehend how natives still lived on the southern continent. The water was always cloudy and murky and the sky was ochre in color with the sun permanently hidden behind a thick haze. The land itself was barren and dry—what remains of standing trees were bare and splintered while the rest were deduced to blackened stumps. In some places, there were remains of structures but none of them were in one piece and most of them were reduced to rubble, but he certainly felt prying eyes on him at several instances and he shuddered to think of who—or what—could be roaming around the ruins.

He and his three fellow traders had been in Meracydia for the better part of three nights with no luck when Ranald finally made the decision to call it quits and leave before any sort of ambush befell them; It was already risky enough to travel without a tribe’s trust to trade with and staying any longer than the initial welcome was just begging for an attack. As he turned to follow his fellow shipmates up the ramp, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end; someone had been watching him.

“Who goes there?” Ranald quickly unsheathed his daggers and whipped around, expecting to come face to face with a tribe ready to ambush them but was mildly surprised to find a young Miqo’te staring back at him. He seemed just as startled as Ranald was, his own bow drawn at the ready and a hand resting on the quiver on his back as if he was about to draw an arrow.

“Wait! Wait!” The Miqo’te said hurriedly but still didn’t lower his weapon. “You’re a trader, aren’t you?” His accent was thick but his Common was easy to understand causing more confusion to the Hyur. Usually, it was always the other way around; the natives expected outsiders to understand their language when trading, it was unusual to meet a native who could speak and understand Common.

Questions bubbling, Ranald arched an eyebrow at him. “I am. What have you?” Behind him, he could hear his shipmates rush out to see what going on, but he cocked his head to the side in a silent request to stay back to which they obeyed.

The Miqo’te looked even more nervous than he was before at the sight of the three other people but didn’t move. “I did not come to harm you; I only want to trade…an exchange, if you will.”

 Ranald almost wanted to laugh. “Then why are you brandishing your weapon at me lad?” He asked, watching as the Miqo’te’s expression twist from concern to confusion. “This has better not be a trick and no one else comes out to attack.” He said firmly, watching the Miqo’te eyes widened.

 “I—I wasn’t trying to catch you off guard, but when you suddenly pulled out your daggers, I panicked.” The Miqo’te confessed. “I—I’m not really used to talking with people outside my tribe, so I was unsure how to approach you.” He slowly lowered his weapon and pulled his other hand away from his quiver of arrows. “I promise you, I am alone, and I only seek to trade with you.”

Ranald eyed the boy a bit longer before slowly relaxing his stance and sheathing his daggers. The Miqo’te, who had been watching him carefully, seemed to sag in relief and he quickly returned his bow to his back. Without a weapon shielding half his face, Ranald could finally see how young the lad was compared to him—he looked as if he was in his late teens, maybe the same age as his own son but somehow older and wiser just based off the energy he had about him. His shaggy black hair fell almost completely in front of his right eye, giving Ranald barely a glimpse of it which he could see was amber; a color not like his left eye which was green. He seemed to be traveling somewhere himself as two bags sat behind his feet, and he looked as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep the past few days.

“What’ve you got to trade?” Ranald asked as he descended the ramp back onto the shore. The Miqo’te wordlessly picked up the smaller of the two bags and opened it, inviting Ranald to step closer and look inside. Still a bit weary, Ranald leaned forward to peer inside the bag, nearly gasping aloud at the abundant sparkling gems inside.

“You cannot find these anywhere outside of Meracydia,” The Miqo’te began. “At least, that’s what the other traders told me when I traded with them before…I’ve been collecting them for several years.”

Ranald could hardly believe it. There had to be at least twenty or more gems inside the bag and the Miqo’te was right: they were rare ones he’d never found in Eorzea before—this was more than what he’d ever traded in the past. But…he knew he didn’t have anything worth the amount offered in goods to trade. He looked up with a questioning stare. “What can I give you in return?”

“Passage on your ship,” The Miqo’te replied confidently as if he had rehearsed the line several times before. “While I do not know where you’re bound to next, know that I you needn’t worry about lack of provisions as I have my own and I will do any necessary work during the journey.” He spoke with confidence but once again his fidgeting hands and tense shoulders gave away to his nervousness—had he been denied before? What fool would turn down a bag of rare gems for an extra passenger on the way back? Nay, there was something more to this and Ranald felt a need to know why.

“What’s your name lad?” Ranald asked but the Miqo’te stayed silent as he bit his lip in hesitation. Ranald’s expression softened, deciding to not press it further. “Well, you can tell me when you’re ready—it’s a long journey back to Eorzea so there’s plenty of time to share life stories.”

“Eorzea…? The place I’ve heard stories about…have seen in...” The Miqo’te trailed away and bit his lip to prevent himself from speaking any further. “You’ll have me then?” He looked back up; hope swimming through his eyes that caused Ranald to smile warmly.

“Aye, climb aboard!” Ranald smiled as he gestured to the ship. “These three here are Mikiah and Arlix,” he gestured to the short brunette Hyur to his left and the tall blonde Elezen to his right before turning to the brunette Miqo’te standing at the top of the ramp. “That there is U’vhana Tia and I’m Ranald.” The three friends all raised their hands in a gesture of greeting looking confused but welcoming all the same. Ranald watched as the young Miqo’te eyed them wearily before nodding his head in greeting. “We leave as soon as we fire up the ship, don’t want to lose any more of this daylight—if you can call it that.” He waved his hand absently with a smile as the Miqo’te gathered his remaining bag and followed them up the ship and they took off.

----

For the first half of the journey, Ranald watched the young Miqo’te bemusedly as he seemed to go through an array of emotions over the course of seconds—fear from the airship beginning to fly, excitement when he saw a blue sky, probably for the first time in his life, and then, he seemed to settle into his thoughts as the ground below grew smaller and smaller and they sailed through the clouds.

As the day stretched into evening, the Hyur left the Miqo’te alone, sensing he was still nervous from everything that had just occurred while the man himself was still in bewilderment of it all. He essentially just helped a kid run away from his family, and his friends didn’t even question him! He wasn’t what exactly possessed him to agree to such an absurd trade but judging by the relief on his face once he invited him on board, he supposed he couldn’t blame him for wanting to get the hells out of the wasteland. But what about his family? Wouldn’t they be searching for him? Would it even be safe to return to Meracydia again knowing there may or may not be a tribe on the lookout for their lost family member? And that scar on his eye…Ranald hadn’t missed glimpsing that but chose to not ask him about it either. Was that why he wanted to run away from his family?

The Hyur sighed, running a hand through his graying hair. Such speculative thoughts would have to wait! Mayhap he could get some questions answered over dinner. Deciding to do just that, he ensured his friends were all tended to with the ship and made his way up to the deck where he spied the Miqo’te leaning over the ship wall and watching the stars. Just as he made way to approach him, the boy suddenly went rigid, his hand flying to his forehead as if he was in pain. By the time Ranald was able to get to his side to help keep him steady as he staggered, he was coherent again but a little pale.

“I must’ve gotten too excited and gave myself another headache, but it passed.” The Miqo’te looked down as if he was ashamed and slowly stepped away from Ranald’s hovering hands. Ranald furrowed his brow and gently placed a hand on the Miqo’te’s shoulder, not failing to notice the slight jolt that went through him.

“Another headache? These’ve happened before?” Ranald couldn’t help voicing the question aloud and the Miqo’te flinched as if he was expecting to get yelled at. Ranald’s face softened as he quietly asked, “Are you alright?”

That question seemed to take him by surprise, and he looked up to meet Ranald’s worried expression, blinking in bewilderment. “Ah—I—I’m fine,” he stuttered before looking away again in embarrassment. “Sorry, could I maybe sit down for a bit? I’m feeling very sick.” Ranald carefully guided him down to a chair and quickly fetched one of his water skins, offering it to the boy with a gentle nudge. He cautiously accepted it and took a few sips before leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.

 Ranald watched him carefully for a bit, trying to figure out the right then to say as he sat down in the chair across from him. “Have you heard of the Echo before?” He finally asked. When the boy shook his head, he smiled warmly. “I don’t know much about it myself unfortunately, but I’ve heard what it can be like—headaches—like the one you just had—and if I’m not mistaken, you saw something, didn’t you?” The Miqo’te’s brow furrowed as he nodded his head.

“How—how did you know?”

“Your eyes glazed over for a good minute as if you were watching something,” Ranald explained. “When you’ve been traveling around for as long as I have, you meet a few people with the Echo every now and then. Who knows, maybe you’ll become one of Hydaelyn’s chosen and save Eorzea in her time of need like those ‘Warriors of Light’ did during the calamity five years ago!” He chuckled fondly, a memory of his son excitedly talking about the fables springing to his mind.

“Hydaelyn’s chosen? Warriors of Light?” The Miqo’te questioned.

“Aye, the rumor goes that they’re the ones who the Mother Crystal chose to bestow her blessin’ to and they showed up during the Battle of Carteneau and promptly vanished after some big ol’ flash—no one has seen ‘em since. My son would always tell me about an adventurer he met—Kieron, I think—he believed he may have been one of those warriors.” He smiled fondly. “My son was frail and sickly; he didn’t get to travel around as often but Kieron would trade with me often and helped fill that void for him—kept him company and told him all about his grand adventures before taking off on the next one.” He paused, feeling his heart twinge in sadness.

“My son passed away before the calamity, bless his soul for not having to witness that battle, but… I cannot help but wonder if Kieron really was a ‘Warrior of Light’ like my son thought he was because after the calamity, I never saw him again either.” Ranald let out a sigh as he brought his gaze to the starry sky above. “I’d like to think he and my son are off on their own grand adventure somewhere now—mayhap I’ll see them both again someday.” He fell silent as turned his gaze back to the Miqo’te. “Can I ask you why you won’t tell me your name?”

The Miqo’te hesitated for a moment, his eyes casting down to his boots as he wrung his hands. “It’s Roh’to,” he began quietly. “I rather not be called by it anymore…I just want to get away from my tribe. They…did not make me feel welcomed and I’m not proud of my tribe name. I just want to start anew.”

Ranald reached up to scratch the stubble on his chin with a nod, his speculation about the relation to his scar and family slowly piecing itself together. “Then I suppose we’ll have to find a new name for you then.” The Miqo’te looked up, his expression a mixture of confusion and awe. “Take all the time you need to think of it but what I really need to know is what you plan to do once we get to Gridania.”

“I—I don’t know,” The Miqo’te confessed as he looked down again. “I truthfully didn’t even think I’d get this far in the first place…not a lot of traders were as willing as you to believe I wasn’t trying to trick and ambush them.”

“Used to be a pirate,” Ranald laughed. “Easy for me to tell when someone is lyin’ to me.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “Tell you what, you can stay with me for a bit, just until you get yourself situated. There’s a few people I think you should meet anyways in regards to that Echo of yours.”

The Miqo’te jerked his head up and stared at him in disbelief. “Truly? I…I won’t be a burden to you?”

Ranald shook his head with a laugh and leaned back. “O‘course not! ‘Sides, I could use the company with how quiet my house has been lately.” His expression softened, somehow knowing this was the right decision to make.

The Miqo’te seemed on the verge of tears as the corner of his lip tugged into a small smile. “I promise to do my part and help out in anyway I can, you won’t regret this.”

“No expectations, just be yourself.” The Hyur smiled and stood, giving a small nudge to the Miqo’te’s shoulder, noticing that he didn’t flinch this time, a sign that he was already feeling more comfortable than before. “You take all the time you need to figure that name out, and I’ll get some dinner prepared…get some sleep too, it’ll be a while before we get to Eorzea.”

He turned on his heel to retreat down into the hull, but before he could descend the stairs, he heard the boy call out, “Ranald?” The Hyur paused with a hum to indicate he was listening. “I thought about what my new name could be.”

“Oh?” He turned to face the Miqo’te again.

“Kien.”

A smile spread across Ranald’s face, his heart filling with warmth. “Well Kien, it’s nice to finally meet you.” 

[xchoco-mixturex]

SO, WHAT I GET FROM WHAT HAPPENED IN THE END OF TENKUU SHINPAN ARRIVE

Of course: FUCKING SPOILERS, IF IT ISNT GOD DAMN OBVIOUS! and yes i say it like that because i see someone saying ‘EWMYGEWDIWASSPOILE--” shut up.

shut the heck up.

I wont cross tag, this will be explicitly called Tenkuu shinpan arrive spoilers and the others ones i have. i wont even tag characters to not spoil anything at all.

now get ready....

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.SO!

Yuri faced Alien-kun, who seems to be the predecessor God of this realm. Or so it was told. It seemed to the the retaiing existence of him.

even with the facing she did, she cannot save Senya with the power she has. The only posibility is Senya returning by his own or something like that. He seems to be trapped in another area, different that the first high rise world of the survival game, and also different than the barren survival world

Yuri and co are thinking of going there it seems, Oribe says its too dangerous, but she thinks it only

Yuri learnt there is a CREATOR of all this realms. Each survival game, and each dimension of survival. Yuri says she needs to stop that person once and for all. Yuri says if that mean is defeated, maybe everyone might come back, from Senyas will, to Nanamis father, though its a possibility. (aka, also Kuon would return, my baby <3)

it seems the creator is IN A REALM CALLED AS ‘ARRIVE’. he said she found it, and what she really must do.

Oribe, seeing Yuri happy, thinks she is a little bit crazy....Also, she says when Senya goes back to normal ‘I will also....’ (ngl,if she confesses to him i would be dissapointed. That would feel forced a bit. sorry. And i like ships (?)

Yuri asks Kuon, who is with her,what about Daisei. Kuon says the battle with Daisei its almost over. Rika succeded in killing his body and Rika, Sniper, Nise,Hayami Shintaro, and Great angel colaborated in reducing the energy of the realm, so Daisei would be consumed aka killed. But he ran away with a little bit of energy

That confirms my theory that when the realm energy gets consumed, if there is a being that was born with that energy (Aka Daisei or Kuon), that entity dies since its made of energy, and the energy was consumd. That explain many people wondered why Yuuka (since Yuri being the admin, and Rika being a non-electible for god God candidate) didn’t keep going with the god trials, not only because there wasnt enough energy only, but also because the energy consumed would mean Kuon’s death.

Kuon asks Yuri if she meets Daisei she will kill him? Yuri says yes. Since Yuri before wanted to be diplomatic with Daisei, but no, fuck diplomacy.

Tenmas was listening all the new info all along, with Asuka on her back. She seems interested with the new realm, info and energy. She wants to be stronger than the original Yuri, so she taunts her saying if she reaches that place, she will finally be able to surpass her. Yuri is puzzled *Choco chuckles*

 Tenma admits she cant surpass her in strenght competition, but with ‘this new little acqueired guy’ she will, as she wants to absorbs his abilities. That ‘little guy’ is no one as Daisei as an eye/cloud. Tenma has seized him. Tenma wonders wht will happen if she has him at her side (well, mostly as kidnapped---). 

Daisei’s seems to gone crazy as he is crazily repesting the world ‘equality’ multiple times. his motto for him to be god.

Kuon sees the scene surprised. “Daisei...how pitiful...”

Yuri tells Tenma that her sin was only because of Daiseis program when he created her, and for that, she didnt pursued her. Yuri warns her if she indeed goes away and keeps going and stuff with Daisei, that means Yuri and co will take her down.

Tenma looks at her down, mockingly. Asuka raises her the middle finger

Far from there, Sniper is aiming at them with his rifle, ready to take the shot. In the end, he sighs and mutters “what a bother”, and lowers his rifle. Ttaku is pretty much the japanese “Tch” muttering.

Something that noticed later...I feel Sniper a bit odd. Maybe its just my imagination because I’m not used to see him with no mask but...

Tenma notices Sniper was threatening, her, and she mutters he is scary, so in the meantime she will ran away with her friends (dunno if she only meant Asuka, or she will take Zeon and Juo(rika) with her too)

She says one last thing, in honor to the ‘Originals’, aka they main 5 original crew:

“Thank you....and goodbye, clumsy people.”

As she said the Clumsy people phrase , we see different pannels: Rika watching the horizon, Nise with Mayu (nise’s clone) in her arms, Great Angel also watching the distance and Shintaro Hayami (Prophet) reuniting with Shika Hayami finally.

Tenma ports away. Yuri falls and laughs softly. Saying that indeed, they are clumsy people, not only her, but also her crew, that being because... (She alludes to the fact that maybe they could have done the teleportation to the OG world, but not happening because Yuris powers were unstable (special chapter) and also the fact they would sacrifice Kuon)

Yuri reassures Oribe and Nanami that with time she ‘will deliver them to the OG world, so please rest assured.’

Oribe comments that she is a bit confused since it seems the Original World is also turning to be dangerous, and also that her head hurts.

Oribe says she wont go back yet, she still have many things to do. Yuri smiles softly to her, but a bit sad.

Oribe looks at the distance and asks Yuri about that orbital elevator. She asks her about if Yuri has a way to make that elevator work somehow, of course if it doesn't bother her. Oribe says she is curious if it is truly connected to space

Oribe: “I...I actually like it a lot. The universe...”

With that last phrase, we see the last panel of Senya resting in a bed. He is resting with a smile.

SO, IT IS AN OPEN ENDING. IT SEEMS MAYBE, MAYBE WE MIGHT ALSO HAVE A CONTINUATION OF THIS, SINCE WE ARE FACED WITH THE REALM OF THE CREATOR AND A POSSIBILITY TO STOP FINALLY EVERYTHING ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Besides they need to go back. And also there is the issue if bringing Senya back, alongside with Kuon’s returning to have a physical body. and the slight possibility if the creator is defeated, maybe some things will be solved. 

(Yuri says maybe she can bring back Nanami’s dad if she faces the creator, but I’m not entirely sure because Supervisor told us before bringing people back to life was impossible, and the only exceptions being the ones with the Judges “Resurrection.” Even Senya’s state is still unknown. But ther eis a posibiity for Senya to come back.) THATS ALL, EVERYBODY! STAY TUNED IF I KNOW SOMETHING ELSE! for now i will go and write some fanfics and cope with this because holy smokes, i am curious

Also no, no ‘visual’ confirmation about the ships for the ones who likes that. Yes, we know some ships are freaking almost undeniable canon but ANYWAYS

....And I really hope i’m wrong with Sniper. It’s an interesting theme of him seeing a downfall to what has been told since day one in Tenkuu shinpan, that Gods doesn't need to feel and stuff, and Sniper already facing one of the 3 god trials. And knowing Sniper’s key-stuff of his personality is his humanity and how he clings to it so hard... It pains me.

Also he needs a freaking rest for fucks sake. Like, stop, let him be happy for once---

take care <3

[flowerb0y-art]

HEY FIRST THINGS FIRST SO SORRY FOR ASKING THIS SO STUPIDLY LATE. If you’re still doing the ask meme, what about 51, 94 and 96 for our dearest theo? <:^)

I will ALWAYS take the opportunity to ramble about my dearest boy

Also a little warning that I am going to write A LOT for these bc I already had some character info written down from like last month that was pretty relevant to these questions so I’ll probably just copy-paste that. ALSO slight warning for OC x Canon content? I don’t know if I really need to add a warning for that but I know some people don’t like it

51. Why would they be a BAD partner for a road trip?

Even on a 3 day road trip, Theo will refuse to pass the wheel to anyone else. It’s probably because he’s pretty confident in his own driving, but even when he’s running on 0 sleep and people are telling him he needs a break, he’ll stubbornly refuse and just keep on driving. It won’t be until he runs a red light in his half-awake state that someone will force him out of the driver’s seat and not let him back on until he gets some rest.

94. What does their room look like?

I’ve had this idea for a WHILE, so thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about it!!

Theo’s room is…sad. It’s absolutely barren and empty of decorations, photos, souvenirs, etc. he doesn’t even have a bed, just a thin and uncomfortable futon in the corner that he rarely sleeps on. The reason why he doesn’t have any photos or decor is the same reason he doesn’t get attached to people-you get sentimental and those people will leave your life and it just makes you feel worse. If he’s in his room he spends most of the time working at his desk where he usually falls asleep. If he does go to his futon he probably won’t even tuck himself in, just plop down on top with his clothes still on.

The first person to actually see his room was Engie. One day Theo was extremely sleep-deprived and Engie had to actually drag him back to his room so he could nap and he was shocked to say the least when he walked in. He asked Theo about it and bc Theo was in such an exhausted state he just explained his pessimistic outlook on keeping sentimental objects before immediately passing out on the floor. This came as a shock to Engie bc Theo usually acts like a very optimistic person and he didn’t want him being so miserable (cue the “damn bitch you live like this?” meme). He wanted to prove that he can feel safe and happy around the other mercs, and especially with him because he wanted to befriend Theo. He plans out a whole day to spend time with Theo and essentially get him to bring some things back to decorate his room; he also asks the other mercs to help him out. Of course, things go wrong and Theo confronts him. It’s an awkward drive back to the base and they don’t say a word to each other-Engie secretly panics that he just ruined all his chances of being friends. However, the next day Theo knocks on his door and shyly asks if he could help him build a bed frame and add some decorations to his room-Engie’s overjoyed. The two spend the day fixing up his room, and the first photo he puts up is of him and Engie proudly showing off the newly decorated place.

Also, on Theo’s first night working with the mercs he woke up to find Medic standing over him taking notes. He was so horrified that he installed 5 locks on his door the next day.

96. What’s their sense of humour like? (Dad jokes, morbid humour, basic knock-knock jokes, stand up comedy, etc)

For the longest time everyone thought Theo liked “smart jokes” because he was always laughing at Engie’s engineering puns. Truth was, he doesn’t understand a single bit of it and he just wants everyone to think he’s smart. He also has a fake laugh that he uses for whenever he doesn’t get a joke but wants to be polite about it, and because he uses that fake laugh so much everyone thinks it’s his real laugh.

What he REALLY thinks is funny and will make him genuinely laugh is normal dad jokes. That shit has him hunched over wheezing. His real laugh actually kinda sounds more like this ? His voice gets high pitched and he starts wheezing and his face gets all red