#but there IS a process and that goes on in the hidden layers. hidden layers have units that are connected to input and output layers.

[echoland]

I genuinely think MDR work is producing psychobiofeedback data that'll be used to subconsciously make prospective employees more effective and subservient... and it doesnt rly matter if its woe dread frolic malice sorry because the employees are the neural networks themselves. woe/dread/frolic/malice is the targeted output. the numbers they are categorizing is the training part - they are numbers previously seen slightly changed that have yielded something close to the target output. They're basically neural networks updating weights for other neural networks in which case that might be themselves. i.e. they are providing (refining) better models of fear. the reason "scary numbers will start to make sense after a while" is that it's previously refined data that is closer to desired output i.e. ones that have already yielded a response & they've probably worked on

[yeoslattes]

How We Live In Tokyo

Genre: Smut, TFATF: Tokyo Drift AU!

Word Count: 5.8k

Pairings: street racer Matz!Hwa x street racer fem! reader

Summary: You were notoriously once known as the drift princess, but now you're Hwa's girl. In attempt to reclaim your title, you race, pissing off Seonghwa in the process. You are also Hwa's number one cheerleader.

Warnings: Hwa comes off as a meanie during certain parts, VERY minimal description of reader, Hongjoong openly flirts with reader (his bffs girl...), Hwa confesses, possessive Hwa, weed use, high sex, manhandling, ruined orgasm, oral m+f receiving, eating it through the panties..., lots of spit, spanking, mentions of Hongjoong fucking you by Hwa, Hwa is low-key into it, choking, just rough asf, reader cries during sex, deepthroating, creampie (unprotected sex asf), use of sir like once, basically Seonghwa fucks you stupid, very minimal subspace by reader, aftercare

A/N: She's here, for my first smut after a while it's not too shabby. I'm an over thinker so I kept reviewing and editing just making sure I was happy with the final product. Also I based the reader's car off Suki's pink car in 2003 movie, just cause I thought it'd be perfect for her. I hope you guys enjoy this Hwa as much as I did!

“Ready! Set! GO!” You swing the red cloth in your hand down, the cars beside you rev noisily. Smoke from the tire burnout goes up in the air engulfing you in a heavy cloud, and just like that the first racers of tonight were off. This was one of your favorite parts of the night life in Tokyo, the races. You never intended to become a car girl, but after a couple flings here and there got you into nighttime racing, the rush and thrill it brought you was simply euphoric. The crowd cheers loudly, flip phones out recording and taking pictures, you jump in the air waving your hands cheering over the loud music and screams. 

While everyone was focused on the race at hand your eyes scanned the scenery for the only man that mattered to you, however he was nowhere in sight. You walked over to your pink Supra S2000 and leaned against the door. Your manicured hand ran over the sleek paint, you smiled at how smooth the finish felt beneath your fingertips. This car was your baby, everything was thought out and hand picked. Rolling around in a ride like your own had never made you feel anything less than superior. You were also Hwa’s girl and that in itself said enough. 

As if manifested by thought, the loud exhaust causes heads to turn, the familiar midnight blue body and chrome accents on the 350Z were unmistakable. Your eyes lingered on the white lettered decal spelling ‘MATZ’ on the upper windshield, you smirked slightly as he pulled up next to you. People cheered when Hwa stepped out, clad in a long fur coat and a muscle tee underneath, he looked delectable. Despite the layers, the large letters in black ink decorating his neck were perfectly on display. 

He greets his racing partner Hongjoong and the notorious KQ Fellaz who had also built an impeccable reputation amongst the Tokyo racing scene. He smiles at you as soon as he spots you. The glimmer of his grills catch the fluorescent lights of the crowded parking garage. “Hey.” He grumbles lowly in your ear, pulling you into him and pressing a searing kiss on your glossy lips. He looked down at you, long strands of raven black hair falling over his eyes. “You look good babe.” He compliments, long fingers coming up to tap on the hoops that were slightly hidden behind the layers of your hair. You smiled up at him, your legs suddenly feeling like jelly under his stare. 

The arm wrapped around your shoulder drops as he turns around to look at the S2000 you were resting your weight on. He walks around it, a singular hand running over the paint. He lifts the hood up, whistling when he sees the engine, “V8 is looking good babe.” He closes the hood after admiring, “Thanks, can’t wait to take her out on a spin tonight.” At your words Hwa’s face drops, his small grin being replaced by a disapproving expression. “Not tonight baby.” You huff in annoyance, see before you and Hwa had gotten together, you were one of the best female racers in this particular part of Tokyo. Every Friday night you’d come out to the streets and race against other girls and even guys. More often than not you’d end up winning. Slowly, you built up a reputation for yourself, even earning the nickname ‘drift princess’ in the process. But that was before Hwa came in and dethroned all the top racers and drifters, ending your streak as well. Eventually, you fell for him, and while he looked stoic and rude on the outside he was a sweetie behind closed doors. His charm was all you needed to become enthralled in him, needless to say you became his princess; you were Hwa’s girl as everyone knew. You ate that title up every single time, however, the singular con about being his one and only was that in fear of you getting hurt, Seonghwa didn’t let you race anymore, not against the good ones at least. He’d always let you go against the newbies, those who were still getting the hang of the Tokyo streets and drifts. 

“Seonghwa.” You begin in a begging tone, but he put his ring clad hand up, silencing you. You rolled your eyes, brooding against the Barbie pink car that was begging for a race. You watched as he went back to where Hongjoong stood conversing in a group.

A frown replaces the big smile you had just minutes ago.

You look around, hoping to find someone that’d wanna take you up on a race, even if Seonghwa had said no. Majority of the seasoned drivers were men, and due to their fragile egos, they wouldn’t dare race against you in fear that you might actually beat them and they’d never be able to live it down. 

You huff in annoyance, and pull your car door open, slipping into the pink leather seats. Your mini skirt is short enough that you feel the cool leather against the plumpness of your ass. You shake your own tan fur coat off, flipping your long hair over your shoulder to give your moistened skin some air. Rummaging through your glove compartment filled with body spray and lipgloss, you pull out a roll of bubble gum, shoving a fat piece in your mouth.

As you reapply gloss and fix your hair in the mirror a female voice catches your attention, “hey,” you looked up at your friend who was polishing the car door just a few minutes ago. She nods in the direction of Matz.

Your eyes turn into slivers when you see 2 girls chatting with Seonghwa and Hongjoong. Hongjoong has his arm around the slimmer girl, he gives her a cheshire cat like smile and you could almost see her swoon, but that’s not who you were worried about. Seonghwa, is leaning against his car, arms crossed, talking to the girl in front of him. Her dainty hand comes up to touch the fur sleeve of his coat, she says something with a big smile that causes Hwa to cackle loudly. She wears a low cut halter top and a mini skirt slightly longer than yours, but the expanse of her legs made it look like a belt around her waist. 

You rolled your eyes and stepped out of the car. You walk over to them, a big smile adorning your face, “hey baby.” You say in a sultry voice, your hand comes up Hwa’s arm and you proceed, “Who’s our new friend?” You turn to look at her, popping the pink bubble gum in your mouth. 

You can audibly hear Hwa sigh, he leans into your ear so only you can hear, “play nice.” He whispers, his cold hand resting against the warm skin of your waist. You continue to look at her, and she smirks, “who are you?” You chuckle loudly at her words, catching the attention of the people that were around. Seonghwa lets out an airy laugh looking back at Hongjoong as if to say ‘are you seeing this right now’ to which his best friend just raises his eyebrows and chuckles, fully invested in the face off. “I’m his girlfriend. Who are you?” People are starting to gather around, you step closer to her and feel Hwa’s hand squeeze your side as a warning but you ignore him. There’s a look of realization in her eyes and her face relaxes, “ahh,” she starts, “you must be the so-called drift princess.” Her faux friendly expression drops into a stoic one, “Where I’m from there are no nicknames. You’re either good or absolute shit.” She spits. 

Your heart hammers in your chest but you ignore it, “Is that a threat? Cause I bet you I can give you a run for your money.” At this point you’re so close to her you can see the glitter lining the underside of her eye. “If I lose, I’ll leave but if I win…” She pauses momentarily, looking behind you at Seonghwa, who stands arms crossed against his car, a serious look adorning his pretty features. He hated where this was going. “If I win I’ll have him.” You chuckle and so does Hwa, making the girl in front of you cock an eyebrow up in confusion at his reaction. “I hope you pick something else.” You say shifting your weight from one leg to the other. Her eyes wander to your right, “oof didn’t think the puppy had a designated owner but that’s fine. I’ll take your car.” People around you gasp and ‘ooh’ at her request. When you tongue your cheek, she feigns a pout knowing she’d hit the spot. “Deal, see you in 10.” She whips around and walks off somewhere. 

Before you can take a step, Seonghwa grabs your arm tightly, spinning you around to face him. “You must be out of your fucking mind. You bet off the car you’ve worked so fucking hard on?” He scoffs, his tongue pressed against his cheek in annoyance, “you’re fucking unbelievable.” He groans, your arms cross at your chest, resting underneath your tits, causing Seonghwa to glance down for a split second. “Oh but if it was you it’d make it okay?” You leave him with his words in his mouth, walking away before he even got the chance to get a syllable out.

Hongjoong laughs loudly at your attitude and Seonghwa’s distress, he slaps his friends back in amusement. “She’s giving you a run for your money huh Hwa?” He says. The annoyed man shoots his blonde friend a glare, resting his hands on his hips he throws his head back and huffs out a breath. 

You stand on standby waiting to get the okay from your girls as they check your car before the race. Your teeth toy with your bottom lip, nervousness settling in your tummy.

You hop in your ride and turn it on, the loud engine causing people to whistle. You might’ve been old to the game but the pre race jitters were very much real. Your opponent on the other hand seemed relaxed. Your hands are clammy on the wheel but with deep breaths you manage to bring the bile rising up your throat down. Hwa stands front row and you can see him through your windshield, he stares at you before whispering something to Yunho who was part of the KQ Fellaz. The tall and slender man draws his eyes to you as Seonghwa is in his ear, and he nods agreeing with whatever your boyfriend was saying. Hwa finishes and stands still in his spot, his jaw ticks, clearly upset at what was about to happen in just mere seconds. 

A girl in low rise jeans and a skimpy top comes between both cars, your foot presses on the gas, your car sputtering loudly. “Ready! Set! GO!” The pretty girl lifts her hand up and just like that your foot slams onto the pedal. You feel it before you see it as you zoom down the spacious garage. With your opponent already a couple feet ahead of you, your heart hammers in your chest, body running on pure adrenaline.

A tight turn is up ahead and you maneuver the wheel and use the e-brake to perfectly drift around until you’re heading straight again. She on the other hand turns slightly too wide slowing her down by a couple of seconds allowing you to zoom past her. The girl is hot on your ass but you keep her at bay not allowing her to get the upper hand. Her pretty face contorts in frustration as she struggles to make any moves. 

This is when you start to relax and it’s like you had never stopped racing. Your mind becomes so aware of your surroundings and what you were feeling. From the way your new wheels felt smooth on the cement, to the low vibrations shaking through you; this was euphoria. 

Your eyebrows knit together in pure concentration as you accelerate. You hit another tight turn, performing the drift that many struggled with effortlessly. Right before the parking garage ramp that spirals upward into the main street, you keep going straight. With a heavy foot you press on the gas, giving it all you got, you can see the exit of the garage and the final drift that everyone always anticipated. 

As you neared it you turned the wheel and pulled on the e-brake, successfully drifting up the ramp till you made it out, the hoard of people eagerly waiting. At the sight of the pink lights adorning the underside of your car, Seonghwa relaxes. You had fucking done it. Your wheels skid loudly as you slow down to park your car.

People high five you and jump on the hood celebrating what had basically been your comeback after so long. You hopped out the car, pulling your slutty skirt down and jumping on Hwa. His hands wrap around your waist, stuffing his face into your neck, taking in your sweet perfume. “Good job baby.” He whispers in that deep voice of his. “You’re so fucking hot you know that?” He says pulling you into a sloppy kiss. The girl who had raced you parks her car and hops out storming over to you. “That wasn’t fair.” She argues, “you are either good or absolute shit.” You shrug, reciting her words back to her. She grits her teeth and storms off, disappearing into the mass of people. You feign a pout and roll your eyes. As people start to head back down into the garage, Seonghwa pulls you into him. “Bad girl.” His words shoot straight to your pussy, a heat wave rolling over your body.

Another Friday rolls around, it'd been precisely one week since you won your first race back. It was already 11 PM but the streets of Tokyo were calling your name. Tonight’s outfit consisted of a low rise pleated miniskirt and a long sleeve crop top. You looked in the mirror, enjoying how your belly button jewelry dangled and glimmered under the warm lights of your room. Tonight would be special since Matz had gotten challenged by two random guys who wanted to claim territory. If there was one thing you loved to do on a night that Hwa would be racing was look pretty and sit like a good girl in the passenger seat of his car while he raced. I’ll be there soon baby, you sent Hwa a message through your pink flip phone hoping that he wouldn’t be too distracted to read it. 

Singular strands of your hair stick to your glossy lips as you cruise down the somewhat empty roads, the wind blows through your hair and you sing along quietly to the Nelly Furtado CD Hwa had gifted you. It wasn’t long before you were pulling up into the infamous garage. If there were alot of people last Friday, they had tripled today, of course just for Matz. You pulled into the spot next to Hwa, your loud exhaust catching his attention. He went from talking with Hongjoong to looking at you. He smiled at your car, still not over how perfectly the pink decked out car suited you. 

You killed the engine and hopped out, already feeling the eyes running over the expanse of your body, Hongjoong and Hwa included. If there was one thing about Hongjoong was that he did not care. Yes, Seonghwa was his best buddy, but he made sure to let Seonghwa know just how delectable you were with no shame. Still, in other ways he was respectful of his best friend’s relationship but he loved to take peeks anytime he could. 

You walk over to your boyfriend who instead of the iconic big fur coat wore baggy cargos and a muscle tee, his arms on full display. “Hey baby.” You say pressing a kiss on his cheek, you smile at the slight residue of your lips on his cheek. He grabs your chin and kisses you, you try to pull back but the suffocating grip on your face keeps you in place. His tongue toys with yours, and he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth before letting go with a final bite. When you pull away he grins at your flushed face and how he had basically eaten all the lip gloss off. 

“Hey Hongjoong.” You pant loudly, greeting the other man who had seen the entire exchange in front of him, he nods his head up at you, “drift princess has made a comeback huh?” He teases, you nod sheepishly. “Maybe next time you’ll take me up on a race?” You ask with big eyes and he smiles, “is that a challenge?” He asks, cocking his brow up, “of course.” He lets out an airy laugh, “that’s if Hwa lets you.” He teases, before walking towards his car. You turn to look back at Hwa who’s grip has tightened around you.

“Hongjoong is up first. Are you gonna be a good girl and cheer for him baby?” Seonghwa says leaning down so you could hear him. You nod and clap excitedly when you see Hongjoong’s car by the start line. As soon as Hongjoong takes off you and Seonghwa run towards the finish line, you both wait, watching through the small flip phone screens as people document the race. You cheer loudly when you notice Hongjoong’s car is ahead. In no time he is skidding up the ramp, drifting into the big pit. He had won! Hwa claps and whistles loudly at his partner's success, now it was up to him to win the second one to maintain the best of the best title. 

You follow your boyfriend down to the garage and hop into the 350Z, you inhale the fresh car scent mixed with his cologne. “Ready baby?” You ask him, he grips your hand and kisses it, “always.” 

Hongjoong peers in through the passenger side window, you buckle in as he talks to his best friend, paying no mind to what they were discussing. When he finishes he taps the edge of the window and sends you his infamous cheeky smile and a wink. 

You sit quietly, sucking in a breath and getting ready for the ride. Hwa exits the garage, and that’s when it becomes too real. One thing about Seonghwa was that he always preferred racing in the streets rather than the garage that almost every race took place in. You place a hand over your chest, feeling your blood pumping muscle thrumming beneath your fingers. At the sound of you sucking in another sharp breath Seonghwa turns his gaze to you. “Scared?” He asks, a teasing smirk playing at his lips. You purse your lips swallowing thickly, nodding. “It’s usually more dangerous Hwa, I hate when you do this.” You say, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Dangerous…” He scoffs, “That’s what I said last week when you raced and you still went against my word. So, sit, look pretty and hold on tight or get the fuck out.” He had gotten you there, regardless, there was no way to ever argue with Park Seonghwa. So, you shut your mouth up and look down at your fiddling hands.

The starter is another girl, she swings her bra up in the air and when it drops Seonghwa takes off. The g-force alone pulls you back into the seat, your hands grip the door handle and your seat, ironically your fear only grew. He hollers loudly already having a great advantage to his opponent, your body turns with the car as he drifts. You stared at his pretty features, his perfect skin and long nose bridge accompanied by his pink and plump lips. He’s too busy looking for the guy through his mirrors to really pay attention to anything else, the air blows violently into the car, your hair a mess now. The longer you sit in the car, the more you start to relax, the cool breeze in your face relieving your anxiety. 

Seonghwa startles you when he grumbles loudly, he hits the steering wheel out of frustration, his opponent had passed him. You weren’t too familiar with the path Hwa was taking, perhaps racing here once or twice before and if you remembered correctly he was more than halfway done. 

“Hold on!” He yells, he presses the red button beneath his thumb, immediately you are pulled back from the sudden acceleration. His 350Z zoomed by the guy in the other car and already you could see where the finish line was. Hwa keeps the man at bay as he rides his ass. As if it were clockwork the crowd of people disperse to make room for the infamous Park Seonghwa. He crosses the threshold into the pit of people, the car coming to a noisy stop. He cheers and you cheer along with him “I fucking love you.” He yells, you feel everything go in slow motion at that moment, the faces of the people cheering him on outside become a blur, it almost felt like you had ascended. “W-what?” you say in confusion, “I fucking love you. I am in love with you.” He says, smiling widely at you. 

Like a tradition, people hit the roof and hood of the car congratulating him on another victory. He pulls you into a heated kiss and when you pull away you lean into his ear. “I love you too Hwa.” He hops out of the car and you follow suit, instantly, he wraps his arms around you and lifts you up. Hongjoong comes up and gives him a hug, “we are still the best of the fucking best.” Hwa’s best friend yells.

The rest of the night you had spent velcroed to Seonghwa’s side, celebrating the win and watching other races go on. By 2am you were ready to call it a night. That's when Hwa pulls you aside, “wanna spend the night?” He asks tucking a loose piece of hair behind your ear. You nod eagerly, “we can get high and do whatever we want.” He whispers only for you to hear. His hands softly caress yours. “I’ll see you there baby.”

The drive to Matz’s garage is about 10 minutes, you pull in and park in the spot Seonghwa had reserved for just you.

The garage was Seonghwa’s and Hongjoong’s working space, it was scattered with car parts as well as half built vehicles. You stepped out of your pink mobile and headed up the metal stairs, your boots stomping loudly, sending vibrations up the railing. Hwa stands at the door and lets you in.

You stepped into the warm apartment, fully expecting Hongjoong to be there but instead it's quiet. “Where’s Joong?” You wonder, not wanting to impose on his personal space and most definitely not wanting him there if you and Hwa got to it. “Found some girl at the race tonight so he won’t be here.” 

As always Hwa hands you an oversized shirt, it was a routine any time you stayed at his. Given that your clothes weren’t always the most comfortable, he’d always have an oversized tee on deck just for you. You strip in front of him, already feeling his gaze burning holes into your supple skin. You sigh gleefully at the feeling of the tight clothes being off your body. 

Seonghwa sparks the blunt, his slender fingers bring it up to his lips, he takes a long drag and hands it to you. “I don’t know if I should.” You say quietly, weed just wasn’t your thing like it was Hwa’s. “It’s indica this time baby. You’re here with me, it’ll be okay.” You take the burning blunt from him and raise it up to your lips, praying that you wouldn’t end up panicking like the first time you had smoked with him. Your eyes close softly, as the smoke rushes into your lungs, affecting all your senses.

You hold the smoke in for a couple seconds, handing it back to your lover. Seonghwa takes 2 long hits, relaxing into the couch you two were on. Your eyes linger on  him, you could see his eyes drooping slightly from the marijuana. His limbs are loosely splayed on the couch, blunt hanging loosely between his pointer and thumb. Without much thought you reach for the burning plant and take another hit, that was enough to have you feeling like you were melting into the couch. You didn’t know how, but Hwa always managed to finish the blunt, this time was no different. 

“I’m pretty high right now.” He mumbles thoughtlessly slouching down even further. As the minutes tick by you feel yourself get more and more intoxicated. You felt tingles run up and down your arms and legs and your eyes felt heavy. Seonghwa drapes his fluffy blanket over the both of you when he notices your body starting to shiver. Normally, you’d be freaking out but for some reason you felt fine, just high. Seonghwa lays his head on your lap, eyes on the TV. You looked down at him watching his eyes slowly blink as he focused on Finding Nemo. The chills had subsided, if anything you felt warm now, even warmer as you felt Hwa’s hand trailing up and down your bare thigh. 

He grins slightly when he feels your thighs twitch beneath him. He kept this up for what felt like ages, never getting close to where you really needed him. Seonghwa shifts down, the full weight of his head now resting on your left thigh. You lean your head back on the couch when he runs his hand between your legs this time. He fully reaches your hot heat. “H-Hwa…” You whimper weakly, you pout when he looks up at you. He sits up, one leg pulled in and the other one resting on the floor. He presses his lips against yours, his hands gripping your face. Nothing was neat about the kiss, it was filled with hunger and lust. His spit coats your chin now and you moan when his tongue snakes between your parted lips. He roughly pulls you onto his lap, large hands going directly to rest on your ass. You pulled away momentarily, to mumble a quick “I love you Hwa.” He pauses his actions, fingers brushing messy hair strands away from your face, “I love you too baby.”

Seonghwa grunts when you grind down forcefully on him, he pushes you off him roughly, and drags you into his room. You bask in his sheets, his scent completely engulfing you, you felt like you were drowning in him. “Been wanting to fuck you ever since I saw you in that stupid slutty outfit of yours.” He tugs his shirt off you. Immediately his lips latch onto one of your buds while his free hand toys with your other tit. You felt like you were floating and in a way he felt so far yet so close. All your senses were on overdrive thanks to the weed. “Seonghwa please.” His hands wrap around the back of your knees to flip you onto your belly, 

His hand comes down heavy on your plush ass. Hwa smiles sinisterly at the red hand print forming, he feels himself twitch in his pants. He delivers a couple more slaps, “don’t think I have forgotten how you’ve been flirting with Hongjoong.” You lift your head up to protest but he shoves you back down and you let out a yelp. “What a slut. My best friend? Really?” He grits out as he works on the button of his pants.

You can’t push down the tears that sting your eyes, despite his words you knew he knew you’d only ever pick him, he just wanted to pick on you. 

You rest tummy down one cheek pressed against the mattress, “Hongjoongie keeps messing wi-.” You’re cut off by Hwa’s hand landing on your already abused skin. “Don’t try to make it his fault.” He grits, leaning his torso to get closer to your ear, “but honestly if I was him I’d wanna wreck you too.” A wave of arousal crashes over your body, shooting straight south. 

 Hwa pauses, watching the way your thighs pressed together. You sniffle, tears rolling freely now out of frustration. “Are you fucking crying?” Seonghwa says brushing your hair away from your eyes. He scoffs, “no way you’re fucking crying.” Seonghwa clicks his tongue in disapproval.

“It’s okay baby, maybe one day I’ll feel nice and let him fuck you too. Would you like that?” He teases, flipping you back onto your back. You shake your head ‘no’. He spreads your legs open and toys with your sensitive bud that your panties outline. “No? Because you’re soaked right now.” Without slipping the dampened undergarment  off he leans down and flattens his tongue against your cunt, soiling the fabric even further with his spit. 

Hwa works his long tongue languidly against you making you writhe in his grasp. “H-hwa.” You moan attempting to shove your hips against his face. The grip he has around your thighs prevents you from doing so. He presses harder against you and loosens his grip allowing you to fuck yourself on his pretty face. You groan, involuntarily grinding against him desperately trying to chase your high. “Cum baby cum.” He sounds muffled, the weed heightening every sensation has you teetering on the brink of your orgasm rather quickly. Right before you fall over the edge he pulls away; waves of what could've been your orgasm roll through you but fade as quickly as they came leaving you unsatisfied. 

You groan in annoyance, tears pooling in your eyes yet again. “You’re leaking from both ends now, that’s new.” Seonghwa says as he cups your chin, he leans down so his droopy eyes are directly in front of your teary ones. “There's no reason to cry so stop before I give a reason to.” His words make the tears actually roll down your face this time and he grins at the sight.

He flips you back onto your belly, “all fours baby.” As high as you were, you did your best to move into the requested position, your limbs moving slowly due to your impaired motor skills. He pulls your underwear down, sniffling slightly. You can feel his cockhead prodding at your sopping hole, you whine, wiggling your hips back against him. His large hands come to your shoulder blades to hold you down while he pushes in. You gasp at the intrusion, the stretch so delicious you squirm back to get more. “Stay still.” he grumbles annoyingly. He fucks into you hard, his hips being unforgiven against the globes of your ass. You keep shifting to which Seonghwa stops and places a hand on your lower back to deepen your arch. “Don’t move.” He keeps you there, his thrusts are deep and forceful, hitting that spongy spot deliciously. 

Your mouth is agape but there’s no sound coming out. “God- fuck Hwa,” you pant, tongue lolling out of your mouth and your eyes rolling back to your skull. “Feels good huh baby” He grunts, his own pants and groans filling the room, “so fucking perfect- you’re perfect.” He whines desperately, rutting into your wet pussy, you fight for air, your gasps sounding high pitched every time you sucked in air. 

He pulls out, “Get up quickly.” He commands, grabbing you by the arm, he manhandles you on your knees. “Open.” Your mouth drops open, tongue out ready for whatever he had to give you. Seonghwa wastes no time shoving his cock down your throat. You relax as much as you can, spit pooling in your mouth and falling onto your chest in thick ropes. Through the slits of your eyes you can see Seonghwa looking down on you with heavy eyes, the ‘Matz’ scribbled across his neck stretching beautifully as he throws his head back. Spit bubbles at the corners of your mouth and he grabs your head and shoves his dick desperately as far as he could until you are fighting to pull away.

You push back, resting your ass on your heels, fighting to catch your breath. “Good fucking girl baby. Cmon get up so I can’t fuck my load into you.” Hwa says, slightly out of breath. You lay back on the bed, hips hanging slightly off the bed, he slips right back in. Your spit mixed with your wetness, allows his cock to enter your walls smoothly. Your back arches off the bed as he fucks you hard, his hands push down on your waist once more to pin you down. 

The fat head of his cock hits your spot again. Everything feels far away now, but your orgasm is fast approaching. “You’re fucked d-dumb aren’t you. Does my dick do that to you?” He asks, his tongue running over his pink lips, “look at you can’t even fucking answer me.” Seonghwa’s hand wraps around your throat tightly while his free one toys with your clit, stimulating you to the brink of your orgasm, a couple more strokes and your legs begin quaking on his shoulders, “Fuck Hwa, sir too muc- I can’t.” You cry out, bringing your arms that suddenly feel so heavy to push him off but instead he wraps his hands around your wrists and presses them into the bed, “it’s o-okay baby. I’m almost there.” Sweat drops are now falling on you. He slows down his thrusts, he grinds himself into your cervix that sends him over the edge. His hips still and he groans loudly emptying his load into you. You whine, weakly trying to get him off, but still relishing in your postorgasmic bliss. He pulls out watching the way you weakly curl into yourself, his spunk seeping out of you and he can't help but smirk. 

“Don’t float away from me yet baby.” He says tapping your cheek. He slips the same shirt you had on earlier over your head and wipes you down. Slipping on some sweats and an old shirt he tucks himself in bed with you. Your eyes are now closed, the cloudiness of your high slowly dissipating but still, you felt exhausted. You slowly blinked, now realizing that Hwa had turned off the lights and you sleepily admired the way the neon purple lights from the signs outside illuminated the room.

“Hwa?” You ask into the darkness. “Hm?” He responds, not moving from his spot, “I might’ve agreed to another race next weekend.” You say sheepishly, he rolls his eyes in the dark, and you can feel the disappointment and annoyance radiating off him, “you’re in big trouble.”

[ghostieyanyan]

hi ~🤍 how do you think (yan or not). demon twst react to find out mc is a human girl ? they khow she is magicless but ahem...

~Human girl in NRC?!~

Yan!DemonAU!Idia x fab!mc

Yan!DemonAU!Jack x fab!mc

Yan!DemonAU!Leona x fab!mc

I'll still use they/them pronouns even if mc is female. so if you're male, there is talk about future kids so processed with caution

i don't know if you sent this twice or if someone just asked the same question but i don't mind either way. i picked some random students to write about since you didn't specify which one you wanted. i hope you enjoy!!

Warnings: maybe a lot of grammar issues (sorry), future kids talk, stalking, creepy behavior, hint of nsfw, cannibalistic behavior

~~~

Idia

Idia found out second hand, aka from Ortho.

Apparently, when ortho meets anyone, he does an automatic scan of them. It basically tells him everything about the person, mainly physically. That scan also goes into Idia's computer and he happened to see it.

To see the mysterious prefect has more layers of mysteriousness??? You must be a legendary pull!!!!! He HAS to know more. but it wasn't like he'll talk to you himself.... his heart couldn't take that.

Instead, he asked ortho to check up on you. which wasn't too hard cause you already consider Ortho as one of the first years in your group.

He recorded every interaction you had with ortho, pretending you were talking to him~

"How are you today?"

"You did great, Orth--- ████ !!"

"Hey, you wanna stop by Ramshackle dorm after school?"

He'd probably made an AI voice box like your voice for his sick fantasy.

Talking about Ramshackle, he also had installed hidden cameras in every corner of that dorm. One in the kitchen, one in the living room, two in the bathroom, two in your room, and much more. Inside, outside, everywhere!

He likes watching you when you're alone. He also hates to see anyone else in your dorm, with the exception of his own brother and that cute kitty.

Idia likes to think, in a fantasy world where he has more courage, you'll be in the kitchen making him something because work called him in last and when he gets home, you'll greet him with a "welcome home, master" with cat ears---!!!! fantasy world but still!!!

No only is he just feed his sick fantasy of you, he imagined what a future with you would be like... You had no magic so if he took you away to the Island of Woe, you'll have a really hard time running away from him, nearly impossible.

Plus... he's family is a pretty powerful family.... one day, he'll have to think about future kids...

With that, he's decided he'll try to talk to you. It'll be easy with your connect with Ortho, plus Ortho could help.

Ortho would probably see this as helping his older brother with a crush and if that crush helps his brother out of his shell, its a win win!

Idia will, of course, only tell his brother about his innocent pining for you and keep his dark fantasies to himself for now. Until he's sure you wouldn't might him share his fantasies with you. And if you do mind... sorry to break it to you-

Maybe when he takes the overblot students to the island of woe, he'll also take you. saying it's for your safety. No one knows why there's been a coincident amount of students in NRC overblot. Plus you being caught in is most of them time is worrisome. you staying in NRC will likely end you life if you keep in countering these Overblots.

Ortho couldn't help but agree with his brother but also saw this opportunity to get you more closer to his brother.

"What do you think, prefect?"

~~~

Jack

Jack was one of the first to find out about your little secret. It was your scent... But he's not the type to share it if you haven't shared it yourself. And if any other beastmen tried to share that information or point it out without your permissions, he'll have a nice chat with them. You don't have to worry a thing!

Whether you, him, or anyone that notices, wants to admit or point out, jake has been stuck to your hip. He will 100% be like a personal. Make sure no one enters a room when you are changing. Make sure that when you use the restroom, no one is trying to peek at you. Especially makes sure that no one tries anything that might be a threat to you!

He'll total imagine you running your fingers through his hair, scratching behind his ears, and rubbing the base of his horns. He will go feral.

If you ask Jack about how this world works, his tail will start wagging. (he's happy you came to him with your questions.) He'll answer any questions you have, even the "obvious" ones. He not the type to make you feel guilty about asking a question that you don't know, unlike ace.

If the topic changes to the future, he'll say that he's planning to find a mate so that he can proudly work hard for his mate and his pups. But he's "not in a rush to look for one right now." Cause he's already found his mate...

Some people on the outside of your relationship with Jack, might say that you have Jack wrapped around your little finger. You want to lay down on him? He'll turn into his wolf form so you'll be comfortable. You late to something? He'll give you a ride! (He could change into his wolf form but he could also give you a piggy back ride.. and feel your legs wrapped around him~)

Jack tries his hardest to not let his animal instincts scary you off. It's not like he thinks your weak, anything but that! He actually admires you, you were thrown into an unknown world and learned to adapted and you've made yourself home here. You've also make home in his heart~

He could only hope that your relationship grows enough that you wouldn't want to leave...

In dyer situations, Jack will protect you. He'll shield you with his own body, protecting you from tiny things like falling books or from big powerful spells.

He also really likes to watch you nurse him back to health. If you were anyone else, he'll brush you off, saying "he's fine" or "he can take care of himself." But since your the one nursing him, he's a little more weaking on his protest.

Watching you take care of him, makes me super excited for the future. Maybe he'll help you were sick? Or maybe he'll walk in on you care for your pups?

Man... if it weren't for both of you being in college and freakily not financially ready for kids, he would-

~~~

Leona

He was one of the first people to find out. He usually wouldn't care much about it. he would have just allowed you to be and keeps his distance. And if you were paths do cross, he'll be mindful of the things he says to you, aka not being too rude to you. (Only people that were sharp notice his demeaner but it wasn't like they'll go up to the lion about it)

Without realizing it, he kinda became fond of you. How you go get things but not in an obedient pet way, just because you can help way... you often cant say no but you also could stand up for in justince? How you are still kind to the people who hurt you or used you, tricked you.. How you still help people with any background.

He couldn't understand it but he was also fascinated of it.

The day when you came to savanaclaw because you and your cat beast were kicked out of your dorm was, in better words, interesting.

He wasn't proud of it but when you slept in leona's room, he couldn't help himself from watching you sleep. Watching how your chest moved as you breathed in and out subconsciously. How savanaclaw's heat made you kick your blanket away, showing him your sweat glazed body. It made his mouth water..

he wonders how'd you taste..? No, your sweat wasn't enough to satisfy this lion, but you. Your blood, the meat that clung to your skin and bones, your organs... he wont mind killing you here and now just to have a taste...

But it was too soon, way too soon... he'll spoil himself if he wasn't patient.

For right now, watching you from a distance will be enough. unless you keep trying to interact with him, he cant make any promises...

After watching you for quite a while, hes thoughts about killing your just to taste you slowly subsided. but it was quickly replaced with another thought..

Cheka was at NRC for one of his visits, much to leona's dismay. but he'd overheard that cheka had taken a liking to you!

Whenever Cheka returned to leona's side, he'd always asked, "why does that not-demon live so far away..? They must be really lonely.." or "why not bring that not-demon home with us?! Then they wont be lonely anymore!!"

After Cheka left and leona had some time to think to himself. He thought, he could bring you back to Sunset Savana. You took care of cheka like he was your own. You wont be able to say no to cheka.

You'll also be taken care of. Food, roof over your head, secrity, what more could you need?

The only problem was how to make you stay...

He thought about it long enough and rolled over in his bed to take a nap.

Cheka would leave him alone if he had a new cousin to play with...

~~~

[dollishmehrayan]

BAKE ME A CAKE HCS ── .✦

a/n: I’ve had like 3 bags of pretzels and tons of water and I’ve got my Spotify playlist going and ready, so I’m so ready to crush this omg 😭, but literally the pretzels were so yum!! (Sea salt) but anyways enough of food but genuinely you guys need to like um request fics and hcs!!

(Tags: batboys x baker!reader)

BRUCE WAYNE ── .✦

Admiration and Support: Bruce is genuinely amazed by your skills in the kitchen. He never imagined that someone could be so talented at making intricate cakes and delicate pastries. He’ll often sneak into the kitchen just to watch you work, appreciating the craftsmanship that goes into each creation.

Gifts: On special occasions, Bruce will have high-end ingredients or tools delivered to your door, ensuring you have the best supplies for your baking. He may also commission a cake from you for one of the many Wayne galas.

Late-Night Treats: After a long day, he loves sneaking a piece of your cake or a warm pastry when everyone else is asleep. It’s his secret way of unwinding after patrol, and he sometimes brings it to the Batcave when he's working late.

Baking as a Family Activity: If you’re close to his kids, Bruce loves seeing them get involved. Alfred usually helps with the dishes, but Bruce will occasionally attempt to assist in the baking process—though his attempts usually lead to flour everywhere.

DICK GRAYSON ── .✦

The Enthusiastic Taste Tester: Dick is your biggest fan when it comes to your baking. He always asks to taste-test everything you make. You can’t get a batch of cookies or cupcakes past him without him giving an enthusiastic “Are these for me?”

Bakes Together: He absolutely loves baking with you. Even if he’s not the best at it, he loves the experience of spending time together and sharing in the process of creating something beautiful. He’ll add his own “creative” touches (usually involving way too much frosting or sprinkles and like massive diabetes but don’t tell him that😞🙏)

Appreciation: Dick loves showing off your work to his friends and family, boasting about your baking skills. He’ll even tell random strangers about your cakes if the opportunity arises.

Sharing the Love: He loves gifting your baked goods to people. Whether it’s a batch of cookies for the Titans or cupcakes for a charity event, he’s always making sure your delicious treats are shared with others.

JASON TODD ── .✦

The Hidden Sweet Tooth: Jason may come off as tough and gritty, but he has an undeniable soft spot for your baked goods. He’ll act like he doesn’t care, but you’ll often find him sneaking into the kitchen late at night, indulging in the last piece of cake you made.

In the Kitchen With You: Jason’s more of a hands-off kind of guy, but if you ever need help, he’ll step in. He’s not the best baker, but he’ll always try to help you clean up afterward, washing dishes or setting up the ingredients.

Cakes for Special Occasions: Jason secretly loves it when you bake him a special cake for his birthday or some other occasion. He’ll probably act like he’s too tough to care about something so sweet, but he’ll keep a piece of your cake in the fridge to savor later.

Cakes as Comfort: When he's had a rough day, the comfort of your baking is something that instantly calms him. It’s not just the taste but the warmth and care you put into it that makes him feel safe.

TIM DRAKE ── .✦

The Perfectionist’s Palate: Tim appreciates the art of baking on a technical level. He’ll analyze every part of your cake, from the texture of the frosting to the way the layers are stacked, and he’ll always give you the most thoughtful and genuine feedback.

Baking Research: Tim loves to try and learn new recipes with you. He’ll spend hours researching the best techniques, finding obscure recipes, and then he’ll be the one to present a new idea for a cake or pastry for you to try together. He has a great appreciation for the science behind baking.

The Baker’s Helper: Tim is a practical person, so he’ll often assist in the more tedious parts of baking—like measuring ingredients, prepping the oven, or organizing everything before you get started.

Decorating Cakes: Tim is a sucker for well-decorated cakes. He’ll admire your artistry, whether it’s intricate fondant work or delicate piping. If you ever need a hand with the decoration, he’ll be there, helping you get the details just right.

DAMIAN WAYNE ── .✦

Unimpressed at First: Damian might be skeptical at first, having grown up in a more rigid environment. He’ll try to act like he’s not interested in your baking, especially if it’s too “sweet” or “fluffy” for his tastes. But over time, he comes to respect your craft.

A Taste of Perfection: When he finally does try one of your creations, his usually stoic face will break into a small, approving nod. “It’s acceptable,” he’ll say. And that’s his way of telling you that you’ve impressed him.

Incredibly Protective of Your Work: Damian will guard your cakes like they’re priceless treasures. If anyone tries to take the last piece, you’ll find him defending your work with a level of intensity only rivaled by his devotion to his family.

Baking for Special Occasions: He may not show it outwardly, but Damian takes great pride in ensuring that you have the time and space to bake for important events. He’s quietly supportive and makes sure that nothing interferes with your baking process.

AlFRED PENNYWORTH ( IF YOU WERE DATING ANYOF THE BATBOYS ) ── .✦

Your Biggest Supporter: Alfred is the heart of the Batfamily, and he’s often the one who enjoys your baked goods the most. He’ll frequently offer to help you with anything in the kitchen and often provides tips and tricks (he's been making delicious meals for the family for years).

Subtle Compliments: When you bake something particularly spectacular, Alfred will give you a compliment in his typical understated way: “Ah, Miss [Y/N], another masterpiece, I see.” He might even sneak a piece of cake before dinner, though he always acts like it was an accident.

A Baking Partner: Alfred may not be much of a baker himself, but he’ll be happy to assist you in making whatever you need. His love for you is evident in how he’ll quietly encourage you to bake something for a family event or special occasion.

Admiring Your Skills: Alfred will often tell you how much he admires your patience and attention to detail in your work. He loves seeing the joy your creations bring to the rest of the family.

[simlicious]

CC Creation Tutorial: Smooth Seams in Blender

In this tutorial, I will show you how to make your mesh seams smooth inside Blender (no Milkshape required!) and walk you through the process step by step. We will make a perfectly smooth mesh and transfer the normal data from that mesh to our main mesh using the Data Transfer modifier.

I am using Blender 3.6 in this tutorial (though you should be able to follow along using other versions as well)

You do not need to have much previous knowledge to follow this tutorial, but I assume you know some basics in Blender like how to select, things, navigate around, etc, and know how to import the meshes and put them into Blender.

For this tutorial, I exported the Sims 3 afbodyEP4DressPromBigBow mesh with TSR Workshop. You can use any clothing mesh you like though, and works on any meshes, not just Sims 3 ones.

This is our mesh. You can already tell that it has the dreaded seams on the neck and the rest of the body.

First, we need to make a copy of the mesh (in Object mode, select the mesh and hit Ctrl+D Shift+D to duplicate it, then hit Esc to stop it from moving around).

Rename the mesh (I added Seamless to the mesh name).

Make sure the original mesh is hidden (click the eye symbol) and select the Seamless mesh.

Press the Tab key to go into Edit Mode.

Now we select the parts that we want to have smooth seams. Let's select everything that is skin (you can select a litte piece of the mesh and then press Ctrl+L to select the entire piece)!

Now, press M and in the menu, choose By Distance. (in older versions, this is called Remove Doubles).

This will remove all double vertices at the seams on the selection we made.

It will show you how many vertices it removed. The skin looks nice and smooth!

Let's switch back to our original mesh: Make sure you deactivate the eye on the Seamless mesh and activate the eye again on the main mesh. Then, select the main mesh.

Now, let's add a data modifier to our main mesh. Click the blue wrench icon in the vertical list of the properties panel and then onto Add Modifier, then choose Data Transfer from the list.

As the source, we choose our Seamless mesh.

Also toggle on Face Corner Data and click the Custom Normals button.

Hold on, there is a message saying that we should enable Auto Smooth in Object Data Properties. Let's do that next! (if the message does not appear for you, maybe Auto Smooth is already on).

Click the green inverted triangle button and in the Normals section, toggle on Auto Smooth.

Now we can switch back to the modifier tab by clicking the blue wrench icon again.

But hang on, what happened to our mesh? There are now black spots over the dress and shadows on the legs!

This is due to the Data transfer modifier's Mapping setting. If we change it to Topology, our mesh goes back to normal again. Phew!

Now that the normals look good, we can start the transfer of our new smooth normals from the seamless mesh to our main mesh. To do that, we hit the Generate Data Layers button. This button works destructively, so you cannot undo what it did, just FYI.

Note: On newer versions of Blender, Generate Data Layers may not be enough to transfer the normals and you may need to apply the modifier instead.

You can toggle the modifier's visuals on and off with the little screen icon to see the results after you click Generate Data Layers to see if it stuck. If it did not (and you see the seams of your base mesh when toggling it off), try to apply it instead.

I switched from textured to solid shading because the differences are just more noticeable in this mode. This is how our mesh looks now with the modifier turned off.

Because we clicked the transfer button, the normals have been permanently applied to our mesh. The skin is smooth now, and so is the dress (even though we did not smooth that one, hmm...)

If we toggle the modifier back on, suddenly the dress has seams again! What's going on there? I'm not exactly sure why, but Auto Smooth seems to be doing some smoothing on the dress mesh as well.

I am not sure if this is normal behavior or not, but let's pretend that this did not happen and the modifier in fact did not smooth the dress.

Maybe we just forgot to smooth some areas on the Seamless mesh that we noticed only later on. That's no problem. We simply modify our Seamless mesh again!

So let's swap back to the seamless mesh and select it (remember to click the eye icons so only the Seamless mesh is visible).

Let's select the main dress parts and press M -> merge by distance on them. We cannot smooth the whole dress all at once, because then that would remove some seams that we want (like those for the backfaces and the middle section of the dress where the bow is attached).

If we remove the wrong seams, we ruin our normals and will have black splotches.

Now, let's select the backfaces and areas we left out before and repeat this process: M -> merge by distance.

Look at how perfect our Seamless mesh is looking now! Now, let's transfer those beautiful normals to our main mesh.

Select the main mesh and toggle the eye icons again, to hide our Seamless mesh and reveal our main mesh.

Once again, we will use the Generate Data Layers button in our Data Transfer modifier. If you have previously applied the modifier, just add the modifier again to the main mesh and use the settings shown here.

And that's it, you are done! You have a perfectly smoothed mesh that you can export now.

Final Note: it is best to transfer the normals at the very end of your meshing process because any action that recalculates the normals can reset our custom-made smooth normals again.

Of course, you can simply use the Generate Data Layers button again to re-add them, but it saves you time to only do this step at the end.

I almost forgot to say: You still have to use Mesh Toolkit to fix the seams on the edges of your mesh and do the usual shenanigans.

[b-skarsgard]

https://parade.com/movies/bill-skarsgard-nosferatu-interview-exclusive

Skarsgård's vampiric transformation does make him virtually unrecognizable. Combining full-body prosthetics and elaborate costumes, the actor built the character with Eggers over a 10-year period, even working with an operatic vocal coach on a completely new voice. If you're able to spot Skarsgård in the film, hats off to you.

Of course crafting a new version of Dracula/Orlok was certainly a momentous task. Skarsgård's been told there were already over "170 different adaptations" of the character prior to his own. He's humbly giving much of the credit for his own transformation to Eggers' screenplay, though.

full article at the link and under the cut

"I read Robert's Nosferatu script almost 10 years ago, and it hasn't changed all that much in those 10 years," he says. "So the version of Dracula was already different on the page."

Step one in the transformation was the voice. "I was really enamored by Orlok's language," Skarsgård says of Eggers' script. "He's technically speaking German in the movie, but it's English. I think he's learned German just from reading all of these texts and old books. It's this awkwardly constructed English that came out of that."

Orlok's voice was especially important in this film as the character spends much of the film hiding in the shadows to keep his true form hidden from Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult). "The movie monster tends to not have much dialogue, but in this case he has a lot," Skarsgård reflects. "So the voice became my way of expressing the character."

The deep gravely voice in the film was the product of acclaimed Icelandic opera singer Ásgerður Júníusdóttir. "We explored the voice together, but also the technicality of using your entire body when you speak and placing the voice as low as you can in your body," Skarsgård says. "It's a new world for me, and I love voice work. I was just absorbing all of these tools that I'm going to use as my career progresses."

Layered on top of the vocal work were Linda Muir's costumes, what Skarsgård describes as "historically accurate costumes that a 16th-century Hungarian nobleman would have worn. They're the clothes he would have worn when he was a man."

While Focus Features is keeping Orlok's appearance under wraps for as long as possible, you can see the massive fur coat Skarsgård donned in the shadowy poster.

"I knew the shadow was going to be an ally for Orlok, especially in the scenes with Thomas, where he's hiding his appearance," he says. "So he lives in the shadow, and he uses his big fur cape and the hat to not give away what he is. The shadow became a friend."

Perhaps the most impressive element of Skarsgård's transformation, however, was David White's prosthetic makeup, which took hours to apply each day, was difficult to act through and painful to wear. When I ask if he was able to cheat on days he was in the shadows, Skarsgård says no with one exception: "Every single shadow in this movie is also me puppeteering behind camera. That was the only time where I didn't need to have the full regalia on.

"The full prosthetics would take six hours to apply. "It's just uncomfortable," Skarsgård says of having to sit in the chair that long. "And any sense of privacy goes out the window. You become very close with the team that's applying this makeup. They're really getting up in there with a brush in your ass crack. They become your little safe space."

And the six-hour application process was just the beginning of what could be long, physical days on set. The film's final moments involve a sex scene between Orlok and Lily-Rose Depp's Ellen Hutter, which Skarsgård performed in head-to-toe prosthetics.

"I don't know her perspective on, 'I'm going to kiss this monster,'" Skarsgård says about his (fully clothed? skinned? suited?) sex scene, "But for me, when we shot, I was Orlok, and I really, really, really wanted to devour her."

If performing a sex scene in a hot latex bodysuit sounds miserable, that's because it was. "The actual final moment of Orlok was incredibly physically exhausting because there was a lot of technical camera work," Skarsgård says. "What's in the movie, I had to do that 30 times." If you've seen the film, you'll know how truly arduous that experience must have been.

The most difficult day on set for Skarsgård, however, involved a sequence filmed on a boat during Orlok's transfer from his castle in Transylvania to the German harbor he plans to terrorize next. In one scene that involved "pretty tricky advanced camera work," a seaman descends into the hull of the ship to "rid the boat of this demon." As the camera follows the sailor, Skarsgård's Orlok is initially seen behind the man in the shadows.

"Then I have to exit frame, run around and enter my position for when the jump scare pans down to the rats and then pans up and I'm standing there," Skarsgård remembers. "So it's very physical, but I was covered head to toe, except for my eyeballs and the soles of my feet. Even my palms and my hands are covered. That was a 12-hour day."

With that many prosthetics on, there's nowhere for all that sweat to go. "It doesn't breathe, and I don't think it's healthy," Skarsgård confides. "Your body's probably absorbing all those f--king toxins and glue and sh--, plastic and latex and whatever."

During the 12 hours running around the hull of a ship, Skarsgård remembers thinking, "I don't know what's happening, but my body is not doing well."

"You know the skin is your biggest organ right," he says. "So it needs to breathe. I got flashbacks from that urban legend about the woman in Goldfinger being covered in gold and actually dying. I'm like, 'Okay, this is how I go.'"

Obviously, Skarsgård did not die of heat exhaustion in a latex Dracula suit like that one cameraman in the 2022 film Babylon.

"At that point I told them—because it was a long day and I was waiting around—'We need to open it up so my body can breathe,' and then they found the pockets where I could open up and my body started to breathe."

Skarsgård compares the agony of the shoot with what he thinks childbirth would feel like. "They're not on the same level, of course. I've seen childbirth, but it's as close as I can get to giving birth as a man, as these f--king monsters I'm portraying," he says.

When I ask him if there were any other iconic monsters on his bucket list, he says he's done for now. "To play Orlok in Robert Eggers' Nosferatu is the holy grail," he says. "It's kind of the peak and, in a way, the nail in the coffin."

[callmearcturus]

The Video Gaming Major Arcana

The latest patron episode of Into The Aether/@intothecast asked the boys to decide a video game for every Major Arcana card. They ran out of time on it and only got 2/3s thru

my ass was like "Challenge Accepted"

0 - The Fool - Dragon Quest (The Fool is infinite potential and is at the start of a long journey. DQ as a series is a long-running, is a bedrock of the medium, and has done its own takes on everything from pokemon to minecraft, and it either did it first or did it better.)

1 - The Magician - Metroid and Zelda (The Magician is the first person the Fool meets and is a guide for the journey. The Magician is associated strongly with teaching and with tools. Metroid and Zelda both are foundational works and they revolve around gating player process through tools.)

2 - The High Priestess - FEZ (The High Priestess is another guide, but sits before the veil, keeping guard over arcane, hidden knowledge and deciding when to share the secrets of the universe. FEZ is one of the Big Games that hide under layers and layers of mystery.)

3 - The Empress - Stardew Valley (The Empress presides over growth and cultivation of her kingdom, sitting in a field with wheat in hand. SDV is chiefly about taking care of your own domain, the farm and the wider village.)

4 - The Emperor - Civilization (The Emperor is the firm hand of government and can be an important navigator in chaos but also is angered by lack of obedience and losing control. Civ is all about steering every aspect of a nation and protecting it viciously.)

5 - The Hierophant - Pokemon (The Hierophant is a cultural, societal leader that gains power from people who believe similarly but subsequently is very set in their ways. Pokemon is a huge phenomenon that unites people of all ages, but also struggles heavily with innovation and progress.)

6 - The Lovers - Journey (The Lovers aren't necessarily smoochy-smoochy, but represent a Decision, joining hands with another person and striding into the future together. It's Journey. If you know, you know.)

7 - The Chariot - Bethesda's Catalog (The Chariot is a tumultuous, potent card. They hold onto the reins of powerful beasts and drive forward, blazing a new path. But if they lose grip, everything goes to hell. Bethesda's works tend to have this incredible ambition to them, and when they hit, they HIT, but when they miss, it's dramatic.)

8 - Justice - Dark Souls (Justice is the system and its enforcement of its rules, whether they feel fair or arbitrary. I feel DS fits it well-- it relentlessly follows its own rules and is firm in them, which can either draw players in or seem cruel and unwelcoming.)

9 - The Hermit - Immortality (The Hermit is a wise person who gained specialized knowledge but through great personal sacrifice. They find it difficult to share their knowledge because they essentially traded that ability to communicate easily for the wisdom. Immortality has some deeply complicated concepts to communicate, but its methods and the basic mechanics it uses are to some people impossible to understand.)

10 - (Wheel of) Fortune - Spelunky (Fortune is the card of pure luck and the whims of fate and how you survive being caught in its spokes. Spelunky is a pure Rogue-like as opposed to a Rogue-lite and there is no knowing what the procgen will give you.)

11 - Strength - Undertale (Strength is specifically about emotional control and fortitude. It's not about slaying the lion, but holding it, keeping it from lashing out. Undertale is a game that asks the player to endure emotional struggles both against the mechanics and against their own inclinations.)

12 - The Hanged Man - Signalis (OH BOY ITS MY FAVE CARD. The thing about the Hanged Man is that it's a test, a gamble, a deal. The Hanged Man is not hung from the neck, this is not an execution, they are inverted. They choose to be inverted in the hopes of gaining some Insight into the universe, but in doing so risk madness or obsession or doom. Signalis is both a game about a protagonist going through this and also a game that will put the player through this if they aren't careful.)

13 - The Nameless Arcana - Braid (I'm not even personally a fan of Braid, but I believe it is one of the handful of Original Indie Games. The very existence and popularity of Braid and its contemporaries showed that games outside the big studios could hit big. Braid (or Cave Story for the PC crowd) altered the landscape.

14 - Temperance - Yakuza (Temperance is the melding of disparate elements that should not go together into something grand and new, and maintaining that balance. Yakuza manages to be genuine and profound not in spite of its strange mixture of tones and mechanics but because of them.)

15 - The Devil - Genshin Impact (I don't feel the need to elaborate on this one.)

16 - The Tower - Shenmue (The Tower is total upheaval and where it all comes crashing down, where ambition crumbles and brings an institution down with it. Shenmue is not solely to blame for the failure of the Dreamcast and Sega's exit from the console arena, but it contributed to it and is emblematic of that seachange.)

17 - The Star - Mass Effect (The Star is a beacon in the darkness, a distant light that indicates not so much a goal, but that the journey will continue. Mass Effect is a landmark title that maybe didn't execute on half the things it tried, strangled by its own scope, but it still showed what games could do, broadening the possibility space. It is hope for greater experiences and art.)

18 - The Moon - Metal Gear (The Moon illuminates the path through the darkness, but creates illusions in the reflections, demanding the querent move forward with care or they will go astray, go mad. Is Metal Gear really deep? Is it the closest triple-A games get to arthouse? Does it have meaning? Or is it a mess? Is it too Problematique to justify it's big ideas? Is it all just really, really stupid? Or is it genius?)

19 - The Sun - Tetris Effect (The Sun comes at the end of a long, arduous journey. It is the sigh of relief, the tears of release, the light to finally see how far you've come. Tetris Effect is the latest iteration of one of the oldest formulas ever, and it's brilliant and celebratory and invites everyone to take part in its joy.)

20 - Judgement - Pathologic (Judgement is all-seeing and all-knowing, the final tally and the reckoning. So is Pathologic. Few experiences demand so much from the player, and few games are so brutally honest in answering the player's decisions. In Pathologic, you will get what you deserve.)

21 - The World - The Outer Wilds (The beginning is the end is the beginning. Completion and totality and holistic understanding of Everything. It's gotta be Outer Wilds.)

[cressidascowper]

hi, your latest edit for thgweek24 is absulutely stunning and i thought if i can ask if you can make a tutorial about the ripped gifs/paper effect? if not, that's okay! have a nice day <3

RIPPED PAPER EFFECT TUTORIAL

hi! thank u :D (thgweek set referenced)

below the cut are the steps that i took to create this effect. this tutorial is very screenshot heavy and assumes some basic knowledge of photoshop and giffing.

i do my best to try and explain my process so hopefully this is helpful! if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

STEP 1: Choose and arrange your two gifs

with this specific use of the ripped paper effect, there's one gif on the "outside" of the rip and one on the "inside." in this example, the outside is the b&w and the inside gif is the colored:

for me, the outside gif determined the positioning of the inside gif and the position/direction of the rip. as can be seen, outside gif has a lot of space on the left. therefore, i knew i was going to position the subject of the inside gif more on the right so i could create the rip without hiding too much of the b&w gif.

next, you want to arrange the inside gif on TOP of the outside gif. your layers panel should look like this:

STEP 2: Creating the ripped effect

here comes the fun part! in order to create this effect, you're going to need torn paper brushes. here and here are some packs you can download (w credit to owner).

next, create a layer mask on your inside gif. you're going to use the brush of your choosing as an ERASER. then, you can play around with the size and angle of the eraser to create the look you want. this is what the gif and the layers panel now look like:

STEP 3: Adding the paper

in order to add the paper around the edges of the inside gif (where the text goes), you now need to download a paper texture. i found mine on google by searching "paper texture png."

place the paper png IN BETWEEN your outside and your inside gif. this is what everything should look like:

now, similarly to what you did in the previous step with the inside gif, you are going to create a layer mask on the paper layer. using an torn paper brush as an eraser, you will erase the paper, creating the shape you want.

be sure to leave enough room for whatever text you want to be on the paper. also, i suggest making the rips of the paper different from the rips of the inside gif so it looks more organic.

here is what my gif looks like after erasing the paper:

optional: add a drop shadow on the paper layer (right click -> blending options... -> drop shadow)

STEP 4: Adding the text

first, you want to identify the space where you will have room to place your full quote within the paper. if there are no spaces, you can always use your brush/eraser to modify the layer masks.

next, add a layer on top of the paper layer (and below the inside gif). select the text tool and start typing your repeated text!

because you can see which text is hidden by the inside gif and what is on top of the paper, a shortcut i use is the "tab" button and only type words that will be seen.

type the repeated words around the quote you want highlighted:

now, in order to contain the text within the paper, convert the text layers into smart objects. then, create a clipping mask on both layers (right click –> create clipping mask). this is what your layer panels should look like:

with that, your gif should now look something like this, with the text contained inside the paper:

STEP 5: Highlighting the quote

as you can see, it just looked like a bunch of words. so, in order to highlight the quote you carved out in the previous step, add a new layer below the layer of the quote you want highlighted:

now, use a round brush (softness around 10-15% and opacity at 70-80%) with the color of your choice to highlight the words you want.

and there you have it!

i hope that this made sense and was helpful! if you have any questions or clarifications, please don't hesitate to ask :)

[super-paper]

I still don’t understand AFO. Why is he like this. This series repeatedly goes out of it’s way to humanize the villains but AFO is still just evil because he wants to be the demon lord and I don’t get it.

That would be the point, I feel-- AFO doesn't want to be understood or seen as "human." He wants to completely lose himself in character, wants other people to mindlessly play along with the story he's written for himself like good little extras, and wants everyone around him to acknowledge what a ~perfectly inhuman demon lord~ he is-- and he's bent the entire narrative of MHA around himself like a shield in order to accomplish that. Like, the idea of people breaking the same black and white narrative that he's been using to protect himself (and trap others) quite literally drives him insane:

"That murderer--" "You killer--" oooooo you're so mad that human nature is basically good, that people are endlessly capable of growth and healing, and that actual human beings can't simply be shoved into teeny black and white fictional boxes ooooo all the more evidence that he's gonna completely lose his shit when Tomura ultimately refuses to kill Izuku lmao

I wanna point out his speech bubbles in the second image, bc Hori frequently uses speech bubbles to emphasize a character's mental state-- Like.... Bro is literally coming apart at the seams with rage that Stain is trying to be anything more than a starter villain. 😭The english translation also kind of sort of makes it seem like AFO is simply referring to Stain by his moniker (Hero Killer), but the term he uses in the original text feels a little more... loaded, imho?? The kanji used for Stain's "Hero Killer" Moniker is "Goroshi" ("殺ごろし"), but here, AFO instead refers to him as a "Murderer" (殺人犯/satsujin-han). Calling Stain an out-and-out murderer instead of calling him by a villain moniker feels a lot more specific, a lot more pointed, and it also tells us a lot more about AFO’s fucked up sense of values.

Anyway, I've said this before, but AFO is a character who reads heavily as an escapist fantasy gone horrifically wrong. "Why is a world where villains are allowed to climb back up from rock bottom and heal so intolerable to AFO?" "why does the idea of people breaking free from their roles make AFO so angry?" "why is AFO literally trying to BECOME a comic book character?" are better questions to ask than "why is bro just evil for the sake of it," I feel. Like obviously, a world where the label of "villain" gets thoroughly and utterly dismantled is one where AFO loses his power over others.... but it's also a world that rips that protective layer of "fiction" away from him, exposes his own humanity, and destroys that delusion of becoming the "perfect villain king" that he's wrapped himself up in.

tfw you LARP so hard that it ends up getting your brother killed and now breaking character means you gotta Process All Of That .................................................... Unless...? :)

What I find especially interesting about AFO is that MHA's narrative actually cooperates with shielding him from the readers, to a degree-- scenes that depict rare moments of genuine emotion are overlaid with contrary, cartoonishly evil narration that's meant to distract the reader from what's actually being depicted. The bulk of the series depicts his face being hidden in shadows even though it *literally* has no reason to be, and we don't get an unobscured look until the other characters finally start rallying together to reject his story. He is literally introduced to the series through a TV screen, which MHA has been using as a shorthand for its depiction of fantasy since day one:

In my opinion, I feel the final act of "rejection" that AFO fears isn't from his brother, or his followers, or "his other self"-- what he fears is the story itself rejecting him and finally exposing him for what he is: an utterly mundane human. Like, a total freak of a guy to be sure, but still totally human. The narrative revoking its various "protections" and working against AFO to humanize him acts as the final insult to everything he claims to believe in while doubling as the last bit of confirmation that he was never gonna become a "perfect demon lord." MHA being what it is, this is something inevitable.

Where other characters in this series draw strength from their origin-- the moment that defines them as a human and individual-- AFO likely fears and rejects his own origin for this same reason.

Anyway. I would describe AFO as a wannabe-author who refuses to make public appearances or divulge details about his personal life, but ultimately reveals a little too much about himself through the "stories" and "characters" he tries to write-- so ppl still know he's a freak with issues by virtue of how fatherless his content is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Putting together all the pieces of himself that AFO accidentally lets slip is part of what makes MHA so fun (to me, at least!).

[kazehita]

Hello!!! I love your art so much, especially the way you render!! Do you have any tips, tutorials, etc on rendering?? Be as detailed or curt as you like, I'm just hoping to improve my skills -- and I hope to see more art from you, in any form!!! You're a fantastic artist !!!! Have a good day :)

Sorry for the delay in answering this, I wanted to answer it well!!!

Here's my typical 5-step process:

flats

he has been flatted. You'll notice I also colored the lineart at this stage as well! Also, I do work with the background at the same time, but I have hidden it here for simplicity.

2. Cell shade shadows

I used to skip cell shading and just ball with my rendering, but I have found starting out like this is much faster!!

3. Airbrush shadows and colors

I did two things here, one is just a touch of airbrushing the colors into eachother, to help make everything more harmonious. The other is to airbrush colors onto my shadows! I set that layer to multiply, and mess around until something looks a little like I want.

4. Painting

This is the time sink - there's no getting around it, it just takes forever!! It's a lot about making the dark areas darker, and artifically injecting some color diversity - I like to diversify shades, and just slap on slight hue shifts as i go, and if it sucks I just paint over it some more. I draw different colors into eachother (look at the black shirt above, see how i bring in the tan and whites into the grey?) and add detail and texture. It's a little hard to explain beyond that, hmm... Do let me know if you have specific questions about it!

5. bedazzle and effects

I add extra highlights to the highlights, maybe a sparkle or two on a hard edge, hash lines for texture, and occasionally I also do screentones in shadows. Also, importantly, i blur things that shgould be out of focus! See on the arms and legs here - the bottom image has them blurred more intensely the further they are from the focal point. It's a small thing, but this effect goes a long way!

Annd done!

It's the little things that make a rendered piece sing! A balance between detailing and speed is a tricky one to figure out - I'm still working on that myself!

Also, there's two different ways I render at the moment, one is the quick-messy for sketches, which is what I've done for most of my fanart lately, but I assumed that you were asking about my full process so I went into detail on that. Tho if you're curious about my sketch rendering, anyone is welcome to ask me about that as well!

(there is little method to this madness though, haha)

Omg wait I had forgotten, a few months ago i was making a mini art guide about some tips and tricks

I lost motivation but if anyone is actually interested do let me know and maybe i'll finish it hjsdhjfghjs

Anyway, thank you so much anon!!!!! wah!!!!!!! Your kind words mean the world to me ;w; They fill me with strength and joy1!!!!!! thank you so much!!!!!!!!

[greenthena]

The Eldritch Ball or Aziraphale's Macabre Danse

I'm a huge sucker for dark classical music (I'm using the term "classical" broadly, not referring to the specific period. Music-y folks, please forgive.) As such, Saint-Saëns's "Danse Macabre" is one of my all time favorite pieces. It's spooky. It's intentionally dissonant. It's even got a jump scare! Like, literally, the perfect piece of music.

The story behind "Danse Macabre" goes like this: Each Halloween at midnight, Death enters the graveyard with a fiddle. As he plays, the skeletons rise from the ground and dance through the cemetery, resurrected by Death's power and possessed by his instrument.

In S2 E3, the Bentley plays "Danse Macabre" as Aziraphale drives up to Edinburgh. "What do we do? We play classical music that stays classical music." (And the Bentley listens to him! Because the Bentley is an expression of Crowley's subconscious and wants to please him and make him happy...and I'm sure you can find lots of excellent metas to that end. Or maybe you have another theory about why the Bentley is so pliant toward the angel? I'd love to hear it. But that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm just getting distracted.)

Why is this song so perfect for a bit of subtle foreshadowing and repeated metaphor? So glad you asked. I have reasons. And evidence. Please, peruse my wares.

In the A Plot of this episode, Aziraphale travels to Scotland to visit a pub called The Resurrectionist. (Ya know, like Death? Like how Death resurrects people in the song? Okay, just wanted to really hit that nail into the coffin.) The pub is, of course, named for a certain Mr. (not Dr., he's a surgeon) Dalrymple, whom Crowley and Aziraphale meet in the accompanying flashback minisode entitled (you'll never guess) "The Resurrectionist." The minisode plot involves Crowley and his the angel encountering young Elspeth, a grave robber who, like Death, releases the bodies of the deceased from their earthly bonds of soil and stone. My interpretation is that Elspeth becomes Death incarnate, first in the process of using her instrument (her shovel) to resurrect the dead, and later when she inadvertently brings about the literal death of her partner, Wee Morag. Rather than allow Wee Morag's body to turn to dust in the ground, Elspeth "resurrects" her, selling her body to Dr. Dalrymple (sorry, Mr. Dalrymple, he's a surgeon, not a doctor), who will use Wee Morag's body for research, which will in turn save the lives of countless others by furthering the field of medicine. A form of resurrection, indeed. There's also the plot thread of Crowley and Aziraphale providing Elspeth with a nest egg to escape the cycle of poverty into which she has been born. This, too, is another form of re-birth. Or, say it with me, resurrection. Alright, you're getting it now.

Okay, now I get to delve into the fun stuff. Let's talk about that cotillion ball, shall we? You know, that danse party where Aziraphale persuades all the shopkeepers on Whickber street to attend a Jane Austen-style ball?

I personally refer to this whole fiasco experience as the Eldritch Ball. On the surface, it seems fairly innocent. The shopkeepers need a little bit of encouragement to attend the Whickber Street monthly meeting, but the angel manages to convince everyone to join with the help of some coercion-via-bribery. When they show up, they're transmuted into Austen-esque characters, from their clothes, to their speech patterns, even to some extent, their perception of reality. This is where it starts to get a little uncomfortable if you peel back the layers. Mrs. Sandwich can't talk about what she does for a living, which is a great comedy bit, but also demonstrates that her speech is being significantly censored and altered by an outside force. With the exception of Mr. Brown (hidden agendas here, Neil? I honestly don't know), all the shopkeepers find themselves in new, slightly-period-appropriate garments. What's really weird, though, is that no one notices the changes. When the dancing begins, to the music of Mr. Anderson's piano and an accompanying string quartet (strings...as in violins...as in fiddles. Remember Death's fiddle?), Nina appears to be the only one who realizes that something is off.

Maggie: This is something new.

Nina: This is something completely bonkers. Are we...? Why is everyone talking like they've escaped from Pride and Prejudice?

Maggie: Just getting into the spirit of things, I suppose.

Nina: The spirit of what things? This is meant to be the shopkeeper association monthly meeting.

Maggie: Hmm. Yes. Now that you put it like that...

Nina: Are we dancing?

Maggie: Yes.

Nina: Did you ever learn the steps to this dance?

Maggie: It's just what we do, isn't it?

Nina: No. No, it isn't. This is something mad. This is their [Crowley & Azirapahle's] fault. They're doing this.

Something is definitely mad. One might even say it's macabre. Aziraphale has become Death the Resurrectionist. He has lured the shopkeepers of Whickber Street through a portal (as Death leads his flock from the world of the dead to the world of the living.) Aziraphale's instrument is his clipboard and pen, held almost as one might hold a fiddle and bow, as he invites the various shopkeepers to the monthly meeting. Once they all arrive, he miraculously gives them new clothes (as Death knits together the bones of the dead), and then proceeds to control their bodies and minds, as though they are merely marionettes. They dance and speak in the way Aziraphale imagines, fulfilling his fantasy of a perfect Jane Austen-style ball (quite literally, the Danse Macabre.)

The shopkeepers have become the dead and Aziraphale controls them until the spell is broken--or rather until the window is broken.

To be honest, I don't think Aziraphale is really aware of how much he is able to transfigure his environment, including the humans who happen to be close by. Or, at least, I don't believe he does any of this with ill intent. He's just a bit blind to anything outside his fixation of wooing Crowley, at the moment. As a result, he creates a situation that is profoundly problematic and unnatural. Just like the dead in the graveyard have no agency when Death plays his fiddle, the Whickber Street shopkeepers are possessed by Aziraphale's intricate romantic fantasy and must dance as long as the music plays.

It is, in fact, only when the music stops, that the shopkeepers begin to realize that something is most certainly weird. The diagetic music (Mr. Anderson & Co.) abruptly cuts off when an approaching demon horde tosses a brick through the bookshop window. Now the spell, or in this case, miracle, begins to break down. While the shopkeepers still appear to be somewhat under the influence of Aziraphale's persuasive aura, a few of them glance down at their clothes in confusion and look around the bookshop, as though waking from a dream. And at this point, after a little finagling, Crowley escorts the humans out of the bookshop and out of Aziraphale's Danse Macabre.

Once the demons attack the bookshop Aziraphale's influence on his surroundings really starts to deteriorate. Throughout the season, he's been able to structure and manipulate reality (sometimes with Crowley's help) to suit his needs: protecting Gabriel, altering the Bentley, organizing the Ball, etc. But once the bookshop, his safe space, has been breached, he loses control of the situation. From this point in the narrative, nothing goes according to Aziraphale's plan. Aziraphale wants to protect Jimbriel, but the former archangel insists on giving himself over to the demons. Crowley leaves and Aziraphale has to defend the bookshop on his own, when he'd expected Crowley to come right back and save him. While defending the bookshop, Aziraphale reaches his "last" resort not once, but twice: first allowing Nina and Maggie to use his books (!!!) as weapons and then blowing up his halo in a last ditch effort to fend off the invaders. This was not on the agenda for today!

Things just continue to go downhill from there, Aziraphale losing all control of the situation. And by the time the Final Fifteen wraps up, the angel has lost his bookshop and possibly his most important relationship. By the end of the season, Aziraphale is no longer Death the Resurrectionist, the manipulator and puppeteer. Now the angel has become the puppet, dancing to Heaven's music.

[voidcxltist]

It's drawinng time!! And today, my Narinder's hands and arms!

Tw as per usual; unrealistic bones, scars, poorly drawn hands, mention of amputating & self harm

Right; Narinder has a scar of Shamura's battle at the palm, three stings of Shamura's clawed hand managed to hit it in the air.

The ring-like scars are self-inflicted, during his first days of being back in control, he desperately tried to find a solution to the fear of harming someone.

He took a knife of the kitchen and started cutting his fingers at first, before sawing down onto them and chopping them away.

Abel had to enter in medbay with needle and thread, sewing them carefully and leaving Narinder to rest.

His arms have two bells to know where he is, and to protect his sight from The Purgatory's scars

Though he had commited several times self harm, he tries desperately to quit and he slowly manages to do so! But his fur will always have a testament of his actions with irregular growth of fur in his arms.

He also has traslucid skin & fur, so the bones show a little.

Left; The same thing happened in his left, sawing down his fingers again, and commiting self harm.

But, in this side, he has a pentagram on his palm, signal he was revived by Abel.

Unnecesary rant down here!!

Why does Narinder have traslucid fur and skin?

The process of reviving ritual when Narinder passed away during The Purgatory to the cult's travel, involved crafting, inside to outside, a body. So, Abel had to say the order of the creating;

"The essence of the soul is picked, brain and heart are first, the vessel of a former god, the feline's chest had been open. Lungs, guts and nervous system, the backbone won't be missing. Supporting the body follows thigh, hip, back, and the arms get on the track. Giving him the ability to move arms, elbow and hand, the same goes on the other side. The skull and ribcage keeping it all hidden. After lots of process of joining, the three final layers are set—"

"Bones, flesh and skin, together all again", was the last phrase.

"Skin, bones and flesh, all together again" was the thing he said

So, instead of the bones being covered by muscles and then the skin, the muscles became a gelatin-like substance due to Narinder's mind and heart trying to pick up how to keep the bones inside of his body.

That's pretty much it

[cognitivefunctionscomics]

INTP functions characters

Titania: Analytical, reserved, unconventional, and self-assured, Ti is critical and sometimes sarcastic. She strives for fairness and can sometimes come off as unintentionally arrogant, cold, self-absorbed, and even destructive. Her dream is to understand everything, setting aside human bias and limitation. She perceives reality as a system with hidden variables that could be controlled if comprehended. She doesn't intentionally exude a "back off" aura but is bothered by those she views as intrusive or disrespectful, especially when they invade her space with too many questions. As such, she’s wary of overly friendly or charming people. While observant, her focus isn't always on the tangible world, like what others wear or current events, unless there's a reason. Instead, she's keen on spotting theoretical flaws and is therefore hard to deceive. Even her friends are scrutinized; she prioritizes caution over instinct. She holds some misanthropic, deterministic, and nihilistic views, even if she identifies as "unbiased", to better deal with stress, ensuring she doesn't take things personally. She appears detached even when engaged, constantly building mental models to understand things from the inside out. When allowed the freedom to explore her often taboo interests, she's endlessly inquisitive. While Ti values intelligence, she sometimes overlooks the obvious or fails to consider the emotional aspects of issues. She adheres to binary logic until undeniable evidence proves otherwise and is irritated by elusive answers. Disliking incompetence and emotional reasoning, she thinks humanity should focus on conquering nature and understanding existence, freeing themselves from ignorance, making informed decisions, and not getting sidetracked by trivial matters, or worse, hindering scientific progress.

Looks: She dresses in practical urban wear, covered from head to toe. A large dark red zippered hoodie with pockets is worn over a turtleneck, paired with denim shorts, leggings, and ankle boots. Ti's short, layered orange hair is chin-length in front and cropped at the back. Her pale complexion contrasts with dark red eyes that seem to absorb light. These eyes often appear both distant and intense, accentuated by dark circles. Her expression, typically flat, gives her an air of fatigue or inaccessibility. When she does display happiness, it's subtle—a twitch of a closed smile.

Theme: Knowledge. With complete understanding, existence would lose its dominion over individuals, allowing them to manifest absolute individuality, control, and intelligence within their confines.

Nereida: Energetic and spontaneous, Ne is a dreamer. She's inventive, flexible, and inclusive, bringing a burst of bubbly energy everywhere she goes, but struggles with commitment to her grand visions. Going with the flow, she absorbs a plethora of information, always aiming to make last-minute optimal decisions. With a belief that every problem has a solution, she’s curious about everything, often applying knowledge from one domain to another. Her passion for learning mirrors Ti's focus, but Ne's is rooted in the joy of the process, always seeking to master her surroundings for maximum freedom. Disliking confinement, she occasionally gives up too quickly. Yet, when she persists, she finds ways to revel in challenges, cherishing the journey more than the destination. Although her plans can seem scattered, she thrives in unpredictability. She’s wary of those who wield power to control others, and in defiance, sometimes exercises her own control to observe the outcomes, which makes her morally grey. She thinks that it's her duty to challenge norms and pioneer change for the greater good when many are chained by ethics and fear, but has her own struggles, sometimes instigating chaos out of boredom.

Looks: Her attire is eclectic, pieced together from items she adores, without much regard for current trends. She sports a white buttoned shirt with teal insides, the sleeves rolled up and the front slightly unbuttoned to show a hint of cleavage. This is paired with a high-waisted, knee-length pleated teal skirt, ¾ leggings, and white Mary Janes with black heels. Her shoulder-length turquoise hair is pulled into a high side ponytail with a few loose strands framing her face. Her expression is vibrant, with large, curious blue eyes. Ne moves with a slight bounce, always seeming to be lost in a daydream and ignoring finer details.

Theme: Freedom. In a world without limitations, anything is possible.

Sienna: Grounded and diligent, Si is a model of consistency. She’s logical, practical, and knowledgeable, balancing her hardworking nature with humility and patience. She upholds tradition, believing that if everyone collaborates harmoniously, all aspirations, including universal comfort and understanding, are attainable. She derives a sense of duty and belonging from viewing herself as part of a whole, even if this sometimes stifles her creativity and subjects her to rigid standards. Si is at peace with her role but occasionally grapples with existential questions for not knowing herself in depth, or maybe suppressing philosophical musings. She values comfort, ensuring she always has moments of relaxation amidst her responsibilities, and appreciates nature and man-made wonders. Si always honors her commitments, but some may perceive her as mundane or lacking ambition.

Looks: Traditional and sensible, albeit slightly outdated. She dons a dark long-sleeved ruffled shirt buttoned entirely, paired with a lab coat, tailored trousers, and oxfords. Sleek glasses frame her earnest eyes. Her dark blonde hair reaches nearly to her waist, meticulously combed and pulled into a low ponytail, with bangs neatly clipped away from her face. While her movements are usually unhurried, she can be agile when needed, displaying remarkable dexterity.

Theme: Predictability. In a stable and comprehensible world, challenges would be preventable or at least manageable.

Felicity: Compassionate and giving, Fe is the embodiment of empathy. She is emotional yet fiercely loyal, often putting others' needs above her own. Her ideal world is one filled with loved ones she can protect and cherish forever. While she enjoys being the center of attention and reciprocated care, she sometimes neglects her needs, leading to periods of resentment. Her emotions can be volatile, especially when faced with disillusionment. Fe spends her days analyzing interpersonal dynamics, immersing herself in ethical discussions, and enjoying moral tales. Affected by poignant movies and easily manipulated, she doesn’t understand the saying, “hell is full of well-intentioned people”.

Looks: A blend of loose and tight-fitting garments. She wears a lilac boho dress that exposes her shoulders and collarbones with silk strips wrapped around her waist, neck, and wrists. Her footwear is burgundy heels with ankle clasps. Her purple hair cascades down her back, held in place by a ribbon, while her face boasts rosy cheeks and expressive eyes.

Theme: Unity. If everyone were the same, there’d be no conflict, and life would be fulfilling regardless of circumstances.

[cattimeswithjellie]

Stream Recap GoodTimesWithScar, 06-23-24

((A note to readers: I am going to spoil the cause of Scar’s audio issues right away because knowing what is going on is going to be very helpful to you in understanding and visualizing the chaos that is about to unfold. Just before going live, Scar attempted to tweet his Going Live message but had a hard time getting the URL to work. In the process, he somehow opened a new browser window that ended up having three tabs that were all running instances of his stream. This window became minimized and Scar didn’t notice it because he had a browser window already up. Scar’s OBS has a setting on it that plays desktop audio, and his microphone noise gate only works up to a certain volume of sound, after which it assumes you mean to be making that noise and broadcasts it (this is a theory). So what you have to picture is that every time Scar says something, it gets echoed several times a second later by the three hidden stream tabs. That desktop audio gets picked up as well and reflected again and again, but will eventually fade off after a few loops, softer each time. If Scar continues speaking, though, and especially if he yells or makes a loud noise, the microphone’s pickup will grab hold of it and the echoes will actually become louder until the result is an overwhelming cacophony of whatever noises have happened in the last thirty seconds. It’s really quite something. For a more coherent narrative of the first forty minutes of the stream, you can also visit the stream recap for ZombieCleo’s 6/23 stream.))

8:30 Scar’s starting stream is still on, but the starting music ends. Sub notifications are active and it is curious how the chime keeps going off even when there is no matching sub message appearing on the screen. Chat does not notice. Before this point, stream audio was apparently normal.

9:05 Scar opens the stream on studio view and welcomes everyone to the stream. About five seconds in, his greeting begins echoing overtop his words, It echoes again, and again, and again, growing gradually louder. Scar looks perplexed, then alarmed, then starts yelling almost inaudibly under the massive swell of “WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME, AND WELCOME TO THE STREAM EVERYBODY.” A chatter instantly identifies that Scar has a stream open, but Chat is moving extremely quickly with this kind of exciting situation. The echoes are getting more crackly and lower quality but also louder as they move further from the source audio. “What is happening?” Scar mouths. The echoes finally die away.

10:22 “I don’t know what just happened!” Scar cries plaintively, then puts his hands over his mouth as the new phrase starts repeating just as quickly. Chat is both deafened and incredibly amused. Because Scar was not as loud this time, the echo dies away much more quickly. Scar looks from his setup to his chat screen, ideas clearly filling his head. “If I say anything it just repeats!” he says as fast as he can, then gives into the natural urge to beatbox into an audio loop. The new phrase and the “oontz oontz oontz” begins echoing, and Scar layers more beatboxing on top of it. Chat thinks Jono and/or Cub will have fun with this. Once that echo dies, Scar makes several false starts to say something, clearly not knowing what to do. The false starts begin echoing as well, and he just gives up. He doesn’t know what to do or say, because whenever he says anything it goes crazy! This cry also echoes. Scar is getting better at timing his voice so the loops are, at least, somewhat shorter.

11:55 “Impulse where are you, I need you!” Scar cries to the heavens. ((Impulse is the go-to guy for many of the Hermits when it comes to sound tech issues.)) The echoes mock him ceaselessly and in vain. Impulse is not online. Scar puts his head in his hand and laughs. This one was loud enough that it gets much louder before it dies off. Many chatters are now suggesting the multiple-open-tabs theory. A dono activates text-to-voice, that also triggers the echo sequence. Chat has no way of contacting Impulse, but they do begin soliciting help from Ren and Cleo, who are also streaming. It is unclear what sort of help they can provide, but they both become aware of the situation pretty quickly.

13:30 Scar rests his face on his palm and lets the stream echo. Right now it is mostly “Scar enters his DC phase” from the dono message with the faint echo of “Impulse where are you, I need you!” far below. Chatters are begging him to close his windows/browser and check his microphone settings, but Chat is also going too fast to read most of the time. Scar gives up and sings the Catdog song. Everything is unintelligble chaos. The headphone chatters regret their life choices.

14:30 Silence. Scar mouths “I don’t know what’s going on.” Chat has a lot of ideas but are still moving too fast to read. He repeats the words in a whisper, which echoes and fades. He realizes he is looping ASMR now and makes several more noises, then whimpers “I don’t know what to do! Help please, somebody!” It echoes. He starts talking fast and loud, with predictable results.

17:00 Scar goes all in on Catdog. It gets loud really fast. Chat is both grooving and suffering. ((It should be noted that through this entire audio issue, Scar is averaging 2.8k viewers.)) He waits for everything to quiet down, then says “Well hello there, and welcome to the wonderful world of CATDOG!” The echo is _horrifying._

19:20 Ren’s voice becomes audible on the stream, saying something about how he’s heard Scar is having mic issues and has come to help him. Scar is still in studio view, so this is the first indication that he is already on the Hermitcraft server. Scar calls out to ask if Ren is there and if he’s come to save him. Scar asks chat why sometimes it gets louder and sometimes it trails off. Chat tries to tell him he is muted in game. Ren begins singing an improvised version of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire with lyrics about audio problems. ((Ren and his chat are watching Scar’s stream live and so can see and hear what is going on even though most of the audio nonsense is not actually going out on the server.)) Scar sings along and switches to game view. He is on his zoo train and Ren is standing in front of him, wearing his GigaCorp skin and taxi pants. ((The recapper’s child comes along at this point and asks what the heck the recapper is watching, because the sound is just that atrocious.))

20:30 Ren is playing that Scar has a Gigacorp microphone and he is Gigacorp technical support chat. He sings another song, this time Linkin Park’s Crawling In My Skin with the lyrics “Burning in my ears, this mic is echoing, Chat asked me to come and help you, but there is nothing I can be doing. The echoing inside me, is burning my brain! The pain, of my earholes… Maybe you should just restart your computer, that might fix it! Just saaaaying, the paaaaain in my earholes.” He says “Good talk,” and flies away, leaving the song getting louder and more horrifying behind him.

23:10 The audio mayhem finally subsides, so Scar immediately goes to find Cleo for additional mayhem. ((Cleo has a stream rule against talking about what other streamers are up to and has temporarily banned the word “Scar” in their chat at this point, but has nonetheless been made very aware that Scar is on his way and hell is riding with him.)) He finds Cleo at their base. The first thing Cleo says is a cheerful “Hi!” at exactly the tone and pitch that will echo endlessly. Scar can’t figure out how to unmute himself to the server, so she continues to talk in an increasingly incoherent loop. It gets really, really loud. Sensing chaos, Ren returns and starts singing the Burning In My Ears song again.

25:40 Scar flies away, trying to clear the echo buffer. He comes back just in time to hear Cleo yelling “What do they expect me to do?” and Ren say “This feels like a fever dream,” which form the basis of the new echo loop. Ren sings Eminem’s “My Name is” song with lyrics of his own devising. Scar flies away again. He figures out how to unmute and flies back yelling “Help me!” Ren yells “He’s back for more!” and begins hepfully beatboxing. Chat is still making valiant efforts to tech support Scar, who stopped paying attention a very long time ago. Cleo is talking and laughing in the background.

28:00 Scar makes additional communications efforts, all of them similarly useless. He and Ren sing a song about Mr. Kirkland and his four-pound pie, which seems to be a song Scar made up about the virtues of the Costco chocolate-peanut butter pie. Cleo has been trying to pass along some tech-support tips but is quickly drowned out. She joins in the song.

30:15 Scar does something that abruptly cuts the audio chaos. There is a moment of silence, then Ren and Cleo begin talking and looping. The audio is full of Cleo’s intention to eat a sour jellybean. Scar yells “It’s getting worse!” and flies away. He thinks he is onto something, so he lands on a tree and begins playing with his settings.

31:30 Scar changes something in his settings which completely fixes the problem from Chat’s POV. Scar sounds totally normal, no looping. He himself is still getting one echo over his headset. Chat celebrates wildly as Scar interacts with the echo that only he can hear, paying it compliments and having a conversation. He insists he’s going to have a burial ritual for his headset later on in the day and complains that everything in his life is broken. He is not sure how he got things almost fixed but not fixed and decides he will try unmuting, and muting another source.

32:40 Chat’s moment of peace is over. The echo comes back, everything is unfixed again. Scar does not appear to have realized at any point that Chat’s audio was fixed or that he was the only one still getting echo, but now everyone is echoing again. Scar sighs heavily, a sound that repeats again and again as he flies back to Ren and Cleo. Now game sounds are also in the echo mix. Scar flies away again.

33:50 Scar mutes and makes the loop stop. Everything is fixed to chat. He still has the echo for himself. He is still talking to a voice no one else can hear. He mouths something to chat. He unfixes it again. He flies back to Ren and Cleo, who sing Bohemian Rhapsody to him. It immediately becomes overwhelmingly loud. ((It’s much nicer on Ren and Cleo’s streams.)) Scar has given up. His fingers are off the keyboad and he is slumped with his head in one hand. Cleo manages to get through the din to tell him that they are sending tech support photos and information from their partner via Discord. This is ill-timed because it means that they are tabbed out and Ren is absolutely not paying attention as a Drowned sneaks up and murders Scar before he can straighten up and get his hands back on the keys.

36:10 Scar respawns in the zoo train with the echoes of his ignominious demise ringing in everyone’s ears. Chat, at least, thinks this is very funny. Because Scar was yelling his way through his death, it is the sort of echo that gets louder as it goes on, until his screams are nearly deafening as he flies back to Cleo’s base. Scar looks about as done as it is possible for one man to be.

37:10 All the noise stops. “I muted it,” Scar whispers to chat. No echo. He tells Chat that he’s going to get his stuff and then he’s going to look at the troubleshooting info. He tries to follow some of the troubleshooting info and immediately unfixes everything again. Chat didn’t even have time to celebrate. Scar muses that it seems like he’s getting multiple sources repeating themselves. He thinks he’s on the right track, but he needs to get his stuff back first. He returns to Ren and Cleo and asks for his things. Ren is wearing the Poe Poe hat. It looks good on him, but he tosses it back, then starts in with Sandstorm by Darude, a whole new audio hellscape especially once Scar starts throwing in rockets.

39:40 Cleo tells Scar that he is awesome, and that is funny that it’s Ren being the menace today, when usually it is Scar. She asks Ren when he thinks Scar will mute them. Scar asks for more compliments instead. He mutes again. He’s back down to one echo. Chat has no echo. There is no game sound. Scar gets a thoughtful look on his face. Game sound comes back. Cleo reminds Ren that they are trying to be nice to Scar, even though it is difficult. Ren doesn’t know from being nice, he is trying to make loop tracks here. “Oh, this is your Woodstock, got it,” Cleo jokes. “What about wood?” Scar asks, and immediately regrets everything as it begins looping back on him. Cleo is amazed that he recognizes what he just said, Scar says yes, because it is playing back to him over and over. Cleo is amazed and sees the potential of Scar’s conscience being simply “Play back every out of pocket thing he says”.

41:50 Cleo gives Scar more advice, he drops back down to one echo and no in-game sound or voices audible to chat. He moans an “Oh no.” He tells Ren to keep going with what he’s doing and unfixes everything in time for chat to hear Ren’s rendition of the “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck” chant. He is dancing. Scar is firing rockets. Everything is echoing. It is chaos.

43:30 Everything stops. Scar admits that he may have figured out what is wrong. If someone were to have three open sources of their own stream running in the background, would that be enough to cause this? Cleo pointed out that was literally the first thing they asked. Chat is melting down with YES and laughter. Laughing, Cleo yells at him as he tries to explain that he had a second set of tabs behind his main tabs and that secret second set of tabs had three extremely sneaky instances of his stream that he’d accidentally created while trying to do a Go Live tweet.

44:40 Ren tells Scar, very sincerely, that he is easily in Ren’s top ten favorite humans. Scar cannot hear him because his headphones have taken this opportunity to fall apart again. Ren types it in the chat instead. Scar realizes that Ren’s mic is quieted in his audio mix and tells him that he is pumping him up. Cleo says Ren does not need pumping up, Ren comes fully inflated at all times. Chat has a lot of feelings about that phrasing. Scar tells everyone that this has never happened before. Cleo says at least they know what the problem was: ineptitude!

((I will not be recapping the next section because it is functionally the exact same as what I already recapped in this section of Cleo’s 6/23 stream. It’s a very long but entertaining podcast-style conversation that eventually encompasses Joe and Cub as well as they discuss Scar’s headphones, Ren’s traumatic boarding school memories, Scar’s history as an archer and whether or not Scar may have helped himself to a “layaway” plan at Cleo’s book shop after he fell into some lava and lost all his stuff again. Eventually the topic turns to possible identities for the Ore Snatcher, and after a long run-through that provides no concrete evidence or conclusions, they all fly over to the armor trim shop.

1:55:50 Scar follows the others to the armor trim shop, taking several potshots as he goes. He pulls out his Poe Poe horn and begins playing it to signify that this is the official Chief Investigator on an official Investigatory Visit. He is immediately distracted by a Wandering Trader who has blocks he wants, including gilded blackstone miniblocks. The others are already inside though, so he follows them into the shop. Ren thinks the redstone looks very scary, but Joe knows enough to be pretty sure that most of the blocks in the circuitry would be easy to replace so long as the machine was not presently active.

1:57:10 Cleo groans as they look at the armor stand work, which Doc spent a long time on because he has alienated his best source of armor stand sculpture work. Some of the statue postures are pretty tortured, especially under the hood, and nothing is locked. Joe and Scar cheerfully tell Cleo to go ahead and fix it, Doc definitely won’t mind somebody messing with his stuff, especially in this shop! Cleo begins working on the armor stands, declaring confidently that Doc won’t even know.

1:57:20 It occurs to Scar to ask if the shop is even open yet. The machine seems complete, but there’s no obvious mechanism by which to buy anything. Joe chooses to deliberately misinterpret the question and points out that of course it is open, look how easy it is to walk in and out of the wide open portal! Cub lays down several magma blocks in the doorway, presumably to prank Joe, but Joe has already gone back inside. As Ren checks the redstone for more missing blocks, Cub takes down the magma blocks he placed, thus triggering the alarm and jumpscaring everyone. The Hermits do not know exactly what set off the alarm. (Ren has helped with testing for the alarm and should know that blocks breaking set off the machine, but he presumably did not see or hear Cub break the blocks.)

1:57:50 Ren warns the others not to go down into the circuits, there’s an alarm system. Scar peers into the guts of the machine and catches a glimpse of said system. “It’s a Warden, what the heck!” he yells. Chat is already gleefully predicting how mad Doc is going to be about all this nonsense. Scar is reduced to sputtering, Cleo is cackling. Ren proudly announces that he has been killed by this Warden before. Ren tells them that the Warden is coming up the stairs now and they’d better leave before there is chaos. Just as he says that, the whole world goes dark. The Hermits make a run for it.

1:59:00 The Hermits regroup on the grass outside the shop. Ren points out that if the Warden is going to get out and wreck Doc’s shop it should be on a video and not a stream, because the content would be much better. Scar’s just glad he already finished his shop so he won’t have to listen to the alarm until Doc comes to turn it off. Cub and Scar worry about the Wandering Trader, but there is no sign of the Warden so far. Cleo is not afraid of wardens. Cub and Scar think about investigating, but the sound is terrible. Joe goes straight in but only stays for a moment. Scar shoots at him anyway. The Hermits wonder what triggered the alarm. Chat knows and informs Scar that it was Cub’s fault. Cleo realizes it is going to be _so easy_ to annoy Doc and is thrilled to death. Scar wonders how anybody is supposed to pay for anything if nobody can get their wallet out in the shop.

2:01:10 Joe returns and Cub decides he’s going in. Scar is having Decked Out flashbacks. Cub says in chat that it’s fine. Cleo and Ren never got far enough down into Decked Out to be scared of wardens. Cub returns and proudly declares that he got blasted. The hermits discuss whether they should leave signs explaining what happened or just leave the alarm running and Doc wondering what happened. Cleo points out that now The Glitcher can do whatever they want. The other Hermits have not heard the name “The Glitcher” before (except Scar has and has forgotten.) Cleo thinks The Glitcher is a very Cub name. Scar gets out his Darth Vader breathing horn to attempt to intimidate Cub into an immediate confession. It is super-ineffective. Cub accuses Scar and Grian based on history. Ren plays Etho’s “What’s going on” horn.

2:04:20 Ren sums up that the group has been at it for an hour and fifteen minutes and are literally no closer to determining the identity of the Ore Snatcher. Scar points out that at least they found there’s a warden in the trim shop. It seems bad for business. Cleo doesn’t think Doc cares about business and it’s all about the drama. Cub makes a little show of not remembering the name “Glitcher” and asks if they left a sign. Scar gets Chat to send him one. Ren suggests the possibility of a copycat. He wants to put up a sign that suggests a new villain on the scene, for the “rascal energy.” Scar suggest Wells and/or Hypno, but they haven’t been around. Ren thinks the new fake villain could be “The Pincer,” but he can’t put up the sign himself because he is Doc’s husband. Cleo is happy to do it. Scar insists that he is the investigator and can’t allow this to happen, but is effectively powerless after Cleo, too, proves impervious to the power of Darth Vader Breathing.

2:07:30 Cleo and Ren approach the sand pile to create sign-based mischief. Grian signs in. Chat sends Scar a message with the Glitcher$ sign, Scar remembers it now. Ren and Cleo return, arguing because Cleo thinks “The Pincher” is dumb and won’t put it on the sign. Scar is affronted remembering that Doc thought he was the culprit because the sign was misspelled. He objects to being accused just because he’s “the dumbest one in the crew.” He is paying so much attention to Doc’s accusations, in fact, that he misses Joe mentioning that there is another sign up there that looks like it comes from Scar (that Joe put there.) The Hermits retreat from the sand pile because the noise is terrible. Cleo says she would feel bad about winding Doc up, except he completely deserves it. Ren agrees that even though he is Doc’s husband, he has to admit that a price must be paid for pig murder. Cleo hears “price” and remembers it’s time to spread a little bribery around. Ren tries to double-dip and winds up getting Joe accused of diamond-snatching and chased away by Cleo. He deserves it though because he actually does steal Scar’s diamonds while Scar is distracted by his Chat.

2:09:40 Scar asks why his Chat is convinced Big Salmon is the culprit. He doesn’t even know what that means. As he looks around, he catches sight of a very tiny figure far away, hopping up the side of the sand pile near the goat statue. It disappears before he can zoom in. Scar says he swears he just saw Grian, except Grian’s not even online. The others tell him that Grian is indeed online. Scar flies over to the shop to investigate, but Grian has disappeared. He was not near to the door and so probably could not have gotten into the shop, but where he did go is a mystery. Scar blankets the shop with Darth Vader Breathing, just in case.

2:10:40 Scar returns to the others and reports no luck. Cleo thinks Grian is absolutely the perfect fit for this crime. Ren objects and says Grian wouldn’t incriminate himself in front of four Hermits, Cleo says that is exactly something Grian would do if he thought he could get away with it. Ren sees the sign Joe put up on Scar’s behalf and everyone is confused and suspicious until Joe scolds them all for not paying attention to the fact that he told them he was putting up that sign ten minutes ago.

2:12:20 Cleo sighs and says she loves it when a plan comes together, she just wishes it were hers. The others give her weird looks for that and say that if she doesn’t want to be perceived as the villain, maybe she should say fewer villainous things and possibly praise the villain a little bit less. Cleo says that whoever did it is awesome, but that she would’ve told everyone if she’d done it. Joe points out that he just told everyone he was putting a sign up and got ignored, so Cleo could easily have told everyone and nobody remembered. Cleo tells Joe that it is different because people listen to Cleo. Joe is not so sure about that. Scar brings up the Big Salmon thing again and Cleo reminds him that all the Hermits present know it was not Beef because of Reasons that she very clearly is not sharing with the Chats. ((This is one day before Beef announced publicly that he and his partner are expecting a baby in October, making him way too busy and preoccupied to be doing much in the way of Glitchering.))

2:14:00 General consensus is that whatever feud happened between Big Wood and Big Salmon, it is old news now anyway. Salmon lives peacefully in the hourglass, after all. Chat is convinced by Cleo’s certainty and no longer thinks it is Beef. Ren and Scar both know it’s not Mumbo, but they wish it were. Cleo and Joe would like it to be Joe. Everyone names one suspect (Cleo names Cub, Cub names Scar, Joe names False, Ren names Joel, Grian does not answer). Scar thanks them and tells them that was entirely unhelpful. Next step is to get a search warrant and look through everyone’s storage. Doc can look through his storage. Cleo laughs at the idea that turning up some deepslate diamond ore in someone’s storage room would prove anything. A chatter says Xisuma, Cleo is super unconvinced, Scar is also not enthusiastic.

2:17:40 Joe says that his favorite best-ever theory is that the SciCraft folks are allied with Doc’s partner Karin to steal the diamonds via Karin accessing Doc’s account. Everyone thinks that idea is very funny. Ren asks if that means Karin needs to come to court and testify. Karin may or may not have a Minecraft account. Scar muses that his brother would absolutely do something like this. One of Ren’s chatters says that, as a wife, they would totally do that. Cleo jokes that this was all a ploy to jumpstart Karin’s YouTube career. Joe thinks it would be an amazing Hermitcraft spinoff, Karin and Mrs. T and Lizzie, but they’re thieves… Ren thinks it might be Lizzie pranking Joel by pranking Doc. That’s a little complex, though. Cleo accuses “Everyone else’s spouses” and says next seasons somebody needs to have their spouse start pranking. Joe warns that now that Cleo has said this, Joe’s fiance Badgerspanner is going to demand to be allowed to do it. Chat pops up with the name “Desperate Hermitwives,” which Scar thinks is very funny. Ren adds “The Real Housewives of Hermitcraft.

2:21:20 Ren has a Bdubs theory: The best way to create business for your brand new courthouse is to create a huge story arc that involves crimes and gets Hermits suing. There is a brief argument over whether court cases cost anything (tips are welcome, according to Bdubs, and there’s definitely been some bribing involved.) Cub points out that the police stand to benefit from an increase in crime. Scar protests that he is the judiciary! Cleo laughs and says of course cops cannot be corrupt. In any case, Scar goes on, he touched Doc’s boring machine, he blew it up, he banged it too hard, and he’s not interested in banging Doc’s redstone anymore.

2:23:20 There is a long moment of silence. Cleo says she is leaving, that it’s been lovely, they should do this again never. Cleo, Cub and Joe leave. Scar confesses to Ren that he’d said the worst thing he could think of to get rid of the others, and it worked! Ren is impressed. Chat is impressed, once they stop losing their minds over what he said in the first place. Ren and Scar have a conversation about who might really be the Ore Snatcher and who is playing “third impostor.” ((Third impostor is Scar’s favorite way to play Among Us, someone who is not a real impostor but who plays like they are in order to sow chaos and confusion.)) Ren makes a reference to the movie The Usual Suspects that Scar does not understand, but it boils down to “the best place to hide is in plain sight.”

2:25:00 Scar and Ren proceed to have the same conversation the large group had earlier about who is a suspect and who is not. They come to no conclusions and eventually realize they have wasted half a Sunday on accomplishing nothing. Grian says in game chat that it’s pretty obvious but then immediately logs out. Joe flies past, right to the door of the armor trim shop and logs out midair. Ren finds this behavior wildly suspicious and accuses Scar of being the worst poe poe for not noticing. Scar admits he’s not very good at being Poe Poe, but he works hard.

2:30:00 Scar tells Ren that he really did have plans today, but the echo threw him off right from the jump. Ren agrees, but the echoing thing was really way too much fun. He is already nostalgic about the fantastic amount of noise that was generated. Scar says again that he can’t be the Glitcher because is so busy, with wheelchair appointments, surgery appointments, and trying to build the Poe Poe HQ. They decide to go look at the new build. Ren tells Scar that he believes Scar is innocent. Chat asks if Scar is okay. Scar says he hopes to be okay by the end of next week. ((Scar has an upcoming surgery scheduled to correct issues in his implanted feeding tube that are causing illness and pain.)) Chat notes that Joe logged out and on quickly again, suspicious behavior!

2:32:00 Scar is too tired to be an investigator, he’d rather be the third impostor, but a good impostor would be making lists of potential suspects (or rascals, as Ren calls them). Ren encourages Scar to start an investigation board with red strings and stuff. He tells the Chat to make one for Scar. Scar shows Ren the countdown clock but won’t let him look at the redstone. He promises Ren that the redstone is definitely doing things, even though he hasn’t decided what he is counting down to yet. Ren suggests eliminating any store that took less than five minutes to build. Scar agrees that’s a good idea and he will run it past Permit Officer Grian, who is a different character than Regular Grian. Now that the POE HQ is done, it’s time to enforce some laws. Chat agrees too, nearly unanimously.

2:36:30 Ren and Scar explore the SD and look at how the pop-up shops are taking up beautiful prime real estate. They definitely need to go. A chatter asks if Keralis has been considered as Ore Snatcher. Ren says Keralis just isn’t enough of a rascal. Thinking about Keralis makes them think of the crab rave though, so they go to see it at Keralis’ base. Cleo made the little crabs a while ago, but now Cub has added the crab rave music and it is pretty great. They spend some time appreciating K’s base, which is gorgeous. Scar wants more airport, but it looks like Keralis does have plans for more of an airstrip. They see the birch forest in the distance and start talking trees. The number and quality of custom trees this season is amazing. Scar is self-conscious because he’s having so much trouble making a redwood tree. Ren admits that his custom trees are actually just copies of Scar’s custom trees, and he’s sure Scar will get it right.

2:41:30 Ren learns that Scar has never seen The Mummy. He is appalled. Chat is appalled. Scar gets really confused when Ren gets confused about whether The Rock was in The Mummy (he was) and also is confused about who The Rock is (Dwayne Johnson). They get super-distracted talking about the movie The Rock, which they both love. Scar had to watch it in secret because his mom thought he was too young. Scar has not seen True Lies, but now he remembers The Mummy, so that’s something. He has not seen The Whale, and Ren has not seen House of Dragons. They talk about how expensive streaming services are. They agree not to talk about VPNs on stream, then do talk about it, but just a little bit. Ren canceled most of his streaming services a few months ago because they were so expensive. YouTube Premium is Ren’s favorite stream service.

2:49:00 The inevitable happens and Scar and Ren start talking about Star Wars. In chat, Grian advises Ren to flee for his life. Scar protests that Ren loves Star Wars and wants to talk about it. Grian is deeply unconvinced, especially when Ren reluctantly admits that it’s 11pm and he does need to sleep. But… he’ll stay just a bit longer. They run around Keralis’ base, looking for a bed and talking about Star Wars. Grian realizes he’s getting sucked in via stream sniping and logs out immediately.

3:01:20 Star Wars talk continues, Hermit Podcast style. Grian logs back in. He has clearly continued his stream sniping and wants to say something about the Jedi wookie. They encourage him to speak his truth. Star Wars talk continues. Grian’s hatred of Star Wars talk has suffered a severe credibility blow, even though he logs off again.

3:25:00 A brief detour out of Star Wars and into Dune. Scar talks about storytelling in Hollywood and the lack of innovation for a few minutes. Some Disney ranting, and a discussion about how sometimes it’s okay to scare kids. It’s good for them. Time to talk about old Disney movies from the golden age of animation. Scar reveals he’s never seen The Land Before Time. Chat is _so_ upset. Ren talks about how he lost his dad when he was six, and cartoon movies that had sadness and loss helped him come to terms with it. It’s important not to take that kind of thing out. The deeper stories and lessons aren’t really there so much anymore and it hollows out the films.

3:40:30 Ren admits that it is almost midnight now and he really does need to go to bed. Scar laughs and agrees that Grian is probably out there somewhere screaming at him to go to bed. Scar compliments the way Ren talks, always interesting and with good things to say. When Ren talks, people listen. Chat loves Ren and the Ren and Scar podcast. Scar promises he’s going to watch Dune. Ren is happy until he realizes that Scar, who does not have access to a TV, will be watching on his iPad. Ren thinks that is criminal. He nearly swears. Scar adds that he will be using airpods. Ren is so sad. Scar holds forth for a minute about how Airpods are just not as good as a headset with a jack. Ren points out that there is also a difference between an iPad and a cinema screen. Scar laughs. They do a bit of old-man complaining about how movies don’t look good on computer screens. Ren asks if Scar really doesn’t have a TV in his house. Scar explains that it’s inconvenient, either he’s stuck in his wheelchair or he has to go through the entire process of transferring to a chair or couch, getting strapped in there, it’s a whole thing. His headphones fall off mid-description. Ren suggests he could stay in his wheelchair, get a blanket, get some popcorn, wait, no popcorn, and just enjoy the film. Scar points out some more logistical concerns involving bathroom breaks and says it’s much easier to watch in bed on the iPad. Ren admits he is a hypocrite, he watched Hermitcraft videos on his phone in bed. (Chat feels very seen.) They talk about the high price of iPads. Chat calls Scar an iPad kid, to his protests. Ren is mad that his old tablet is bricked because of lack of software updates. They agree that should be illegal.

At least they get to live in Minecraft, where things are nice.

3:47:40 Ren really needs to go to bed. For real this time. Scar follows him back to his base, still talking until Ren insists that he stop talking and go away or he will never get any sleep. Scar flies back to the train and thanks subs and donos. He did not get everything (anything) done that he planned to this stream, but he will probably try and stream tomorrow as well. Surgery is definitely planned for next week and hopefully a little less intense than originally planned. If things go well, it will not be under general anesthetic and that should keep him out of the ICU. The surgery itself is not such a big deal, but the sedation is the issue. Hopefully this surgery will correct what was done wrong in 2021 and 2022.

3:51:20 A chatter donates $100 for Scar to buy some new headphones and let the old ones go to the farm. Scar promises that this is the last time Chat will see the old headphones. They’re getting buried in the backyard. He’s just weirdly sentimental about a few things. The sunglasses he lost last year and these headphones. But it is time. Scar’s goal is to get the surgery done and then get the new wheelchair (which he has finally been measured for). It will be smaller, lighter and more comfortable. Chatters send in dono messages of love and support. They also have opinions on movies.

3:56:00 Scar reassures Chat that this surgery will not be like last time when he was out for months. This surgery is much smaller. A chatter sends a dono message with train talk. Scar is enthusiastic about train talk. He reminds Chat that he lives near a real-life permit office and shows off the dig progress on Magic Mountain. Every scrap of dirt has been removed and saved for later. Beyond IRL things, Scar has to do the POE HQ interior, Doc’s investigation, landscape the area around the train, and add the caboose, which will be floated in on balloons. The mini-mountain needs to come down and Magic Mountain needs to be dug out. The zoo must be built and Scar has several shops to build. He has so much to do! Some chatters mention the Jellie plushie and Scar admits inflation has made it really hard to make merch. Anything good costs so much money these days!

4:00:00 A chatter asks for names for their dark oak forest. Scar throws it open to the Chat, who are full of ideas. Scar likes “Mythwood.” He shares one last thought: Universal’s Monsters Land is so cool. Scar is very happy about it and thinks it is great. He switches back to studio view, says this is probably the weirdest stream he’s ever done, and that he hopes to do more streams this week. Nobody Scar knows is streaming so he doesn’t raid, just ends his stream.

[sonkitty]

The Sideburns Scheme Post #1 v3 - LINK - Update

Instead of editing the existing text, I have added and noted two updates to the post, Post #1 (meeting with Shax in St. James' Park).

I'll just copy and paste what they are here.

...

Update #1:

For a little context, I used to speculate the upper green part of the color-coded portion here was the buckle for the belt instead of the lower metal part of the tie strand.

Update 08/03/2024: After going over this scene thoroughly months later, I can now see this metal thing is probably the lower metal part of the clasp for this strand. It's so hard to tell with the lighting and the tassel sticking out from it. The tassel could be bunched together then hidden behind the vest, then peeking out again. Here is a color-coded image of this possibility:

The red would be the metal parts of the clasp. The green would be the tassel. The black is the vest near this area. The part between the red that is not color-coded is some small extra part that connects these metal parts. I've also lowered the opacity on the overall screenshot. The color-coded parts are layered over it. I'm honestly still not sure this setup is exactly as I speculate; it just seems the more likely scenario at this point, after months of studying these scenes. For reference, here is another image of what the clasps and tassels look like from the front as I tried to figure out the possibility with lighting and angles.

End update.

...

Update #2:

Update 08/03/2024: I have gone over this scene cut by cut with a long list of what to look for in my attempt to figure out how retying works. Because of how I progress in the puzzles over time and for simplicity's sake, I am not going to give every painstaking detail here. I will say that if my notes are correct, the tying sequence goes something like the following. The Tied Hands are tied 8 times during this entire scene. They also switch which hand they are connected to 3 of those times. He uses reflection connections and Shax's lapels to make these switches. More can be found in visual form here: Park Reflections. I have long suspected retying is required for crossing every threshold but been unable to recognize them because one of its key clues is a "joint" or a "hinge". The obvious such key is the one I've looked for of a metal part of a clasp striking a lapel edge. Well, it doesn't have to be just that. An actual thumb joint, especially Crowley's left thumb CMC joint, can accomplish this same task. For instance, here at the park, the left thumb CMC joint presumably qualifies as at the edge of the newspaper in the opening back shot of Crowley. Even though it's not clear at first glance due to the distance, I can take in numerous other clues of the scene, such as the large reflections in the lake and the rainbow that tying is already done. If I zoom, I can then find the face of the watch and a very good guess at where the left thumb CMC joint is. I still can't confirm retying happens for crossing every threshold, but current studies suggest it is likely or will have some further puzzles where I'm supposed to figure out the method in use or why it might be exempt. The below notes will remark on things I noticed about the tying, the connections, and the reflections, without quite getting the full process in motion because I did not break down the scene cut by cut with extensive notes to myself to figure out such things back when this post was first published. End update.

[persnicketypomelo]

Hello there Kumquat! So, I have another request. It's kinda weird but I try to explain

What do you think about a headcanons of a fem modern! reader that is in Victorian Era (for some reason), and she meets a child Eric (around 10 old maybe) and she decides to take care of him with her modern friends too when he goes to their place (his mom is cruel :( )

Nipuni's art of little Eric in his mask inspired me on this one.

(so yeah platonic Leroux!Eric)

This was such a sweet and wholesome idea

Modern Reader Taking Care of a Young Phantom

spoilers?, parental abuse mentioned

When you wake up, it is not with the expectation of waking in a foreign place and time

But it is what happens nonetheless when you open your eyes to a putrid smelling alleyway with passersby wearing antiquated clothing

You do the only things you can reasonably think to do at the moment, which is nick any sort of clothing disguise you can

Luckily for you it happens to be laundry hanging on a clothesline, that you can just manage to reach by climbing

You walk about the streets, as confidently as you can, given your disorientation, trying your best to gather anything about where you are or when you are

Until a little kid bumps into your leg, tripping and disrputing your train of thought in the process

The kid scrambles to his feet desperately, trying to flee

You call out to him gently, trying to ease his fear and coaxing him into relaxing, guiding him to the side of the busy street

You know that you likely shouldn't be meddling too much with the affairs or the people when you don't even where you are, but the small boy is so tragic looking in a way you can't ignore

His limbs are so thin and bony, protruding and drawing your attention despite his layers of clothing

Under his hooded cloak, a muted black mask pokes out from his face

"Are you ok? Where are your parents?" You ask checking his frail arms for any injuries

His eyes are fearful and mistrusting, but with some soothing he eventually calms and becomes more receptive to you

Given that he's spent much of his sentient life fending for himself, he would not easily come to trust you, even after reassurance

After all, the most dangerous people he's encountered have hidden behind the visage of good intentions

But your persistence in trying to care for him, following him around despite him trying to lose you, makes him slowly lower his guard around you

This is how you first meet Erik

Given the inherently fantastical nature of time travel, let's just skip to a scenario in which you've somehow shifted back to your modern day with him

In time, he would learn to see you akin to the loving mother he never had

When you try to ease him off of his mask though, he will still hesitate and cling to it

It's his security blanket to protect him from the ridicule of the world, and it would take him quite some time and much positive reinforcement from you and your friends for him to be comfortable showing his face

Even when he does, the habit of hiding his face and making it less visible still linger, a habit only the cure of time and acceptance can correct

He doesn't have much of an appetite for food at first, given the scarce environment he grew up in, needing to steal to get by

But your constant encouragement to eat at regular intervals starts him on the path towards healthy and regular eating habits

Given that you're the first person to show him proper love and care in his life, he would likely become clingy and eager to please you

He would show off his musical compositions and practice playing just within earshot of you, hoping to elicit praise

It isn't hard to see how he glows anytime you tell him how talented he is or how wonderful his music is

He is possible of many great things with his talents and proper nurturing

Just treat him with love and care, and he will dedicate to you his every masterpiece