#chimney going back through industrial

[anothermonikan]

never try to achieve The Nomad in Rain World, most stressful time of my fucking life (I did it tho :DD)

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A drawing of the Survivor from Rain World. They're spiralling upwards into the air, clutching a grappling worm with limbs askew, above the lizard den halfway up The Wall. They're facing forward, and while their expression is neutral as always, they seem rather eager. The drawing has a light red tone, primarily made up of siennas, whites and dull teals, and has a fairly dramatic sense of scale. End ID]

call that a jetpack joyride (< got attached to their grapple worm and named it jetpack)

[heli0s-writes]

Torch Song

a/n: the prompt is unhealthy coping mechanisms. Warnings for marijuana use & underage drinking. College!Reader & Bucky pining for Steve and trying to get their shit together. 4.2k words. moonchild masterlist

The summer after your college freshman year feels like a scene out of a Sundance Festival flick. One of those long, languid pictures with the neighborhood kids on their bikes flying down the middle of an empty street in Nowheretown, Suburbia and the shot is wide and steady with the sun slipping past the treescape, tucking itself into the other side of the world.

The block is mostly empty when you pull up in your old, blue candy-paint truck, and rattling beneath the body pops around after the engine gurgles off.

If the scene continues, the wash of light over your face would be filtered a notch too yellow, the shadow cast behind your head, too green. You’d be the protagonist coming home draped in melancholy, soul-searching, wandering her childhood memories in a pretentious daze, folky pop tunes softly crooning in the background, begging for a reason to look forward to the following semester.

College spat you back out like unwanted scraps on the dinner table, and you’re so tired from the drive that you don’t even care about taking your luggage inside. That’s tomorrow’s task—tomorrow’s problem.

You sit for a moment just to breathe.

If the scene continues, the house would be empty, but there would be leftovers in the fridge with a sticky note on top and another longer one on the dining room table. If the scene continues, you’d throw yourself face down in bed and lie awake until someone comes home, peeks in on you asleep. They’d linger in the doorway, finally slipping off with a fond smile and a quiet click of the door.

The camera would pan out through the front, up above the roof, into the sky gone dark.

Instead, sudden banging on your window makes you scream, and your vision goes out for a split second in sheer, animal panic. Your head whips over to see Bucky Barnes’ face grinning shit-eatingly a mile wide.

You slump back tiredly and close your eyes, letting out an exasperated, “Fuck.”

He does nothing to help your heart rate return to normal, only shouting, “Hey, state!” so loudly you swear the windows are vibrating. Past the glass, which you’ll kill him for if he cracks, he points to the immaculately rolled joint behind his ear because he’s a private-school motherfucker who smokes more than an industrial chimney.

“What’s this?” Bucky taunts, “Think you can just roll back into town without telling anybody? Not with this shitcan, you can’t. I heard this—” he thumps on the frame of your truck noisily, and the creak that gives way under his fist is just your baby yelling at him for being an asshole, “—heard this thing all the way from the service road.”

“Fuck off,” you reply, but roll down the window, manually cranking it with some dramatic flair to show that yes, your car is old, but it still works. “This car took you to breakfast every week of senior year.”

He barks a laugh. “This car shakes in the wind.”

“Just like you during Blair Witch Project.”

Bucky closes his mouth into a thin and deadly serious line, not even bothering to contest that accusation, but shooting back with, “Like you skinny dipping at my ma’s junior year.”

“No, I think it’s more like you getting a car door to the sack right outside of my house.”

“I never got—hell!”

Good for him, his reflexes are still excellent. Bucky leaps back about three feet, body going bow-curved to dodge your door and makes to comment on the awful squeal of metal hinges, but the filter from his brain to his mouth—especially in the wake of a near-castration—stops him.

Wisely, he stands up tall, pats down his clothes, and pulls you fully out of the worn leather seat, out of the protective hull of a faithful, old vehicle.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he grins, using the crook of his finger to flick your chin upward just a touch, “Good to see you.”

And then, because he really is set on turning your trip into some kind of cheesy summer indie flick, he wraps both of his arms around you tightly, hugs you to him in a way that feels too firm and too soft all at once, and the heartbeat that had returned to its natural routine starts to pick up again, double time.

“Mm, yeah,” you mumble, “Same to you, Buck.”

-

On the back porch, Bucky takes a sharp first drag, rolling the joint between his fingers to check it. He takes in another breath before exhaling, then hands it off.

“How long was the drive?”

You inhale carefully, letting the sensation swirl inside of your lungs before watching the jetting smoke flit into the sky.

“Like, seven hours. When did you get back?”

“Four days ago. Becs picked me up and we got Frosties with Butterfingers—missed that. Missed her loads.” You pass the joint after another hit, feel the constant dullness behind your eyes ebbing like a slow tide and hum along. “Missed you, too,” Bucky says casually, grinning wide as his eyes flick over, “It’s shitty our spring breaks didn’t line up.”

“Yeah,” you reply, remembering the string of lamenting text messages he sent you. “I’d just cockblock you at the beach. It was for the best.”

He laughs at that, “Girls like me more when they think I’m unavailable.”

“More? Isn’t… how much they like you now enough?”

“Never such a thing as too much, I say.”

Then, probably because he’s been wriggling out of his skin to say it, he goes ahead, taking a hard left from easy conversation and sharply into, “Hey, Stevie’s home.”

Your throat tightens, chin dipping toward your chest as you hang your head. Your elbows, propped up on the railing, notice the woodgrain digging into them for the first time.

Bucky’s been here for a few days now, probably toured the neighborhood, caught up with a few old faces—and whenever Steve arrived—Bucky probably avoided him for exactly 4 hours before he got his front door banged on.

And well, Bucky couldn’t ever say no to Steve.

So they probably visited all the old stomping grounds, ate the diners out of business, hopped into the lake and sunbathed on the docks and then Steve would have told him what he wanted to do—what he’s wanted to do since he was probably 7 years old. What he’s held out on, saved up for, what he’s found and cherished and practically dedicated his whole life to—thumbs fiddling with eagerness and that bright, bright hope for the future.

Bucky nudges you with his elbow, “He’s real happy.”

“Good for him.” You nudge back, trying to mean it.

Bucky rolls his eyes, the quirk at the edge of his mouth jerking up and down as he purses his lips disapprovingly, “Only one of us needs to be emo, and I’ve got the emo for the day. You can have it tomorrow.” Then, he taps the ash from the joint and the edge of his mouth stays up this time.

“Hey, lemme shotgun you better.”

You snort at him, but let your jaw relax, eyes fluttering shut, and when Bucky leans into blow smoke into your mouth, you inhale the scent of burning. His breath is soft on the hollow of your cheek, and he sings, “Let’s get fucking high.”

The hit is too big, so he sucks in what you can’t swallow, and then he kisses you, takes in the smoke escaping your nose, hand still on your chin but not in any kind of grip. His mouth moves easy, as if saying hello.

He kisses you a second time, lingering, and watches closely when he’s finished.

He’s asking with his eyes, is this okay, do you want me to stop, do you want me again?

It’s not like the two of you haven’t made out once or twice. There have been too many high school parties with cheap beer and underage drinking to cross that prospect out—and not to mention the nights where you stayed up late, wired with the kind of indescribable energy that late-teenagers have—the storm of confusion and hesitation while glaring at a horizon of endless possibilities and being told to pick just one.

One track, one major, one path.

Not like it was an exclusive experience. Most high schoolers, even the best-behaved, perhaps especially the best-behaved, would say that those nights—after school and work, dinner with or without a family, with or without another conversation about the next step, about the future—lying in bed, bone tired, listening to the noises of evening outside, that it was sometimes very difficult not to run yourself down the road and scream until only blood came out. 

And when it wasn’t really an option to scream, because screaming would disquiet the happy-go-lucky neighborhood and give an adult cause to institutionalize you, the only thing to do was text a friend.

And the friend would climb himself over your fence and grin outside your window until you opened it up, hissing at him not to be so loud and clumsy and the two of you would chain-smoke cigarettes for hours to feel more than nominally alive. Because the stagnant bitter taste of nicotine in your belly was better than a belly like a hurricane, and the slip of your friend’s tongue—who’d been spilling his same brand of guts out under the night sky—was better than an imaginary one.

Better than one encased in the prettiest pink mouth, laid so gentle and sweet against a heavy bottom lip, one that wouldn’t just kiss without wanting a guarantee. Without wanting that choice—that single, damning choice—for the rest of his life.

It feels kind of stupid again when you look at Bucky and he looks back, over your face and lips, down the line of your neck as you tilt forward instinctively. It feels kind of stupid when your body lurches a little toward him, asking him to hold it there again, keep it safe again.

Is it the nostalgia that’s making you regress back to being 16 and a half or is it just you? You and your broken… whatever it is that’s broken.

Heart, a little voice in your head pipes up, it’s your heart, and you’d very much like to curb-stomp it to death.

The sun is gone now, and he’s watching with glazy eyes from the smoke, pink around the corners, and his lids are heavier as you feel. Time is stretching and flying, and the air is flexing around the both of you as bugs begin to cry noisily.

“Somethin’ on my face?” he asks, cocky to deflect your silence, but he looks like a million things: lonely, happy, sweet. Hungry for a life he hasn’t got.

“You want to stay the night? My parents are doing that empty nester thing where they go on long vacations with retirement money.” You blurt, because the thing is, you’re feeling that same empty, hungry loneliness. That same, bittersweet pain.

“Depends. We gonna have a pillow fight in our undies?”

You punch him in the shoulder a few times until he yelps, getting to his feet and dusting off his jeans. Although he’d been laughing, his eyes have turned stormy, the evening behind him curling like beckoning fingers, the single hallway light you flicked on the way out back asking you to both come inside.

-

You make a frozen pizza and pick off the olives, snagging a few beers, and the both of you kick back on the couch for an hour, chewing and slurping and sometimes stealing each other’s crusts.

He tells you about the courses he’s taking and how he landed an art modeling gig and almost popped a woody and that wasn’t even the most uncomfortable thing he experienced.

“There’s so much repressed homosexuality in these private schools. Check it out: this kid draws me practically naked for a week, gets down every detail—gets down my damn leg hairs for fucks sake—but he avoids,” he signals to his groin, “and then when he gets to it, he overthinks the whole time, and by the time the session’s over, the outline of my junk is the most prominent part of the entire thing.”

He places his arm back behind his head, the other one, beneath you, twitching slightly. “And when he hangs it up for the critique, it looks like someone drew me in pencil and drew my guy in marker.”

“Brutal.”

“Yeah!” He’s outraged at the memory, “Looked like someone brutalized my dick. This thing is…” he gestures in weird motions, reenacting a kind of car crash shadow puppet scene and you take it to mean bad. “I got a really nice one, you know? So that kinda hurt my feelings.”

You groan loudly, leaning back on the couch.

“Man,” you take a swig of beer, washing down the second-hand embarrassment in your throat along with a swallow of pizza, “you don’t change.”

Bucky only grins and grabs at his crotch obscenely.

-

“If we’re not married by the time we’re both 40,” you suggest, sprawled atop the comforter, staring at the bedroom ceiling with its glow in the dark plastic stars.

“Hunt each other for sport? That not what you were getting at?” Bucky shifts listlessly, so that you can use his arm as a pillow. He’s thrown off the extra ones so that both of you could lie down after dinner—a six pack of beers drained along with another joint.

“You’ll probably be married before then,” he says, “Don’t sweat it.”

The ceiling is undulating sluggishly, idle green cutouts starting to look like they’re actually twinkling and you trace them with a finger, draw out his name and your name and get stuck on the next word.

“I don’t even know if I want to get married,” you reply, putting your finger down. Resentment jabs at your chest. “I mean, I think I’m starting to figure out that we’ve been spoon-fed our whole lives… about everything. Does that make sense? Just… told to do and be without real reason other than that it’s how everyone else is. I mean, what if that’s not it—you know? What if I do all of that and then 10 years later I still feel like this? I graduated, I moved out, I’m in college—and, Buck, I still feel like this.”

Your tummy hurts, because it hasn’t worked out even a little bit—you haven’t had a real boyfriend, haven’t even had very many good dates. There was a benefit and a disadvantage of growing up with the same pair of best friends your entire life because now making new ones feels like both an act of betrayal and justan act as you watch yourself talk to a stranger, trying to puppeteer your body into saying, doing, behaving correctly while ignoring the jilted awkwardness of your own limbs and words.

It only feels natural like this: back in your town, in your neighborhood, in your bed. Bucky by your side, bleary-eyed from drugs or alcohol or sleep deprivation and a few inches away from hysterical.

He traces a made-up constellation in the air, humming absentmindedly.

“Baby, I don’t think anybody knows anything. Not your folks or my folks or the fucking president. We figured all that out when we were kids.”

“The only person in the world who knows what they want to do is Steve fucking Rogers, okay, and he’s a freak of nature. No one goes from being the runtiest runt to have ever runted to hitting a growth spurt so hard it looks like their nose burst out of their face.”

That shocks a cackle out of you, “Buck!”

Bucky isn’t deterred. “Fuckin’ Toucan Sam is what he looked like. Size 12 feet in 9th grade and then growing into them over the summer. Asshole made the football team without tryouts. Bulked up like a sonuvabitch.”

You nuzzle the rest of your wheezing laughs into Bucky’s shoulder and sigh, “Yeah, he got real pretty, too. Well, he was always pretty to me and you.”

The air seems to go after that, even the humming of summer at the window retreating while Bucky lets you breathe into him, tilt your face until your lips are on the line of his jaw and grazing his stubble. It’s so melodramatic. So pulled apart and dissected and then instead of retrieving any valuable information from it, you keep scraping it into a bin.

“This okay?” You say instead, closing your eyes, inhaling the scent of him. His shampoo, his light sheen of boy sweat, the wheat beer you’ve both been drinking, all of it atop your bed. He’s warm and alive and you haven’t touched anyone since—

Since ever. Since every summer. Since Bucky, every summer.

He waggles his brows salaciously, “Mhm. Keep doing that and I’ll let you do it somewhere else, too.”

You snort, “Man, you really don’t change.”

It’s always been easy for him. There were many pages in your middle school diary about how Bucky Barnes taught the entire 6thth grade to French kiss and that the 8th grade girls were going to steal him away—and who was going to hang out with you and Steve at the peanut-free table during lunch now?

Of course, he was always too good, despite dating half the cheerleaders, so he’d tell all his girlfriends they couldn’t get mad at his girl best friend and the little blonde stick of a boy that he wouldn’t ever leave behind.

Bucky Barnes made the grades and got the girls and still ate lunch at the nut-free table despite loving cashews more than anybody.

Idiot.

“You need me to sweet talk you now?” he teases. “All I had to do in high school was tap a pack of Menthols on my chest and you’d let me stick my tongue in your mouth for hours. You’ve changed.” He clambers over on top of you, hovering and blocking out the ceiling, a maniacal grin across his face.

“Oh, shut up, I have not.” You defiantly crunch up to kiss him like proving some kind of point. “Just cause you’ve caught every disease known to man and some animals and I have—haven’t—you know.”

He wipes at his lip where you landed too hard and clumsy, eyes scrutinizing before they light up in disbelief. He lets out a huff of air that’s both impressed and alarmed.

“Shut up,” you say again, with feeling.

“You’re serious.”

“Why would I joke about that. Jerk.”

Bucky sighs, maneuvering off, because it seems like you can’t maintain any more eye contact, and puts his hands behind his head. “The first time someone touched my dick, I think I thought I died. And then I spent the next 6 months trying to do anything for someone to do it again. I can teach you,” he says.

You retort, “Dude, I’m pretty sure I know what to do; I’ve watched a lot of porn.”

“It’s kinda hot to hear you say that, but seriously. College towns are pocket dimensions of raging boners. You could have walked outside and flagged down a hard dick like a cab.”

That is a terrible scenario to imagine, and your face twists accordingly. “Gross. I’m sure I need a therapist, not an STD.”

“Maybe you need a good lay. But seriously,” he says, expression gone back to soft, “what’re you holding out for?”

You frown deeply, “I’m not holding out for anything.”

“If you’re just not interested, like, because you don’t identify—”

“Bucky,” you say patiently, “I’m interested, it just— it’s stupid. It’s the same—same thing. Same thing it’s always been."

A hurt expression crawls it way up his face because the two of you have been carrying the torch for years. For most of your lives.

In love with Steve Rogers since you were 11, probably—and Bucky was in love with him even before that. Couldn’t find a single thing to dislike about him other than that he couldn’t ever see it—couldn’t ever recognize that he was the brightest burn in the sky.

Sneaking out to commiserate was about school and parents and expectations, and on the nights you kissed and let Bucky weave his fingers through yours, it was always, always about Steve.

Steve, who wanted to be in love so badly, so truly, who fell for Peggy Carter the first day she arrived from England—the only person in this town who met him after his growth spurt—after he grew into his new body, learned how to move it like a finely tuned machine, and he never looked back.

That was, and still is, the heart of him. Running unflinchingly into daybreak with the night sky melting off his back, eating his dust. And there was you, and there was Bucky, miles behind, making wishes on falling stars—hoping he’d turn around, just once.

And you carried that hope so far, let it bleed into every corner of your life. The straight and narrow of school and work and leaving home—the track of life Steve would take—you wanted it, too. You wanted him to be proud of you, wanted his life parallel to yours because at least you’d see him in the distance going the same way.

And now he’s getting married. While you could hardly commit to a second date because you were carrying a torch that was only keeping you warm by setting you on fire. Carrying a torch that feels like a grudge some nights.

Bucky’s hands are still gentle on your hips. He looks fragile, hovering like a swinging mobile with cracks in it, and if you tugged at him the wrong way he’d collapse, so you brush your thumb at the furrow between his brows, smoothing it out encouragingly.

He closes his eyes, tucks his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Yeah,” is all he says. “Guess we went at it totally different ways, huh? I guess I wanted him to catch me by the scruff of my neck and tell me to settle down how he used to.”

“And I wanted him to tell me to get to living. Wanted him to show me how.”

“I can show you.”

This time, he’s earnest. All the edge of play gone out of his words. He showed you how to kiss, after all. Showed you how he kissed every girl on the track team and you twisted his ear afterward, called him a womanizer and he cackled all the way to fourth period.

“And I can tell you to settle down, but it’s not the same, is it?”

Bucky knocks his forehead into your collar with a definitive thwack and then he sinks with his entire weight, lying on top of you like he’s not a brick wall of boy muscle, the weight of two pizzas, and a case of beer.

You whack him repeatedly until he rolls off, flopping at your side with his hair in your mouth. You spit it out and ponder, “Why are we talking about him like he’s dead?”

“I think he’s dead a little bit. I think we have to let that kid go.”

And the image of Steve turned away for good, for the last time, cuts a crease so deep you didn’t know it was possible to still be alive after.

And yet here you are, and here Bucky is next to you.

“He’s gonna ask you to be his best man.”

Bucky shrugs, “Or he’ll ask you.”

“Shit,” you laugh, a sudden jolt of reality lancing your heart, “Oh shit, Buck. He might ask us both.”

He laughs along, “What are we gonna do, huh?”

“Cry.”

“I mean after that,” he says pointedly, like you’ve suggested the most obvious scenario.

“Get drunk. Dance poorly. You’ll hook up with a bridesmaid in the photobooth.”

“Nah, I’d never leave you. We’ll cry, we’ll get drunk, we’ll dance, and then we’ll send ‘em off, and then we’ll go home. We’ll split a cab.”

He turns, locking one leg between yours, one hand around your waist until it can draw circles in the middle of your back. He looks and he looks and when you feel like you could start crying right there as he’s smiling and touching you, Bucky kisses you long and hard and presses his entire body against yours.

“And you’ll stay the night,” he murmurs.

“Sure, Buck,” you sigh, “I’ll stay the night.”

“And we’ll kiss some more. Or we’ll just watch a movie. In the morning I’ll make you pancakes with a whipped cream smile and blueberries for eyes.”

You laugh into his mouth. His sweet, warm mouth, always so good and right and just what you needed.

“God, Becs is going to be so shitty about us.”

“Becs thinks we should have gotten together years ago.”

“Becs thinks we should have hunted each other for sport years ago.”

He cackles, pulling himself closer, until you’re crushed in his embrace. “Nah, baby. I’d never do that to you.”

You push your hands up beneath his shirt, feel his heartbeat in your palm. “We’re so dramatic.”

“Oh yeah. We’ll get over it, though. Love him too much for anything else. Love you, too.”

You nuzzle further into him. “Yeah, love you, too.”

The movie comes to an end here, everything fading into a gentle blur as Bucky pulls the blanket up over your chest. You laugh and inhale him, smelling his sweat and warmth and your own kisses on his chest.

Overhead, neon plastic stars spell out a man-made galaxy, and the two of you watch them hold onto their artificial light for a few more minutes before everything slips away.

[fookinstevienicks]

ooh ooh I know Maddie escapes the serial killer and her whole family has to go into witness protection (because chimney only exists as an accessory for Ms. My Brand Is White Woman Tears) and Eddie is making a huge life decision without speaking to his son about it (again) and moving to Texas so Buck spirals about being left by everyone (again) and fucks his way through LA (only women though he's over his "addiction") about it while Athena does some dirty cop shit (again) and Bobby will probably spiral about some marriage shit or his guilt shit (again) and Hen will stand around like a cardboard cutout about it (again)

Maddie and chim come back in time for the series finale ending montage buck is sitting on the balcony with the only actress in the industry they could get on the set. they don't even bother to give this one a first name.

[the-real-rain-world-confessions]

when I was new to the game I heard about Five Pebbles and I was stuck in outskirts so I wanted to find a guide and followed a speedrunner going from Outskirts to Industrial, to Chimney Canopy, and then through the Wall. And I followed it, and I never got the full experience of meeting Moon and stuff, I wish I could go back in time and slap myself in the face and scream "JUST FOLLOW IGGY, THE LITTLE YELLOW DUDE!!"

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[parageist]

RAIN WORLD HUNTER SPOILERS

i am in tears right now. i was playing hunter in rain world just so i could get some of the exclusive unlocks but along the way i found a slugpup and i had to take it with me. their name is lavender and we did so many adventures together. we reactivated moon, swam through submerged superstructure to get her the cloak, made the perilous journey back, and then went through shaded, industrial, and chimney to get up to the wall. five pebbles didnt seem to care about a little sluppy chillin in his puppet chamber, but thanked me for helping moon and gave me some extra cycles. i was hoping i could make it to the slugtree to put lavender in a safe place but hunter cant access outer expanse :( so then i went back down the wall, across sky islands into pipeyard, down into the filtration system and then the depths, to then discover that guardians dont like slugpups ;-; i tried using some cheats to get past them but it kinda broke my game and even if i ended up in the void sea lavender wouldnt come with me :(((

so now i have one cycle left, in a horrific place (filtration), and i have a child. i cant just leave them here. im trying to maybe leave them at a scavenger merchant but i keep dying and aaaaaaaaaaaaughhhh

also when i was in pipeyard, i learned the hard way that it has the highest slugpup spawn chance, and had to go through the excitement of finding a new child to then have them die horrifically right in front of you twice! lavender made it out okay though, but even if i only had those two new pups for a few minutes, i still got attached to them and i wish i still had them :( though with all the times i enter combat, maybe its better i can have both my hands free to defend us.

i wasnt even planning on any of this. i was just gonna get to shoreline, get the leviathan unlock, and then delete the save and play some other campaign but after i found lavender i just had to keep going

i just hope lavender can life a happy life when i die the next cycle...

my little meow meow lavender :(

heres one of the pipeyard sluppies that i lost ;-; we made the trans pride flag colors together hfdkjghdfkj

and heres this green/yellow guy, a stupid lizard got him >:(

[geoffguy]

opinion onnnnnnnn chimney canopy? It’s fine but on my first play through I went through there instead of going to garbage wastes and I got to that room with the big pipe thing going up and failed to progress for like a good 2 hours until I realised that was probably not the way to go and then I made the painstaking trek back to industrial complex so I have some…….. feelings about it lol

It’s alright, I basically go through it every single time I play to get to 5p, I think its kind of boring tho and the 5 million vultures are annoying, that one room by the industrial gate is also a war zone I think it’s C08, the gutter is cool tho

[aarcade]

WARNING: THIS SHITPOST HAS EXTENSIVE SPOILERS FOR RAIN WORLD'S SURVIVOR CAMPAIGN. (but no dlc spoilers)

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whoa-oh-oh story of rain world

whoa-oh-oh story of rain world

i am a slugcat! eat neurons or give them back?

gotta get back with my pack

this is a rain world

I lost my family, but found the outskirts

industrial complex, full of flying jerks

trading with scavs (give them pearls, they want them bad)

the garbage wastes, first taste of the rot

get to shoreline, watch out for leviathans

looks to the MOON. (take neurons and she'll be doomed)

karma is changing...

cycles are passing...

the rain is falling, so get to shelter fast...

i gather food, and run from lizards,

the slugcat life is reeaally hard (woah-oh-oh-oh-oh)

seeking my family, or ascension

stuck in a cycle, a repeating pattern

i am a slugcat! eat neurons or give them back?

gotta get back with my pack

this is a rain world

turn back from moon, go through the citadel

and memory crypts, this place is like hell

EXTERIOR! (climb the leg, white lizards hurt)

the underhang, where hunting packs roam

inside the can, it's five pebbles' home

it's full of rot! (what an unfortunate development!)

karma is changing...

cycles are passing...

the lightning is coming, so get to shelter fast...

i gather food, and run from lizards,

the slugcat life is reeaally hard (woah-oh-oh)

seeking my family, or ascension

stuck in a cycle, a repeating pattern

i am a slugcat! eat neurons or give them back?

gotta get back with my pack

this is a rain world

a tiny little animal

walking on my chamber floor

microbes, slugcats, iterators

every creature's stuck repeating

climb down the ancient wall

past sky islands and chimneys tall

go west past the farm arrays

and you'll find an end to your days (and use the access shaft idiot!)

through subterranean, where the lizards are blind

into the depths, where the guardians lie

past the temples, and into the void sea

an ancient beast reunites family

into the void sea (story of rain world)

into the void sea

into the void sea (story of rain world)

i gather food, and run from lizards,

the slugcat life is reeaally hard (woah-oh-oh-oh-oh)

seeking my family, or ascension

stuck in a cycle, a repeating pattern

whoa-oh-oh story of rain world

whoa-oh-oh story of rain world

i am a slugcat! eat neurons or give them back?

gotta get back with my pack

this is a rain world

[stagefoureddiediaz]

I've been thinking about this and I want to ask someone with industry insight! I've been really struck by the fact that we don't see Eddie's face when he sees Buck on the stretcher, seeing him there, laid out. We see his back only pushing Bobby and conspicuously don't see his face when Bobby is telling him to drive. and a little profile walking to the driver's seat. I sorta feel that it was intentional because they take a lot of care when setting up and framing shots. Basically, it seemed like a Choice™ a deliberate omission esp since they shoot from several angles (they love a good reaction shot!)

Am I reading too much into this? If I'm not, why do you think they shot it that way? It's just rolling around in my head....😁

Hey Nonnie

Thanks for a great ask and I really hope my answer helps!

I'll go through the process directors generally go through (disclaimer - I'm not a director and each director has their own way of working so this answer is based on an amalgamation of my experiences)

Directors get sent the script and a few days to read it. usually this means reading it several times - the first will just be a read through, then further readings will involve making notes and questions. On tv shows, there will then be conversations with the writer(s) and showrunner(s) about intentions, important plot points or lines, and questions that the director has can be asked, there might even be further changes to the script at this point. These conversations will firm up any information that needs to be visually given and allow the director to start storyboarding and plotting camera angles and movements with the DOP (Director of photography)

I don't know if you've seen them, but we've had some great bts stuff from a couple of the directors this season showing us some of the pre production process - especially the storyboarding - the most obvious one is the Buck on a bike chasing the car thats driven off with Chimney (I can't find the 911 bts post for that one speifically, but these two links here and here are of other storyboarding posts). This storyboarding plots cast positons, where any visual effects/ special effects might be being used, cgi elements, camera positions - so that they can get the angles they want - as well as other important visual things such as set and or props. They might go as far as noting things like which lenses or filters they want to use as well. Storyboarding like this will often include the intention to capture things from different angles and I'll go into this a bit more in a minute.

All of this is done to ensure they can be as efficient as possible on the day of filming, because time is money and when they're on location especially they may have restricted hours for access, and might find some things they wanted to do won't work in the location when they get there. I once worked on a production where we were on location and filming a scene with a child actor on a roof - they were supposed to cross a room, climb out of one window, run along the roof, climb in through another window and then hide behind a piece of furniture - all in one shot. when it came to filming we had to make changes because we discovered it wasn't possible to achieve this version - for a few different reasons - the biggest one being the safety of the crew - the roof space was too tight and uneven for them to be able to track the route (bear in mind they're walking backwards when filming the character coming towards them). thankfully it was an easy fix because the director had storyboarded an alternative version if it wouldn't work in the space we had.

Back to capturing things from different angles. when you have a scene - like the one you've asked about, they will film a couple of different takes and angles because they will want to have options when it comes to editing - because the director might not know exactly whose reactions they want to have at which moment, the delivery of a line can affect it or capturing a reaction etc. its like when we see a conversation between two characters - they film the whole conversation from both angles so they can cut it together in a way that best serves the story they are telling at that moment. I'm sure you've seen the bts video of Ryan in the scene - in it you can see them filming him with two different cameras and that won't be the only way they've shot him in that moment, there will be other takes from other angles - possibly from closer up - really focusing on his face, filming from over the top of the ladder, or even an aerial shot.

I've got a bit off track with this, but when we get to the gurney scene the camera choices are as much about what they show as what they don't - we see things from everyones perspectives except Eddies in this moment. We get the perspective of Chim from on top of Buck where he's giving compressions, we see Hen's perspective on that as well, we also have the camera back away in the same way we see Bobby back away, but we never see an overhead shot from Eddies perspective - looking down, nor do we get a camera racing in close. Buck is always and very conspicuously filmed being lowered from a low perspective.

It is the most intentional of decisions no to show us Eddies perspective, and not to show us his face from front on once he has realised that Buck is hanging from the top of the ladder - the things that are absent often speak louder. So yes like you said it was all very intentional. we are meant to read it that Eddie doesn't know - he is out of the loop at that moment as to the situation - we see him side on because he has some idea, some knowledge, but he doesn't know and we the audience are meant to feel that with him.

The other thing about using side angles of a character rather than front on ones is that it both masks their emotions - its harder to get a read on what a character is thinking if you can't see all their face, but it is also a way of making that character the focus. Let me explain what I mean a bit more. In that moment we can see Chim Hen and bobby and we know what they are thinking - we can see the fact that Chim is panicking a bit and isn't thinking straight its written on his face, we can also see he's looking to Hen for guidance and reassurance. Its similar for Hen - we can see her fighting to keep control, to both support Chimney, but also fighting for that control so that her medical knowledge remains useful to her - she cannot panic in this moment - Buck needs her to make use of all the things she's been learning in medical school (the foreshadowing of them showing her learning about both neurology and the heart is screaming pretty loudly at me right now!) We also see Bobby - as soon as he's got Buck on that gurney force himself to step back - to force himself to remain in captain mode, because he knows thats what buck needs in that moment. We can see all of this information from the fact we can see their faces in full we know exactly what they are all doing and why.

But Eddie, Eddie we only get glimpses of his face - two to be exact - we get the one while he's next to Bobby beside the ambulance, and then a second one once he's inside, but they are never full face. This shows the quality of a director like Brad Buecker, because he understands who Eddie is in this moment - his choices show us that Eddie is in both military mode, but also that he's shutting down and Brad uses the angle of the shot to convey this information to us. again they will have most likely shot Bobby and Eddies walk alongside the ambulance from fully front on and possibly also from behind.

once Brad (and JCC would likely be present for the editing process as well) gets into the editing suite with the editors, then he can pick the angles that give him the best way of telling the story the way he wants to tell it - he already knew what information he needed to get across to the audience about what Eddie is thinking, feeling etc and he will have made the choice that the lack of focus said more than putting focus onto Eddies reactions.

I hope this answers your ask and that it makes sense. I love talking about the filmmaking process and tend to get a bit carried away 😳😂 so thanks for giving me the opportunity to do so! 💜💜💜

[inkinmyheartandonthepage]

WIP Wednesday

My first WIP Wednesday! I did post a little snippet on the WIP i’m working on Sunday! You can find that here. Here another little snippet from the same piece The Ripple Effect. I’m at 10K which isn’t something I’ve done for a long time but I’m really enjoying working on such a larger story! Any way, hope you guys enjoy!

Buck could have brought up that he had to move during their 12-hour shift. The calls aren’t taxing – a call out to a park where a teenager is stuck in the baby swing, a young boy stuck in a tree trying to rescue his cat that had gotten stuck first, and a hotel worker who thought hiding from their boss in the industrial washing machine was a good idea.

 There were plenty of opportunities to tell them; cooking lunch with Bobby, while battling Hen and Chimney in Mario Kart, doing inventory with Eddie. Except, every time Buck opened his mouth to say something, nothing came out.

 Because Eddie was dating Ana, Hen was studying to be a doctor, Chimney had a new baby and as much as Buck wished, Bobby wasn’t his dad. Buck couldn’t help but feel that he was being left behind and he hated the ugly twist his stomach gave at the thought. He tried to quieten the sneer in the back of his mind, practicing the techniques that Doctor Copeland gave him. But it was hard when –

 “Hey, you guys want to grab a drink?” Buck asked after their shift had ended and they were civilians once again.

 “Sorry, Buckaroo.” Hen’s smile was tired and sympathetic. “I’ve got a ton of study to get through.”

 “And I have some very beautiful girls waiting for me at home,” Chimney added with a grin.

 “Uh yeah, sure,” Buck nodded, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He turned to Eddie, a hopeful smile on his face.

 “Sorry,” Eddie shook his head. “I’m seeing Ana tonight.”

 Buck could recite the excuses off by heart now. They were the same ones they had given him the last time he had asked to hang out. And the time before that. And the time before that. Buck had stopped counting the number of times he had been blown off with other plans.

 “Sure,” Buck said, shoulder’s slumping. He shut his locker door (and he winced at how loud it sounded in the locker room.) He grabbed his duffel bag, swinging it over shoulder and strode out of the locker room without another word or before he could do something truly embarrassing like getting on his knees and begging for just one night out.

 “Buck!”

 Buck paused with his hand on the handle of his jeep, turning to see Eddie jogging to catch up to him.

 “Why don’t you come around this weekend?” Eddie asked, eyes warm and inviting as he smiled easily at Buck.

 Buck’s heart gave a traitorous little flip at the sight, and he could feel himself weakening as he stared at his best friend. He wanted to be mad at Eddie for blowing him off constantly, for only seeing him when he needed Christopher babysat (which was never a hardship and Buck looked forward to his nights with his best friend) before Eddie was rushing out the door to go meet Ana. But he couldn’t because it was Eddie, and he was so in love with the man it was pathetic.

 Opening his mouth to agree, the words died on his tongue as Eddie’s phone rang loudly.

 “Sorry,” Eddie said, fishing his phone from his pocket. He checked the screen, a little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “It’s Ana.”

 Buck’s little bubble of happiness popped.

 “Looks like you’ll be busy, Diaz,” Buck said, opening his door and tossing his duffel into passenger seat. He climbed in after it, settling behind the wheel. He grabbed the door handle, glancing at Eddie. He swallowed as he saw the confused pull of Eddie’s brows and the slight hurt in his eyes. “Maybe next time.”

 Buck yanked his door closed, satisfied with the slam it made. He turned the engine on and carefully peeled out of the station car park, leaving Eddie standing there, watching Buck’s jeep leave.

Buck wondered if there would ever be a next time.

[poorlydrawnmoriocs]

The Kitsuens are a long line of people who have been brought fortune by kudagitsune familiars. The majority of the comically large family lives in a huge house in order to remain close to the family guardian, the massive smoky fox that lives in the chimney.

Grandchildren:

Daishirou is a folklorist who is very enthusiastic in his studies. Since his family lives alongside a type of yokai, he is eager to explore, scour old records and find out what else out there is really true, and how they compare to the legends. His fox lives in the bamboo tube that is traditional to keep a kudagitsune in, because every group needs a control.

Fujio is in a position where he doesn’t really need to work, but has a job as a bartender anyway, because it’s something to do and a way to see interesting things happen. He likes to consider himself a cool beauty, but he’s actually pretty easy to irritate and make lose that cool. Especially if you’re Tamae. His fox lives in a water bottle.

Tamae believes that there’s no point in having money if you aren’t using it to have a good time, so she does. She spends most of her time drinking, smoking, partying, and tussling with her friends/whatever other rabble rousers may show up. All of that said, she’s fairly friendly (if intense) by default, and doesn’t aim to cause trouble, it just kind of happens when she and her equally rowdy friends go overboard. Her fox lives in her metal pipe.

Asagi is an artist who works with a lot of mediums, and mixes them together to results that a lot of people don’t “get”, which frustrates her. She comes across as pretentious sometimes, but has a lot of respect for anyone with a passion for their craft. She’s siblings with Fujio, and her fox lives in a paint tube, though sometimes switches tubes to change color.

Ganji is, as you could probably guess, a massive otaku. He’s a happy, friendly guy who fuckin loves anime, and he loves to express this through cosplay. He’s *really good at cosplay.* Like, he often becomes unrecognizable, and he makes a lot of his costumes and props himself. (Though sometimes Asagi helps with the props, he is one of the cousins she gets along with best). His fox lives in a mascara tube.

Kanna is in the unfortunate position of having a particularly disagreeable fox with a drive to prove herself better than others, and of course, she can’t feel superior without a perfect human partner, so she pushes Kanna to be better than others as well- Or at least act the part of a rich ice princess. Kanna is a massive pushover, and goes along with what the fox wants because it’s easier… But she’s also just. Really bad at being mean and condescending, so it isn’t terribly effective. The fox lives in a flute.

Roi has the disease called Being a Teenager, and is taking all the wrong lessons from being related to Tamae. He’s got a lot of aggression about pretty much nothing and likes to feel tough. Unfortunately for him, and probably fortunately for everyone else, he’s not very strong and kind of a coward. His fox lives in a Pringles can.

Kinuka is Ganji’s sister, and just as big an anime fan. In fact, it inspired her to try to become an idol, and lucky for her, she lives in a setting where we don’t have to address the horrors of the industry, so she acts as the Dog idol in a Momotaro-themed idol group. She isn’t often recognized outside of it. She and Ganji get along really well. Her fox lives in a chapstick tube.

Takatsu is not a blood relative, and has no fox. His mom married Enari’s mom a couple years back. Enari and her mom have been presences in his life since he was a child, and he loves them both a lot… But he’s really just some guy who is now embroiled in the weirder parts of this family of wealthy, magic eccentrics, and it’s a little much for him sometimes. Still, he wants to try and get along with them the best he can.

Enari probably makes the first impression of a rich braggart who’ll probably turn out to be a total brat, but really, her bragging is less out of pride in her family’s money and more out of love for the members of the family… It can still get annoying sometimes, though. Her fox is an unusually large, doughy, barely sapient thing that lives in a tube sock, and she loves him So Much. She will not tolerate anyone being mean to him.

Seimei… Is a strange case. Daishiro just showed up with a baby one day, and it turned out that his hopeless romantic humanfucker fox took human form and got with a rando who helped her out of a jam, then felt like she had to run away when it came to light that she wasn’t human. Seimei is her kid.

Seimei is a quiet, enigmatic, concerningly powerful child who is only getting more so while hanging around Daishiro and sometimes following him on his expeditions. She seems to be able to speak to animals, know where things are that she shouldn’t, see things most people can’t, and often brings creatures into the house. Though I guess that last one is more of a general little kid thing.

[nuri148]

So... I've been a bit MIA bc this past weekend I was in my dear London for the 7th time and omg, it never gets old! There is SO much to see, and do, and discover, and revisit! And this has been the 2nd most eventful London trip ever (after the first one when we were still student-poor and the pound was super high and we crammed so much stuff in it no one believed us it'd been just 3 days.)

The excuse for this trip was concerts- We saw Billy Joel at Hyde Park on Friday and Blur at Wembley on Saturday. Both were great, my only gripe being that BJ didn't play my favourite song of his (The Downeaster Alexa), but he did play Piano Man and we had the surprise of the night when he sang Uptown girl with guest... Joe Jonas. Blur did play all their songs I like and it was endearing to see Damon Albarn being actually moved by being upstage in a full Wembley stadium.

An aside to say that, just like when we went to see U2 at the O2 arena a few years ago, I can only applaud the flawless organization of London transport around moving so many people in and out of venues. You'd think you'd have to wait forever for the tube afterwards, and that you'd travel like a canned sardine, but no, though we moved along throngs of people, we only had a bit of a queue for tapping in into the tube, but the train came right away (past 10:30pm!) and it wasn't particularly crowded. All hail TFL!

From the "typical tourist spots" in the city, my favourite is the Picadilly/Chinatown/Leicester sq./Covent Garden area, and the only that's been a constant on every trip. We returned to Greenwich (we'd gone to the Observatory in 2013) for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Maritime Museum, walked around bit the neigbourhood before it opened and, after it, we visited the Queen's House, which we didn't know existed but it was free and I never get tired of visiting palaces, because EveryGirlIsAPrincess and shit. Even me.

Did you know there is a 121 year old pedestrian tunnel under the River Thames? I found out only a few days before the trip, and of course we crossed it. The tunnel south entrance is right next to the Cutty Sark - and we emerged on the north side on a normal neighbourhood on the Isle of Dogs (no, not the Wes Anderson film. It's really called like that). Headed for Canary Wharf, and to shield from the strong midday sun, we cut through Mudchute Park and... found the farm there. THEY HAVE ALL KINDS OF ANIMALS OMG!!! I spent a good while petting and feeding the sheep and goats, god, I love goats! I could have stayed for hours if it wasn't for my poor Husband and his please-can-we-go face. It was the highlight of the trip.

We also went to Battersea Power Station, recently reconverted into a shopping centre. I knew, of course, that the former power station was an iconic building in the London skyline; it's huge and for many years provided a good chunk of the electricity to the city, not to mention its appearance in Pink Floyd's Animals album and films like Children of Men. What I didn't know was that it was also a fucking masterpiece of Industrial Art Deco. And I fucking love Art Deco. Not only that, they have made an incredible, amazing, absolutely stunning job at restoring the building to its original Art Deco glory. The butchers that turned Barcelona's former Arenas bullring into the current pastiche could learn a thing or two from them. The respect for the original building is such that one of the control rooms has been turned into a glamorous cafe, keeping all the control panels at the back; and the bar is like stepping into the 1940s, from the decor to the old furniture, to the design of the coffee cups and the delightful menus mimicking a power plant instruction boocklet. We could've stayed for ages but we had tickets for Lift 109 - a different tour that takes you to the top of one of the chimneys. The tour starts with a gallery about he plant's history and a somewhat silly videomapping with more of the same (cool lights, bad audio, couldn't understand the guy much). Then you take a lift, climb a set of stairs and take the second lift to the top of the chimney, at 109 metres high. The twist is: you don't exit the lift. The glass lift becomes the observation deck. Even with the rain, the views were spectacular, and the wow factor of emerging from inside the chimney is really something new. Price? Ridiculously expensive, but I indulged husband because he indulged me in...

My personal highlight of the trip: we went for Afternoon Tea. But not just anywhere, no. If I was going to do Afternoon Tea I was going to do it with all the glamour that I deserve, so I booked us a table at Fortnum & Mason, no less. Do I need to say I felt like a princess? Everything was just so nice and fancy! The salon is just beautiful, so luxurious but without feeling heavy. The bathrooms had individual fabric towels to dry your hands.

We could each choose which tea we wanted; Husband went for the Afternoon Blend (that's my fic's #8!) and I had the Wedding Breakfast blend, because I hadn't tried it before. It was nice, mild and balanced. They came in this nice china that you can buy on the store first floor for a lot of money.

The food was great as well. The sandwiches were excellent; my favourite was the egg one; Husband preferred the salmon one. There was also chicken, ham, and cucumber. For the scones, I was a bit weary because I'm not a cream lover and the scones I'd had so far tended to fall on the dry side. But, oh my goodness, these scones were absolutely delish, and the cream + jam (or lemon curd) passed so well to them!

The sweets were, surprisingly, the least fabulous of the lot. Maybe it's a matter of local taste vs. my own; the quality and presentation was of course top notch. It could also be that I was already pretty full. I once read an iterview where a chef said something like, dessert is a thing people order when they're not hungry anymore. So it has to be totally scrumptious and tempting and delish to fully please the guest. For me, only one of the five samples filled that criteria, the cream tartlet with a freaking pansy encased in jelly on top. Both the mousses (Earl Grey + bergamot jelly, black cherry) were delicious, but not so much as to wow me. The chocolate cup could've been number one save for the raspberry filling - I love raspberries, but fruit in chocolate is a pet peeve of mine. Finally, the rose eclair definitely ticks the decadent checkbox (anything with rose does, IMO), but it's not a flavour I'm wild about. Much like truffle, to name another fancy eat, I feel it's easy to go overboard with it.

On top pof all that, we visited the Tate Britain and the Design museum, had breakfast(s) at Pret, bought rare-colour M&M's at the Leicester Square shop, walked down Portobello Street Market, visited Holland Park and Japan House and had lots and lots of fun!

[riv-has-stopped]

A very scuffed Hunter run

A few little notes before we begin

I play Rain World heavily modded

So a few key mods I must mention for this experience include:

'Immortal Pups'

'BeastMaster'

'Jolly Co-op'

'Infinite Spears'

(And a few DMS mods I can't recall from the top of my head, ones a galaxy slugcat skin that I have on my slugcats, then I've also got a harpy slugcat skin and another that's a few extra decors like fluff and buny ears etc on the pups, very cool skins, props to the creators)

So let us begin out tale... In Chimney Canopy.

So I like playing as Spearmaster, very fun, much violence, and combined with the infinite spears mod, well, there goes the timeloss from pulling spears, and I can still dual-wield!

This meant that I had to keep my back slot taken by my spears however...

So when I found the pup in the den, I wasn't exactly... Thrilled.

The best way to tell this story is through my screenshots with my buddy, Rain, lovingly referred to as our Moon <3

(Sidenote - art in pfp: weepinglilvessel, love their stuff so much <33)

Ha.

Hahaha.

Oh how long that lasted-

Anyway, so making it through industrial wasn't too hard with the one hand, my only worry was accidentally throwing the child at something tbh, and I don't have a good record of such (I am so sorry Pebbles for accidentally feeding you to the rot-)

Garbage wastes was a breeze as well, surprisingly. The kid was pretty good, picked up the art of combat well, and wasn't a hinderance in the water either. And best of all, it would eat anything I gave it (I've had pups who wouldn't eat batflies and blue fruits before)

Now, let me tell you something about the immortal pups mod. The only thing that can kill them are creatures storing them in their dens, e.g. vultures and lizards. So while they won't die to other means, I can still lose them to creatures. This is all spoken from experience.

Oh yeah, right at the end of garbage wastes, the kid dodged and killed a dropwig too, I was very proud of it, and it was that moment that changed my mind

Shoreline was fun too. With all the pups I've played with in the past, it's usually horrible bringing them through, the second they start drowning they let go and run away (they won't die, but still).

And so I perform my job as NSH's messenger and deliver the neuron to Moon.

All done, right? Now to ascend?

Well my little brain decide that because I gave Hunter so much life, I should do more with it. I should get the cloak.

And then I found out it is in Submerged Superstructure.

That's fine, I'll just change from Spears to Rivulet for breath! But wait... What about the kid-

I was going to try to get it as far as I could.

Then I found out that actually, the immortal pups mod covers drowning so they won't die!

And so we retrieved the cloak!

But during my trip I used the beastmaster mod gave myself a neuron to eat for light.

That's where I got the idea to use it to give Moon as many neurons as I could in one cycle.

And that's where the chaos began.

And uhh I saw something else in that menu too.

The idea was

Hibernate, bring moon a cell, see what she says, and then just quit, don't save, make it a 'non-canon' cycle just for curiosity.

Nah, I went back on that plan the second she mentioned the access shaft. And curiosity got the better of me.

So I did it, we went back to Submerged Superstructure and put the cell in place...

And well...

The little 'cutscene' where you get thrown out by the cells separated me from the kid.

I was devastated, we went through so much together, just to be separated like that. So I decided to press on, return to Moon... for them.

Literally just to see if it actually worked or not

And I'll let this speak for itself

I couldn't go on however. I had to take a break, process my grief, let all of this sink in.

I had to draw the little guy

I loved my little harpy slugpup, taken from us too soon.

Did you know that these DMS mods helped me come up with some Saturn's Orbit lore?

Indeed, Orbit made harpy slugcats! And Frosted Cosmos, a little galaxy mimic slugcat, but those guys are for another post.

Anyway. Back to the game

In my excitement I decided to hibernate and passage as far back as I could, all the way to the Sky Islands - Farm Arrays gate.

And what I found there...

Yeah so this game.

This game plays with my emotions.

And I am a very emotional person.

So, my pup has been returned to me, and I understand what must come later. But for now, the kid and I shall traverse Farm Arrays and Subterranean, onwards towards the depths... To find out just how much we have broken the timeline <3

[keenregine]

Just to keep the boat sailing.. Oh wow seven months ago, how can I ever top that amount of time. Seven months?! Geez. Anyways, let's just do this and move along. It has been almost a year since I moved from the hospital accommodation to the other house, can't say current because after eight months of staying there, I moved. . again. We'll get to that later. For now, we will just call the first house 'Audax', nothing special there, it's just the street name. I was together with three of my other cohort, it was a four bedroom, two tier house. I'm trying to search what type of house it is Google is not on my side today. But it looks very similar to a terraced house, only less fancy, less decorated, laced with pale bricks without those Victorian era chimneys, very industrial looking. The rent was at a decent price of, . . I'd rather not say, but it includes all the bills and internet. Good deal if you ask me, especially after the number of rejections we've been through. I chose the double bedroom on the second floor with shared bathroom, two person each floor. We don't have a designated receiving area because we converted that into a bedroom. The kitchen also became our common area, big enough for the four of us to fit in. There's also a beautiful garden at the back with a small shed or cottage whatever, great for hanging out or just to hide away. I'm not a fan of Taylor Swift, but I'd like to say that maybe, just maybe 'It's me, Hi! I'm the problem, it's me.' See what I did there, just to put a spin on my boring old narrative. Before moving in, an issue came about between me and my other cohort who immediately became my friend arriving here in UK. I will not go into further details since I won't forget that moment anyway. To summarize, we stopped talking from the first day we moved until this today. And I believe, it will not be fixed in the nearest future because we don't live in the same house anymore. We made it so easy avoiding each other while in the same roof, imagine how much easier it is now that were completely apart. In the recent years, I always found myself caught in these situations (for different reasons). It dawned on me that maybe I'm the problem. Well, life has to go on. First ever Christmas in the UK, yay 'twas great. Also, my first snow experience ever. I don't mean to sound pretentious or anything (which I think I am, but not on this matter) the snow didn't really excite me or maybe because I'm sick during these times and had to work taking out all the fun feeling within me. Lol. Felt like it was just snowflakes falling from the sky, the aftermath aesthetics though really hit hard. The best thing out of all the tragedy was Alex had a month-long vacation here with me, I'm just so glad that he took care of me, cook proper food for us, maintained my sanity and sustain my diva and baby like attitude. But ofcourse, I took him to all the major attractions that London has to offer which was loadsss by the way. And I realized how big this city is, there are over thirty-two boroughs and from each borough is a center, like an 'unofficially' declared center. Now, before I go any further and leave the most exciting 'parts' of my journey, after being in the UK for several months (I'm pertaining to myself), I managed to get a Schengen visa. Yay! it's way more convenient to travel to Europe (geographically) now that I'm here. Like, whenever I have long rest days, I could quickly go and fly across the channel. No drama, no bullshit. Went for his birthday on October, went again for my birthday on November. What a joy! The Spanish consul was generous enough to give me six months valid visa, which is already expired at this time. Getting an appointment is seriously like finding a lost treasure at sea, ridiculously difficult. The first time here in the UK (I feel the strong need to clear this, may I remind you about the time where I cried in the Spanish embassy in Saudi? yeah, that. good times) was fairly easy but with moderate effort, I was just lucky to get it at first try. Back in Saudi, everything was done for me by an agent, all I need to do was to pay and attend. But now, I need to do everything myself which is okay, but dude the appointment these days as I've said was close to none. I go online almost everyday at different times, trying to see if I could catch the fish. For a few weeks I was not very lucky, so I decided to take the convenient way, the 'what-would-Regine-do' way. I caved and paid for an appointment, ONLY for the appointment, getting the whole package would cost nearly £400-600. A great idea for business, seem like a scam because people aren't actually supposed to pay for an appointment alone. But since I don't want the hassle anymore, I end up here and believe me, I tried my best.

[gggoldfinch]

Rammstein rant post ready GO!

I know like nothing about them but I love hearing about people’s interests info dump to your heart’s content my friend! Teach me all about these concerningly sweaty dirty (?) men and their pyrotechnic shenanigans I am sitting here with my favorite pen and notepad ready to take notes. <3

anon. I love you so much. thank you for enabling my insanity. this is gonna be a long, unhinged post

Okay, here we go. My darling anon, I had to HUNT in my blog archive to find this post, but here is my basic rundown of Rammstein itself as a band (<-linked). So come back here after reading that post if you really don't know anything about the band bc this def won't make any sense. In THIS post I'd love to discuss WHY I'm so obsessed R+ and all the things that I personally love about them. I will format it in bullet points to spare myself and everyone's sanity:

I feel like the most obvious point should be the first; I love their music! I grew up on industrial and synth, so introducing metal to that mix is like a heavenly mashup. The heavy guitar, the synth keyboard, the gorgeous vocals and deep (often complicated) lyrics??? I would insert the music directly into my chest cavity if I could and that sounds really fucking weird but that's where I feel like it should live 🧍🏻‍♀️

I have daddy issues point blank, that much is obvious from my blog LMAOOO so ofc latching onto gruff middle aged men is a fundamental human need for me at this point

The style and uniqueness of the band is incredible. Who else do you know that lights everything on fire while looking like they just walked off a movie set? Their outfits are so fucking awesome. Like every time I see a new fit I eat that shit up and stare at pics for hours on end because they're so intricate and cool and kinda kinky?? I WISH I could be their fashion designer like jfc. Also their makeup/ face paint is always killer. I need to kiss their stylists fr !!! The 90's-y2k looks are some of my favs

the history of the band is also very interesting. a bunch of weird dudes from East Germany end up becoming pals and form a band and rise to stardom while soldiering through the trials and tribulations such fame throws their way? love an underdog story. I highly recommend watching the documentary Rammstein in Amerika, it gives a lot of insight into the band's origins and history up through 2015

Some of the shit they pull is so freaky and weird that its camp at this point. The dick mold dildos? camp. The fact that they need licenses to use all their pyrotechnics? camp. Being arrested for public indecency? camp.

I am incredibly, overwhelmingly, unhingedly down bad for Till, Richard, and Paul (and also Schneider to an extent but not as much). I would allow for unspeakable things to be done to me if given even the slightest opportunity if you know what I'm saying

PAUL'S HAIR !!!! He is so silly goofy but I fucking LOVE Paul's stupid little haircuts. like yass go off with your little monk bowl cuts I'm eating it up I'm putting you in my pocket

(the photo of his red hair isn't even showing the back where he LITERALLY shaved it like the fuckin monk tonsure)

everyone is so fucking queer. like. deadass. Paul and Richard regularly kissing on stage is so precious ???? they're just two besties being besties kissing n shit. The band also supports the lgbtq+ community and are outspokenly against bigotry which is always a win. A lot of people have accused them of being bigots themselves and they're like ummm haha no get fucked (cue "Links 2 3 4")

Richard is a perfect little baby angel and I would die for him. I love his spiky hair. I love his nail polish; I paint my nails like him. He is so cute. I love the way he speaks, in German and in English. I also LOVE his band Emigrate, esp the most recent album. He's so awesome 😭 that being said I wish he wouldn't smoke like a chimney because I dread hearing the news one day that he has cancer but ofc I can't do anything about that in the slightest

I mean. do I need to make a bullet point dedicated to Till being built like a fucking brick house?? because I think I do. He is soooo,,, AUAUGHHHHH !!!! Like, the guy is 60 and still looks that incredibly built ?!!!!! homeboy was an olympic swimmer he can swim in my p *gets shot*

Till has a precious smile 🥺 I love his fucked up teeth. he's such a sweetie fr, a big scary looking teddy bear. I need him fr

Flake in his entirety is just so silly goofy. Like homeboy looks like just Some Dude.. he's so normal (he also looks like my step grandfather only tall and skinny, which is very strange...). But then he pulls shit like whacking Till with a keyboard or getting fake fucked on stage. Homeboy also apparently just up and ditched everyone in America and went home after 9/11 because he was so freaked, which in itself isn't funny but imagining him just fucking leaving is a little bit...

Darling little (not so little...) Doom Schneider has an incredibly gorgeous side profile. And I love the pornstache he occasionally sports. He's also another one who is just like. A Normal Guy in my head. He is also very very pretty and very well spoken. I loved listening to him talk during the Rammstein in Amerika documentary

I also think Ollie is also just a Dude,, tho admittedly I don't really even think about him much because he is so normal and not unhinged that he kinda just blends into the background most times. He is 6'7 tho so that is fucking insane

Anyway yep that's all for now I'll stop torturing everyone with my depraved insanity 👍🏻 THANK YOU AGAIN ANON for indulging me for a moment

[rain-world-positivity-blog]

favourite rooms in the game? bonus points if you give me one a region!!

tulip-anon🌷

Okay this is gonna be a very very long post So!! I am going to give this one a line break hehe~ I was going to go take my own screenshots but instead I decided to just grab pictures from the interactive map!

Outskirts - SU-A13

This room is just a very random kind of out of your way kind of room, doesn't really have much going on aside from an early platforming challenge. But I really like the backrgound here, the depth, the height of it. This is the first room that made me go 'woooooow' and kind of captured that feeling of there being so much more to discover than what's just in front of you as the player.

Industrial Complex - HI-B13

Very similar reasons to the first room on this list, this one was a room I didn't even know existed until like 6 months into playing the game hehe. I like the layered feeling this room has and it's also fun to navigate while avoiding the lizard that spawns here. It's also where I killed my first vulture by getting the bird stuck in one of the corners and stabbing it while crying. Used to be soooooo scared of those things!

Drainage System - DS-A05

Another room that I almost never go to! I really dislike swimming through the long tunnel sections because I always think there's something after me so I usually take the water maze up top. However! This one I just really like. The rust, the water, the fact it kinda looks like my old pc in the back with those fan-like things. It really gives me 'you are in a computer' vibes. Doesn't offer much in terms of environment to climb but it has lilypucks! Those are like my favourite item in game bc pretty. (DS-A11 almost won here, and DS-B07 however I have trauma from B07 because of being jumpscared by a red centipede in Spearmaster's campaign then again as Saint. Honourable mentions though!)

Chimney Canopy - CC-A02

THERE IS A DOGGY IN THE BACKGROUND!!! Okay but in all seriousness, this room I have seen a lot of because my very first playthrough I got so completely lost looking for garbage wastes (don't ask I don't know how I ended up here) and I just... really liked this room. It has a little bit of platforming, a popcorn plant, doggy, and I really love the graffiti in the background which I'm fairy certain is supposed to be an overseer, specifically one of Moon's! But yeah, mainly this room tops because of Doggy.

Garbage Wastes - GW-C02

This room does one of my favourite things really really well. I love the vibes of something absolutely fucking MASSIVE in the distance, and seeing those fragments of fallen bridge, the pieces of machines left to rust, the big ass chains suspending something out of view... Oh man, ooooh mannn... I really really like this one. I remember thinking when I first played if there was a way to go up in this room, sadly there is not but I wondered, and it made me think and hope I got to see some huge ass stuff soon (I was not disapointed, I have the opposite of megalophobia)

Shaded Citadel - SH-D01

It is such a shame shaded is... shaded... because this region is gorgeous!! I'm also completely fine with running through this place dark because if I can't SEE the spiders then they're not real! I like this room because it has an almost blend of cathedral like design mixed with a little bit of brutalist industrial. Seeing those distant shapes through the fog, just the foggy dark vibe in general? Ough I love stuff like that, very mysterious. I also like the water rooms that lead to memory crypts too! I do wonder why there's so many void spawn in those rooms though... hmm

Pipeyard - VS-E07

Had to take TWO screenshots of this bad boy because this room is LONG! I looooove verticality in a room, and this room is just soooo pretty. It has those lovely sky islands colours with the vibes of industrial complex and once again, that feeling of just being a rat stuck in a gaming pc. But this blends together nice pastel colours and brutal decaying industrial really well! Pipeyard is soooo under rated though and I don't get why people are like 'urgh whats the point?'... like the point is to explore, the point is to love this cruel dying world... that's what this room says to me, that there's beauty even in a world that wants to die.

Shoreline - SL-B04

This kind of blends together my reasonings for my fave outskirts room, shaded room and pipeyard room. I just felt so high up here, above the world, this huge vertical climb, this strange mechanical monolith above the sea belowm, it just evokes this powerful feeling of lonliness. Just one little slugcat and this big world layed out before you. I then proceeded to get munched on by the white lizard that lives here.

Sky Islands - SI-A07

Listen, if you didn't guess this is my favourite room in this region I don't know what to tell you lmao. This does So Much of what I love So Well. The clouds, the colours, the challenge of getting here, the story associated with it, the verticality, the little bit of platforming, the bacground elements, the feelings it invokes. 10/10, such a fantastic room. And you know... Spearmaster is my favourite slugcat sooooooo... yeah need I say more? This was actually a harder choice than you might think though because so much of sky islands does the things I love so goddamn well, but yeah, this one does it best.

Farm Arrays - LF-J01

oKAY I hate farm arrays but this room, oh god this fucking room. 10/10 amazing, has that emotion of a journey nearing it's end, hits you with that nostalgia for something you barely even remember, the music, the vibes, the colours... really makes you feel like you're leaving something behind, like this is where things change. I love this room.

The Exterior - UW-F01

Borrowing this screenshot from my other blog, rainworlddaily. Just look at this. Just... EVERYTHING I love about level design gets served to me on a plate here. That sense of sheer WONDER, the accomplishment!!! The fact that there is so much beyond this tiny slice of the world, like Holy Fuck!!! AUGHHH

Five Pebbles - SS-D02

Memory conflux I love yooooouuuuu. This place is just so alien and different from everywhere else in the game, including the rest of Pebbles. It feels alive. It really gives you the impression that you're within a creature, not just a machine. Plus you get to smash into Pebbles' stupid brain bits in here and climb on his weird wiggly parts, bonus points for pissing him off. 100000/10 makes me feel like I'm an ant facing god.

Subterranean - SB-C07

At first I was like 'oh no i don't have a favourite here because this place bores me'. C07 baby I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I forgot you. Big big fan of the lightning in this room. J02 (the leviathan room) is also very good but I'm scared of water in video games like... a lot, and this one just has the ambience, the style! Gives me the vibes of a subway station, and considering this place does connect to where there are trains, it could be! I mean... there's train carriages in the damn background here hehe

Outer Expanse - OE-TREETOP

Another screenshot I borrowed from rainworlddaily~ Treetop my beloved, my favourite room in the whole dang game. Treetop and the sky islands room are kissing because they do exactly the same thing so well. Treetop though, holy moly, this feels so... how do I explain? Melancholic, nostalgic? It feels like coming home. And looking at this for the first time, I actually cried. This room screams acceptance, it screams I am alive. Best room.

Submerged Superstructure - MS- FARSIDE

I'm actually going to seperate Submerged from Bitter Aerie because imo they should have been seperate regions. Submerged has a few really fun rooms, but I hate underwater segments, and I hate swimming AND water scares me. But this one! I like this one. Not just because you can get Moon's cloak from here but I feel like this takes what shoreline does and does it a lot better! It's also the very furthest east you can get! What is out there, I wonder, beyond Moon? Maybe we'll find out when the Watcher releases!

Past Garbage Wastes - GW-TOWER05

There's no acid in this room. It has fun platforming and climbing. Honestly I try to forget this region exists it has traumatised me. Past garbage wastes is the worst fucking place in this game except parts of Moon's region. I do think this is a fun room though and I wish we got more of this rather than the goddamn acid pools. Do you know how many times Artificer became a nuke because of those? Do you know how many times Spearmaster died to pissed off squidcada? Too many. Fuck this region.

Waterfront Facility - LM-EDGE02

Mmm... balls... Okay but in all seriousness, the precipice is the best part of this region, and while it's cool to see shoreline in such a different light it is so much more efficent to go across the sky bridge while dodging king vultures. I do just love the vibes this room has, how the foreground climbable elements meld with the backgroud, how you can use the environment to pick off the lizards.

Metropolis- LC- dome

DOME BELOVED!!! One of the top rooms that downpour brought to this game. Does exactly what the wall does, and once again does it so so so well. Looking out over the world, struggling to survive in the city, seeing other cities beyond... who else is struggling all alone out there? Who else is paying the price for the path they've put themself upon? I feel like this room sums up Arti's whole campaign pretty well, that ultimately the struggles Arti faces, they're so small in comparison.

Looks to the Moon - DM- VISTA

I'm sorry Moonie, but you're region gives me headaches even if I do think the way the rain cycles work in this region is sooooo cool and should be implimented if there's ever more iterators added to explore. This room is super pretty, very true, the lighting does wonders but... you can see the tragic begin to unfold, she's already breaking apart. This room says one simple thing; this place is doomed, no matter what you do.

Undergrowth - UG-C02

I only snipped the top of this room because this is getting.... very very long aha... I don't know why this room is my favourite. Is it the lighting? The echo? The way it's so fun to use Saint's big licky to get here? The way everything has changed yet stayed the same? I dunno! Undergrowth is a little irritating for me but the darker rooms with the cooler colours really hit some kind of itch and I wish there was more of these in this region, alas!

Silent Construct - CL-AI

Once again from rainworlddaily.

Me: I will not put an AI room on my faves list

Silent Construct: LISTEN. I had to okay?! This room summarises the whole game up into one tiny missable interaction. You don't HAVE to go see Pebbles as Saint unlike having to pass through Moon's room to get to the echo in shoreline. Pebbles is a footnote, he's barely even there, he's missable. This great big story that revolves around him? It's done, it's over. You said goodbye to these characters as Rivulet but if you're determined enough, if you really really want to, you can go spend your time with someone who doesn't even remember what you are, you can offer that scant bit of comfort. HE CALLS YOU FRIEND I AM NOT OKAY!!!!

Bitter Aerie - MS- bitteraerie5

This one is really cool! I wish we could have explored this place as Spearmaster but it offers a little glimpse into what else is on top of an iterator beyond just their city! Because considering the position of this place that's kinda just what I assume! I wonder what it looked like before Moon collapsed, maybe we'll find out one day!

Rubicon - HR- M04

Rubicon is an echo of a thousand memories, an echo of your hours of playing the game, of the locations you have learned to love, of the world that no longer is. It is a love letter, a final triumph, a final goodbye to that dying world you learned to you. This room feels like someone took treetop and both Pebbles and Moon and meshed them together. It is a tangle of everything you've done as every single slugcat up until this point, it is you going towards the final words spoken to you by the iterators should you choose to ascend them as Saint. It is... the end of a very long story, a very very long story. It's peaceful, it's chaotic, it is everything and nothing. Isn't that beautiful?

AND IF YOU MADE IT TO THE END OF THIS LIST, good lord I rambled on and on, What are your favourite rooms? I'd love to hear!