#complex core head structure

[gudmould]

Design of an injection mold with a complex core head structure

This paper aims at design difficulties of molds with complex core head structures, innovatively proposes a mold core component structure scheme with a vertical and horizontal locking inlay structure, which cleverly solves design problem of complex core head structure. Actual operation proves that its molding effect is good and meets quality requirements of plastic parts.With rapid development of…

[artmindlens]

The Son of Man by René Magritte (1964)

The Psychology of Transgression and Guilt Magritte’s The Son of Man immediately captivates with its two central symbols: the apple and the figure’s formal attire. The apple, suspended in front of the man’s face, evokes not only the biblical narrative of Eden but also the Oedipal Complex, where transgression against the father’s law leads to guilt. In the biblical tale, Adam consumes the forbidden fruit offered by Eve, symbolizing the birth of self-awareness, shame, and the burden of guilt. In this painting, the man’s face is concealed behind the apple, echoing the unresolved guilt from that original transgression.

From a psychoanalytic perspective, the apple mirrors the child’s desire for the mother and the violation of paternal boundaries, evoking the tension between desire and punishment. Before consuming the apple, Adam was unaware of his nakedness, just as the child, before transgressing paternal laws, is innocent of their own desires. Magritte’s man, in contrast, is fully dressed—his body covered by a formal suit, suggesting an overcompensation for that earlier transgression. His attire, like the suit of a corporate leader, represents conformity to societal rules and the defensive structures built to contain one’s hidden impulses.

However, it’s the apple that holds the deepest psychological weight. By hiding the man’s face—his core of identity and expression—it creates a psychological tension between the desire to be seen and the fear of being exposed. For a leader or executive, this speaks to the unconscious burden carried beneath the polished exterior, where the drive for success is continually shaped by the fear of transgression and the guilt of overstepping social or professional boundaries.

The Suit as a Symbol of Conformity and Defense The man’s formal attire serves as more than just a uniform of professionalism—it becomes a psychological defense. The suit, much like the hat perched atop his head, symbolizes social status and conformity, a way to signal adherence to the expectations of society, much like corporate leaders navigate the demands of shareholders, regulatory bodies, and industry norms. Yet, behind this polished exterior, the apple remains—a reminder that no matter how much we align ourselves with social structures, the hidden burden of guilt and the desire to transgress still linger beneath the surface.

Leaders who resonate with this painting might feel an unconscious connection to this duality of identity. On one hand, they must project a facade of control, success, and conformity. On the other, they may grapple with the weight of unresolved guilt from past decisions or actions—choices that, like the apple, remain hidden from public view but deeply influence their sense of self.

Transgression, Authority, and the Pursuit of Power The Oedipal Complex present in this work also extends into the realms of power and authority. The apple, symbolizing forbidden desire, creates a tension with the suit, a marker of societal success and control. For those drawn to this painting, it may evoke a subconscious acknowledgment of the transgressive impulses that often drive ambition—the desire to challenge authority and push past boundaries, while simultaneously seeking approval from the very structures they seek to defy.

For executives or professionals who might display this work, The Son of Man serves as a psychological mirror, reflecting the internal struggles faced in their journey toward leadership. The fear of exposure, the guilt of transgression, and the need for external validation all intertwine within the image. It reminds us that no matter how elevated one becomes in status or authority, the unconscious drive to rebel and the weight of guilt are never fully erased.

The Apple as the Unconscious Burden of Guilt At its core, the apple not only hides the man’s face but represents the guilt of wanting more—more power, more success, more control. In leadership, this often translates into a continuous striving for achievement while carrying the fear of overstepping boundaries. The man’s face, hidden yet central, reminds us that in the pursuit of success, there is always a part of the self that remains concealed—driven by past transgressions and the desire to surpass societal limitations.

For those drawn to this painting, it could signal an unconscious recognition of the cost of ambition—that the pursuit of power, while necessary, also comes with a burden of guilt and the need to reconcile one’s hidden desires with public expectations.

[flagellant]

I remember you being something of a scholar on christian theology. I have a question if you don't mind. My tumblr is full of people clowning on american conservative catholics that are angry that the pope basically fired that bishop in Texas, and the tumblr posters saying "lol u disagree with the pope that makes you disagree w/ god's word" or "that makes u a protestant" etc etc.

And while I do enjoy dunking on the trad caths, I think I heard at some point that the pope isn't always talking with his authority as god's most special boy on earth. That most of the time he is just being a human and therefore could be wrong/make errors. Not that I care about the jerk bishop losing his job, but I'm curious, how do we know when the pope is or is not talking with the authority of God backing him up? Does he have to say a special phrase at the start and end of the speech, or hold both hands up above his head, or something?

Okay so what you're referring to here is actually the concept known as papal infallibility, which is one of my favorite pieces of Catholic canon for one very simple reason:

You learn about it as being essentially the Pope is God's most special boy on Earth and what he says is always directly spoken to him from God and therefore is infallible. And if you are like me when you first hear about this concept, you will immediately get trapped in shower arguments for the rest of your life fantasizing about calling the Pope homophobic and arguing for the Catholic church to please stop being so goddamned homophobic all the time.

This is when you learn that papal infallibility is much more fallible than it is made out to be, and this is basically the source of the issue with Strickland, Torres, and any other Bishop that Francyman has decided to give the boot. See, papal infallibility isn't merely a divine play-pretend godmode button, it's a complex and intricate place within theological debate and Vatican hierarchical bureaucratic structure.

Without going into too much of a in-depth explanation, another way to think of papal infallibility is that it's essentially the Holy Roman Catholic version of the President of the United States declaring an executive order that bypasses the Senate. Infallibility is used for similar reasons--it's got a semi-strict set of rules attached to its usage, which means that the Pope is not constantly infallible, but rather that the Pope as God's chosen elect on Earth therefore commands His greatest attention, which allows the Pope direct intercession and communication with God on paths that the Church as a body should walk.

There are usually supposed to be bureaucratic machinations for dethrocking or deposing a bishop, much of which is directly connected to confirming and providing direct evidence for certain crimes that the Holy See would consider too serious to allow him to continue serving in his position. But the Pope is the divinely elected God-Emperor Best Favorite of Oily Josh and his Daddio Self, so generally speaking when it comes to the Pope, there's always the option baked in for him to say "Fuck you I'm the Pope and you're going to do what I say without precedent".

This is the core of the issue for the current Strickland debacle--there might not be hard-and-fast written rules stating that Strickland can be removed from office through traditional means, but Francis doesn't approve of what he's preaching and using his office for since it's causing the minorest of itty-bitty issues with his principled stance of being The Pope That Liberals Might Vaguely Not Hate As Much. So he's functionally exercising a form of papal infallibility by skipping over procedures and etiquette to tell Strickland "Fuck you I'm the Pope and you're going to do what I say without precedent", and Strickland is going "But I thought you would only do that to bishops who belong to brown countries :(", and here we are.

[copperpipes]

Ultraman spec bio part 2 (previous/first part)

Ultraman's shape does not necessarily point to anything I could go off of about internal structure so i'll run free on that :)

but there is something else that had me scratching a hole from my scalp to my skull, and that is

MASS

ugh. horrible. where does that mass of a 40 meter giant go?? I'm not very knowledgeable in physics but I will do my best to get out of this forsaken pickle.

you see energy does have mass (see the famous E=mc² formula) and can't just disappear into thin air, so where does it go? i have two options:

option 1, which i like more:

said energy is converted into another type of energy and stored, somewhere, or

option 2, which i like less:

pocket dimension. an overused and overrated easy way out. one i will use only if i give up on the better one.

(but for now we are going to ignore this section until i get more sleep)

CONCLUSION: [continue under cut vvv]

Ultraman is a very big single celled organism                    (technically,,,,he’s alien after all and alien cells might be different)

HOLD ON HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME OUT 🗣🗣🗣

my reasoning:

-like single celled plants he possesses a membrane through which he can (sorta) photosynthesise (spacium skin) with cytoplasm just sloshing inside (spacium energy) that can be released if needed through pores (hands n’ such).

-cells still can have internal structures, i propose that ultras have little pockets all over their bodies that would work not unlike muscles (or like spider limbs because this is where i took it from) by filling with spacium energy to inflate and spacium energy being withdrawn from them to contract, notice there are no bones in this equation because those little sacks would be pulling the skin (like shark muscles) to move the limbs. 

-but if he’s a cell then does he have a nucleus? my answer would be, for what? Why would he need a nucleus? it's irrelevant, but. Again, Ultraman is an alien, so instead of a nucleus lets rename it to a core, something that would store an ultra’s mind, like a neural network. it could either be complex but small, or very simple and big. space may not be a problem but bigger also means slower. it can still be a network (and it could be located in his head), just not made out of cells because there’s no cells, just soup. 

-no cells, no fibers, no brain. just soup encased in a spacium membrane.

-so also technically a dumpling.

i regret nothing.

next, part 3

[alizalayne]

Hello! this will be a quick process post so that you can see how I needlefelted a fursuit head!

I began by following the "bucket head" tutorial by Matrices, then added a layer of polyfill so that I wouldn't use as much of my merino wool. This is how I typically make a doll head, my "core wool" is often polyfill because it really likes to clump together and fuse.

Overall, this project took about two months of my spare time. This is the first fursuit head I have made, but not my first needlefelt project.

I would really like to encourage other people to try making masks this way! You can do any kind of subtle color with wool and the wool fiber is very cheap. If you wanted to make a fursuit head with the entirety of starry night flowing over it, or a head with tons and tons of complex colors, I think wool might be the best material. I also did not need to know how to pattern or sew in order to make this-- it was sculpture rather than sewing, which I am bad at.

The rest under the cut!

Another angle where you can see that I am building up the structure of the head.

I then made the ears, which are translucent because they're felted, just like real ears!

I wasn't happy yet with the proportions at this point, so I spent a lot of time figuring that out and deciding where and how I'd be placing the eyes.

I made a pair of sculpey follow-me eyes by using a little soy sauce dish as a concave circular mold and tried a foam clay nose and teeth. The sculpey eyes could be more successful, they took a lot of shaving and adjusting to get right and they eventually cracked from the strain I'd put them through while making them more shallow. For a while, I intended to make wefts of white wool to use on the sides of the head, but I ended up preferring a domestic shorthair head shape because it reads the most clearly as a cat vs any other animal.

I originally intended to have the eyes behind clear plastic domes and used "shaker domes" that people use to make greeting cards to cover the eye, but in the end they made the eyes too dull. I made foam clay housing for the eyes and painted it pink with acrylic paint. I used stick-on car window tint to create the pupils. My visibility inside the head is really good!

Finally, after fiddling, one of the eyes was deeper than the other and I had to re-set both to account for it. I added spot glitter on top of the acrylic paint on the eye using some gold watercolor paint I had, which was silly because I'll need to wash the head at some point. I will probably seal the eyes before washing and hope for the best. I intend to spot clean the head until it absolutely needs to be washed, at which point I'll remove some pieces or find a way to protect them while soaking the head in a cool dr. bronner's bath.

I glued down a layer of felt fiber on top of the foam clay "tear ducts" and then felted new fiber over the tear duct skin and cheeks to blend them into the face. I also removed the teeth and closed her mouth because I didn't have time to adjust the teeth as much as I wanted before the con that my friends and I attended. I would like to modify this head so that she can open and close her mouth.

Lastly, I added wire whiskers with little glass beads looped onto the ends and paper eyelashes that I also watercolored and sealed, like the insides of the eyes. Like I said before, it's gonna be a problematic wash, but I'm confident I'll figure it out, and I can always repair her or replace her lashes if something goes wrong.

Last thing, to keep the inside of the head nice and cool and prevent fogging since in the end I closed the mouth and had sealed eyes, I made a snorkel out of a snorkel mouthpiece fitted into two collapsible auto funnels.

I would say that realistically this entire project cost me less than $150. I had some materials lying around, like the wire and the beads and the sculpey.

I added two ear vents on either side of the head so that I had options on where to feed the snorkel out. If you look at the other pictures on the blog of me wearing the head, you mostly can't even see the snorkel mouth. However, it was a little problematic to let go of the snorkel to talk. it would be perfect for a silent suiter, but I'm lucky that so many people wanted to talk to me. I'd like to try and replace the snorkel mouth with something I can talk in, but I'm not sure what to use. It should be something that can create a seal to keep my breath out of the head. it's possible that I will be able to make something with a painter's mask.

I hid the "seam" between the head and my body with two yards of tulle tied into a big bow and sewn down onto the neck so that it wouldn't move around.

I hope that if you try making something similar you'll show it to me!

[nocturn-warrior]

Kiss of seedcake• 🌧

Lotor x f!reader

Summary: building a life with Lotor on Earth after the galras were defeated, you decide to try for a child :)

Rating: fluff, smut (breeding kink)

Notes: this is set after season 8 events, in a timeline where my boy Lotor didn't die and lives happily with u on Earth. This smut has a plot.

Warnings: mentions of pregnancy and lactation, body changes mentions, mentions racism towards Lotor, my grammar because i am not a native speaker lmao

since Sendak and his army was completely defeated thanks to Voltron and their allies. And with an extra help of the space visitors, human kind quickly rebuilt its structures, combining the advanced technologies of their new colleagues with their own. Flying vessels, space travels and colonies, complex security AI systems and media were a great leap in history.

Not surprisingly, interspecies relationships emerged among the coexistence of humans and extraterrestrials, besides it was a taboo for some people, the most conservative ones, you could easily spot a human walking and a balmeran holding hands on the streets. But as expected, racism towards the space visitors was a thing, especially towards the galra people.

Being blamed for the death of so many, even not having affiliation with Sendak’s deadly army, the purple skinned people were a target to bigotry not just coming from humans but also from other extraterrestrials. With your partner Lotor, it wasn’t different. Making public appearances together, you could feel the reproved gaze of your peers, judging the nature of your relationship as disgusting, selfish. Some showed concern, fearing Lotor could harm you in any way, while others called you an enemy, a traitor for engaging yourself to an individual of a species that slaved, tortured and killed so many in the galaxy.

As the only begotten son of emperor Zarkon, so many wanted his head for what his father caused during centuries, and for reprehensible actions of his own. You were constantly reminded of Lotor’s thirst to acquire quintessence and what he did to reach his goals, the hundreds of alteans locked in tanks he utilized as cattle to harvest the substance. The United Planets Council decided he would not receive death penitence or be locked for his crimes, but he should be exiled.

“Exiled… I am used to this condition”

It was better this way; though Lotor wanted and deserved redemption, not everyone including the paladins would accept it easily. When you established you would not abandon him, they immediately intervened reminding you of what his family caused to everyone, of what your late friend princess Allura would want. You were tired of it all. You loved Lotor and wanted to keep him safe, even if it means cutting connections with your friends. You couldn’t risk having your boyfriend stabbed from behind by a vengeful self-proclaimed punisher.

Lotor understood the gravity of his actions he didn’t even tried to defend himself. But he repined every day about how quintessence drove him mad, crazy for power, and that those moments of madness showed up as nothing but foggy memories in his mind. It broke your heart to see Lotor eager to be accepted in this new multispecies society, but being doomed by his past. Deep in his core, all he wanted was that: to be accepted and to fix everything up. Even when he was still the prince of the mighty galra empire, all he did was for a bigger purpose. He knew he took the wrong route, though.

Four years ago you moved together to your family’s old farm; only you, Lotor and the desire to begin a new life. Part of the farm, including the barn and the stable were destroyed by the attacks, but luckily the house you grew up in was intact, except for the dust and spider webs covering the rooms. Nothing you couldn’t fix up. Lotor is a quick learner, his intelligence was always something you appreciated, and with a quickly explaining of how to use house devices, he became a master at it except for the vacuum cleaner.

“How can you pilot a high technological spaceship and be defeated by a vacuum cleaner, my dear?”

You would tease him, leaning against a wall while seeing your lover struggle to clean the dust of the living room. Lotor in his endeavor would blame the device instead of admitting he was having a bad time using it. You find that silly and adorable. It took some days for your house to be properly inhabited again, with Lotor’s help, everything was easy.

He would wash clothes, cook for you – that thin waist of his looked adorable in one of your late grandmother’s apron, and a few other things. But still, he missed space and missed the adrenaline. That mind of his was always hunger for knowledge and staying so much time without absorbing anything was frustrating and tedious. Lotor in fact would not complain about it, but noticing the lack of enthusiasm in your love, you gifted him with a box of the old books you used to read while graduating; psych, biology, chemistry, and others you kept a special interest about but were not exactly linked to your graduation; history and anthropology.

Besides you were a good storyteller, talking about the myths and cultures of your species along with its advances and knowledge on science, nothing compares to touch, read and learn about something from primary fonts. As you expected, Lotor was more than happy when you handled him your collection. Some of the concepts stored in the books were at least eight years outdated, but still he could have a notion of humankind’s plurality, maybe hoping he could integrate himself into society one day.

Everything was so perfect you feared something bad would happen to spoil the moment. Your days were simple and cozy in your home, and occasionally you had to leave to buy some groceries but would come back soon.

Four years ago when the invasion occurred, families found shelter in the rural areas once the galras attacked the big urban centers first. And from this, a small agriculture and livestock centered community was born. They provided food for the cities near the reagion, and living only one or two miles away, you groceries from first hand.

In this specific day, you arrived home carrying a bag full of fresh fruits, vegetables, flour and some animal products. Lotor was sitting on the couch. He wore a grey sweater that reached the mid of his wrists and black sweatpants that barely reached his ankles, snuggling on his muscular calves. Big boy problems. His starlight hair tied into a messy bun was occasionally scratched as he concentred on the book he was reading. In fact, he was so focused on the book that didn't even notice you comming.

"Im back, love!"

You said opening the door and he slightly jumped on his seat.

"Hello, dear! I indeed didn't perceive you arriving. I was quite concentrated on this book i've been reading"

He got himself together, cleaning his throat before helping you to take the groceries to the kitchen. His gaze immediatly directed towards the sway of your hips as you walked.

"Which one is this?"

You ask, placing the bags on the table and cleaning your hands. Lotor blinks for a while, being snapped out of his beholding state:

"It is about the development of agriculture and how it's linked to the appearance of religious cults. I am quite amused by the first forms of art created by your species, dear, and how the belief in gods and deities is linked to the discovering of agriculture. It is pretty interesting how such topics that don’t seem to be linked at first sight are related.”

He continues:

 “The most interesting part, my dear, is that most of these civilizations were situated in quite green and prosper lands, therefore their deities reflected in the places they inhabited. While the people that lived in arid and desert places had vengeful and warrior gods.”

He speaks with enthusiasm, smiling like you have not seen in at least four years. His lust for you was being masked with non-stop bragging about what he learned in that day. Lotor was indeed fascinated by how some ancient human civilizations valorized fertility and reproduction, but what excited him most was to put this in practice. His cock jutted against the fabric of his sweatpants when he saw those sensual statues of Venus in the pages of that book. He wanted you. He wanted to make you his own goddess of fertility.

After drying your hands on a towel, you swiftly turn to your husband, paying attention to his words. But the look on his feline eyes told you everything. The pupils were dilated, shiny like binary stars. You smirk, and when you do so, Lotor stumbles on his own words.

“I have been always fascinated with this topic too, my dear.”

You put on an innocent facade, crossing your arms and leaning your beautiful hips against the counter. Lotor’s hands twitched, urging to squeeze them as you ride his cock gracefully like the goddess you were to him. He licks his lips and smiles:

“Nothing fairer, darling. You are a goddess yourself. But do you know what is missing?”

You obliviously shake your head to his question.

“A seed to be fertilized in this womb of yours”

Just by hearing his deep sensual voice, you feel your core flutter with excitement. The galran prince approaches you, closing the space between your bodies. All you do is to let him guide you onto his arms and give yourself to this blissful heat.

His thumb traces your lowerbelly, imagining it growing as a proof of the seed he implanted in your womb. He imagines your breasts swelling, leaking the milk that will nurture your child.

Lotor sinks his hand under your hair, softly bringing you closer to him and intensifying the kiss. Your fingers travel under his sweater, tracing his divinely sculpted abs one by one. The desire of being impregnated by him only grew stronger and stronger.

He strips you down, taking off your shirt and giving your breasts good squeezes before attaching his lips to the plump sides of them, leaving soft hickeys on your skin. You pant caressing his jaw as he does it.

Then, his long fingers skim down towards your groin. He gently slids down the waistband and kneals down in front of you. Hugging your hips, Lotor attaches his mouth onto your cut, sweetly suckling your clit as you tug onto his hair, undoing the messy bun he had.

"Lotor..."

You moan sweetly, and it sounds like the chant of Earth itself, like the sounds of raindrops falling onto soil.

His skilled tongue dances around your clit. Your legs tremble and if he wasn't holding you still by your hips, you would definitly lose your balance with so much pleasure being given.

And like a water dam being open, your fluids flow into Lotor's mouth and he delights on it like honey. He moans pulling off and looking up to see your divine glory squirm in pleasure.

Standing up, Lotor holds you on his arms in bridal style, you lean in like a dandelion seed being carried by wind and he places you onto the canopy bed, the plush cushion softly sinking with your body.

Looking up at Lotor while he takes off his own clothing, you get a sight of his purple large cock deliciouspy jutting against his pants. It wiggles tantalizing when his boxers are finally down, hard and reaching his lower belly.

With your fingers you trace his abs again, they are sculpted and perfect like a statue meticulously carved in marble by the best of the sculptors. His silver bodyhair stands on ends with your touch.

Lotor gently inserts his large cock in your entrance, being enthralled by your moans. Your cunt is tight for his size, but soon it accomodates his full length.

He moans loudly and sensually twitching his hips, you reach out to squeeze his muscular butt as it recoils and releases with his thrust. Your motion seems like an extra stimulus.

"Stars. May your womb be a fertile field where i will plant my crops. You are perfect!"

He pants, the pace increasing and your bodies sweating, your pleasured noises echoing through the wood walls.

"I am going to fill you up, dear. I am going to make you a mother; i am going to make you my own fertility deity."

That was when you orgasmed.

It feels like you two were perfcetly designed for this, like your bodies were shaped by universe to create life. You bury your hand underneath Lotor's hair, his front strands are falling and tickling your face. As his pace increases, you hold it tighter and beautiful gasps leave his mouth.

"I- i am comming..."

Soon, the river flooded the land and you felt his warm seed inside your womb. Pace slowing down, Lotor remains the last frictions with his cock still in your vagine.

He pants a chuckle cleaning his sweaty forehead with his forearm. You let out a dizzy smile, reaching out to cup his cheek as your brain process the event, beholding his how graceful he looks.

Releasing his cock, Lotor gently pushes the oozing translucid liquid to inside of you again, rubbing it onto your still sensitive cunt. His ejaculation is so voluminous it feels like every inch of your tube is filled up. The alien man leans in and kisses your cheek:

"You were so great, darling... I... wow! I have no words to describe it. You will be a good mama"

His sudden use of an earthling slang makes you chuckle. How can a man be so sensually irresistible, and seconds later make your heart melt with such an adorable, silly thing? This is a Lotor ability, you guess. He messes with your mind in the better ways possible.

Cleaning up the sweat, you snuggle onto Lotor's chest while calming down your nerves after such a moment. The seed has been implanted to your womb, and Lotor couldn't wait for it to grow.

[jewish-sideblog]

"Both indigenous and colonizers" CAN PEOPLE STOP TALKING ABOUT SHIT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND PLEASE

This wave of antisemitism and bullshit about "indigenous vs colonizer" makes me so scared as an indigenous person in the US of what will happen when Land Back movements do result in actual sovereignty restoration and then tribes do what people do and disagree over land and resources, like we were doing for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Will we be reduced down to colonizers too??

It feels like Westerners, especially USAmericans, have such a black and white idea of what it means to be indigenous and what it means to be a colonizer/settler (because those terms are always conflated) and it makes me so angry and frustrated to see people apply those standards and lines thinking not just to complex sovereignty movements in their own countries but also to incredibly complex conflicts and wars happening on the other side of the world.

The damage I've seen done to sovereignty movements here in the US alone, people going around claiming that we want all "settlers" to go back to Europe or that we're going to start massacring people, has been horrible and the fact that it's all just to justify antisemitism makes me sick.

Genuinely. They're blocked now, but that same person said something to the effect of "Would an Iranian praying in a Mosque built on the ashes of a former synagogue be decolonization?"

And that was the point at which I was like. Ok. It seems like most people genuinely don't actually know what the terms "colonization", "colonizer" and "coloniality" mean. Obviously, that wouldn't be decolonization, because the Jews never colonized Iran. Emigration and colonization aren't the same fucking thing!

I used to have so much faith in my generation. I thought we were critical thinkers, capable of flexibility and engagement with new ideas. But I'm realizing now that we're basically just rebranded boomers. Back in the day, anybody you disagreed with was labelled as a "Communist". It didn't actually fucking matter if they were communist sympathizers, Soviet sympathizers, or even if they were remotely allied with socialist ideals. You could just call them a "Communist" and be done with it, without even understanding what that term means.

It's the same shit today. Instead of a HUAC witch hunt targeting communists, it's a social witch hunt targeting "colonizers" and "Zionists". I am terrified that the moment indigenous rights movements in the Americas and Oceania start making practical strides in Land Back, regaining rightful control over the ways your own land is used, you'll all be labelled as "colonizers" or "imperialists" or whatever the bad buzz word of the month turns out to be.

People simply can't wrap their heads around the idea that indigenous decolonization doesn't have the end goal of ethnically cleansing non-native people from the Americas. And it's because they're so absorbed in colonial thinking. They can't even fucking imagine what sovereignty could look like beyond an authoritarian structure based on control and violence. It's the same with Israel and Palestine-- they think that Jewish sovereignty must look like complete Jewish control to the detriment of Arabs, and they think Palestinian sovereignty must look like total Arab control to the detriment of Jews. The idea that a shared state or a two-state solution is "racist" stems from that false dichotomy.

Establishing an ideological binary of violence that pits "indigenous" against "colonizer", "native" against "settler", and "us" against "them" with no room for cooperation or collaboration is the core of colonialism. Because the core of colonialism is the idea that only one group can have true power at a time. And that's just not the way the world has to work.

[psychotrenny]

There's a lot to be said about Zambia's relationship with South Africa, especially during the Apartheid era. A nation with legal political independence, like much of "post-colonial" Sub-Saharan Africa the deep rooted structures of Colonialism and ongoing pressure of Imperialism have kept it economically dependent on the Imperial Core. Like much of Southern Africa, South Africa specifically is a major locus of that dependence. Indeed, the primary focus of South Africa's foreign policy towards its immediate neighbours, the "Frontline States" in the struggle against Apartheid, was to keep things that way using the most suitable combination of soft and hard power that South Africa had at its disposal.

Now Zambia got off lightly in terms of the military threat it faced, suffering no major South-African proxy wars and relatively few commando raids against the personnel and offices of anti-apartheid resistance that had set up on Zambian soil. The Apartheid regime saw Kenneth Kaunda, the Zambian head of state from 1964 (the year of Zambian political independence) to 1991 (by which time Apartheid was beginning to be dismantled), as a relative moderate due his anti-communist sentiments. Despite Kaunda's outspoken opposition to the Apartheid system, he maintained strong economic ties with South Africa. Zambia's copper mines had their ownership nationalised but were still managed and operated by the same companies, to the point that the pre-independence culture of racism remained alive and well decades later and many Zambian engineers left the mining industry for the private sector as soon as they could due to the discrimination they faced from their mostly white (often South African) managers. A similar arrangement existed for Emerald mines, an industry that only began development in the 1970s and remained in its infancy until the 1990s, remained largely in private hands.

Yet at the same time Zambia was still an independent African nation. On top of verbally denouncing Apartheid to the international community, Kaunda's regime offered material assistance and free access to the anti-colonial resistance movements that toppled the Portuguese Empire and Rhodesia while destabilising South African apartheid to the point of dissolution. Despite the burden of exploitation the masses faced from both foreign imperialists and their local collaborators, conditions for the black majority of Zambia were significantly less vicious than for those living under Apartheid in South Africa and Namibia. Relations between Zambia and South Africa were messy, complex and often contradictory but they were like this because Zambia was very much its own nation. While the shadow of Apartheid is something that must always be taken into account while discussing Zambia in this period, especially in the context of South African investment, this country was much more than an extension of South Africa. You can't talk about it like it's some glorified Bantustan

And yet for most people none of that matters. All Southern Africa is the same to them; who gives a shit about the actual history of struggle? The whole "Elon Musk's dad own a South African emerald mine" is incredibly stupid because it's a severely misleading distortion of the facts that only gets passed around due to widespread attitudes of chauvinistic ignorance towards Africa. Now Errol Musk's statements about his involvement in the Southern African emerald trade are inconsistent; at times he claims to have owned a stake in an emerald mine while at others he claims to have merely traded in the gems. But either way, the gems in question are Zambian and not South African and that's a distinction that matters.

Additionally, the spread of this rumour comes from a grossly oversimplified view of Imperialist exploitation in Africa. While the mining industry is an important vector by which wealth is extracted from the continent, it is far from the only one. Errol Musk did not make his fortune from emeralds; he was an electrical engineer who went own to invest in a wide assortment of businesses from auto parts stores to tourist lodges. A beneficiary of Apartheid for sure, operating in an economic system made possible only through the brutal exploitation of millions of Africans, but in a much more sophisticated way than the cartoonish caricature of a mine overseer a lot of people seem to have in mind.

The point must also be made that most mining in Africa takes the form of modern industrial enterprises operated by voluntary workers who, while still incredibly exploited in terms of the value they produce compared to what they receive, tend to be relatively well paid by local standards. Even in apartheid South Africa and Namibia itself, mining jobs were considered among the most desirable work an African could get. The image of slaves held at gunpoint to dig with shovels, distorted half memories of Sierra Leonean diamonds and Congolese Coltan, do not represent the reality of Imperialism in most of the continent.

The whole "Musk Emerald Mine" discourse is an all around outstanding example of ignorance, made even more egregious by the ostensible "progressive" beliefs of those who engage in it. "Leftists" who care little for what's actually happening to the people of the Imperial Periphery, who see the suffering of Africans as little more than a cheap way to mock an individual they don't like. Maybe it would pay to open a book or two before you open your mouth. Or at least look at a world map and see the funny solid line that exists between "South Africa" and "Zambia"

[mister-qi]

Mr. Qi Friendship and Romance Mod: 4/19 Progress Update

It's a working title, I'm trying to come up with something less wordy that still will pop up in Nexus searches.

I wanted to be able to track my progress, mainly for myself, but if you're curious, this is the state of the mod right now:

Writing:

Heart Events - the 2 heart event is fully written (with blocking directions), and the 6, 8, and 10 heart events are outlined. The 4 heart cutscene currently has me a bit stumped; I have ideas, but nothing concrete yet. I definitely now understand why Sam's 4 heart cutscene is him dropping an egg. 14 hearts is on the back-burner as a little treat to myself once I get further into things.

Generic Daily Dialogues - about 1/3 done, probably the highest priority for writing. I'm leaving his vanilla casino dialogue as the two heart dialogue, and the vanilla Walnut Room dialogue as his four heart dialogue, with a few small changes. And, since it's me, I have more marriage dialogue written than anything else...

Day-Specific Dialogues - very few written, lower priority. Hoping to have a lot of these made eventually, and I have plenty of ideas, but they aren't necessary for the core of the mod so they're on the back-burner for now.

Gift Dialogues - all 5 generic gift response dialogues are written, with an additional 22 dialogue lines for specific items/groups of items. I'm also up to around item 530 in figuring out what item corresponds to which dialogue/whether or not he likes it. Certain item groups, like cooked food, still need more lines, however. This is definitely something that should be low priority, but also something I'm really enjoying working on. Some personal favorites so far are-

[if given a fish (hated)]: "Eugh, it's all slimy..."

[if given a legendary fish (disliked)]: "If you must give me one of the rarest fish in the valley, can you at least wrap it so I don't have to touch it with my bare hands?"

And I think that's pretty funny.

Art

Portraits - 3 new portraits finished: "deep frown" "glint" and "glasses-less". I'll probably be messing with "glasses-less" for a looong while; it's first shown at a dramatic moment so it needs to look good. Blushing portraits are next on the docket.

Here's "glint" btw, with a background thrown on so I can have a custom icon. You know I gotta make him do the anime glasses thing a few times.

Sprites - no progress yet. Walk cycle is up next after I finish the blushing portraits. Did you know he doesn't have a walk cycle at all? [1.6 spoilers] in the cheated Summit cutscene where he attacks(?) you, he literally just slides at you very fast. Anyways, I may also change his map sprite a bit as well, since it was drawn to match his old portrait and doesn't actually have the same color scheme as his sprites. Note to self: is it possible to make the sparkles on his outfit prismatic?

Maps - no progress yet. The 6 heart and 10 heart cutscenes both require custom maps, with the 6 heart one being a fully custom asset. 10 heart recycles some existing assets but will still need some custom stuff done as well.

Misc Sprites - in my head, there's a dream version of the 8 heart cutscene that has so, so many unique sprites. Like an incredible amount of stuff. I think it'll kick ass, but also that sequence could be done with a few lines of text. So, for now, it's low priority. But maybe in a few months I'll put out a request for help.

Implementation

Not totally sure how to split this into sections yet, as I'm very much still in the preliminary stages so far. To say that I'm feeling overwhelmed is an understatement; documentation on the wiki swings wildly between "an asset is a file in a video game" and "this is an advanced tutorial. Read these 4 other pages first before continuing."

I've started using Ms. Coriel's NPC Creator which has been good for setting up the basic file structure, but ultimately doesn't cover some of the more complex stuff I want to do. EDIT: Turns out it's completely outdated for 1.6! Had to throw out a bit of work, but I still learned from it so it's fiiine.

I think setting up his "schedule" will be a challenge, in that I don't actually want him to have a real schedule like most NPCs. Not to pull back the curtain too much here, but I want him to "exist" in both the Casino and the Walnut Room simultaneously, which is to say, he does not exist in two places at once in the narrative, just in the code. This will change after marriage, however.

My next goal is to set up placeholder cutscenes for each of the heart events, and then to implement the generic daily dialogues once those are finished.

Final Notes

God, this will be a work in progress for a while, but I'm enjoying it! Definitely enjoying the writing more than anything else, but hey, that's how it be. I've got around 70 lines of dialogue written, a bit of art done, and I've started learning how to actually get stuff in game. I've always been more of a designer than a coder, but it's getting there!

ADDITIONALLY I've decided that if I abandon this project for more than 8 months, anyone is welcome to request my work so far and use it for their own mod. If this blog hasn't posted in a long while, feel free to send me an ask or message! I may say no, however.

Ultimately, I want this mod to exist in some fashion. While there is an existing one, I have a pretty different take on the character and I want to share it with you all! Every line of dialogue, every heart event, every little detail needs to share something interesting about a character and their world. Yet, Mr. Qi is a mysterious guy, and I think some things should be left up to player interpretation. And I think it's crucial to be able to match his tone and voice to the vanilla game, while also expanding on his characterization. It's a fun challenge to write, and I hope the finished product, uh, well I hope it gets finished mostly, but I think it'll be pretty good.

Thanks for reading all this. This is largely just a stream of consciousness for myself, but I hope it's...interesting, or something?

[corralinesage]

Learning you by heart (9/?)

It's almost Christmas :D!

Chapter 9: My woman

Natasha followed you like a puppy in tow as you made your way inside and dropped off your bags in your dressing room. She was beyond thrilled to learn more about you and all the things she had previously not had access to. The person she had once known had only sung in the shower and gotten incredibly flustered if Natasha ever caught her. You had always had a beautiful voice, and in this reality, you thankfully knew it yourself as well.

“This is where I like to practice”, you said as you stopped your walk down a long corridor of rooms, opening a door to an empty room with a grand piano on the left side of it. “I get to be alone and focus.” You led her inside, Natasha shutting the door behind her as you headed straight to the grand piano with your stack of sheet music you had pulled out of your purse.

“I like it”, she hummed as she stared at the lone, lit-up star that hung before the window, illuminating the room with its gentle beam until you turned on the lights, drowning its shine.

“You can grab a chair from over there if you want a seat.” You pointed toward the right-side wall where a few chairs were stacked and lined neatly, but Natasha didn’t seem to mind, following you to the grand piano to admire its shiny, black exterior. You gave her a small look as you lifted the top up to open the instrument, giving Natasha a look at the insides where the strings and pins formed a complex structure that would eventually make a heavenly sound. You moved to the chair and took a seat, your gaze moving to Natasha. “This is gonna get loud and silly, so buckle up.” You let out a soft chuckle.

“I can do loud and silly”, she mused, waiting for you to begin. “Bring it on, baby.” Your cheeks felt warm again, and your heart was beating faster again. You suddenly felt nervous to sing in front of her despite the fact that you sang daily in front of hundreds of people. Although it was worth mentioning that they heard you actually sing, Natasha would be witnessing the ridiculous little noises you had to make to open up your voice and prepare it for the stage. You weren’t used to showing that side to the people outside of your opera circles, let alone someone you wanted to like you. With a final glance at Natasha, you focused your attention on the keys of the grand piano, warming up your fingers a bit by playing some drills to get your fingers going, providing Natasha with a chance to admire the inside of the instrument as the pins hit the strings creating the most crisp and smooth sound she had ever witnessed so up close. She remained quiet, allowing you to do your thing, her gaze eventually moving from the inside structure to admire you instead. You could feel her eyes on you, but it felt rather comforting, yet also incredibly thrilling.

“Okay, here we go”, you chuckled as a small warning before starting to make noises on top of your playing. You started off with lip trills, going gradually up and down an octave to hit both low and high notes as you pushed out air from between your lips to make them vibrate in a similar manner to a noise that horses often made. You gave Natasha a look, biting your lip in between the octaves as you played the notes from the piano and then matched them with your voice. She seemed amused, but it didn’t feel judgmental. You repeated the lip trills until you felt ready enough to move on to humming. You repeated the same principle of going up and down the octaves to really open up the range of your voice through various methods. You played around with the positioning of your tongue and mouth in general, using a pufferfish technique to create some backpressure before doing another exercise with your tongue between your lips to release tension. You made sure to wake up every part of your mouth, throat, lungs, and core to ensure that your voice flowed beautifully and just like you intended it to.

Finally, you were able to move on to practicing your numbers, which seemed to make Natasha perk up slightly. You couldn’t even blame her, proper songs were always much more interesting to listen to than vocal warmups that sometimes sounded a bit ridiculous even to you despite how used to them you were. By the time your voice was oiled up like a machine and your responsibilities were out of the way, you were struck by an idea.

“You wanna try?” Natasha turned to look at you with her eyes wide, shaking her head.

“Oh, no. I’m not the singing type”, she chuckled, declining your offer politely, but you were used to people having to be persuaded when it came to singing. You stood up, a certain kind of look in your eyes as you walked over to her where she stood at the end of the grand piano. You looked up at her through your lashes, knowing full well how that came across, Natasha’s lower lip clamped between her teeth.

“I know you can sing.” You had heard her sing just the night before. You knew she could hold a note. “It’ll be fun”, you assured her, stepping close enough to her to invade her personal space. She looked down at you, at your eyes, the tension between you restoring with a single batting of your eyelashes. “I’ll show you how.” You gave her a small smile, bringing your dominant hand flat against her abdomen. Natasha could feel her blood start pumping from the innocent contact you made with her, her heart beating all too fast for her comfort. “Hum for me”, you said in a low tone, providing her with an easy three note melody that anyone could follow along with. She looked at you, unable to tear her eyes away from you as you waited for her to repeat the melody. Your eyes were so intense, so beautiful that Natasha felt like she could drown in them, their unyielding gaze persuading her to give it a try. She cleared her throat before copying the three-note melody, humming it from her throat. She felt oddly vulnerable.

“Now brace your core”, you instructed, thoroughly unprepared to feel the way her abdominal muscles flexed beneath the palm of your hand, giving you a wonderful opportunity to gather material for your daydreams. “And push out the sound from your whole body. Not just your throat.” You repeated the melody to her again, holding your hand in place to feel her core engagement as she hummed the notes.

“Here, let me show you.” Your cheeks were blazing hot as you grasped her bare hand with your own and brought it to your own abdomen, right below the ribs. You held your hand over hers as you let out short, little hums to really show that your core tightened every time you let out a sound. You gave her a small, encouraging smile, before moving her warm touch off you and bringing it to her own stomach. “Try now.” Natasha did as told, doing her best to contain herself after the burn that your touch had caused.

“Perfect. That’s exactly what we’re looking for.” The excitement was evident in your tone. “Singing is very physical and at first it can feel straining to always tense all your muscles, but it really does help with the quality of your voice”, you explained. You hummed another melody yourself, prompting her to follow your lead. She managed to get the hang of it rather quickly. “Choose a song.” You gave her a small smirk as her eyes widened. She could not think of a song in her messy brain that was screaming for her to kiss you instead of focusing on anything else. She felt almost dizzy. You were so close, and your touch had been so gentle and warm.

“Uh… um, Have yourself a merry little Christmas.” It was the best she could come up with. She had heard it at the winter village, and it had gotten stuck in her head.

“Perfect. Keep your attention on your core, but don’t strain it.” You hummed the melody quickly to yourself to recall how the song went before singing the first line. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light.” You nodded your head as a way to signal her to repeat the line. She did as told, feeling like she was completely under your spell. She couldn’t have resisted you and your beautiful voice. It would have felt downright disrespectful. Her voice wasn’t far off from her talking voice, simply lighter and airier. It was raw and delicate, but it wasn’t unpleasant by any means. You could have listened to it for the rest of your life. “Next year all our troubles will be out of sight.” You moved your hand off her own to feel her stomach as she sang, your gazes meeting again, the tension consuming her whole. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas…” You both sang the next line, the lyrics dying in Natasha’s throat. She couldn’t sing, not when you looked at her like that, not when you made her heart gallop like a wild horse fleeing captivity. You simply looked at each other in the silence that had found you, your lips curving up in a slight smile.

“Congratulations. You can now sing with correct technique”, you whispered, your faces mere inches apart, your hand still touching her abdomen through the thin fabric of her shirt. You allowed your thumb to caress the even surface of her upper abdominal muscles before letting go. Natasha couldn’t breathe. “You can stay for the show. Maybe after we can check out that apartment of yours.” You had talked about visiting Natasha’s place during your day at the marketplace. You were curious to see her living space and witness the kind of life she lived. She didn’t seem opposed.

“I’ll stay.” The longing was palpable. You yearned to kiss her and you could tell she felt the same because you had never quite rendered her so speechless, her eyes lingering on your lips, on your eyes, dipping lower to your cleavage in an attempt to escape the intensity of your gaze but when she caught a glimpse of the soft skin that peeked from behind your low neckline she realized to back away completely if she wanted you on the stage that night. You didn’t have time to fool around in a classroom. You had a show to perform. “I’ll wait for you.” She smiled at you, receiving the same gesture in return.

The tension was dispelled when you went to gather up your notes from the grand piano, heading for the dressing rooms again to get into costume. Natasha came with you just to spend that little bit of more time with you. You found it incredibly sweet, pleased that she wished to be so involved with you and your work. She lingered around while you got your hair and makeup done, chatting with you whenever she had the opportunity, but she was mindful to stay out of the way. She looked on quietly from the side with a tiny smile on her lips as you talked with Beatrice about the show, going over some technical aspects about the use of vibrato. She wanted your opinion on one of her solo moments on stage, the young singer wishing to improve herself. Natasha found it endearing. You were so kind and willing to teach Beatrice, offering constructive feedback and helpful tips. Natasha had always loved that about you. She had always loved how willing you were to give people your time and your knowledge. It was something that she would never take for granted. After a good while of Natasha simply observing the dynamics in the dressing room while constantly keeping an eye on you because you truly did look so gorgeous in your character’s get up, it eventually came a time for you and Natasha to part ways. She watched you saunter her way in your heels and extravagant dress, hair, and makeup, an apologetic smile on your face as you reached your hands for hers.

“I have to go now”, you hummed quietly, grasping Natasha’s hands to bring you closer to each other. She nodded her head, unprepared to say goodbye to you when a part of her acknowledged a parallel she wished to forget. You smiled that gorgeous smile of yours at her, bringing an involuntary smirk to her lips.

“I know, darling. It’s your time to shine.” You pursed your lips, looking away, wishing to kiss her. “Go be a star.” She gave your hands a squeeze, gaining your attention back, your eyes meeting. She glanced at your mouth, leaning closer, pleased to see you reciprocate. Her plump lips pressed down on your heavily glossed ones, leaving a layer of soft pink product behind on Natasha’s lips. The kiss was firm and chaste, but it made Natasha’s body throb, nonetheless. “Good luck, detka (baby).” You let out a little giggle, one that was very typical of you when you were undeniably affected by her. It made Natasha grin.

“Thank you.” You barely had the will to let go of her hands, but you managed eventually, backing away from her before turning around and heading for the stage, peeking over your shoulder a few times just to get another look at her, your smile lingering on your lips rather persistently, Natasha’s heart beating outside of her chest from pure joy.

Natasha stayed for a show or two before leaving the opera house to focus on her life outside of your presence. If you were going to come over to her place, she would have to ensure that her cover was watertight. She could not afford to risk the connection that was building between you. There could be not a single clue on display that could give out her white lies. She headed toward the Stark tower that had remained under the name of Stark Industries. Tony still developed war weapons and had never advanced any further than that. Natasha had been brought overseas to help with insider knowledge on weapon use. She didn’t live in the Stark tower like she had in her previous life, but she had an apartment nearby that was leased through the company. She was currently on a leave for Christmas, which she had thankfully been able to arrange for her alternate self, who, true to Natasha’s nature, had not taken a day off all year. Natasha found it rather ironic that none of the Avengers existed in her current reality, yet her miserable self was still in the weapon fare industry trying to fight a battle nobody else was interested in fighting.

Natasha scoffed at herself as she tossed aside a stack of work-related documents to the side to clear a desk in her bedroom, a small frustrated huff leaving her parted lips. Oh, what a mess she had created herself. She had set the trap up all by herself. You would most likely not care what she did for work or how accurate she had been about her job description, but finding out about any lies that she had told would automatically weaken her credibility and the positive impression she wanted you to have of her. Natasha cleaned up any of the mess that lingered around her variant’s apartment, making sure the space looked tidy and clean. She wasn’t all that familiar with her variant or her life, prompting her to do a little more research on herself, just in case. She had been spending most of her free time away from you on relearning the world around her. She had researched movies and pop culture, diseases, world events, politics, and social phenomena to get a better understanding of the reality you lived in. She hadn’t had time to get into her variant’s life because she didn’t intend to live that life. She was aiming to change it to make it more suitable for herself. She discovered an image of her variant and a man who was holding her so close that it made Natasha gag. She had hidden the frame inside a drawer the moment she had initially lain her eyes upon it. She took the frame and slid the picture out of it, tearing it up to get rid of any evidence about the tomfoolery her variant had been up to with a man in her life. She shook her head in disbelief. Here she had been thinking that she was gay enough to be a lesbian in every universe.

She discarded any other inappropriate pictures that she could find from the apartment, going over legal documents, and other official papers she had yet to sort through to do more research on herself. She looked through her variant’s closet, taking out pieces that she herself wouldn’t wear, ensuring that her closet reflected her own style. She cleaned away the cat equipment that lingered around in her closet from Liho who Natasha had not even gotten to meet. Her best guess was that the cat had actually passed, but she had no confirmation. She checked her bank credentials and balance, making sure she was aware of how much she could spend. She would still get a regular salary as long as she went back to work and learned to do her variant’s job. She would also have to eventually explain to you why she worked a different position that she had initially told you. Maybe she had gotten a raise, or alternatively she would simply apply for a transfer to her desired position. Or maybe she had two kinds of jobs she was in charge of. Natasha sighed, she should have been more careful in the beginning, but she had let her emotions get in her way. She had been all too affected by the jumble of pain and excitement to think rationally.

Finally, after having enough of berating herself, she made sure the apartment was tidy and clean before restocking her fridge by running to the closest bodega to grab any snacks she knew you’d like and a bottle of your favorite wine just in case it would get romantic again that night. Once she had finished her tasks and ensured that her cover, or what was now her life, was foolproof, she headed back to the opera house in the evening, leaving her apartment around the time you were on intermission, so she could catch your final number that was steadily becoming her favorite in the entire opera, maybe even all the operas. She stood quietly at the back, watching you saunter onto the stage. She would have closed her eyes to truly and properly listen to your voice, but she could not tear her eyes off you and your gorgeous gown. She felt her skin prickle with goosebumps every time you hit a higher note, your angelic voice somehow managing to fill up the entire theater. It was just as phenomenal every single time.

Natasha snuck backstage before the audience had the chance to get up from their seats and crowd all the aisles and hallways, patiently waiting for you near the dressing rooms, unwilling to invade the spaces that were meant for performers only. She soon heard some laughter echo down the hallway leading to the dressing rooms, her lips immediately stretching into a small smile despite the laugh not belonging to you, but it was nonetheless a sign of your arrival. She watched half of the performers enter the dressing rooms, the group of people chatting enthusiastically, sharing how their performances had gone on stage, expending any remaining nerves and energy since they were finally able to relax for the night. You arrived in tow with Beatrice, both of you rather quiet in comparison to the others. You managed a small smile when you saw Natasha, but in all honesty, you were completely wiped.

“Hi, malyshka (baby)”, Natasha hummed quietly, low enough for others to not hear. You gave her a tired look.

“Hi.” Beatrice walked by you, smirking at you briefly which told Natasha that she was aware of your situation and relations. You waited for the rest of the cast to head inside the dressing rooms, you and Natasha lingering behind by the door.

“Tired?” Natasha recognized the look on your face, she could so easily spot the weary look in your eyes, the slouch in your shoulders and the lax smile on your lips.

“You wouldn’t believe it. I thought I couldn’t do the final number”, you mumbled, leaning against the wall for support because leaning into Natasha’s arms was slightly too forward of you. She chuckled in sympathy, watching you rest the side of your head against the cool wall, bringing her hand up to the side of your face to tuck some of your hair behind your ear. You closed your eyes at the touch of her hand, letting out a small sigh. Oh, how you wanted to sink into her embrace and just bury your face into her neck. All the excitement from the precious day and the morning had completely drained you.

“We’ll do my place another time. I’ll get you a cab and get you straight home.” She felt a twinge of disappointment in her chest for having to part from you, but she would do what was best for you without a question.

“No”, you whined quietly. “I wanna see your place.” A part of you did want to go home and just sleep, but a bigger part of you wanted to actually see where she lived and spend time with her.

“You sure?” She cupped your cheek, your eyes fluttering open to see her face.

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay if you want to go home and rest. you should do exactly that”, Natasha tried again, knowing you were not always exactly keen on doing what was best for you when it came to resting.

“I don’t want to.” Your tone made her chuckle.

“Alright, darling. Grab your stuff and we’ll get going.” You nodded your head, pushing yourself off the wall to go get out of costume.

When you finally stepped into the crisp night air, you felt yourself fully relax, soothed by the gentle rush of air that caressed your skin. You didn’t talk much as you started blindly following Natasha to her home, grabbing her hand to hold, so you could keep up with her. Natasha, as chivalrous as ever, was carrying your purse and paper bag that contained your loot from the village after insisting to help you with the load. You appreciated it greatly despite feeling slightly bad for it.

“You up for some dinner?” Natasha asked you as you passed a restaurant that wafted a delicious scent of spices your way. “We could grab some takeaway.”

“Oh, I’d love it”, you sighed in relief, suddenly recalling your hunger that you had had to push aside during the show.

“What would you like?”

“Anything. I’ll eat anything at all. I’m ravenous.” She gave your hand a squeeze as you stopped at a road cross, waiting for the lights to turn green.

“There’s an Italian place down the block from my apartment. They do pizza and pasta, you know, the works.”

“That’s perfect.”

By the time you entered Natasha’s apartment with your food in hand, you were ready to sink into the floor just to find a horizontal position. You toed off your shoes after Natasha did the same, taking off your outerwear in a clumsy fashion with the food in your arms to hang your coat up in her closet. You looked around the apartment. It was on the seventh floor of a regular building complex, the interior simple but classy. She had two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen, the entrance of the apartment expanding into the conjoined kitchen and living rooms. The interior design was rather plain and consisted of shades of white, beige, and grey. It wasn’t bland but it was lacking slightly in personality. Natasha wouldn’t have chosen such light colors herself for an apartment, but it wasn’t too far off her style.

“Oh, this looks like a nice place you got”, you commented as you stepped further inside, eyeing the interior.

“I haven’t put much effort into decorating it, but maybe someday I’ll get to it”, she chuckled, setting down your bags to take the food from your arms. She placed the white plastic bag onto the dining table, switching on the kitchen lights so you could see better.

“I like it. It’s calming.” You noted some details from the interior, your eyes spotting the lush couch in the living room that was facing a TV stand and a flatscreen. The cushions looked rather inviting to you, but you resisted their siren-like call because you didn’t want to fall asleep on her so soon, although you were most definitely planning to stay the night because nothing in the world could have made you find the energy to go home or anywhere anymore for that matter. Natasha was stuck with you whether she liked it or not because it was nearing midnight, and you had no intention to step outside again.

“I’m glad you think so, she hummed as she started unpacking the food, pulling out two containers of pasta and some breadsticks with butter.

“Can I take a look around?” You were already heading further into the apartment albeit slowing down slightly before receiving her answer just to make sure you weren’t crossing any boundaries.

“Yes, of course.” Natasha smiled to herself as she pulled out porcelain dishes from the cupboards so you could eat with proper utensils instead of the wooden ones the restaurant had provided you with. She lit up a few candles to create a warmer atmosphere at the dinner table. “Do you want wine?”

“Yes!” Your voice echoed from somewhere around her bedroom, but you appeared back in the kitchen soon after, lured in by the food and drink that your body was begging for.

“I got that cherry wine that you- it’s this wine I thought you might like.” Natasha corrected herself immediately, handing the bottle to you so you could take a look at it before she opened it. You didn’t seem bothered by her slight verbal stumbling, her shoulders relaxing a little. She was getting too comfortable with you. She was mixing you up with the old you and getting herself confused with what she knew about you and what she didn’t. It was a dangerous game.

“Ah, I love cherry!” You eyed the bottle for a moment, pretending to look at it like you cared what kind of wine it was. You were sold after hearing the word cherry. “How did you know that?” Natasha chuckled at your enthusiasm.

“You just seem the type and you had that cherry danish when we first met for coffee.” She placed two wine glasses onto the table, receiving the bottle from you.

“Oh, yeah. Look at you, all observant”, you hummed, smiling like a fool because she remembered something so insignificant.

“What can I say? You’re someone very memorable.” She smiled softly to herself as she unscrewed the cap and poured you a sip to taste. “There you go.” She handed you the glass, pouring herself a serving. You tried not to blush at her comment, but you couldn’t even look at her as you smiled against the rim of the glass, taking a sip of the sweet, fruity wine.

“I love it”, you whispered, placing the glass back down onto the table so she could give you a proper amount of it to go with your dinner. You returned the smile she gave you, taking a seat at the table, ready to dig into your pasta.

“I can heat it up in the microwave if it cooled down too much outside”, Natasha offered kindly, taking her own box of garlic and mushroom pasta to put on her plate.

“Thank you, I might just need that to melt the cheese properly”, you said a bit sheepishly as you scooped a good-sized portion onto your plate before handing it to Natasha. You heated up your food and got settled at the table with your small-scale dinner that was rather modest but neither of you had any complaints because the company was what made it feel undeniably special. You sipped on your wine as you ate together, the exhaustion from the day mixing incredibly well with the wine and soon enough you were in a rather jolly mood.

“And then- then- This is so stupid. Then-” You fell into yet another giggling fit, hiding your face in your hands to try to control the reaction to your tipsiness but it was impossible with how tired you were. “This isn’t- isn’t even a good story.” Natasha chuckled at the look on your face. You were not far from having tears streaming down your cheeks from how hard you were laughing. It made her laugh in turn. She couldn’t resist your intoxicating giggles. She had always loved it when you got all giggly and ridiculously silly whenever you got tipsy. She had yet to meet anyone else who compared to the amount of giggles you were able to let out. “I can’t breathe”, you whined in between snickers, gasping for air, your laughter turning silent. “I don’t even remember…” Natasha had no clue why you were laughing. You had never gotten far enough in your story to truly let her in on the humor that had caused such a reaction, but she didn’t even mind it because nothing could be as funny as watching you squirm in laughter for no particular reason at all.

“Breathe, baby, breathe”, she chuckled a bit teasingly, but all you managed was a small wheeze.

“It’s not funny”, you moaned, but the harder you fought against your giggles the more hilarious Natasha found it, and suddenly you were both laughing hard enough that your cheeks and abdominal muscles ached despite there being no reason for your uncontrollable laughing fit. You looked at Natasha through your teary eyes, noting her wine-tinted cheeks and the mirth in her eyes, your heart beating erratically in your chest from the onslaught of emotions you felt. She looked so beautiful and so joyous and carefree. You loved her laugh. It was rich and low; smooth. It was a comforting kind of laugh. The kind that made you feel welcome and warm inside. It made you want to get closer to her, your foot already halfway to her chair to make some kind of contact with her. Your cheeks were blazing hot, the heat descending down into the rest of your body from how good she made you feel, a familiar kind of longing stirring up within you, one that was undeniably situated between your thighs.

“I wouldn’t know, darling, you never finished the story”, she reminded you in a small, amused huff as you let out a long sigh as if to shake off the giggles.

“He fell off the stage.” You burst into laughter. “It’s not funny!” But unfortunately, you recalled the comical sight of Daniel stumbling off stage all over again, unable to hold in your laughter as Natasha joined you.

“Your giggles beg to differ”, she reminded you in a playful manner, nudging your foot a little after feeling it touch her ankle.

“I know!” You whined. “I’m a horrible person, but you should have seen it.” You covered your face with your hands, hiding away again. “I’ve never seen anyone fall like a cartoon character.” The touch of her foot made your stomach lurch, effectively calming you down because suddenly you had a whole new agenda that was claiming top-priority in your brain. “Thankfully, it was during practice”, you added as you were calming down, your hand going for the wine glass again, Natasha’s small chuckles stretching your lips into a smile. You scooted your chair a bit closer to her, not even bothering to hide the fact that you wanted to get closer to her, but the table and the finished dinner were in the way. Natasha glanced at the couch that was behind you in the living room, clearly thinking along the same lines as you.

“Yeah, that sure would’ve been something in front of an audience”, Natasha agreed in a small, amused huff, standing up to gather the plates and cutlery off the table, taking them into the sink before discarding the food packaging. She returned to your side, her hand brushing over your hair as she looked down at you. “More wine?” She offered the bottle, but you shook your head, you were all too giggly to begin with.

You ended up on the couch with your wine glasses, sharing your treats from the winter village as dessert, sitting on the pillowy cushions facing each other as you shared your assorted chocolates, chewy cookies, candied popcorn and almonds, tasting whatever your hearts might have desired. You were no longer as giggly as at the dinner table, but you were another level of tipsy that Natasha knew all too well, your fingers drawing languid circles over the top of her knee. Your eyes met hers, the jovial smile on your lips lingering there, a certain kind of mirth twinkling in your eyes. Natasha could feel her heart beat in her chest as prominently as ever, an air of anticipation surrounding you as you both waited for the situation to develop further. You gave her a small look, your stomach filled with butterflies as you allowed your hand to slide just a little higher on her thigh.

“I had a lot of fun today”, you hummed, reaching for your wine glass on the coffee table to take a sip, returning to the couch in a way that left you just a little closer to Natasha. It seemed to be one of your favorite moves. Your eyes met, her features softening. You had that alluringly warm look in your eyes, that look that had made Natasha fall in love with you years ago.

“Me too”, she whispered. She wanted to kiss you. She wanted to kiss you so long and so hard that she stopped breathing, but instead she just smiled.

“These past few weeks have been…” You couldn’t seem to find the words, Natasha huffing out a small chuckle as she nodded in understanding. “It’s crazy how people can just… click.” Your fingers stroked over the material of her suit pants, glancing down at the way the fabric stretched over her thighs in her sitting position. You looked up at her, giving her a soft smile, your other hand moving casually to her auburn curls to play with a lock of her hair. You had always been a touchy drinker, that acknowledgement bringing a slight grin to Natasha’s lips. She couldn’t help but to close her eyes at the proximity of your hand, savoring every bit of intimacy you were willing to offer.

“Yeah.” A weak exhale was all that she could manage. The charge between you was overwhelmingly present, Natasha’s body reacting to the smallest of your touches, every hair in her body standing on end. When your hand sank even further into her curls, she felt certain enough about your advances to reciprocate. She wanted the initiative to come from you because her feelings had never been a question to anybody. She wouldn’t admit it to herself, but she was afraid that maybe she wasn’t worthy of your time and interest in this reality. Maybe she was simply persuading you, or even worse, what if she was forcing you because of her own obsession and interests? “Never a dull moment with you”, she hummed, bringing her hand up to stroke the wrist of the hand that was in her hair. She allowed her fingertips to skate over your forearm, feeling goosebumps erupt across the soft skin, a smile finding her lips.

“You’re someone special, I can tell.” You both spoke so incredibly softly, just between the two of you, in your little bubble of infatuation. Your words made her smile even wider.

“So are you. You have no idea.” She gave your arm a squeeze, watching the way you gnawed gently on your lower lip, something that always tended to draw her attention to your alluring lips.

There was nothing left to do but kiss her. You had no reason to prolong the moment any further because you truly could not think of anything else than connecting your lips with hers. You glanced down at her pink mouth before your gaze returned to meet her own. You leaned in, the hand in her hair guiding her closer to you, the warmth of her body feeling dizzying against your cool hand. Natasha’s free hand found your leg, tugging on it gently to signal you to come closer as your lips pressed together. There was no one around you, no distractions, no interruptions, your lips parting automatically to deepen the kiss. Your stomach lurched, a quiet moan slipping from Natasha at the contact, the sound muffled by your lips. You crawled closer to her, her hands pulling you into her embrace to feel your body properly against her own. You were lit on fire. You burned from her touch, your core throbbing unabashedly for more of her in any shape or form. Natasha dipped her tongue into your mouth, feeling you reciprocate the act by stroking it with your own. It made you dizzy, the quiet noises elicited by your kiss making your heart race at double speed.

Natasha could barely control the firmness of her hands, the greediness and desperation she experienced from having you right there in her arms, your thighs straddling her lap, back arched to push your abdomen and breasts against hers, your hands getting tangled in her hair. She moaned at how good it felt to have your nails scratch over her scalp, the heat of your body pressing over her hips in a way that made her want to lose all control. You both parted from the fervent kiss to catch your breaths, the gentle sweep of your breath tickling her face and wet lips. You let out a little chuckle at how rapidly you had found yourself in her embrace, Natasha responding to it with one of her own. You looked down at her, biting your lip to hide your smile as you blindly reached for her left hand, slowly bringing up to your chest. Your eyes were playful as you placed her hand over your heart, your eyes meeting when Natasha registered the heavy, rapid thudding of the organ beneath her hand. You felt butterflies flutter in your abdomen and between your legs, prompting you to press yourself closer down to her lap, her body shifting the slightest bit at the sensation, lips pressing shut to hold back her moan. It made you feel giddy. It made you want to play with her, see how much you could get away with before she would take control. You could tell she was the type. You could sense it in her demeanor; she liked a bit of tease.

Your hands caressed her jaw and neck as you admired the dusting of blush on her cheeks, tilting your head slightly to angle your mouth for a kiss. Your lips connected, your hips rolling down against her lap rougher than before, the action shooting a thrill up your spine. Natasha swallowed the moan that left your lips, kissing you deeper, harder. The pressure against your core felt far too good paired with the heated kiss, your lungs begging for air but all you could manage was small gasps between the wonderfully sloppy and passionate kisses. Her hands rubbed over your thighs, squeezing your hips and buttocks on their way to your waist, pulling you closer and closer to her. Your quiet moans and the gentle squelches of your mouths were the only things that could be heard in the living room, your bodies buzzing for more. Her arms tightened around your waist, hugging you in a way that made you want to melt fully into her, your hands moving back into her gorgeous hair so that you could press your chest fully against hers.

You felt your mouth and tongue grow slightly tense, prompting you to forcefully pull yourself away from the kiss, a yawn building up in your throat. Natasha watched you in mild confusion as you tucked your face against your shoulder and brought your hand to cover your mouth to hide the yawn. You heard a quiet chuckle from her right after, the touch of her hands growing gentler as she smoothed them over your middle back soothingly. She was not going to do anything with you tired out of your mind and tipsy, immediately laying off you but keeping you close. Your yawn was so long and intense that tears sprung to your eyes as you brought your hand down, giving Natasha an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry”, you chuckled a bit awkwardly, but Natasha had a loving smile on her face and didn’t seem bothered by your exhaustion in the slightest.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re tired”, she whispered, her hand coming up to brush back some of your hair, caressing your cheek in the process. You nodded your head, your eyes sliding shut at the endearment. She was calling you baby. You were her baby.

“I really wish I wasn’t”, you whispered, your hand sliding slightly lower from her shoulder, remaining on her upper chest. You glanced down, refraining from biting your lip at the thought of undressing her.

“It’s late. You’ve had a long day.” You nodded your head at her words, stifling another yawn behind your hand. Taking a bit of distance from Natasha really made you realize just how exhausted you were, your body feeling weak and sluggish, this time sinking into Natasha in a needier way, one that was driven by the need for comfort instead of lust. You wrapped your arms around her neck in a hug, Natasha’s hands stroking up to your shoulder blades, her lips pressing to your own in a chaste kiss before continuing up your cheek as her arms tightened around you. “I’ll go get you pajamas. Any wishes?”

“Something warm”, you hummed, your half-lidded eyes stinging enough to make you wanna rub them with your fists.

“I’ll get you something warm.” She moved you off her gently, leaning in to kiss the top of your head before fetching you a pair of flannel pajamas. You sat there on the couch feeling warm and fuzzy from her kiss, smiling at the gentle ache in your chest. Natasha changed into more comfortable wear in her bedroom before returning, donning a satin set that made your cheeks heat and eyes wander. You could tell she had no bra on which… shit, you could not let her catch you staring. “Here you go”, she hummed, handing you the folded-up flannel. “I’ll go clean up the kitchen while you change.”

“Thank you.” You took a quick peek at her backside as she walked away, your mind stuck on wondering how nice the fabric and her body would feel against your fingertips. You changed into your pajamas, failing to resist the urge to immediately lie down after to seek relief from your heavy eyelids. You didn’t even realize that you closed them and curled up on the couch facing away from the back rest until Natasha returned and lay down next to you. She turned her head to the side to see your face.

“I have a bed, you know”, she said in a quiet tease that brought a smile to your face.

“I know. It’s just too far away”, you mumbled, forcing your eyes open to see her beautiful face. She let out a barely audible chuckle, holding your gaze, both of your smiles widening just a little bit. There were no more than a few inches between your faces, her proximity always seeming to bring about an excitement that you couldn’t shake. You looked at each other for a moment longer before Natasha turned to her side to fully face you, taking in your sleepy eyes, admiring your relaxed features and weak smile.

“There’s a Christmas party.” You brought your hand between you where her own hand was resting against the cushions. You touched it, barely even grazed it, glancing down at it as it remained still next to her chest. Your fingers started tracing over the silky-smooth skin of her hand, eyes returning to hers. “Or two actually, and I get a plus one.” Your voice was nothing but a sleepy mumble.

“A plus one?” Natasha was clearly in a playful mood, teasing you and your adorably exhausted murmuring.

“Mhmm.” Your hand moved off hers slightly to play with the satin of her pajamas, feeling the fabric with your fingertips. Natasha had a very clear idea of where that was going, your next move coming off as no surprise. You had always kind of sucked at subtle advances, which Natasha loved because she was a person who did not need any more puzzles to solve in her life. Your hand came up to the buttons of her satin pajamas, fiddling with them as if absentmindedly, but Natasha knew that you were looking to get closer to her, looking for comfort, for cuddles. “The first one is at the opera house and the second is home. Wanda wanted to have a party, and I agreed ages ago because it was just another day.”

“Just another day, huh?” Natasha had a smirk on her face, one that you couldn’t see because your eyes were closed.

“If I celebrated Christmas, I’d celebrate it with you”, you elaborated.

“And this won’t be celebrating?” She tried her best not to laugh. You were so obvious.

“No. We’re just attending two parties. No celebrations.” Natasha bit her lip hard to contain her grin, completely enamored by your sleepy demeanor and lackluster logic.

“Alright, Grinch. We won’t celebrate.”

“Would you come as my plus one to both?”

“And what would I come as?” Natasha longed for confirmation about where you two were headed so that she could prepare herself for anything and everything. She could not take heartbreak when it came to you.

“My…” You paused for a moment, looking for a word that would not scare her away. You wanted her to be your girlfriend despite how early it was for any kinds of official titles. You hadn’t even been intimate with her. There was so much you didn’t know about her, but your heart was telling you that she was meant to be yours. You didn’t feel as intensely for just anyone. Your feelings of affection, excitement, and attraction were real, and they were there for a reason. “Woman.”

“Your woman”, she whispered with a giddy, little smile on her face. Your cheeks heated as you smiled, your eyes blinking open to see her reaction to your chosen title. “I’ll come as your woman”, she chuckled lovingly, bringing her hand up to your face to stroke your cheek with the backs of her fingers before sinking the digits into your hair. You nearly purred from how good it felt as she pulled you closer to place a kiss on your lips. You could no longer resist your urge to be in her embrace, taking advantage of the opportunity to crawl closer to her. You were nose to nose, your fingers still playing with the material of her pajamas, still hesitant to get into her arms when you felt so vulnerable. You had been there before, just a moment ago she had been feeling you up, but you were still nervous because it felt different. It felt more intimate. She kissed your lips again, pecking them lightly before kissing the tip of your nose.

“Come on, baby, you need to sleep”, she hummed, pulling away from you, her hand smoothing over your hair as she got up. You blinked your eyes open in disappointment. She was going to leave you to sleep on the couch. Your heart dropped rather painfully, but you didn’t get to wallow in that feeling before her arms had already slid beneath your body. You felt a giddy flash of excitement go through you when she lifted you up into her arms, a soft giggle escaping you. You tucked your head into her neck to hide from the feeling, getting a wonderful whiff of her perfume in the process.

“You’re so strong”, you whispered against her skin in awe, feeling her chest rumble beneath you as she chuckled. You were still just tipsy enough to voice out loud your thoughts. She carried you into her bedroom, laying you down on the soft mattress that made your body melt into it. She didn’t get far after that, your hands clinging to her, pulling her down to sit on the edge of the bed to ensure she didn’t slip away from you. “Stay.” Despite your exhaustion, your body was still swarming with butterflies and the gentle burn between your legs was ever-so present. It would not get any better if she slept away from you.

“I’ll stay, malyshka (baby).” She lay down on the bed beside you, pulling the covers over you to make sure you were warm and safe from the December cold. The second she was in your reach you found the courage to fully let go. You crawled to her side, resting your head on her shoulder, your arm reaching across her waist to keep her close, your top leg sliding over her thigh so that you could be fully pressed up against her. You let out a little hum as you got fully situated into her embrace, breathing in the scent of her perfume, the scent of her body, feeling her warmth through the satin that left the smallest of barriers between you. Your hand smoothed over her stomach, going up to her sternum where it stilled just slightly to the left from the bone. Natasha’s heartbeat was a rapid flutter, one that exposed the emotions beneath that cool and composed exterior of hers. All the muscles in your body relaxed, your mind reveling in the comfort and contentment that her presence and the intimate contact brought you.

Natasha ached in a way that couldn’t be put into words. She felt physically weak, a gentle rush in her ears entailing tears but she did her best to push them aside despite the fact that they were tears of joy, tears of utter elation and relief. You adjusted yourself against her, pushing your body into her as if to remind yourself just how good it felt to be in her embrace, Natasha’s eyes fluttering shut at the feeling. She brought her hand over yours to keep it in place, her head tilting in your direction to rest against your own. She could smell your hair, the gentle scent of your shampoo mixed with the overpowering scent of hairspray. The hand that was around you moved up into your messy locks that had been forcibly tugged down from the hairdo for your show and left unkempt. She allowed her fingertips to sink into it, her nails scraping over your scalp in a way that made you purr. She smiled at the sound, her heart squeezing in her chest as you once more attempted to get closer to her by wiggling your body.

She waited until you fell asleep, wanting nothing more than to just be. She wanted to simply exist beside you and soak up your presence even if you were unconscious. In a way it was even more comforting. She loved knowing that you felt safe and comfortable enough to fall asleep beside her. It was something that couldn’t ever be taken for granted because it was a special kind of trust. You trusted her to keep you safe for the night, and that was all that Natasha could ever ask for. She allowed her thoughts to run wild as she absentmindedly caressed your body in all the ways she had grown used to in her previous life. She must have lain in bed for hours listening to you breathe, needing nothing more. You let out small sounds every now and then, changing positions after her shoulder started to press too roughly against your ear. You rolled around on the bed, clinging to her arm that was wrapped around you, hugging it in a way that left Natasha unable to resist the urge to spoon you. Additionally, it felt way less painful for her arm to properly readjust herself, so she rolled to her side, pressing her body up against yours from behind. She seemed to fit perfectly against your curled up body, molding into shape, covering you like a shield as her arms hugged you to her chest. She fell asleep to the feel of your lungs filling and deflating in a meditational motion that reminded her just how alive you were.

[mail-me-a-snail]

I got pacific drive and I have no idea what I am doing. Any tips?

hi there !! welcome to the zones :^) i have. way too many hours on this game so here's my advice!

stock up on repair items before you make a drive! if you're just starting out, i recommend 2 repair putties, an extra scrapper, and a prybar. you will be encountering many, many locked doors so the prybar will come in handy

you'll also need a battery jumper kit, depending on how far you are into the game currently

if you throw flares at the tourists, there's a chance they'll drop resources, some more valuable than others. just be sure to step away because they Do explode

the same goes for the bunnies; use your scrapper on them and they could give you anything from plain scrap to cosmetic items

invest in your garage; there are a Lot of handy upgrades that you can get that'll make your early game less of a headache. you can get crafting recipes for stronger parts for your car, such as ones that will withstand radiation better, for example

and trust me. you're gonna need those

when out on a drive, don't collect just One of the stable energy cores on a map; if you can, collect all of them. you can fill up your stable energy core (the machine on your passenger seat) up to 4 units, which is the currency that the garage upgrade station uses. most upgrades use 1-2 units of that energy, depending on the usefulness and complexity of the upgrade!

this will destabilize the area faster and you will have to leave earlier, however, so you can do this last after you harvest all the resources you can find

every map/drive point has the same exact road layout every time, with just the structures randomly generated each time you visit. it's good to familiarize yourself with the layout so that you won't be lost when the time comes to skidaddle and head back to the garage

always go to the gas stations if you see a marker on a map for one. there is a high chance you will find a vending machine that'll give you a random cosmetic item for your car. plus, they're an endless supply of fuel

scan EVERYTHING. scanning certain things—ESPECIALLY anomalies—lets you unlock recipes

this is less gameplay and more lore specific, but keep flipping thru the radio stations until you reach broadcasts with the name ???. listen to em. that's all :-)

and my most important tip: EXPLORE. if you see something interesting outside your window, park and go check! there is no harm to exploring!

i love this game honestly. it has one of the most satisfying gameplay loops in any game ive ever played; each stop feels so fresh that resource harvesting is barely a slog. anyhoo if you have any questions or want me to elaborate on anything i said here id be more than happy to talk about it :-)

[spockiguess]

The Evangelical Counsels || Laszlo Kreizler x Fem!Reader || Chapter 2 - Another Meeting

Divider Credit: @cafekitsune / Chapter 1

Summary: The reader returns to Kreizler's Institute, but the meeting does not go as planned.

Warnings: Descriptions of Abuse, Mentions of Poverty, Homelessness, and Starvation Regarding Minors, Criticisms of Organized Religion, Mentions of Religious Grooming, Arguments, Romance Involving Nuns, Age Gap (~20s/~40s), Eventual Smut

Pairing: Fem!Nun!Reader x Laszlo Kreizler

A/N: Laszlo is depicted as an asshole in this because, well, he is one! I love him a lot, but he needs to work on some things...

The days that followed after your confounding encounter with the blunt Dr. Kreizler were slow and uneventful, which you came to realize over the years was a small blessing in your line of duty. Excitement in an orphanage wasn’t always positive, and it was better for the children if they were able to predict–and follow–a safe routine. It provided much-needed structure in their lives.

Nevertheless, you found your mind wandering in the few moments of solace throughout the day. Cleaning dishes was paired with meditations on the complex interactions you and the Good Doctor had shared, whereas changing sheets brought on vivid memories of his piercing eyes and scathing words. The wires within you became more fraught with each passing second you spent in your cramped bed. In those twilight hours, you would focus on one of the candles that dotted your equally diminutive room, absently watching the ember flame dance in the breeze that flowed from your open window. The fire provided the serenity your head needed to think about how the time you spent with Dr. Kreizler had forced you to question everything you knew while inspiring a searing heat to spark in the depths of your core.

This warmth that spread deeper and farther than any hearth might cause was wholly new to you. Not once had you experienced something like this, but due to the newfound sensitivity between your legs, you knew that it was something to vehemently detest. Mother Superior Ida had been encouraged on many occasions by St. Vincent’s Abess to violently discipline your peers if need be, with you only escaping by mere hairs. Watching the older nuns of the convent be flogged for “inappropriate behavior” around the men of the Church who happened to visit from time to time kept you dutiful on your path of pureness. You never touched yourself, let your thoughts stray, or even looked at your most private areas unless absolutely necessary. After that day, though, your discipline waned.

Dr. Kreizler was challenging, utterly unafraid of your position, and according to the stories you heard, cold towards most. The man countered your faith at every turn, intent on proving you wrong. He wasn’t the type of man you thought you would find yourself attracted to, if you could even act on those desires. No, Dr. Kreizler was difficult. He had a tendency to provoke people, much like he did to you that day, and ignore one’s feelings. And yet, Kreizler regarded children with a familiarity that was uncommon for men of his status. In the few hours you spent at his Institute, the alienist’s care for the wellbeing of his patients was made plain. Dr. Kreizler, at his heart, was a gentle man, and that is perhaps what drew you to him so much in the first place–his defiance of your expectations.

This all culminated in a flurry of emotion that pushed you to leave St. Vincent’s Orphanage on one of your off-days and make the trek to the Kreizler Institute once again. Without the fear that urged you to take this path originally, you were able to mull over your actions, causing you to stumble into strangers on the sidewalk and nearly pass the Institute altogether. Once you righted yourself faced the creme-colored steps of his facility, a wave of hot shame flooded your senses: what were you doing? To allow any sort of attraction in the first place was already an ample mistake, but to seek the object of your attraction out like this was deplorable. You were already wed to Him, any other being should pale in comparison. Despite this, you still had questions that needed to be answered.

Just as you began to make your way up the steps, one of the enormous wooden doors to the Institute swung open, a tiny woman appearing just behind it.

“Oh! You must be Nunny!” she proclaimed in a mousy English accent.

Pausing, your brows knit together in a tight line as you stammered, “I’m sorry, you’re one of the staff here, correct?”

The woman was wearing the garb you found common amongst the staff who worked behind those doors, and she swung her head down to look at the uniform, too, “Yes. I apologize, Sister. Dr. Kreizler said that’s a nickname the children often refer to you as.”

Another type of embarrassment painted your features, and you huffed indignantly as you drew your scapular up again, “It’s alright, the children find it easier to remember.” You weren’t sure if Kreizler using the name to describe you was supposed to be demeaning, or if he genuinely didn’t remember your name, but it stung, nonetheless.

The woman who stood behind the entrance pushed the heavy door further, waving a hand to welcome you in, “Would you prefer I call you something else?”

Now indifferent to the title, you relented, “No, Nunny is fine,” and continued into the building.

Unlike the previous time, there weren’t any children to be found playing inside, nor did you see any staff surveying the space. It felt oddly empty, and you shuddered at the silence.

“Where are the children?” you asked hesitantly.

The woman who was currently leading you down one of the main paths to Dr. Kreizler’s office pointed down a branching hall you passed, “Everyone’s gone outside to play, Sister. They’re happily enjoying their weekend activities.” You sighed a breath of relief before resuming your route.

Eventually, you were met with Dr. Kreizler’s office door, the opulent gold plaque freshly lacquered since your last visit. The woman knocked twice before twisting the similarly gold handle, leaving you to confer with the alienist who waited inside.

Kreizler sat at his desk, furiously scribbling in one of the many notebooks that cluttered the surface, “Is something the matter, Lottie?”

Unsure of how to respond, you waited until Dr. Kreizler glanced upwards, taking pause at your unexpected presence.

“Have you just arrived?” Dr. Kreizler queried.

Nervously running one hand over the other, you explained, “Yes. I was already at the entrance when one of your staff greeted me.”

The man squinted his eyes, something you now figured a tic, “How convenient. I had just sent Lottie to retrieve you.”

You swallowed, stepping back a pace, “I’m assuming Mona requested a visit?”

“Indeed. She’s in the courtyard with the rest of her peers,” Dr. Kreizler waited a breath, “You came here for a different reason?” The air in the room began to still, and part of you wished to leave in that very instance.

“I apologize. I know you’ve only allowed my presence for visits with Mona, or if I need help with another child,” you paused as well, this time for different reasons, “I’m not here to preach gospel, Doctor.”

This only further intrigued Kreizler, his diligent fingers pensively stroking his beard as he pressed for more information, “Then I must ask the same question as I did before: what is the purpose of your visit?”

You were cornered, literally and figuratively. The lining of your throat dried uncomfortably while you struggled to form a coherent response, “I’m not sure how to classify this visit, Dr. Kreizler.”

Kreizler beckoned you to sit with a single hand, “Indulge me, Sister.”

That single sentence reignited the flame you had been feeling ever since you left the Institute before, and without much thought, your feet carried you to one of the velvet chairs opposite his desk.

Carefully sitting down, you adjusted your tunic to retain as much modesty as possible, despite the vulnerability you felt in this moment. All the while, Dr. Kreizler raptly studied you like one of his patients, the very act feeling immodest itself.

“So, why did you seek me out, if not for Mona?” The question came from him easily, as if there wasn’t a double meaning to his words.

You didn’t dare meet his gaze, instead picking at the skin that surrounded your nails, “I do not know where else to go,” Dr. Kreizler waited as you collected your thoughts, “You have inspired questions that I do not know how to answer, which has only brought about more questions.”

Kreizler’s voice was an octave lower as he leaned back in his chair, resting a hand on one of the armrests, “You can’t consult your superiors?”

“They would punish me, Doctor,” you admitted shamefully.

A deep hum resonated from Dr. Kreisler's chest, “That must be the reason behind your change in demeanor today. I remember a quite brazen young woman from our last visit.”

A tense silence permeated the room, suffocating you under its weight. Dr. Kreizler was right, which added to the immense guilt you burdened yourself with. You've come all this way from St. Vincent’s to satisfy a foolish infatuation and seek guidance over something he despised with his entire being. How could a self-proclaimed atheist possibly help you reconfigure your relationship with God?

“I should have waited for Lottie,” you said to yourself, voice trembling.

Kreizler clicked his tongue in annoyance and stood without warning, quickly making way to the door behind you, signaling for you to leave, “Then you are wasting my time, Sister. If you have nothing of note to share with me, please wait with one of the staff for Ms. Walker.”

You were confused, how could he turn from addressing you with some modicum of kindness to treating you like a disturbance. Overwhelmed, salty teardrops began to fall into the open palms of your hands. Feeling lost again and in desperate need of understanding, you looked up and out of the shimmering window that sat behind the doctor’s desk as you questioned, “Did I really choose this life for myself?”

Another pregnant silence followed before you heard the door abruptly close. Soon, Dr. Kreizler was behind his desk and waiting for your next confession like the men of the cloth you had run to previously. Perhaps Kreizler’s unique disposition might be what you need in this moment, rather than the absolution the men on the other side of the confessional booth urged you to seek.

“You were right. I had never questioned His teachings. I hadn't thought that possible. But when you exposed such a blindspot in my beliefs, it led me to doing that very thing,” you avoided Dr. Kreizler’s stare, too raw to face it now.

“Now, I am unsure if my choice to take the vows was entirely my own, or just a symptom of being raised by the very women I have become.” A weight lifted from your shoulders and the bind suffocating your heart eased with the admittance. Even voicing your doubts to someone who wouldn't punish you for doing so was relieving.

Ever serious, Dr. Kreizler spoke evenly, “You must not have had many choices, Sister.”

The title of Sister was blistering now, and you recoiled at the sound, “When I began my teachings, it was with the motivation that once I was of age, my health and safety would be guaranteed. I had no other skills to depend on.” The rosary that laid beneath your tunic began to burn your skin, the cloth which covered you only intensified the feeling.

“You acted out of survival, then? Not out of an innate devotion to God?” Kreizler asked.

Tears blinded your vision, “I think so.”

“What would you have done if your needs were satisfied?”

You stayed silent, only speaking when you were certain enough you wouldn't burst into pathetic sobs, “I would have liked to work in an orphanage, just as I am now. I've always loved children.”

Dr. Kreizler tilted his head slightly, his eyes regarding you with the utmost pity, “And to think your life wouldn't have been so different had you picked a different path.”

Swallowing a hard lump, you blinked the remaining tears away and swiped the evidence of your pain from your hands, “Perhaps, but there is nothing I can do about it now. As much as anyone else, I am still burdened with the duties of my service, and it would be selfish of me to abandon them.”

The alienist leaned forward, almost conspiratorially, “Would you leave your convent, had you the opportunity?”

Color drained from your face and you clenched at your stomach, praying for the visceral sickness that boiled there to go away. You would be shunned by your Sisters, the only family you’ve ever known. You wouldn’t be able to continue your work at St. Vincent’s, where so many children are in desperate need of your help. The Lord would rebuke you as His wife and cast you to Hell once your life creeped towards the inevitable.

Startled, you fought back, a distinct sadness plaguing your voice, “I can’t do that.”

Kreizler, a man not ashamed of his ability to inflame, pestered, “”You can’t, or you won’t?”

“My Lord would abandon me, just as I would do to him if I entertained that prospect. I’d be a disgrace to the people I serve,” you argued, clinging to what you’ve been taught over the years.

“The only thing that restricts you from living the life you want is shame? You criticized others for using religion to justify their own despicable behavior, now you are doing the same!” Kreizler’s voice began to rise, the conversation flipping on a dime as his own frustration became evident.

“How am I the same, Doctor?” You asked indignantly, offended at the accusation.

Dr. Kreizler stood up, perching a hand on his desk to loom over you, “You are living a life of shame for a God you don’t even love–that is pathetic! You are no different from a starved animal clawing to survive.” His words dripped with bitter venom, and it stung against your flesh.

“I did what I had to do! I help people, Doctor! That is my freedom!” You stood, too, stepping closer to the edge of Kreizler’s finely carved desk.

“And what freedom is that, Sister? I help people, as well, do I not?” Kreizler’s accent thickened with menace.

You snarled, closing the gap between you and the Good Doctor even more, “You have always had the means to do such a thing! No matter what, you have been afforded protections that people like me are forced to live without–how we choose to live our lives is none of your business!”

Kreizler ignored your rebuttal, “These are fickle excuses and you are smart enough to know it, Sister. Do you want to live this life?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” you said in an instant.

“I will ask again, do you want to live this life?”

“Of course not!” You yelled, inches away from Kreizler’s face.

An eerie silence followed before you found the confidence to speak again, voice broken, “I have given up so much, Doctor. I have lost the future I always dreamed about–and while I would help people in any lifetime–I want a family. That is the life I want to live.”

Kreizler, still maintaining the short distance between you, spoke gently, “Then why not go after it?”

Backing away somewhat, you issued a deep sigh, “I do not know how I would do that, and I am too much of a coward to face the wrath of my superiors, should I make a mistake.”

“So you will do nothing?” His words were foreboding, like thunderclouds reigning above crashing waves, eager to swallow you whole.

You didn’t allow yourself to speak on the subject anymore, having already said far too much, “I’m going to wait for Mona, Doctor. Thank you for your time.” In a second, you were out of the office and retracing your steps to the hall Lottie pointed down earlier, your smile bittersweet once the courtyard came into sight.

Soon, you were reunited with Mona, who was thrilled to see you. Already, she looked livelier than before, the hollows of her cheeks beginning to round out. The two of you spent most of your visit playing all of Mona’s newly-favorite games, most of which included some theming around horses, and you couldn’t have been luckier. Keeping your attention on the girl brought you back to your usual, joyful self, and you were able to momentarily ignore the humiliating spat you shared with the Institute’s resident alienist.

Eventually, Mona led you back to the dormitory she now inhabited, her bed occupied by a certain furry friend while her chest brimmed with clothes and toys. She urged you to sit on the edge of the mattress while she went through each toy she’s received, finally making way to the plush rabbit that rested against her pillow.

“And this is Nunny. She’s my favorite one,” Mona said through a big grin, holding the rabbit out to you.

Your heart clenched and you took the stuffed animal in your hands, brushing its floppy ears from its face, “You named it after me?”

Mona bobbed her head, holding her hands behind her back in the cutest way possible, “She’s a bunny, and bunny rhymes with Nunny.”

Gobsmacked, you sat the bunny to the side and brought the girl up to place on your bouncing leg, “It rhymes? You must have learned a lot since being here, sweet girl.”

Mona giggled, “Uh huh, he’s been teaching me himself!” In the farthest reaches of your hearing, you picked up on the sound of a doorknob twisting ever so delicately, followed by a soft creak. You reckoned it was a door just outside of the room, ignoring it for now.

With a knowing hum, you questioned the girl, “Dr. Kreizler?” Mona nodded again, situating herself closer to lay on your chest.

“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s a very caring individual–I knew he would look after you,” you didn’t entirely know why you were speaking the man’s praises, but you couldn’t help it, even with what transgressed earlier today.

Dr. Kreizler might be hard on you and most others, but he had a painfully obvious soft-spot for children, no matter the guise he might put on.

“He even plays with me. A lot of my friends say he doesn’t do that often,” Mona’s voice began to get quieter, and sneaking a glance downwards, you could see her eyelids become droopy, no doubt a warning your visit was coming to an end.

“Well, you’ll have to thank him for me, Mona. I’m extremely lucky to have gone to him when I had the chance.” Mona didn’t respond, and you could only guess she had fallen fast asleep.

Leaving her there for a moment, you glanced around the room, intently studying the crude drawings that lined the walls. When your gaze fell on the door, you noticed it was left ajar, and you faintly wondered if you had forgotten to close it before you came in.

[nihilnovisubsole]

i think i followed you Back In The Day, seven years and seven blogs ago, for something related to mass effect (zaeed? maybe? who could say) and it's wild to come back to this site years later and find you thriving, surviving, growing-- playing ffxiv! love that game. curious how you'll feel about some side characters in shadowbringers, but i won't spoil which ones.

i do have real questions, though; writing tools. not pens or software, but personal structure tools and/or guidance. what does a beat sheet look like, for you? do you have a favored way of outlining or note-taking on your own thoughts when putting a story together?

and... i'm really curious how you hold a big story together in your head while you work on it in pieces, especially for something like dangerous crowns. there's this larger story i've been chasing around for a while, and I can't quite wrap my head around how to write the political/espionage plot for it without feeling like i've actually written a children's pantomime. the best i've got so far is "research real life events and use those as my outline" but after a point it becomes hard to keep track of all the variables of who knows what about whom, who is planning x when y, etc, etc. the characters don't need to know all that-- and may never know some things-- but i feel like /I/ need to understand what's happening on the macro level so i can move the world around them appropriately.

short version: how do YOU wrap your head around writing complex plots?

hey, anon! i started endwalker this week after a long... uh... glamour detour, so don't worry about spoiling things. i spoil myself for a lot of stories on purpose anyway. let's just say i've been attached to one too many characters who got killed.

anyway. writing. i've always handled plots the same way: clear documentation. if i don't note it down, i'm not going to remember it. i've used the same table outline since around 2014. it varies in detail for different projects, but the core format stays. i know it's kicking around in my blog archive somewhere, but it's worth reposting once in a while because people like to ask about it. here's what it looks like, featuring plot points cribbed from an endeavour episode:

i used this format for an outline at work a while back, and the team found it easy to follow, which was a big day for my ego. keeping track of plot structure is even more chaotic at work because we have multiple writers who all need to stay on the same page. we have very meticulous notes on what the player should know at which point, when we're introducing new information, and what we know, but shouldn't tell. we're also not above leaving notes like "this character has to convey X," "this character has to learn Y here," or "this is a clue that they're planning Z." it can be super on-the-nose. all that matters is that it makes sense to you. because you're right - if you get too lost, you can write yourself into logic holes of tremendous proportions. ask me how i know!

[as a sidenote, researching real-life events as a starting point has really grown on me in the past few years. my lead on coh3 had me do it. he said we were dealing with real people's history, so we couldn't be cheap or play fastball - we had to be accurate to pay it respect. even if you're not writing historical fiction, it just gives you insight into how people behave.]

i would argue that the plot of dangerous crowns is actually not that complicated, maybe to its detriment. there's kind of a genre struggle going on. at voltage, we were taught romance fans came for the relationship beats and valued them above all else. in fact, leadership told us players got irritated - which meant less sales - when the plot was too complex and took time away from the making out. political thriller fans, by contrast, expect relentless twists, high stakes, and harsh consequences, and sometimes see the relationships as superfluous.

but whatever. the point is, when you look at dangerous crowns' structure, it's a pearl necklace: a chain of anchoring events. the "pearl" scenes are where Big Plot happens. they're the reason you want to write the story, and probably the ones you have the most vivid daydreams about. the scenes in between are the string. not flashy, but important because they connect the pearls. they build tension and add logic, cohesion, and context. take the opera and hector's failed assassination. those are pearl scenes. that's a burst of drama i really wanted the story to build up to. i also had other flashbulb visions. livia by the fountain questioning herself, marcus' macbeth moment, the temple riot, things like that. so the question was, how could i believably travel between these pearl scenes? how could i make these big showcase moments connect smoothly?

if you're having trouble holding the story together in your head, i would ask, "what are your pearls?" what are the anchor points? outline those. it might not look like a necklace yet, but you'll sort of see it taking shape. and then, once you can see where your heart's-desire milestones are, you'll have a clearer idea of what can't fire until you set it up first. two other neat things can happen here. you could find the rhythm of your pacing, or realize you have a lot more plot meat than you thought you did. even if you don't, you have some road. and if you can't think of the string, sometimes you just have to start writing the pearls and see what comes to you.

good luck!!

[directdogman]

hi doggo! i keep wondering, as technology develops, would typewriter heads be eventually replaced with laptops, and would landline/cell phone heads be replaced with smartphones?

I could see it potentially happening one day, but no time soon. There already are laptop + smartphone heads of course (the demo title screen shows someone with a laptop head!), but the irony is that most people already have smartphones and laptops, so they're not really 100% necessary.

There's a lot of complex reasons why rotary phone + typewriter heads never died out, but a core reason why they never ended up being replaced by a similar, but more useful device (say a TV head or something with a screen) is that humans are beings of habit and that most people won't get their head changed unless it's super important to some part of their character. Phones and typewriters are the default given at birth, after all, because it's always been that way.

You could argue that the phone heads aren't really useful for the same reasons smartphone/laptop heads wouldn't be either, for much the same reason (the final DT route has a throwaway line from Karen where she brings up her smartphone) but given that inorganic heads are no longer the default (by Crown's design, of course), people tend to go for the default... unless they have a reason to change.

Lots of people do, of course, but for the average person, it's an expensive procedure to get done to you, and very difficult to perform on oneself. This is why you could view the head as more of a display of complete identity than a completely 1:1 replacement for gender. Most people with atypical heads in Dialtown have their entire lives structured around their head in some way.

Practically, vacuum tube + landline technology has the obvious advantage of being far cheaper to maintain/repair. This is the main second reason why modern tech heads haven't really caught on.

When I worked in antiques, I spent a lot of time with an old repairman who specialized in vacuum tube TV/radio repairs and he told me how circuit-boards basically annihilated his old job. Back then, you could be a repairman as a trade and actually change out individual parts when something went bad. As long as you understood how a TV or radio worked, you could repair any device by isolating the part that wasn't working and then swap it out. Nowadays, tech is made to be used for a few years and then discarded outright + replaced.

Gabby mentions in her store that poorer folk have to opt for doing self repair sometimes, in the same way poorer folks in OUR world might have to cut their own hair or god forbid, pull out their own teeth, if they go rotten. So, head-type (to a large extent) can be tied to class too, since a newer device (if it went faulty) would be a nightmare to repair, and it WOULD need to be repaired eventually, as laptops + phones tend to slow down somewhat in only a few years of operation and even deteriorate to the point of being obsolete in less than a decade! Not ideal for the thing housing your brain, no?

Hope this helps!!!

[ratwavekayla]

The magician and the emperor for the tarot ask game?

Thanks!

The Magician — What design skills are you best at? OR What skill have you been working on lately?

I think I'm really good at writing Weak Moves for Belonging outside Belonging games (though I usually call them Vulnerable Moves after Galactic 2e)

I also think I have a pretty good head for coming up with mechanics based around cards.

The Emperor — Do you have a process you follow with your design work? OR How important is mechanical complexity to you?

Not a static one, it usually depends on the game. Like if I'm hacking something or working in an established system there's often a structure to writing I'll follow. If I'm going from scratch I'll focus first on whatever the impetus for a game was (so for Out of the Fold it was figuring out the card mechanic, for instance) and then gradually I write out a map of what I think the game needs then approach writing more or less in order. Sometimes less, and sometimes I jump to other non writing things as a break (like I'll often come up with logos or some concept art mid writing).

I'll also answer the other question as a bonus. I think for mechanical complexity its about meeting a game where it is. Stuff like Terminal, Godslingers or PSYCHODUNGEON does have more complexity because they're intended as games you play for longer. The core of the games are all easy to grasp but there's smaller stuff to explore that won't come up in the first session (e.g. Omen abilities in Terminal, character advancement in PSYCHODUNGEON or the death spiral of Godslingers). If a game is a one shot though I want to keep things simpler because I want you to able to grasp the entire system within a single session.

Like regardless of the scope of the game though I am trying to always keep in mind "what is the thing you're going to spend most of the time doing" and making sure that that's fun and that any complexity is feeding that.

[sombritas-des]

CODE

-body count au- -Driftcells au- [previous] ----- We're almost on the part I love the most…next ones are coming double, so expect 2 more next time…and then *sweats nervously* -----

The Beheaded flame rested gently over the Drifter's shoulder, their core still focused intently on the Holo screen. Despite their best efforts, they couldn't decipher the complex code and connections.

Finally, they signed their hands getting the attention of the drifter, "What have you discovered, Drifter? I can't make sense of this." 

The Drifter leaned back, a triumphant smile spreading across his face. "I've found a hidden backdoor in the Southlands," he said, his eyes shining with excitement. "It looks like a deliberate entry point, but I'm not sure who created it or why."

The Beheaded flame danced with curiosity, their hands moving quickly. "Can you show me?"

The Drifter nodded, his fingers flying across the interface. The Holo screen flickered, revealing a hidden pathway in the code.

"See this?" the Drifter said, his voice filled with awe. "This is the entry point. It's cleverly disguised, but I think I can trace it to its source."

The Beheaded glance focuses , their core humming with intrigue. They signed, "Do it. Let's see where it leads.” Beheaded hands moved swiftly, singing, "Can you display a map form of what we're seeing?"Expressed beheaded as they leaned closer.

The Drifter nodded, his fingers dancing across the interface. The Holo screen flickered, and a 3D map of the Southlands internal structure appeared before them.

The Beheaded flame flared with excitement as they gazed upon the map. Their core hummed with recognition, their knowledge of maps and spatial awareness shining through.

"Ah, now this is something I can work with," the Beheaded signed, their hands moving with confidence.

With ease, the Beheaded began to point out entrance points, hallways, and hidden passages. Their knowledge of maps allowed them to navigate the complex structure with precision.

"Here, Drifter," the Beheaded signed, their finger tracing a path on the map. "This is the most likely entrance point. And here, we can access the central hub."

The Drifter's eyes widened in amazement, his gaze darting between the map and the Beheaded. "How do you know this?" he asked, his voice filled with wonder.

The Beheaded shrugged, their flame flickering with pride. "Maps are my strong talent," they signed. "I can read them like a book.”

With the Beheaded guidance, the Drifter poured the map's information into code, and the Holo screen came alive. The map lit up, revealing a precoded path they could follow inside the facility. It was as if they had entered a secret code, and the map unfolded its secrets before them.

The Drifter's eyes scanned the map, his heart racing with excitement. "This is it," he whispered. "This is the layout of the facility."

The Beheaded flame danced with anticipation as they gazed at the map. "The pods," they signed, their hands moving swiftly. "Where are they?"

The Drifter's fingers flew across the interface, and the map zoomed in on a specific section. "Here," he said, his voice filled with triumph. "The pods are located in elevator 4, underground 3."

The map revealed a network of rooms, corridors, and hidden passages. The Drifter's eyes locked onto the pod chamber, his mind racing with possibilities.

"We can do this," the Drifter said, his voice filled with determination. "We can try it out, there has to be something suitable."

The Beheaded flame flared with agreement, their hands signing, "Let's move. We have a facility to explore.”

Although the Beheaded energy was short-circuited as the Drifter yawned, his exhaustion finally caught up with him. The Beheaded gaze narrowed, their hands moving swiftly.

"Wait, no, no, no," the Beheaded signed, their flame flickering with concern.

But the Drifter's eyelids drooped, his head nodding forward. The Beheaded quickly moved, holding the Drifter down with a gentle but firm grasp.

"Nevermind that," the Beheaded signed, their hands moving softly. "That can wait. You need rest, Drifter. We can't have you collapsing on me now."

The Drifter mumbled, his words slurred with fatigue. "Just...five...minutes..."

The Beheaded shrugger softly a soft sense of mirth on their posture, their flame dancing with amusement. "No, Drifter. You're going to sleep for a few hours. I'll keep watch."

With a gentle touch, the Beheaded guided the Drifter's head onto a nearby pillow, their hands signing softly. "Sleep, Drifter. I've got this.”

The Drifter didn't fight the Beheaded decision, his eyes too tired from staring at the Holo screen. He felt the gentle glide of the Beheaded hands as they guided him to rest, as he lay himself down, surrendering to exhaustion.

The Beheaded kept their word, watching over the Drifter with a gentle gaze. But they also kept an eye on the still-active Holo map in front of them, their flame flickering with a mix of vigilance and curiosity.

As the Drifter's breathing slowed, the Beheaded attention turned back to the map, their hands moving swiftly to zoom in on the pod chamber. They studied the layout, committing every detail to memory. In a way they had to succeed or at least give the hope for drifter that they would try. 

The Beheaded gaze darted back to the Drifter, ensuring he was still asleep. Satisfied, they returned their attention to the map, their mind racing with drifter's proposition, infiltrating a lab to find a suitable vessel for them ,they found that amusing if not ridiculous,but they were no one to ignore drifter's wishes.

The Beheaded gaze lingered on the Drifter, their thoughts drifting to the unspoken truth they had been trying to ignore. Had they truly accepted their feelings for the Drifter? The question echoed through their mind like a whispered secret.

As they stood watch, the weight of their emotions slowly settled upon them. They had grown to care for the Drifter, to value their companionship and trust. The thought of losing them, of facing another devastating loss, was almost too much to bear.

The Beheaded flame flickered, its gentle glow betraying the turmoil within. They had thought themselves numb to the pain of loss, but the Drifter's presence had awakened long-dormant emotions and that new revelation frightened them. 

With a quiet slump, the Beheaded acknowledged the truth: they had fallen for the Drifter. The realization brought a mix of emotions - fear, vulnerability, and a deep longing.

As they stood there, lost in thought, the Beheaded resolve strengthened. They would do everything in their power to protect the Drifter, to ensure their safety and happiness. For the first time in a long time, the Beheaded felt truly alive. ------ [Masterpost] [Next]