#could make a cool computer background maybe

[dephellseed]

Today's my birthday so I figured now's a decent time to just post some pictures I wanted to but had no idea how to formulate into some kind of structured post thing. So here's some funky little scenery images of random stuff I took that I'm in love with.

[etherealising]

chapter twelve | a slow burn for me

masterlist | ↢ previous chapter | next chapter ↣ |

pairing(s): carmen berzatto x fem!reader

summary: a peek into the beginning of an awkwardly domestic night between you and carmy.

warning(s): honestly none for this chapter, what a surprise.

wc: 6.4k (of filler someone get this girl an editor)

It was late. If the lack of light streaming through your office windows wasn’t enough of an indicator of the hour, the time on the small analog clock gifted to you by Nat and Pete was enough to force you to call it quits for the night. You did a quick check of the document staring back at you on your computer to make sure not only was it saved to the software you’d chosen to use, but also to the backup hard drive you’d learned to use over time.

The building was quiet as you tidied up your desk and powered down your appliances, your coworkers having cleared out hours ago. You could feel the exhaustion seeping into your bones, working overtime wasn’t on your agenda this morning but considering the two personal days you took after your emotionally demanding conversation with Carmy, it was no surprise the extra time was needed to catch up on all the work you missed out on. The hour wasn’t horrendous per se but watching the clock on your desk tick past 9:30 was all the excuse you needed to begin your journey home.

Your decision to return to the Tribune wasn’t as hard as you expected it to be. You were finally getting your life back on track, you were in a city you loved surrounded by the people you loved and cared about. If you needed to spend the next year avoiding and appearing indifferent to your boss, so be it you would figure things out as the days passed by. And maybe it wasn’t your most logical decision but you were sure within a year or two you might find another position, for now, though you just wanted to go home.

An exhausted sigh escaped into the dimly lit office as you began to gather your belongings of the day, eyes catching onto the pristine manila envelope that you remembered plucking out of your mailbox before driving to work. Ignoring the envelope you shrugged on your jacket before bending to grab your bag from one of your desk drawers quickly slipping your laptop and the unassuming envelope inside before double checking everything was exactly how you always left it.

The elevator ride to the ground floor was surprisingly relaxing considering how annoying the music playing through the speakers was. Exiting the metal box as it stopped you gave a cordial goodbye to the night guard on duty before exiting the building and speed walking to your car before the cool air could assault you any longer.

You were quick to start the car, allowing it to warm up as you turned on the heater and placed your hand in front of the air vents. The artificial warmth wafted through your car as you carefully plucked your phone out of your bag casually eyeing the envelope that you’d rather deliver sooner than later. A few minutes ticked by as you thought about the best course of action, scrolling through your contacts you quickly found Nat’s and pressed the call button hoping she’d be able to help you.

The phone didn’t ring for long before you heard Nat’s voice ring through. Your hopes that she wouldn’t answer didn’t have a foot to stand on knowing she always made time to answer your calls whether she was busy or not.

“Nat, hey I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” You could hear Pete’s voice in the background as Natalie sounded like she was maneuvering around.

“Baby, no you’re fine. Is everything okay? It's pretty late.” A small smile graced your lips at the slightly worrying tone in Nat’s voice.

“Yeah I’m fine, I uh...I was just hoping I could stop by real quick. I got the revised trademark paperwork in the mail today and was hoping to drop it off.”

The line was quiet for a moment as you awaited the woman’s response, part of you was sure the call had dropped but you could still hear her little noises through the phone.

“Nat? You still there?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to drop it off with Carmen? He doesn’t live too far from where you are now.” You frowned knowing you hadn’t mentioned where you were during the conversation.

“I never said where I was Nat.”

“Oh, I know my love Pete checked your location.” Of course, you were on speaker, not that it annoyed you, whatever you divulged in this conversation with Natalie she’d be sure to gossip about it with Pete regardless if he could hear the conversation or not.

“Isn’t that like an abuse of trust? I shared my location for emergencies Nat.”

“Isn’t this an emergency? You’ve been avoiding Carmy since the night of my baby shower and as much as I love my brother Baby, I am sick of his moping.” You bit your lip suddenly realizing the truth behind Nat’s words, it hadn’t been your intention to avoid him but then you remembered the unanswered texts and the missed calls you had plenty of time to return but for some reason chose not to.

“Is he even home, feels a bit early doesn't it?”

“I’m sending you his address Baby. And I love you, but I am tired of this cycle between the two of you and trust me I know Carmy has his faults, I know the part he’s played in this relationship between you two. But aren’t you now doing exactly what you’ve been crucifying him for?” You could feel the indignation rising in your chest, the need to defend yourself coming in hot.

“I’m not excusing his actions Baby, but the two of you are adults and the fact that Carmy’s pulled his head out of his ass and is finally trying is a big step in whatever the hell is going on between you two.”

The sting of tears behind your eyes was the last thing you wanted to deal with right now. You hated when Natalie was right but you appreciated her perspective and the way she appeared unbiased. You took a deep breath trying to keep the tears at bay not wanting to cry once you began driving.

“I’m scared Nat.” It was quiet as she let you gather your thoughts. “Things have just been fucked up between us for so long that I’m not sure how to navigate a healthy relationship with him. And I…god I kind of hoped him finding out about everything would make him hate me and want nothing to do with me. But then he just accepted it and forgave me and now he’s checking in on me daily and sending me little anecdotes about his day and I’ve just been ignoring him hoping he’d finally just give up because Nat I just…I don’t know everything just feels too good to be true you know?”

You took a minute to even your breathing surprised by what you just admitted to Natalie, unaware that what you’d been feeling over the past few days could be put into words. You reached over to turn off your car, sure you wouldn’t be leaving this spot anytime soon, before laying your head against the headrest and allowing your eyes to flutter closed.

“Baby, you’re never going to be healthy if you continue self-sabotaging.” Nat gave you a minute before continuing. “I appreciate your candor but I don’t think I’m the person who needs to hear these things. Given Carm a chance, I know he’s a bit inexperienced in the relationship department but you both deserve a shot at whatever this dumpster fire of a relationship is.”

You let out a quiet laugh thanking Nat for her oh so kind words of wisdom. You checked the time on your phone as Natalie hung up, time wouldn’t stop just because you wanted it to. Your eyes were drawn to the incoming message from Natalie, a pin with Carmy’s address followed by a quick good luck text. You gave a tired smile at the combination of emojis before clicking on the pin and watching it load in the maps app, an easy 15-minute drive to his apartment complex.

Throwing the phone into the seat next to you, you quickly started the car forcing yourself to begin the journey before you had any more time to talk yourself out of showing up on Carmen’s doorstep unannounced.

This whole situation felt like deja vu. Here you were at Carmy’s doorstep uninvited once again, trying to work up the courage to just even knock on his door. A part of you hoped he wasn’t home to spare yourself from the apology you knew he deserved, but you also just wanted to clear things up between the two of you, finally get things out in the open, and hope the two of you could move forward in whatever way you both agreed upon.

You took one last deep breath before raising your hand to finally knock, cringing a bit at how hard the knocks must have come across. You waited a few seconds with no answer deciding to knock again, you were already here so all you could do was try.

Another series of knocks went unanswered, you couldn’t help the huff of laughter that escaped out of you at the parallels between this moment and your visit to Carmy’s New York apartment a year ago. You checked the time on your watch, deciding to call it a night and send Carmy a text when you returned home, hoping the two of you would be able to connect at a more decent time. Spinning around to return to your car you jumped on the spot, your hand moving to clutch the spot over your heart as it raced.

“Fuck Carmen! Why are you sneaking around?” You did your best to calm your breathing, surprised to find Carmy’s figure in front of you along with the fact that you hadn’t even heard his approach in the first place.

“I uh…I wasn’t.” He looked surprised to see you outside his door, slight confusion drifting through him as he tried to recall ever giving you his address.

The tension in the hallway leading to Carmy’s apartment was palpable, neither of you saying a word in hopes that the other would begin the conversation. An awkward smile curled your lips as Carmy’s eyes darted everywhere but your eyes. If anyone walked in on this scene of the two of you they’d be confused if you told them you’d known the man in front of you your whole life.

“I have-,”

“Would yo-,”

Awkward laughs left the both of you, your hand gesturing for Carmy to go first. He cleared his throat adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, one hand digging into his pocket as he pulled out what could only be his keys.

“Would you uh, like to come in?” Carmy jingled the keys slightly to clarify as if his question wasn’t obvious enough.

You nodded, sending him a genuine smile, “Yes please if that’s okay with you.”

Carmy nodded clearing his throat as he shuffled past you, fingertips slightly grazing your waist in a move you both knew to be unnecessary but neither of you cared to comment on. You waited as he unlocked the door cautiously following behind him as he held the door open for you. A small nod of thanks was sent his way as you walked past eyes surveying what you could see of his apartment thus far.

Although the layout was different from his lodgings in New York, you got the same feeling you had when you entered that apartment a year ago. There was minuscule decoration hardly any to be exact but his presence could be felt as soon as you walked through the door a warmth that was incandescently Carmy radiated around you.

You felt heat at the small of your back as Carmy rounded on you walking past the board in the middle of his living room as he made his way towards the kitchen.

“Are you hungry? Have you eaten yet?” You watched as he rummaged through his fridge in search of something as you continued to look around his abode.

“Actually I-,” Carmy cut you off with a quiet curse under his breath, his figure quickly moving towards you before stopping in front of you. Confusion washed over your features as he carefully removed your purse out of your hands gently setting it on his coffee table and returning to you. You watched as he reached for your arm, hands tugging the sleeve of your jacket off before walking around you and removing it fully, the domesticity of the moment sent a shiver up your spine.

“I uh..I’m out of groceries but I’ll run and go get us some take out yeah?” He still wasn’t looking at you as he spoke whatever was going on in his mind keeping him occupied.

“Carmen I-,” You stopped upon seeing his sporadic unfocused gaze.

“Stay please?” Carmy’s eyes finally met yours after the constant minutes without doing so. The soft glint of hope you found there went straight to your chest as you gave a forced smile nodding your head in acquiesce.

The corner of Carmy’s lips ticked up, eyes quickly darting across your face before moving towards the door removing his wallet from his bag and stopping by the door, you slowly followed behind so you could lock up for him.

“Anything in particular?” He asked, shoving his hands into his pocket as he turned to look at you.

You shook your head, nothing coming to your mind as you stared at him, “Surprise me?”

He stood there for a moment before rapidly nodding his head, turning to leave, stopping in the now open doorway, “Call me if you want anything specific, yeah?”

A genuine smile was sent his way at just how considerate he was, you moved to close the door, immediately stopping as his hands reached out surprising you as they found purchase on your waist. There was no time for you to question his motives as he quickly leaned in, chapped lips softly ghosting across your cheek before he quickly pulled away.

“I’ll be home soon, lock up okay?”

You stood there dumbfounded unsure of what to say or do or if you should say anything for that matter. The further Carmy got from the door the longer you stood there trying to wrap your head around how that man's mind worked. And even after he’d been gone awhile you tried to rationalize that the feel of his lips caressing your cheek meant nothing.

Carmy sat at the small table waiting for the order as he stared down at his phone. On the outside, he appeared calm like someone just stopping for a late-night bite to eat, and while the latter part was true the idea that he was anywhere near calm couldn’t be further from the truth.

At every stop he made he was itching to pick up the phone and call you, to apologize for the random kiss, unsure himself what even drove him to do it. When he stopped off to buy you more comfortable clothes so you could change if you wanted to, he almost called you. And then as he drove across town to pick up the order he placed at your favorite restaurant from your younger years all he could think about was the impromptu kiss he’d left you with.

His hand reached up for the nth time, his thumb unconsciously grazed his lips. The longer he sat there waiting the stronger the urge to call you and apologize became. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on with him when it came to you he was double and triple texting you throughout the week, basically having a conversation with himself with all the messages you’d left unanswered. Checking his phone for what felt like every second of the day, hoping that at some point your contact would be there waiting for him.

Carmen was sure he was going overboard but he couldn’t help the incessant need he felt to surround himself in you. He couldn’t be 100% sure but he felt like the time you spent together after the baby shower, basking in and understanding each other's hurt helped the two of you to come to some new point in your relationship. And then you continued to let him in, you allowed yourself to be the most vulnerable he’d seen you since before your fallout. You allowed him into your life, allowed him to see the hardened parts of you.

Something changed that day…well almost everything changed that day for Carmy. But the morning after as the two of you sat in your backyard and then you asked him to help you tend to your garden he realized he wanted to spend his Sunday mornings like that always with you. With you guiding him, teaching him a trade he wasn’t aware he’d ever enjoy. But watching as the morning sun pierced through the gloomy clouds and illuminated you at such a peaceful moment, the only time he swore he’d seen you truly in peace since you’d arrived back in town.

He remembered watching you from a few feet away tugging at the overgrown weeds, your skin glowing even as the sun fought with the overcast clouds to be able to steal glances at you the way Carmy was allowed to while in your presence. The way your gloved hand would travel up to wipe the sweat off of your face, leaving behind a dusting of dirt and mud in its wake. Carmy could indulge in your beauty forever and not just the physical aspects of it but the beauty in your movement, in the way you spoke, the beauty in your personality, and the grace you gave others; especially him.

Carmy’s reverie was broken as his packaged order was placed in front of him, he sent the worker a quick smile thanking them for their service before gathering his food and exiting the establishment. Carmy usually didn’t have many reasons to feel excited about returning to his lodgings, but reminding himself that he was returning home to you was all the truth he needed to lead him back to you.

The sound of keys turning in the door alerted you to Carmy’s return, but you didn’t give it a second thought as you continued working on the rough draft you began writing in his absence. A spark of motivation hit you as you were left to your own devices in your childhood friend’s apartment.

“Baby?” You let out a small distracted hum as you continued working doing your best to build the foundations of an article you were already weeks behind on. “Baby!” Your head shot up at Carmy’s raised call of your name, eyebrows furrowed until you turned to find him still standing by the door, hands full. The worry you could see on his face melted away the longer he looked at the silver of your head barely visible over the couch from your position on the floor.

You quickly stood up making your way towards him, surprised at how full his hands were, your eyes quickly darting around before landing on the bouquet among the few bags. “You get lost on the way home?” Carmen’s cheeks took on a pink hue at your teasing.

His lack of verbal response caused you to falter, unsure if you had read the situation wrong when he asked you to stay. You watched as his eyes glanced over to his small living area, your laptop open on his coffee table with papers he knew weren’t his scattered around it. You prepared yourself to apologize for the mess knowing Carmy had his own system of organized chaos and that maybe having your own added chaos was unwelcome.

“These are for you,” your eyes snapped back to him as he held out the bouquet to you. “There uh nothing compared to Willie’s but I uh…I saw them on the way home and I,” Carmy cleared his throat looking around for any sense of confidence he could find. “I wanted to get them for you.”

You nodded along with his explanation, uncaring of how much the smile on your lips may have given away your feelings, “Thank you for thinking of me, Carm.” Your hand rested on his forearm as you carefully removed the bouquet from his hand, “Let’s get these in some water yeah?”

Carmy sent you a small shy smile placing his now free hand on your back and leading you to the kitchen portion of his apartment, “Is it okay if I use these as a vase?” Carmy looked in your direction after setting the remainder of the bags on unoccupied counter space, a slight chuckle leaving him as you held up the plastic containers he’d use at the restaurant for certain ingredients and often time to drink out of.

“Course’ Baby.” He watched you for a moment longer, the smile on your face easing whatever doubts he’d been feeling about the rocky status of your relationship, one last longing look sent your way as he began unpacking the food.

The smell of delicious food wafted through the air as you began cutting the stems of your bouquet and arranging them in the containers. You could see Carmy moving around in your peripheral, not paying him much attention as he moved around you, your head finally perking up at the sound of the washing machine starting eyes finding Carmy as he once again joined you in the kitchenette.

You finished arranging the flowers, moving to the sink to fill the makeshift vases with water before turning and looking for a spot for them. The containers were momentarily forgotten as your eyes landed on an all too familiar photo hanging on Carmy’s fridge. A small sad smile lined your lips, the five of you all together like one big happy family, your heart ached for the younger versions of each of you in the picture who wouldn’t realize until it was too late that life wouldn’t always be this way. Your eyes strayed to Mikey’s figure for one last time wishing you had just a bit more time with him.

Giving yourself a small moment to tame your emotions, you maneuvered to the only empty counter space still left. Carefully you placed the two containers in the bit of space, a warmth radiating through you at Carmy randomly buying you flowers, you were loathe to admit it but he was the first person to buy you flowers unprovoked, and the fact that this was his second time doing so was not lost on you.

You turned to Carmy to find him still removing food from the takeaway bag, surprised at the amount of boxes now littering his counter. “Do you need any help?” You leaned back against the stove watching as Carmy’s head shot up, almost as if he’d forgotten you were there.

He nodded, “Could you grab some forks, from the drawer to your left.” He turned back to his previous activity, leaving you to grab the utensils.

Locating the only drawer on your left you quickly grabbed the only two forks taking up space in the draw, a soft laugh escaped you, part of you hoping Carmy had more forks that just needed to be clean. You felt a little sad at the idea of him only having utensils for himself, you were curious how much time he even willingly spent in this apartment but it didn’t feel like something you could outright ask given the awkward tension between the two of you. Though for once it wasn’t Carmy’s fault, you caused the awkwardness this time.

Closing the drawer your eyes focused on the forks for a few moments longer, as if they could give you answers to the self-doubt you felt about fixing your relationship with Carm. Moving to join Carmy you caught a very familiar, very intimate photo tapped above the stove.

You did a double take unsure if your eyes were playing tricks on you, but upon staring head-on at the Polaroid, you were surely not mistaken. From the intimate image of you and Carmy in bed, your eyes so full of love looking at the still image almost made you sick, and of course at the bottom your phone number. A part of you felt angry, it didn’t seem like Carmy had just randomly placed the Polaroid above the stove one day, you couldn’t explain it but the placement felt deliberate and if it hung there for however long it did, then why was it so easy for him to give Claire your number instead of calling you himself when you were sure he saw your number almost every day.

Taking a deep breath you allowed yourself to feel hurt about the picture, you had every right to be. But you also knew if you let your hurt guide you the two of you would just fall back into your cycle of arguing and going days without speaking. It was obvious the two of you had a lot more to talk about, so you would take the high road and hope more things got solved tonight.

“Hey Carm,” your hand reached out to delicately remove the photo from its place on the wall.

“Hmm,” he was now occupied with plating you each a portion of the food, eyes not giving you any attention.

A small smirk made its way to your face as you made your way over to him, your arm brushing his as you stopped next to him. “Do you keep all your porn in the kitchen?”

You felt him freeze next to you arms going slack as his head snapped up to look at the side of your face.

“W-what?” You could hear the slight fear and tinge of embarrassment in his voice, the notion making you smile bigger at how easy it was to mess with him. You allowed him to simmer in those feelings as you perused the plates surprised to see the familiar logos on the takeout boxes, your heart warming at Carmy’s attention to detail. You carefully set the forks on each of the dishes before grabbing the one closest to you.

You dropped the Polaroid in the empty spot the plate once was, “Thank you for dinner Carmy.” You placed a chaste kiss on his cheek before maneuvering yourself around him so you could eat.

The apartment was quiet as you took a seat on the floor, placing your plate on the coffee table, before beginning to eat. The quiet expletive that left Carmy’s lips gained a small laugh from you, you sent him a wide smile as he joined you on the couch, neither of you saying a word as you ate dinner.

The awkward air from earlier returned as the two of you finished your respective meals, the quiet dialogue from the random T.V. show playing was the only noise in the apartment as you and Carmy sat on opposite sides of the couch. You intended to initiate a conversation after dinner but found yourself overthinking the best way to address everything between you two at the moment. The longer you sat there in silence the more resigned you felt to just thank Carm for dinner and leave his apartment without another word.

As if the atmosphere wasn’t ripe enough with tension, the “sneaky” glances the two of you stole from each other did little to help especially when one of you caught the other and shy smiles ensued. You felt like a teenager all over again all shy and uncertain. But the longer you sat in Carmy’s apartment you realized just how juvenile this all was, Carmy already knew how strongly you felt for him and if it wasn’t clear when you let him pump and dump you a year ago, then you were damn well sure it was clear when you yelled that you loved him in the restaurant all those weeks ago. And now the two of you were just dancing around what everybody else had known for some time.

Suddenly you sat forward from your position on the couch reaching to grab your bag off the coffee table. Carefully removing the pristine envelope you placed your bag down and turned to look at Carmy, unsurprised to find his eyes already on you.

You held out your hand to him urging him to take the envelope, “This came in the mail today. Everything is in your name now, the trademark is yours, Carm.” You waited with bated breath as his eyes flickered from yours down to the envelope in your hand, confusion sweeping over you the longer the envelope hung between the two of you.

His hand reached out gently removing the object from your grip, you wanted to tease him from the unnecessary contact he’d created. His hand latched delicately around your wrist to hold it in place while his free hand reached for the envelope, the hand still holding your wrist gently slid away as he pulled back making sure each of his work-calloused fingers left behind the whisper of a kiss against your now empty palm.

You watched as he silently opened the envelope taking the time to read over the enclosed document. You could tell he read it more than once, likely soaking in that what he’d been working for was finally coming to fruition; that Mikey’s dream would finally become reality. Your heart lurched as his fingers traced over the printed words, you couldn’t help the wetness that rose to your waterline, a feeling of gratefulness raced through you at the fact that you were back here in Chicago surrounded by family watching each of them accomplish something different.

As Carmy continued ruminating on whatever thoughts were racing through his head, you quietly began gathering your items feeling as though this was a good time to call it a night. You had just slipped on your jacket when you felt pressure at the base of your spine, looking over your shoulder to find Carmy’s confused eyes looking at you.

“You’re leaving?” You were surprised by the slight hurt in his voice, your arms dropping to your side as you felt like you had done something wrong.

You gave him a small nod motioning toward the watch on your wrist, “It's late Carm, I don’t want to inconvenience you more than I already have.” You hoped the joking tone in your voice was evident to him.

“You haven’t inconvenienced me.” The conviction in his voice wasn’t lost as you stared at him for a moment.

A quiet laugh left you, “I showed up at your doorstep unannounced Carm, and then I basically forced you into buying me dinner. Does that not sound inconvenient to you? Plus, I’m sure you want some alone time.”

His eyes locked on yours as though he were searching for something, you couldn’t be sure but standing in his living room under his penetrating gaze like so warmed you. You watched as a light blush raced up his neck, his cheeks tinging a pretty shade of pink, you could tell his mind was racing with what to say next, his eyes were still locked on yours but now had a faraway look to them.

“Would it…ahem,” the clearing of his throat brought his full focus back to you. “Would it be weird if I wanted to spend my alone time with…uh with you?”

It was quiet after his confession, the smile you once held dropping as you realized his words to be serious, his widening eyes told you that he was seconds from backtracking on his previous words. You quickly shook your head, sending him a quick smile.

“Are you asking me to have a sleepover with you, Carmy?” Your eyes were full of mirth as his earlier blush deepened when your eyes found his once again. “Like when we were kids?” The latter question was unnecessary it would always be worth it every time if it meant you got to watch Carmy clam up as he thought of a way to relieve his embarrassment.

You waited for his response, part of you assuming you’d teased him too much as he just stared at you wide-eyed, you tried to laugh off the awkwardness you were beginning to feel. “It was sweet of you to ask Carm, but I don’t have an emergency overnight bag in my car.” You hoped your tone didn’t give away just how much you were actually thinking about accepting his offer.

“You do.” You frowned at his words, eyebrows raising as you urged him to continue, “I mean…it's just that I uh picked up some stuff for you when I was out.”

You felt your heart clench at Carmy’s confession, his eyes looking everywhere but at your as he realized how the whole thing may have come across to you. “I…sorry I didn’t mean to overstep or…or imply anything I just-,”

“Carm hey,” you reached out to grip his hand, your thumb rubbing soothing circles against it. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I’d be happy to spend the night with you.”

He nodded, you could still see the apprehension on his face and you couldn’t tell if it was because of his own actions, or if he was regretting having asked you to stay the night in the first place.

“Not to sound ungrateful but did you happen to pick up anything I could change into?” Your question had its intended effect, diverting Carmy’s attention as he pointed to the washer in answer before leading you back to the kitchenette to the still-full bag you paid little attention to while in the kitchen with him earlier.

To say it was a surprise to see the bag full of the products that could be found in your bathroom back home would be a lie. You zoned out as Carmy took the time to explain that he picked out what he could remember seeing in your shower, your eyes burning into the side of his head as you took the time to allow the events of the past hour to sink into your mind thinking back on the advice you’d received from Natalie.

“Baby?” The questioning tone of Carmy’s voice revealed he tried to gain your attention for some time now.

You blinked a couple of times your eyes immediately finding Carmy’s as you cleared the blur of tears away. You couldn’t help the way your heart seemed to beat faster the longer you looked at him, or the way it ached all the same as though it was longing for a want that was finally so close, a want that could become tangible if you allowed it to. The silence permeated between the two of you, worry lines etching into Carmy’s forehead the longer you went without speaking.

It was as though a realization had just dawned on you, sure you were standing in front of Carmen Berzatto, but you didn’t know this man standing in front of you; not really. He was so different from the young man you left behind all of those years ago and in some ways all the same. Although you’d seen him at Christmas that one time and spent a few hours with him in New York, neither of those instances made up for the 10 years the two of you spent apart living and maturing without each other.

But you wanted to know him, to know him intimately. To know him as a friend and a lover and everything in between. And even though you still had so much time to make up for between the two of you, you knew deep down that it would all be okay. You knew it in the way he cared for you as you showcased your most vulnerable parts to him. He showed it in the way he forgave you so easily for hiding such a horrifying truth from him. In the way he checked in on you over this week as you went silent, the way he so easily invited you into his space made sure you ate, and brought you flowers all because he wanted to.

It felt abysmal the way you were picking at straws at this moment, but Natalie was right the self-sabotaging was getting ridiculous. And right now all you wanted was to be happy, and Carmy seemed to be offering you that in his in-experienced way.

You took a step forward, arms instantly wrapping around his neck as you melted into him regardless of whether he returned your affection. But it was immediate, the way one of his firm arms snaked around your waist, the remaining one moving up to grip the back of your neck holding you as tight as he possibly could, if it was possible you were sure he would’ve melded your bodies together. The rough pad of his thumb swept across the skin of your neck, you listened as he took a sharp intake of breath, his body relaxing into yours even more as he inhaled your scent finding comfort in the mixture of your signature perfume and just the smell of you.

“I’ve missed you so much, Carmen.” The quiet words found their home in the space of his neck, your soft lips leaving behind the ghost of a kiss.

a/n: domestic filler with a subtle splash of fluff and angst. next chapter will pick up where this one left off enjoy. 🤍

[thezombieprostitute]

Lmao this made me think of Jakey Poo

You know what? I'm making this canon for how Jake and Sunshine met.

Summary: Jake knows he's the luckiest man in the world and it's all because of you.

Warnings: None at this time. Please let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Reader is female. No physical descriptors used.

Part 1

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Poor Jake didn't have much going for him when he left military service for the civilian life. He's just not sure what to do with himself outside of work and gaming. He tries to go out, especially when he's meeting up with The Losers again, but often he finds himself just feeling lonely with too much time on his hands.

Then he gets a ticket from you. The problem seems like an easy enough fix so Jake, still being the new guy on the team, gets assigned to it. He signs onto the Zoom app that he despises with all of his being, but it's company policy to use it.

When you answer the Zoom call your voice is so sweet that it takes Jake a second to respond. You actually think there's something wrong with the connection and he hears you saying, "frick. Even in the future nothing works."

He laughs, recognizing the Spaceballs reference, and startles you. "Sorry about that," he chuckles, as he hears your gasp. "That was just...really funny. Don't meet a lot of Spaceballs fans these days." He shakes his head, "anyways, I'm going to take control of your computer for a bit so I can try to fix it."

"Of course," you reply. It is standard procedure.

Jake gets a remote look at your desktop background and gasps, "you're a Pokemon fan!"

"Gen 1 and proud," you reply.

"That might explain what happened," he starts. "You let your Magnemite get too close to your laptop!" You laugh at the joke and Jake feels his cheeks heat up.

"Well it certainly isn't a Rattata chewing on the wires," you chuckle back.

"Hmm. Maybe we should get maintenance to double check," he jokes. He starts poking around your system files and is immediately at a loss. "What the..."

"Everything okay?"

"Umm..." Jake starts floundering. "I, um, I think. Hmm..."

Shit, he thinks. He was really hoping he could impress you. He's never even seen you but you're so nice and a fellow geek. He wanted to go in, press a button and fix your problem, but this is something more complicated than the ticket implied. He's wishing he had his pirate hat to help him think.

"Okay," he shakes his head, clearing his thoughts, "I think I'm going to need to take a look at the computer itself to figure this out."

"Sure thing." You exchange names and give him your cubicle number and quickly start cleaning up your desk. He might be an IT guy but his voice is very sexy, his laugh even moreso. And he's a fellow geek! Not someone who looks down on you for liking "childish things". You want to make a good impression.

By the time Jake gets to your cubicle you've tidied up pretty well. You smile up at him and Jake swears he's never met a more beautiful woman in his life. He's barely able to get out a "hi" because you've taken his breath away.

You're trying hard not to giggle and kick your feet at how cute Jake is. The fact that you've flustered him isn't lost on you and it makes you feel even giddier.

"Um, I um, I like your, your Gravity Falls sweater," Jake finally gets out.

Looking down you realize you're wearing your handmade Mabel Pines sweater and your face lights up. "Oh, thanks! I made it myself!"

"That's so cool," Jake says, earnestly. "I'm always so jealous of people who can make their own cosplay stuff."

"I could make you something," you quickly offer. "If, that is, um, if you'd like."

He smiles at you and, for the first time in a very long time, he feels like everything's going to be okay. The clouds are parting and you, the sunshine, are lighting up his life.

Part 1

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

alright let’s go over the junior year clues we got in the rick perry documentary thing (disclaimer: i’ve definitely missed stuff, but i think i got the big things, feel free to reblog and add with stuff that i missed though)

[at the bottom of this post I've typed out the decipherable words that plan out some combats and NPCs from Rick's screen. it's the most interesting thing but it's super long so it's at the bottom under a cut]

We get a blurry look at some minis. I’m seeing at least the PC’s minis, as well as what looks like Baxter the Gryphon.

There’s some major shots of this battle. Includes a Baby mini, the Hangvan with some kind of laser canon on top, a stingray-esque monster that is likely Night Yorb (see below), something that looks like maybe an ice elemental or the crystal (see below), and some large bugs and shirtless people. Clearly set in the Red Wastes. Detailed info of the planning for this battle below.

One of the shots had reference boards in the background. One is clearly for the Hangvan (see earlier screencaps), but the other is unclear. It looks like it includes some sort of tennis or tennis-adjacent sport.

Confirmation that Mordred Manor is a set piece.

Finally, one shot showed Rick’s computer screen with some critical info about planning. I’ve put what I’ve been able to decipher below the screencaps. and under a cut, as it’s very long.

EP. 701 DEFEATING NIGHT YORB CHASE (RED WASTES) Hangvan, Night Yorb is giant flying Manta Ray thing? Rainbow road, being chased by night yorb while trying to throw crystal into portal. Crazy gun on rough [roof] that gorgug made, I can’t get a lock on it. Just need one last final thing to defeat night yorb. Red wastes, chasing the night yorb around, flying bats teleporting onto rough [roof] of van, NPC allies, Balthazar, two other cars they are in contact with, tiefling bakers or sidekicks are reveals Stormchaser twister, trying to get a lock onto it, Night Yorb is escaping the world. Maybe night yorb gets away, why didn [didn’t] you get it? And Balthazar died? Murph invented the Night Yorb. Don’t fuck with the Night Yorb. Exploded out of riz’s chest, needs to be dumb as hell. it’s the jabberwocky, it burbled, hugely terrifying, Horrifying cursed thing. Unending night for two months. Dragon sized, bigger than the Hang Van, 30’ wingspan Stars and moon. While the night yorb flies it is night and not day. Not malevolent force, but everything on earth will die Have giant ghost busters canon, Honey I shrunk the kids cannon Driver, mechanic, gunner, navigator (using SW 5e mechanics) Hang Man - Fabian motorcycle Tether is attached to night yorb, either magic or harpoon Night Yorb could out pace them. Could smash van. Cultist of the night yorb appearing on the road, mad max style ”The night yorb is our god” Red Wastes Cultists: Riding skeleton horses, classic fantasy cultists, Manta ray night yorb masks Sword and Sorcery vibes, MUSCELY, oiled, black leather, rings Shadow of Night Yorb Tether must be reeled in over 4 rounds Success Meter - 4 rounds or it escapes Pop up cultists in the middle of the road 4 maps Straight away, gully bridge crossing, rap popping up, giant portal It’s going to another world but if it gets away thats just as bad Ayada [Ayda?] thing built in. Chekov’s gun. Gun has cool helix of energy that is getting cranked in. Gun is on the back and on the hood is a binding circle that Adaine does. Cultists are making the portal. YORBIES if they catch it, it gets bound into the paint of their van Gun is gorgug’s stuff and circle is adaine 6 cultist perusing them, 4 or 5 at the portal, 1 or 2 back up Single person traps, Vulture with cactus MINIS: Night Yorb - Giant shadowy manta ray, inky black dripping, made of liquid, different underbelly, deep indigo or bone white. Made of shadows, dripping aberration, flat plane, long tail, two weird eyes coming off front on stalks. Second set of PCs TERRAIN: Red Wastes! NOTES: favorite crazy dnd monsters, beholder, [unclear word, bu…ette] Fungal Black light portal battle! Dr. Strange battle set, pseudo pods of elder pod night yorb, day glow run fragments, purple stone castle night yorb temple, floor is octopus made of shadows. Starting mid battle. [blank sections] PROJECTION: Counter here of some kind?

POTENTIAL LOCATIONS Basrar’s icecream shop? Mordred Manor Seacaster Manor [crossed out] Strong Tower Luxury Apartments SAT Prep class [screen cuts off]

EP. 704 DENTENTION [detention] STEALTH CHASE SEQUENCE/ QUIET LIBRARY/ Aguefort chase sequence? Combine sets interrupted by having to make it past a hall monitor Underwater? Books suspended floating, everything is affected by water Don’t wake daddy? Start in Library to get to Aguefort’s office Hallway Classroom Bathroom Lockerroom [blank sections] DYNAMIC ELEMENT: Water

CONCEPTS Dicks! SPIRITUAL GUARDIANS - Full service on minis, summons, etc Psycadelic fungal giant, black light, trippy, beautiful Revisiting old set [screen cuts off]

[fyi everything past this point was very blurry, so I could only decipher pieces here and there]

EP. 706 OUTDOOR CONCERT COACHELLA Music feature? Flaming [?], giant [?] [???] Fig and Gorgug on stage [???] Lighting effects, [???] Floating stage or something [???] Demons? PROJECTION: Lasers?

NPCS/ VILLAINS/ MONSTERS/ ETC. PORTER CLIFFBREAKER is secret servant of nightmare king tactical battlefield combat that [?] 2-3 times larger than PCs LED buried inside him [???] Porter was [???] basketball player [screen cuts off]

[the rest was too blurry to make out anything other than a blank section titled ROLE PLAY/ NEUTRAL BOARD and a section that seems to be for EP. 708 and says EXTRA with some blurry words after it]

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Part 12

MASTAPOST

huge credit for their support and betaing to @brekitten

And credit to @adonneniel for sam’s last line :3

Tucker’s fingers flew over the keyboard as sweat rolled down his eyes. The cave was supposed to be cool and damp, but he felt as if placed under a heat lamp. Lines of code, addresses and file names filled the screen. New windows and notifications popped up faster than he could chase them down. The presence of his giant in the hacking world crept closer and closer. His chest cramped from heavy breaths. Sam was barely a few feet away, muttering an incantation, but the distance felt like miles. Each new line of code seemed to shift the walls of the cave inwards or outwards depending at random. He kept going. He couldn’t stop. Not with Danny out there and alone.

He always thought himself as good at hacking. Good with tech. The guy who could turn Skulker’s suit into puppetry. The guy who could out-hack fucking Technus. But maybe he was always just a small fish in a small pond. As the enemy hacker closed in on Tucker, each wave surrounding him, infiltrating like rats into a battered house of cards.

Tucker knew it was inevitable, but to see it happen was something else.

The enemy hacker got it. Got everything Tucker had ever stored on this laptop. His location, his destroying of evidence. His tampering with the sonars to ignore Danny. His attempt at erasing the video footage showing Danny sneaking off. Everything was in the hands of a stranger whose face Tucker would never see.

The only thing keeping him from fully breaking down was the comfort that the real incriminating data was safely locked away in his room, on a server that would brick itself if anyone other than Team Phantom tried to get in. That he made sure of, not just with tech, but with Sam’s spells.

It was cold comfort, though. Not a complete catastrophe, but still fucking awful.

Tucker sat back, watching glumly, helpless to do anything more. His deletion program ran in the background, destroying everything, but it was too late anyway.

Sam growled in frustration. “It’s not working. This stupid Mercator Projection map is fucking with the spell. I can’t tell if he’s in Hawaii or Mexico City.”

She crumpled up the cheap map they’d bought from the tourist shop and stomped on it with a thumping vengeance. They would’ve brought an entire globe, the bigger the better, but that would get them noticed, and flying under the radar was the whole point.

“Any luck?”

Tucker gestured to his computer, about to be bricked again. “This guy’s a monster. A monster. I’m like a tiny ant compared to him. Every time I make a move he’s made fifteen more.”

“There’s gotta be something else we can do. Come on, Tuck-”

Then the waterfall sprayed over the cove, revealing the Fenton Family SAV.

Shit.

He and Sam locked eyes in a second. Then they broke eye contact. They and Danny had gone over plans for what to do if certain things happened. If someone stole the files on his servers. If someone followed Danny without noticing. If someone found their cove.

Above all else, above everything else, don’t tell them about Danny. Don’t even hint towards it. Play dumb and obfuscate.

Tucker realised belatedly that they never got to practice all of those plans.

Mrs Fenton leapt off the bow, and marched like a woman possessed. Her eyes narrowed. Her shoulders squared up. Her jawline set.

Tucker felt like he was going to die.

“Where’s Danny?” Mrs Fenton all but ordered. “Where is he? Is it true? Is it true that that- that- that Phantom brainwashed all of you into helping him!? What did Phantom do to him?! What happened to my baby?!” Each question echoed louder, more panicked than the last.

What was the rulebook for this situation again?!

Tucker’s mouth dried. Every millisecond not responding put the fear of God into his heart. “Who the heck is Phantom?”

Mrs Fenton’s expression hardened further, if that was possible. Wrong thing to say, fuck.

Sam stepped in front of him, pose defiant, but arms shaking just enough for Tucker to notice. “That’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been looking for Danny because the adults sure as fucking hell won’t.”

Looking for him, and Damian Wayne, but maybe bringing him up was going to be more trouble than it was worth, seeing as behind Mrs Fenton, Danny’s dad and holy shit was that Bruce Wane trailed up behind her. If it weren’t for the situation, Tucker felt like would’ve died anyway from meeting his idol.

Mr Wayne spoke up next. “I’m sorry we neglected the case of your friend, but you should’ve informed the authorities as soon as you suspected. How long have you known and not told anyone?”

Because telling people about Danny would land him on a VIP seat in the operating theatre! Because it was your freaking son he was trying to save?

Tucker couldn’t tell them that. What could he tell? He clenched his jaw like a vice, searching for a way out of this…

“You guys don’t get to tell us what to do.” Sam ground out. “We’ve been helping Phantom protect this freaking island from the sirens for months, with no help from any of you.”

Right! Good work Sam. Just a tiny hint of the truth and the real secrets stay hidden. Sam, he could kiss her right now (not that he’d ever want to).

Mrs Fenton raised her voice. “Samantha, we’ve been over this. Phantom isn’t a hero like Batman or Wonder Woman or Superman. He’s an inhuman monster staking claim over a territory. He’s tricking you kids!”

“Phantom’s saved us more than we could count! He’s risked his neck for this town.” Sam spat out, squaring up to Mrs Fenton on her steel-toed boots.

“He’s protecting his assets! If Phantom is such a protector, then why would he threaten the mayor, lead the invasion of town and work with Showenhower!?”

“It was all just a m-misunderstanding, Mrs Fenton, I swear!” Tucker said.

Mrs Fenton continued. “And now Danny’s gone. We know he’s been supplying Phantom with our inventions. Don’t you try and play dumb with us, young man. We’ve seen the footage of Danny sneaking out.”

Tucker’s blood ran thinner, and thinner. The cold sweat returned in full force.

Mr Wayne came between them, trying to put space between the two, without much success. “Please, if Phantom is hurting or threatening you in any way, it’s ok to tell us. We can keep you safe. We just need to know what happened to Danny.”

Sam gulped. Loud enough that even Tucker could hear it. It was at times like these Tucker wished Danny’s parents were as inattentive as they were made out to be by the public.

Their silence spoke volumes enough. Tucker wasn’t Batman, and neither was Sam. They didn’t have the chops to talk their way out of this, not enough Charisma to hit the DC checks, but they were also cornered here by the adults. One way or another, Tucker feared for Danny’s secrets.

Mr Fenton spoke up next, his voice uncharacteristically contemplative. “When I showed Danno the new security system and cameras in the lab and arsenal two weeks ago, it felt like he wasn’t as pumped up as I was. At first I thought it was nothing, but looking back it almost looked like fear.”

Well duh! You were showing him all the stuff you were gonna use to tear him into itty bitty pieces! Who wouldn’t be afraid for their life?!

Bruce Wayne crouched to their level, eyes soft like they were traumatized orphans that he was gonna adopt or something. “Did Phantom threaten Danny into giving him wea-”

“NO!” Tucker shouted instantly. A beat passed. His voice echoed through the cave. Shit. With the way the adults were looking at him, he might as well have said yes.

Sam pushed Mr Wayne away, or at least she tried to. The man barely budged, so she just stepped back from him. “Why do you care?! Already looking for another kid to replace the one you lost?”

The Fentons’ eyes widened, their faces in shock. Mr Wayne looked like he’d been punched through the gut and made into a donut. Ouch Sam, what the fuck?!

His voice lowered into a dark timbre, his expression steely cold. “I don’t want any more kids to get hurt. This Phantom needs to be stopped.”

Sam clutched his hand like a clamp. Tucker’s heart sank. What had they just done?

Please be alright, Danny, and Damian Wayne…

In an ocean far far away…

Damian sniffed the water as he clung to Danny’s shoulders again, his tail wrapped around the black and white boy’s waist. The kid had been doing that a lot lately, sniffing. Claimed it was to hone his senses.

“I believe I can smell Atlanteans nearby.” Damian said. Danny took the moment to verify his suspicions with his whole whiff.

“Yeah, looks it.” Danny said. He was a little suspicious though. Damian had refused to speak about what happened in the Atlantean outpost and how he got all this cool stuff. Surely he could’ve have fought them off, so he probably snuck around. Danny couldn’t imagine how terrifying that kind of thing would be. At least he knew his parents and what they were capable of when sneaking around the house and Amity. This kid was literally just some normal rich kid until all this happened.

“Why do you mention it?” Danny asked.

“I believe we it would be beneficial for us to partake in raid.”

Danny blinked.

A raid.

“You raided the Atlanteans and got this stuff. Like, legit raiding.” Danny said, dumbfounded.

“I met little resistance.”

Danny needed a moment to breathe here. His gills flexed open and closed.

“And now you want to raid another settlement. Why? We’re still good on food, and we even have veggies!”

Damian shook his head. “We need a map.”

Danny huffed, fins straightening. “We have a map literally up there!” he pointed up at the orange and purple sky over the sunset. The brightest stars were already beginning to show, with many more on the way.

“The Atlanteans likely keep maps of the local area, including human settlements and islands. There we can find further resources, and establish contact with the human world again.”

Huh. That was actually a pretty solid plan. His friends, sister (and maybe parents, if they noticed) were likely worried sick. A phone wouldn’t do them very well in the water, but even just a call letting them know they were ok would do wonders for their mental health.

That still left one teensy, tiny little issue, though.

“But how did you raid them the first time?!”

“It matters not.” Damian said, fins puffing up with pride. “All that matters is that with your skillset, such a mission will be as easy as breathing underwater.”

This kid was having way too much fun boasting of things no kid should’ve been able to accomplish. Then again, he showed some pretty insane marksmanship with the Wrist Ray the other day, so maybe he really did have the chops to back the ego up.

That acknowledgement did not stop Danny from pulling Damian to his chest, and administering a thorough nooggie, however.

[aughtpunk]

Any advise for someone who's trying to write their own COTL AU story but keep getting stuck with the main plot?

Okay I waited till I was less mentally wiggly to answer this.

I'm guessing you have the issue where you've created an entire AU with all the background and world and characters and are now sitting there going 'wait, now what'. This has actually happened to me in the past! It sucks! But you can work your way through it!

First, think about what type of story you want to tell. Don't even think about the AU part. Like, do you want to write a romance? A mystery? Slice-of-Life? What sort of story are you interested in? Because I find that trying to force myself to write something I don't want to never, EVER works.

Now think of one super cool ultra thing you want to happen in the story. It could be something you've read a million times before (oh no, we have to share a bed) or something that's totally off the wall and unique (oh no, our pirate ship grew a mouth and it's trying to eat this island). So many of my fanfics have started from me thinking of one really cool scene and working around it.

Next, you work around that cool scene. What could possibly lead someone to that point in the story? What would immediately happen after that? How did our pirates come across this boat? What dark magic transformed the boat? Then, what do the people who live on the island think about how their coast now has a bite mark in it? I find that working from the inside-out is a good way to develop shaky plots. It causes a domino effect backwards, in a way.

Okay you got a cool idea and some very basic ideas for the events of the story. Now comes the messy part: sticking the characters in. It may seem easy at first, The Lamb is the pirate king, it's Narinder's island, but as you put more and more characters in you may notice they start to...rebel in a way. Suddenly Kallamar is there trying to lecture people on how islands Don't Work That Way. Maybe Pirate Lamb doesn't want to work with Island God Narinder. That OC you made to have a single line is now a major character and is making out with Kallamar how the fuck did that happen.

At this point: DO NOT PANIC.

Character rebellion is perfectly natural and part of the writing process. People aren't so cut and dry, and that goes for fictional people as well. The trick is not to force the characters to act against their nature. You want to lean in with whatever these characters are doing. If The Pirate Lamb doesn't want to bow to Narinder you don't force them to bow because that will make the story seem flat and forced. Instead, go into why the character is acting that way. Then go into the consequence of the character acting that way. Now Narinder is pissed and is calling for the Pirate Lamb's head. You didn't plan it, and it may change what you had outlined, but the story is better for it.

So now you have a cool event, a bunch of characters, and a story fleshed out by the actions of those characters. Now comes the hardest part of all: Writing an absolute shit first draft. Just. Just the worst thing you've ever written. When you read it over you will doubt all your writing abilities and debate deleting everything and burning the computer in which it was written on.

Don't do that. Instead have a snack and go to bed.

Then the next day you fix yourself a snack and a yummy drink and FIX THAT SHIT. Just read it over and over tweaking and adjusting until the story is how you want it. And if you have a beta reader than even better! But hey, if you don't it's not the end of the world. The important thing is after you look over your story two of three times you then slap that baby online before second-guessing yourself. Be sure to use the right tags too!

And that's it. Then you have a story out there featuring Pirate Lamb and Island God Narinder making out sloppy-style as the island sinks in the background. Congrats! You're a writer! Pat yourself on the back and slowly realize with sickening horror that you now have at least two dozen more story ideas.

Don't worry, it happens to the best of us.

[persesphonestears]

Another tattoo

(Gif not mine :>)

A/N: So I have to make this a more than one part series because I wrote like way too much and I’m gonna die if I don’t post this already. Also so sorry it’s only Ghost in this post, but promise the second part will have the others!! I actually had so much fun writing this like omfg, I don’t have any piercings or tats for myself thanks to money problems atm but like actually I don’t know where I was going with that- uh anyway enjoy! I’m very tired. (looking at the amount now seems rlly small so sorry :/) ALSO I FUCKIN HATE THE NAME TOO LEAVE ME ALONE.

CW: He/they pronouns used for reader(? I might have ended up just using they/them), Reader has tattoos and piercings, I DONT THINK I USED Y/N LES GOO, I call ghost Simon when he isn't at work, Probably incorrect tattoo health procedures, Reader may be a little bland when first meeting Ghost(?), small mentions of gods(?)

Word count: 1342

Simon was finally let off for a break, given it’s only because Price knew he wasn’t keeping himself healthy or sleeping, so being the ‘dad’ boss he is, Simon was forced to take time off. While Simon wasn’t even close to being happy about having to not stay at base and having to make himself food and all the other human necessities, he’d been wanting a new tattoo for some time now. While maybe some of the privates would simply tattoo each other with pen ink, he’d rather die on the field than die from an infection from a more than likely shitty tattoo.

Walking through the somewhat dodgy looking part of his hometown, looking for a seemingly decent tattoo shop. While walking his eye was caught by the small little tattoo shop that looked clean and not all that dodgy. A small bell as the door opened rang as Simon stepped through, looking around at the walls he was impressed with the artwork that was displayed. He could hear faint 2000s rock music in the background of the shop, standing awkwardly waiting to see if anyone was actually here.

Turning around to walk out, he heard a small crash and a string of curses that followed.

Simon stopped and turned to see a short tattooed and pierced person walking out from the back of the shop. “Hi, sorry I was uh..” their talking trailed off as he looked down to see a fresh and unfinished tattoo on their leg. Unknown to Simon, the person in front of him was just very very happy that they weren’t able to be seen from the back, preferring not to be caught staring at the huge 6’4 man in their shop. 

“Uh anyway, I’m guessing you don’t have an appointment cause I don’t have any till later tonight, but I take walk in’s, both for tats and piercings'' They rambled off as they walked around to the front desk checking through their computer, Simon watched them, surprised by the feeling of fluttering in his stomach. Pushing it away he cleared his throat “Uh yeah walk in, are you able to tat up my other forearm?” he was wearing a t-shirt under his hoodie, happy he wasn’t going to be taking his shirt off. “Mhm sure, I just need to ask a few questions and then get you to sign some consent forms, that cool?” He asked walking back around and sitting on one of the couch chairs at the front, taking a seat after them, Simon sat and agreed to the others' request.

“Cool, alright so first is which arm you want it on obviously and if you have any tattoos on your forearm already?” Simon answered with short and gruff answers “My right arm and no, my left is already tattooed(I think I can’t remember which arm of his is tatted).” “Right cool okay so I’m not gonna bother asking if you're of age because it's pretty obvious because holy shit you are probably the biggest and hottest man I’ve ever seen, but just read through these quick and sign ‘em” Thanking whatever gods there were for people not being able to read minds. Handing the forms to Simon he grabbed them and the pen from your hands, giving a quick read through signing where he had to. Putting them back on the desk, you grabbed them right back and skimmed through them, “Okay Simon, well what do you want?”.

—tiny time skip–

After setting everything up and placing the stencil of the sketch that you drew up (That Simon wouldn’t admit but absolutely adored) onto the gruff military man that was sitting in your chair. “Okay, you ready?” A simple nod was what you received in response. Instead of pushing you continued to go ahead and start his tattoo, not once deciding to ask about some of the many scars that graced his arms. Them seemingly adding onto your attraction for the stranger in your shop as he sat still and silent. Becoming; as you do when tattooing, engrossed in the soft buzzing, the hushed music of your playlist and the ink going into skin at your hand.

“How many do you ‘got?” The gruff voice from above me spoke as I continued to stab his skin. “Tats or piercings?” Responding with another question as I kept my focus on the shading, trying to not let the fact that this absolute 10/10 was asking you about yourself. Sure it was most likely to just make conversation but you could dream. “Both?” The voice behind the black surgical mask didn’t sound overly confident but even when peeking up at the man he was still only looking forward. “I stopped counting how many tats I got a while ago. As for my piercings uh..” cutting myself off to count in my head. “I’d say about 9, not counting my ears.” Feeling a cold gaze turn towards me I stiffen slightly. 

“You only have 6 on your face.” (I chose to give reader a vertical labret, septum, both sides of the nose(like so you could use a chain), bridge, eyebrow :D) His voice replies, stifling my laugh “yeah I know I just don’t normally let people see my chest or just randomly show my stomach.” Giggling, I look up to see his ears turning a slight pink. “R-right sorry.” Trying not to laugh at a client, we continued to talk for a bit more before I suggested to put a movie on more to make it less uncomfortable for me with the awkward conversation. After picking a movie, he seemed to relax just a tad more, getting myself comfortable. I continued to finish up the art piece I was adding to someone's skin.

—another time skip because Ghost would get something edgy and big and I can’t keep writing silly awkwardness—

By the time you had finished and made sure to add some disinfectant and soothing cream to the skin before wrapping it up. You pat his shoulder smiling softly “you’re all done big guy”. Rising from the seat, he walked somehow (even though this man is huge) silently towards the front desk. Scanning his card and giving him the papers that explained how to look after his tattoo. “Thank you. You’re uhm. Very handsome- or uh pretty? I don’t know, can I just get your number?” Stumbling over his words brought a smile to your face. “Sure, I’d uh I’d actually really like it if you took my number” you ramble as you grab some scrap paper, quickly writing your personal number you hand it to him.

Seeing his eyes scrunch slightly, let you know he was smiling at you, and god almighty if the fact that this huge, scary, masked, stoic, man giving you a smile, that you couldn’t even see, wouldn’t make you swoon. Giving you a quick nod he walked out, the small bell above your door ringing in your ears as you watched him leave. 

Giggling to yourself as you stupidly fist pumped the air and twirled around happily, not registering the sound of the bell being rung, indicating the opening of a door. What you did register was the once again gruff voice, clearing their throat as you turned back to look at the man who just left back in your shop. “Forgot ma’ cap.” Swiftly grabbing his hat back with what you could only assume was the smuggest look ever he turned back around. This time leaving you with a curt “Bye now, doll”

Leaving you red faced, in the middle of your own shop. Snapping out of it you groaned loudly before retreating to the floor, hidden by the desk. Cursing yourself for your stupid victory jig you did before even making sure that he wouldn’t come back for a bit. A buzz in your pocket distracted you from your internal dread, pulling out your phone and opening it to see a message from an unknown number. “That lil’ dance was very cute btw”.

A/N: *twerks cutely* ANYWAY

[evanorbat]

Ok so idk how I came up with this but you guys know how most dp x dc Aus go so what if Danny just outright didn’t know the justice leads existed.

Like if he heard of them from Tucker or Sam he just thinks that their from some superhero movie and we can and to the funny but by having Amity in a full on media black out that Danny lifts (he got baking lessons from Technus and Tucker) because when he found out and ask Tucker to do it he just said that he didn’t think it would be ok to do it so imagine the out right shock of having the Justice League start to investigate Amity.

So on the Justice Leagues side of things they just chilling over at the watch tower only to aficiona alarm to start ringing and when they check what it is they’re staring at the computer for full on minutes processing that they missed a full media black out on one town and Constantine or Zatanna idk who you decide take one look at the screen with the articles on ghosts and start to immediately gather stuff to got there.

So know like an a third of the Justice League is over at Amity investigating everything and when Danny sees them he just goes up to them and says “cool cosplay dudes but there aren’t any conversations soon” and everyone who herd that just fucking states at him like for a solid minute and then just someone idk who maybe superman just asks “do you know who we are?” And Danny just stares at him for a solid 10 seconds and goes “I don’t recognise your character and I’m guessing your from a superhero movie but I don’t watch those so no I don’t really but you do fit the description my friend Tucker gave me on that guy from that movie what was it called again I think it was The Justice League” and everyone just fucking states at him and then someone on the background that overheard the conversation just shouts “IS THAT WHY YOU NEVER TALKED ABOUT THEM!?” and he just turns around and with a look of completar confusion on his face and everyone is just staring at who they think is the most innocent person to exist.

So now we have a JL trying to tell Danny that they’re actual superheroes and Danny’s over there like the most confused person in the world just staring at them while they explain and he’s just internally freaking out cause he did know there where more superheroes and thought that he was alone in this.

This could be so much funnier with it being a demon twins AU or just an AU where he trained with the league of assassins for some time before coming to amity and I just showed that the Justice League is an actual thing because he just thought they were something that Ra’s made up to make his behaviour seem like it was actually for supervillain reasons to keep Danny and Damian from leaving him instead of it actually all being true.

And if we go from that rout and then add Damian and Danny keeping in contact after they separated we have a Danny who think that the only superhero’s to ever exist are the Batfam and now imagine if Damian was there and just goes up to him and straight up punches him and then hugs him mumbling how much of a ducking idiot Danny is and everyone around them is like confused as fuck about this whole interaction because it’s well damian and it’s just a whole bunch of superheroes being confused and almost all of the people overhearing and wanting to do the same thing Damian did because Danny’s a fucking idiot.

If you don’t like it with Danny then imagine it after a fight with one of his rouges Danny as phantom just doesn’t recognise any of them except for the Batfam because of the same reasons as the demon twin AU thing and Damian recognises him even as a ghost just looking at him and the same punch and hug thing happens but now we have an angry Damian just berating Danny on how much of an. airhead he is and it goes on for like an hour with the JL just rebooting on the background and Constantine and Zatanna just running around the whole town looking for the source of the ghost problem.

[letoasai]

No one remembers Anime Spiral

What do kids even do on the internet? I'm genuinely asking. Everything revolves around social media and that's fine but what do they do. Are their cool things they can do anymore?

There used to be websites and you would just wander the internet on the family computer. Newgrounds. Gaia Online. Neopets. Yahoo Games. Quizzila. Live Journal... I'm not saying they were all great but they were something to do and... no i'll commit, they were great. I wasn't worried about posting pictures of myself when i was busy watching a flash animation of Dragonball Z that someone put painstaking hours into.

A lot of younger kids and teens don't know how to download something and save it to a particular folder on their computer because they've never used a computer. Meanwhile we were somehow... coding our Myspace pages to have a particular background. When did we acquire that knowledge?

In 2004/2005 i went looking for Inuyasha pictures, as one did, and i stumbled upon a site of people posting fanfiction? Sign me up... Anime Spiral was the wild west of chaos fanfic writers. People would make banners for their work that would sit in their summary sections. God help you, but those seizure inducing flashing colors were going to get your attention.

People would write anything, stories, poems, lyrics. People would post art and open commissions for people to ask for things in the comments, and the OP would just do it... There were frantic collaborations. Some were really good. Some were really bad.

There were chaotic originally stories with random anime characters thrown in for fun because who was going to tell them they couldn't? Some people just ranted to anime characters and i will always remember Ask Sesshomaru where you'd ask Sesshomaru a question in the comments and the next chapter he would answer every.single.question. The fact that it was probably a 16 year old girl writing that just didn't matter.

Some people just posted picture of anime characters. They did all the internet searches so you didn't have to! They were harder to find then.

The comment/response section to this day... was the best format i've seen on a fanfic site (imo). It was so easy. I miss it! I miss going to my word processing class and pulling up that site and chatting with people in the freaking comments of whatever...terrible story i'd posted at the time. I was probably so proud of it then but yikes...

The notification system was good and it was easy to talk to people without it feeling intrusive.

Maybe Anime Spiral was Tumblr before Tumblr.

I met two strangers on Anime Spiral a week apart. Internet dangers weren't as obvious then as they seem now. Those two strangers became two of my best friends. It's been nearly twenty years and they are still so prevalent in my life.

I met my best friend on that site. That seems so impossible to me now. We never would have met otherwise and i can't imagine my life without them. We were so upset when Anime Spiral went down. We missed the ugly green and mustard yellow template to this day.

It wasn't a great site, it had it's problems... It had a lot of problems but at the same time, it was a great site. It's hard to find people who even remember Anime Spiral anymore. Going to FF .net or Fiction Press afterwards felt like... a downgrade somehow. The systems overly complicated and it lacked...something.

I do enjoy the hell out of AO3, it actually checks all the boxes for a great writing site, but i'll always remember the chaotic nostalgia of Anime Spiral.

What do kids do on the internet now? Is it safe? Is it just selfies, gossip, and bullying? Do you have a little dragon you can take care of? Neopets could take up a lot of their attention. I don't think 2024 Neopets is the same as 2005 Neopets and that's a shame.

I have no idea. I feel old.

[kaiserouo]

Hello! In this post I will describe the details of making a render of Apex Legends stuff (namely the video you're watching) so you can make a photo / video to your liking! Even if you don't wanna render things, I think you might still find the process interesting, OR, especially, the tools useful in you future work.

Why am I doing this? Because I'm taking a train and I'm bored. Also there's too little Bloodhound content here. Maybe someone will actually do some cool rendering of them after this.

Idea

Do you know in training mode, Bloodhound will wait for you indefinitely like a puppy with their cute little look-around motion?

Precious footage of Houndy on Youtube

I want them to be my background. So the most important requirements are:

3 Bloodhounds looking around and waiting like that of training mode. (why only 1 if you can have 3?)

Firing range background.

Looks overall good or something (e.g., lighting, motion not synchronized, 1920x1080 for my computer, etc.)

Let's get started.

Model

Well, there won't be multiple Bloodhounds waiting for me in the firing range in-game. I am also not intended to mod R5Reloaded just for this. So we'll use Blender to pose them.

First we need the model. The details of how to use Apex Legends model in blender can be found in this tutorial I found. Basically you just need Blender, semodel + seanim loader, Legion+, and the game itself. You COULD find archives of some models on the web, but manually extracting will guarentee that you can get everything you need.

Reddit Apex Legends model tutorial

Apex File Archive (by Biast12)

Model name list (may be incomplete)

I made an auto shading addon btw

There are a lot of tutorials of how to use Blender. I will not include the details here.

We need:

Models of 3 Bloodhounds (pilot_medium_bloodhound, bloodhound_v21_pilot_level03_w, bloodhound_v21_heroknight_w)

Animation of them waiting indefinitely (mp_pt_medium_training_blood_idle_A_0.seanim)

The names are a bit weird. You can just try to import all the models / animations to find what you want.

Background

Map files are large and hard to load. In my case I never even imported any map in Blender successfully. Fortunately we are looking for a still image background.

I used R5Reloaded's photo mode (or something like that) to get a clean picture. Quite a lot of steps to get a background picture, I know. I used R5Reloaded for other things at that time so this was the most convenient way for me ironically.

R5Reloaded does has a lot of potential, though. Maybe you can use it on other stuff afterwards.

R5Reloaded official page

But if we just make a render in Blender and composite the result with this background, the perspective will certainly not be aligned and the result will look very weird. Probably need a disgusting amount of time just to adjust this stuff.

Thankfully, by the theory of perspective and projective geometry, we can calculate the focal length, the height and the angle of camera all from a single image by your favorite subject: math!

...I mean, by fSpy. We have computers. We don't do the math that others already did for us.

fSpy official page

After getting the parameters of the camera, you can import them into blender directly. The camera from fSpy already has the background image composited so you won't need to do much else in Blender.

Posing & Lighting

We have almost everything we need. So just:

Import all models and camera (from fSpy)

Shade the models and adjust size / position / orientation so it looks good on camera

Import animations on model and adjust the keyframes s.t. they don't do the exact same motion every frame.

We are using the existing animations so posing won't be a problem. If you want to make your own pose you might need some more proper rigging. Not expert on this so that's all I will say.

Now we need the lighting. The lighting environment in the firing range is not really available to us if we don't have the skybox or the map file. Maybe you can find the skybox in Legion+ or archive, but I use lights in Blender instead.

Namely, a sun light to simulate the light from the sun, and a plane light at front for overall light adjusting (probably also simulates reflection from the ground and the environment).

And wait for like half an hour for Blender to spit out all 285 frames and we're done! I let Blender store each and every frame as an image and use ffmpeg to composite them all into a video because I thought I need the high resolution images for something else. Blender does have a setting to just output a video without the intermediate result if I recall correctly.

Conclusion

This is definitely not a complete guide on how to do rendering pieces of work with Blender. I myself am not even well experienced in this kind of stuff. But I think the process is fun and the result is rewarding, especially when seeing your favorite character moving on your background.

I hope you do check out the reference of tools and tutorials above. After all, as an artist (kind of), having the model is like possessing THE absolute reference for a character. Very recommended for every artist to learn how to use Blender and search for models. In 2024 a lot of games are in 3D and there WILL be someone on the web sharing how to extract models from the game or simply gives out the entire archive. You name it! Apex Legends, Titanfall, Destiny, even Ultrakill has like a 1GB blender file for high quality models, if you just google for that ever so slightly.

...Welp actually you can just treat this post as a huge Bloodhound advertisement. The end.

[amaiguri]

The WIP Questionaire

Thanks so so much from @verba-writing for the tag! I had such a fun time reading your answers too and I'm very excited for paranormal romance 😍

I feel like I wanna flag that a lot of my answers are very anime/gaming-sphere oriented and I hope I'm not totally alienating my mutuals by revealing just HOW MUCH I'm not a book person lololol But this is with what we're working:

The Questions are:

1. What was the first part of your wip that you created?

The very first thing I made was the high premise: It was synthesized from the Overly Sarcastic Productions question "What if all the Kings Under the Mountain came back...?" and then I added the context "...in a Nuclear Crisis to discuss piece?" And in my head, it was this HBO-style modern fantasy Game of Thrones meets West Wing type deal. But then... I didn't want to write the modern piece. (The modern piece should be written by people in countries from all over Europe about what it means to be a hero in various cultures.)

So I set it in 1800s fantasy world instead!

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

The first arc would be Dance in the Game by Zaq

The second arc would be Lacrimosa by Kalafina

The Gods' Arc would be Paper Boquet by Mili

3. Who are your favourite characters you've made? Why?

Is it to cliché to be like "my current self-insert protagonist is my favorite character I've ever made"? Her and my antagonist are just THE BEST and I love them.

4. What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

Mmm, I think Untitled Yssaia Game's story would appeal to queer Game of Thrones fans who could FEEL the straightness in GoT, especially if they also like anime. I would hope I could get general anime fans as well as Arcane and Genshin Impact fans, but I feel like those are too mainstream and Yssaia is not. Realistically, I think I'm gonna get the Wadanohara people and the Ib people and, if I get really lucky, the To the Moon people.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Marketing lol -- explaining what it is to people in a way that they realize they want it.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Fuafua 🥺🥺🥺

Look at her! She is a six-legged, six-eyed slug cat called a Maret. Marets fill the same role as ocelots in Yssaia, except they're more semi-aquatic like otters and their skin has a stressball-like texture.

7. How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

They walk or ride Rumateurs (which are alpaca-like beings with ossicones) or take ships or airships or trains. I don't like writing about travel that much though so it is a background element.

8. What part of your wip are you working on rn?

I am pre-editing the first arc for my alpha readers and the third arc has another 50k to 100k words to draft. We're at like 250k words total right now and it is so unwieldy 😭😭😭

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe?) of your wip do you think will draw people in?

Oh, I have a convenient graphic for this. Hang on...

10. What are your hopes for your wip?

I was just diatribing about this earlier but the DREAM is to turn it into an RPGmaker adventure game and have it go viral and make a million bucks off it. I'd love to be the next Undertale but it'll never happen because I am not positioned to be the next Undertale, you know?

So yeah, that's what's what! Thanks again for the ask! This was so fun! I'm gonna pass this to @maiemorrae, @moonfeatherblue, @zebee-nyx, @winterandwords, @modernwritercraft, @words-after-midnight, @spideronthesun, @theprissythumbelina, @thepanplate, @thetruearchmagos, @maskedemerald, @moondust-bard, @pluttskutt and @emelkae 😍😍😍 I actually internalized Verba's WIP so well from this tag and I wanna make sure I'm updated on what all you cool people are working on! Open tag to any of my other moots too! 🥳

IMPORTANTTTTT⚠️

I will edit this to have a blank easily copy-and-pasteable question section when I get back to my computer. If I forget, @ me!

[lumarys]

new episode THOUGHTS!! (spoilers for ava6 ep. 2 under the cut)

this time it's rygb who are saving orange! most of the time it's the other way around so this is fun to see

green fall into a leadership role pretty easily here, it's honestly pretty cool how characterization is so consistent in this series even though there's no dialogue

the fact that the grey stick couldn't animate with the pencil makes sense (as far as i've seen it's a pretty common headcanon that animating is an orange thing), but they couldn't even move the drawing by pulling at it, which IS sort of weird, because i swear that other characters have done that before

possibly it's a computer-only-unless-you're-orange thing, or maybe only some sticks can do it? i'm pretty sure that the other example i'm thinking of is victim in ava1 so it could be either

victim, to chosen: And For Your Birthday Present, I Am Giving You A New Experience: Getting Your Ass Completely Beat

i don't know if they're still pretending that that might not be victim but that bit with the copies? that's pretty much confirmation

the eel that orange drew seemed to get really scared/angry at the eraser, and given how orange was acting, they couldn't control it...hm. thoughts for later perhaps

oh so victim wants to know how to get to alan. this can only go well for everyone! /s

memory scanner! i don't have too much to say about this but it's neat

orange is TOTALLY not having a crisis after seeing that! nope!! they are SO chill about any revelations that might have come about as a result! not that there WERE any revelations, of course!! hahaha..haha...ha....fuck

victim seemingly ONLY noticed yellow in that shot. i get that the others were only sort of visible and not doing anything computer-related like yellow, but they were still looking that close into the background, so i'm a bit surprised

that's a LOT of wanted posters. like...a lot

and of course rygb get there right after

from what i can tell, they take yellow away, but not red, green, or blue? i think that they're just left lying there. they all must be SO confused about that

victim burning that page...

and then it ends!! so much happened...

[lara-kaminari]

Excerpt from chapter 11 of: "The serpent and his forbidden fruit".

Or, the first time Ominis and Catalina almost kiss.

—Tell me something else. —Ominis proposed. —Read my fortune in love.

—Love?

—So I'll know if your predictions are true.

—My word alone is not enough?

Ominis smiled mischievously and offered me his hand again. This time I would not take him seriously. I began to trace circles on his palm with my finger, just playing a little.

—I need clarity on what you want to know. —I said, lowering the volume of my voice.

—Can't you just know? —Ominis asked, pulling his body closer to me. Not that it was necessary, we were already very close and in the library there was only silence; his voice had that hypnotic teasing tone I liked to hear.

I resume my reading, letting my fingers glide gracefully. As I moved on, I heard his breathing become more ragged: my nearness seemed to affect him in a way I hadn't anticipated.

—Maybe; maybe I do see something: a woman.

Ominis' eyelashes are long, the perfect complement to her opal eyes. Her face is so close to mine that I can now see it in detail.

—And is she beautiful?

—Does it matter?

—I'm just curious.

—I'm afraid that's just up to your interpretation.

—Something tells me you're out of practice. —Ominis said; in a clever move he was now holding my hand. I was so distracted that it was easy for him to turn the tables. —I'll show you how to read a love prediction.

—You can't see.

—I know how to use my hands to feel everything.

Merlin.

Ominis ducked his head as if he could really look. However, the trace of his fingers on my palm made it clear that he could perceive every little line as if it were Braille. In a few seconds I found myself as much into his prediction as he was into mine.

—I see here... A path full of possibilities, it looks like a bright and exciting future awaits you.

His voice was soft, almost a whisper, as if he were sharing an intimate secret. I gasped for a moment, surprised by the sudden proximity and the suggestive tone in his voice.

—What else do you see?

—In the theory of physics it is announced that even small objects can make big changes; a woman like you, small and delicate as a wildflower, you strongly attract those around you and make them fall for no reason. —Said Ominis. —You attract just like the myth of the Adam's apple, and the first one to taste of the forbidden fruit will open a door you had closed: Your chance to love.

His words faded to a whisper, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still as he allowed the gravity exerted by the earth to merge me with him. An electric current passed between us, charged with a palpable tension that neither of us could ignore.

I closed my eyes, opened my arms to whatever that physical force had for me and my lips began to tingle at the shock that was now inevitable.

Surprise! It's a fanart 😈 I mean, I did it hehe. That background is NOT mine, I'm not that far along 🤣 I had to google "big window good lighting" and that's what came up ahshzhs BUT everything else is mine ;).

I still don't understand about outlining and shadows, and I have to draw on a sheet of paper first and then upload it to the computer and follow the lines but hey, it's a cool result.

[obsidiancreates]

Power Crystal vs Power Turtle

"So this is your lab!" Donald looks around the small dimly-lit room. "Not many... power outlets?"

Donnie walks over to a pile of scraps and various parts in a box. "What? Yours is just as dim."

"Ha! It is not."

"Yes, it is, you just have neon lights everywhere."

"Yes, that light up the space."

"No, that make it look cool. But the light they provide is barely more than a phone screen, anything more than a foot away from them is completely unlit!"

"You sound like Raphie. 'Oh, Don, your eyes, you'll ruin them!' As though my Donnie-Tech contacts don't account for that."

"Well, we're a lot more used to dimness, I guess."

"... Deep inhale... I'm going to be a good person and not capitalize on that setup. What are you looking for?"

"The reason I asked you to come over to our dimension- AHA!" Donnie stands upright and turns around dramatically, holding out a pink-tinted and metal-capped cylinder. He's suddenly surrounded by rotating white-and-purple lines like fan blades as he proudly presents the item.

"... I have no idea what that is."

There's a disappointed "whap" sound, and the background behind Donnie disappears as he sags and scowls. "You could at least pretend, to be interested."

"Sorry, sorry. Ahem. OHMIGOSSSSHHHH! A PINK TUBE!!!" Donald clasps his hand together and stands on one foot, practically leaning over backwards in his exaggerated pose.

"Alright, alright!" Donnie walks over to a small metal table with a truly old computer monitor on it. "Just come over here. This, is an alien power crystal."

Now Donald's eyes do truly sparkle, and he dashes right up to the table. "What kind of alien?!"

"Our uh, squishy guys."

Donald loses his excitement. He slowly inches away from the crystal.

"It's harmless now," Donnie promises. "The Kraang haven't been seen- well, ours haven't-"

"Yours? But I thought-"

"There's one in a dimension perpetually stuck in the late Eighties we met recently, but he's an idiot and busy having marital issues with their version of Shredder."

"... Marital issues?"

"I wish that was the weirdest thing about that dimension... anyway, the point is there's no Kraang to track this, and no tech in this room that I haven't personally verified is safe. You know, relatively speaking."

"Ah, relative safety, my favorite kind. But why did you need me to come here for this?"

"I want to compare the energy this crystal outputs to the energy of your ninpo."

"... Is it because it's a similar color?"

"Wh- NO! ... Alright, maybe. BUT, that's not the only reason! I use a lot of Kraang tech in my inventions here in this dimension, and I've gotten prett-y familiar with most forms of terrestrial, foreign, or otherworldly energy through uh... various means."

Donald tries not to look at the electrical burn scars all over his counterpart's body. "So you're looking for some kind of commonality between them all?"

"Mmm, not exactly. I just want to note how they work in comparison with each other. Combining these various technologies can lead to incredible advancements, and that can lead to a lot less butt-kicking when new enemies show up."

"Well, this all sounds reasonable enough to me, let me just make a quick construct and-"

"Actually." Donnie pulls up a schematic on his monitor. "I was thinking more along the lines of this."

Donald leans in and squints. "You want me to... power things. Like a living battery."

"Well, I wouldn't have used those exact words."

"You realize using people as living batteries is usually a villain move!"

"It's not like I'm kidnapping you or want you to push your limits! I just want to see how the Shellraizer runs on this crystal versus your ninpo, and them maybe try out one or two other things a few, uh, dozen times-"

"I don't even think my ninpo works this way."

"What? Of course it does, I've seen you use it on practically all your tech! And I've seen videos of when you used your techbo!"

"Ha-ha! Ah, that wasn't ninpo. That was pure genius!"

"No it wasn't! I studied the properties of average electricity and other fuels and energies in your dimension, and there is clearly a mystical element to your tech!"

"I don't think there is."

"Donald, it's all purple. Even the fire. OBVIOUSLY IT'S MYSTIC!"

"Of course it's purple, all of my creations are! It's called branding!"

"It is purple... BECAUSE YOUR NINPO IS!"

"WHY DID THIS TURN INTO A SHOUTING MATCH!"

"OF COURSE IT DID, HAVE YOU MET ME?!?! YOUR NINPO IS PARTIALLY POWERING OVER HALF YOUR TECH!!!"

"PROVE IT!"

"FINE!" Donnie grabs the artifact off of his belt and reopens the portal. "Wait right here and don't touch anything!" He steps through.

Donald huffs, and begins snooping.

Lots of junk, lots of rusted items mixed in with unreasonably shiny chrome parts, lots of old schematics lying around. He picks up one that shows a stout android design, clearly modeled after the mutant turtles it would be surrounded by. It's a carefully preserved blueprint, and it makes Donald's heart ache.

Metalhead. Donnie has mentioned the incident, only briefly. A robotic son, lost in a fight. Just like his sweet Shelldon.

"Someday you'll both be rebuilt and can meet," he informs the blueprints. He carefully puts the blueprint away and looks around some more.

Some backpack-type devices with cable functions, clearly made for a mission of some sort based on the various implements to keep sound to a minimum, and one for each brother. There's some blueprints for various vehicles as well, a few various sensors, a box of incredibly small helmets labeled 'Spy Roach Gear' that Donald quickly puts away-

"AHHHHHH!" Donald jumps back as he looks up from the box and into a pair of disembodied eyes!

The eyes don't blink, flinch, or move at all. Donald takes in the whole... scene.

It's a large tube not unlike the one the crystal is in, but this one is filled with organs. Suspended in a frozen goo of some kind is an entire nervous system, alongside digestive and cardiovascular and... everything. A pair of lips hang suspended like the rest of the parts, attached by some kind of thin organic tube.

Donald makes a break for the portal.

Donnie steps out at the same time.

SLAM!

"OW! What the shell-!" Donnie gets up, a 2-D red vein popping up by his forehead. "What was that for?!"

"You have a pile of organs staring at you in your lab!" Donald holds his bo in a defensive position, ready to fight his way out.

"What?! You- ... oh." Donnie's eyes trail over to the tube. "No, that's not what he is."

"He?"

"He's a friend. or... I think of him as one. I don't know if he'd agree anymore." Donnie picks up the small device he'd brought over from Donald's lab.

"I've been told I struggle to grasp some societal nuances but-"

"He mutated, he lost his mind, he got frozen, and it's my fault, okay? And I'm working on figuring out how to unthaw him without hurting him or letting him loose so I can give him the retromutagen. But we're not working on that today, so drop it." Donnie holds up the device. "I'm proving to you right now that this is powered by your ninpo."

"Go ahead and try, but-"

"There." Donnie smirks as he hooks up the device to his ancient computer and types quickly on the equally ancient keyboard. "Right here, the readings match up."

"What? No. I made this when I was fourteen, it's impossible." Donald leans in to look, and his jaw drops.

"You were using your ninpo without even realizing it then. Which means... we can mix it with other technology! Think of everything we can create by combining all of this!"

Donald continues gaping. "I used my ninpo first?"

"Well, I don't really have a way to determi-"

"I WAS USING IT FIRST!" Donald cackles, picking Donnie up and jumping happily as Donnie screams. "HA! I NEED TO GO RUB THIS IN NARDO'S FACE IMMEDIATELY!"

"PUT ME DOWN FIRST- WHAAAAA!" Donnie screams as Donald uses his battleshell to absolutely blast off through the portal!

[shining-scion]

Ok, here’s my thoughts/review on Pirate101 as a newcomer/someone who just beat arc 1.

I wanna start off by saying I did, overall, have a lot of fun with this game. I did. That being said—

The first thing I think is really worth addressing as a problem is just how… culturally insensitive this game gets. I’m not an expert on any of this stuff, and with Wizards I’m not sure how much is noticeable until at least Krok, but I noticed some stuff almost immediately here that I— while not an expert— am concerned about. Perhaps that’s because I’m older. I did start my Wizard playthrough very young.

First of all, the whole class of witchdoctor, the aesthetic… probably needs to go. I can tell it’s being sourced from “piratey” media, (wasn't the plot of one of the POTC movies that Jack Sparrow got tied up with a voodoo doll in some manner?) but it’s outdated and while I can’t speak for the cultures it affects, I’ve seen people speak out against using similar tropes. I’ve personally just replaced the class altogether in my own headcanons, but I don’t think Pirate has the budget or means to overhaul a whole class, and headcanons don’t fix canon, so I’m not sure what can be done here. I’m not an expert.

I can tell that, in general, much like Wizard, Pirate is a melting pot of different sailing/odyssey/pirate pieces of media. “The Road to El Dorado” is literally a movie.

In general, I don’t mind the media inspirations being blatant. It’s fun to see what I recognize and how passing bits and pieces of different stories make their way into the Spiral, and when it’s done well I think it gives the universe this really fun bizarro world vibe. The issue lies in the fact that popular culture is full of stereotypes, and it’s clear that those stereotypes were taken as face value and just seen as “tropes”— which, yeah, a stereotype is often used as a part of a trope, but that doesn’t make it ok. At all. Both games would need a serious rehaul to make some of this stuff passable, I’m sure.

In addition to the witchdoctor class, the whole entirety of Cool Ranch was really just awful to Native people, and so was the literal opening questline in Skull Island. Wizards has this problem at times too.

In general, Spiral worlds have a problem where they don’t take enough creative liberty from their source IRL locations. I wonder if they might have at least a little bit of an easier time with this stuff if they took the time to worldbuild each… well, world, until it’s a distinct thing from its source. They did so fairly well with Dragonspyre, and multiple pieces of fiction do the same, so I don’t see why they couldn’t except for maybe their “one world a year” cycle kind of stopping them from writing things like that as much as they want.

TDLR: KI, YOU NEED A SENSITIVITY READER. “IT’S FICTION” IS NOT AN EXCUSE. THOSE ARE REAL STEREOTYPES AND REAL HARM. YOU SHOULD BE DOING AS MUCH AS YOU CAN TO PREVENT PERPETUATING HARMFUL STEREOTYPES IN THE FUTURE.

I just wanted to hold space for that topic, because it’s important, and it’s probably my biggest worry above all else. I don’t know everything but it seemed worth mentioning.

Transitioning onto the brief background context I do have with this game, since that will affect my view…

I played Pirate101 once as a kid— in 2012, when it launched. My stepsister and I crowded around the home computer and waited with baited breath as we saw another side of the spiral for the first time…

I never got past like, level 3, and that first character currently says she’s “adrift in the spiral” on the loading screen so I can only assume she got shot by the Armada or something horrible. Anyway—

The idea of playing again was something I’d turned over in my mind as I got back into Wizards. Now that I was older, I figured I’d be able to grasp it better than I could as a kid, and I’d be able to pay for my own sub, as well. After a bit of thinking, I went for it. I’d heard a lot of things about the game’s current state, but I decided to try and push that out of my mind as much as possible and meet it on its own terms. I wanted to give it a fair shake and I wanted to experience it with all the unbridled joy I know it would have given me as a kid, without worrying about how the later content would or wouldn’t compare.

I’ll give the game this— I LOVE THE OPENING. Maybe I was just excited to cross the long awaited item off my list, or maybe my inner child was just giddy to start a new adventure in my favorite fictional world, but I could not stop smiling and laughing from the moment the curtains opened to the minute I landed in Skull Island. Escaping the ship was exciting, seeing the Armada was SO COOL— I can see why they’re a fan favorite 101 villain— and the way I got to pick my backstory was unique. When I realized a Swashbuckler was much the same as a Storm wizard, I was really happy to see that picking the choices that seemed to speak to me (in wizards, questions about my personality, here, what I thought would make for a cool backstory) landed me with a playstyle I favored. It’s a small, coincidental thing, but it worked and I settled into things fairly quickly.

…I did also notice that the game was a lot rougher around the edges. Small things, really— the bloom is a little too bright, some models aren’t entirely animated in the face, things like that. I didn’t mind, and honestly? It just reminded me a little bit of classic Wizard, and it grew on me within the hour.

There were a few glitches that have and continue to persist. The dialogue box when Boochbeard is psychically communicating with you, or your companions are talking while you’re doing something, is covered by the crowns shop symbol unless the menu is opened. This was a… mild problem for me, as I have an auditory processing disorder and need that text to understand what’s being said to me. As well, every time I was shown an image, it would be cut off and shown halfway above the screen. I never got to see the face of my mother. That sounds horrible out of context. Anyway—

I really enjoyed the moment you walk up to the dock in Jonah Town and see your parent’s ship. I think my little part of the game was how the chase to El Dorado often felt like you were moving in step with your parents, running beside them and only separated by time.

There’s a weird feeling of legacy and it all feels really grand in a way Wizard doesn’t. They’re both, objectively, stories about growing up and taking your place in the world, but the Young Wizard is not attached to the Spiral in the same way the Pirate is. If I were to name the difference, I’d say Wizard is about Destiny and Fate, while Pirate is much more about Legacy and Heritage. The Wizard is guided by the stars, the Pirate is guided by the echoes of the past. They’re both very different ways of addressing and justifying the great journey, but I think they work in step with each other.

Another thing that I think was done SUPER WELL is the sense of SCALE. Especially, docking at Mooshu made me realize that if anything, I hadn’t explored CRAP of the worlds I was going to. I was basically saying I explored a whole country when I was really just going to the capital. The travel times were boring and a little egregious at times, but I think they were overall needed to give a sense of just how big the Spiral really was. When you look at the illustration of the cosmos, it can almost seem sort of small, but that’s not the case at all and Pirate really wants to remind you of that.

Gear wise, I knew it was gonna be more open ended, but OH GOD. I wasn’t expecting what I got. I was waiting for a waterworks, or the Kane dungeon to be like Darkmoor, but it wasn’t like that at all. The openness was daunting, but eventually I really just pressed into the agility and attack stats, and I came through fine. Managing my companions was a little bit more of a daunting task, and I eventually realized that even on a normal playthrough, you needed to know how EVERY class played so that you could spec your companions accordingly. There’s a lot to keep up with and I don’t think the fact that I was treating it like Wizard102 helped. It took me until about Aquila to really have an idea of what I was doing.

As for Ship Things— coolest part of the game. I am REALLY impressed with how well it plays especially for the engine and when it was coded. The skyboxes are gorgeous, the fact you can run around on your boat and even get a little cabin was a pleasant surprise, and I liked the nods to Wizard’s spells with the ship combat attacks. I did play through the whole game with a partner and often rode with her, so this might not be an issue for others, but my nautical level was severely underleveled almost the entire game. I’m only on Sinbad part 1 now, but to my knowledge, I’m past the part where sailing is useful.

Now, as for purely story stuff…

This was Blind Mew’s game. I’ve heard a lot about him as a writer during my time on Wizblur, and I know he has pretty strong influence in Wizard now, but I wanted to see his writing “in his element”, so to speak.

…I really enjoyed it. I could tell that a lot of story beats were planned out in advance, with an idea of how and when exactly things would tie together. There was a thematic idea through the entire game and it stuck to that— the idea being of freedom, and choosing to seek redemption.

It was really interesting to hear this sort of idea of “redemption is an action an individual chooses to take— and it doesn’t always mean forgiveness or being allowed “back in”— it just means the person tries to do better.”

A lot of redemption arcs in the current day are very… uh… Catholic about it? You must Grovel and Suffer and Atone and only once you have Suffered and Killed All The Old Parts Of You can you be considered worthy. Pirate doesn’t do that. It kind of just says that at any point, someone can decide to turn around and do something different, and you should always give people the chance to TRY.

I know Valencia part two was rushed, but I think even then it was really good. Kane did something I really appreciated with was take the theme and add an addendum:

People can decide to turn around and do better at any point, and they deserve to be offered that chance, but some people will refuse to do better.

Kane SHOOTING HIS OWN HEART really tied a bow on the message for me. You could probably argue “well, could he really be blamed for that if he didn’t have the conscious to tell him it was the right thing to do to accept it?” But I really don’t think the whole nature of AI and how they think thing matters here.

The ending was great. I adored how all the companions sort of came to your side in the end and even explicitly said that they were your family. I’m not sure Wizard ever has a moment where an NPC says something that… close and caring to your PC.

Overall I enjoyed the chase for the map pieces, and chipping at the Armada’s elites was really well done. I wasn’t expecting them to treat the Marleybone war with so much gravity, but they did it about as well and as seriously as a kid’s game could. The finale with Rooke at the end was amazing, the atmosphere was really well done and Rooke died to my partner’s crab, which was just… peak 101 game comedic timing.

I also really loved the “GO GO GO AND GET OUT” way they structured Valencia part 1 and 2. I was genuinely tense and nervous in part 2, wondering if being Spiral Spain’s Attaché was even going work. Being so close to Kane and watching him get SCOLDED for daring to touch me was incredibly satisfying. I wish there was more time for Royal court shenanigans so that I could get to see Kane glaring at from across the room more, but I suppose that’s what fanfiction is for.

In terms of story execution and story execution purely, I’d give arc 1 an 8/10. Every beat was there when it needed to be and early actions affected the long term narrative, which was nice to see. With some Wizard worlds I do feel like they suffer from “this could have been an email” disease, but my time was less wasted in Pirate.

…Now, as for Sinbad…

I have unfortunately noticed the increase in insane difficulty, and an increase in glitches. Last night my partner and I tried to do the tower in Mooshu to find Sinbad, and we were in there for two hours, only to get teamwiped and find no dungeon recall. I understand Pirate was made to be harder than Wizards, but that is just straight up unfair for mainline content, I’m sorry. As well, a promotion quest my partner did had enemies that were almost level eighty. If the level cap is seventy, how in the WORLD is that fair?

It didn’t bother me so much initially, but now in the endgame it really does— how much is locked behind a timer. Oh, you want to level your pet? You have to constantly be starting timers for their training, and logging in regularly to stop their training and start a new one even if you aren’t playing. If your companions get injured they’re unusable until they’ve recovered, which is mostly fine in the early levels, until they need ten hours to recover at level seventy. If you’ve been trying to fight something for ages, and you keep dying, all your companions will be bedridden and you just— can’t play anymore. It reminds me of those really formulaic mobile games where everything is on a timer and progress is so, so slow that you maybe get five minutes to do things a day. Sinbad feels impossible right now because I’ve pretty much run out of ways to improve or maximize a stat to make it easier. There’s no team up either— so am I just supposed to hope I can figure out how to cheese a rigged combat system?

I am still, overall, interested in Pirate101. I want to support the game and allow it to come back to life like the developers have been trying to do. I am interested in what’s next for the story and how they’re going to expand or do something differently from the Armada. I can understand reused assets from Wizard, I can understand a few glitches or bugs, but if I can’t keep up with the gameplay, none of that matters.

It’s possible I just suck at the game. I came for the story and for the most part, I did get to experience that. It was really impressive to see how well it stood up against Wizard— it didn't feel like an aside or lesser, it had its own identity and part of the Spiral.

I’m not sure how to end this review other than… like, I can’t tell KI how to make their games, but please have a little bit of mercy. Wizard is fairly forgiving and I understand wanting to make a harder game, but there’s hard and there’s challenging. Pirate101 is not challenging me, it’s hitting me with a brick inside of a sock. I think it really needs some balancing help.

Adoring the amount of badass coats to pick from, though.

[max-nexus]

KGTAC Analysis Pages 2229-2425

First Analysis Previous Analysis Sburb Dog Analysis Next Analysis Hell yes! KGTAC Act 2: Home-Skillet is back baby! Here is my analysis, not too much lore wise outside of me noticing some things i missed before but I'm just glad it's back!

KGTAC PAGE 2229

2229: Well this is new! The author seems to be distancing themselves from Homestuck even more. The old house in the Beta looked like Rose house in it's vibes with a dash of John's in it's exterior

HOME-SKILLET BETA PAGE 193

KGTAC PAGE 2230

2230: Ana's house didn't have an outer area like this at all. It sorta looks like she lives in some sort of city here. Although this background looks so goddamn weird, It's like the sidewalk juts upward constantly here. 2235: Ooh, interesting. The next page animation has direct parallels!

KGTAC PAGE 2236

2236: In the Beta it was "Ana: Play a jazzy saxophone refrain." The music here is actually the same as before, it's generally the same as before at the start, just a different environment. The nanny seemingly walked into another house? Then we start seeing a bigger difference. A Showtime remix starts playing as we see FRED TRY EATING HIS GREENS LMAO. This is what we in the business call A REALLY COOL ANIMATION. i kinda wish it was actually playable but that would've been a lot more work. THEN FRED STARTS DANCING. Goddamn we can just make a full Fred Wilmore sprite sheet now, can we. That was an amazing animation. well worth the wait! Now on the theory crafting side of things. The only thing that come to mind is that Fred was expecting EDMOND to be there to eat his greens. Despite as it says in Page 2118 of the holy text "Unfortunately he ran away when you were young. He was a very good dog, though" Though to be fair, we don't know what Fred considers "young". Fred might be one of those kids who considers himself from 2 years ago "young". Another weird thing is that the STRIFE text is in the opposite direction when compared to homestuck... No look! HOMESTUCK STRIFE

KGTAC STRIFE (extracted)

2237: I wonder what HIP stands for? This clearly will be incredibly important in ACT 2 DAY 5 ROLL 2 INTERMISSION 3 2244: What's with the red eye? I guess it's just to represent that he's utterly manic right now. 2245: Beautiful animation! This also gives us a better look into the living room here which is nice for anyone looking to make a recreation. (I was actually trying to make one a while back...) 2246: We see a big package (probably his computer) there. It has a watery logo. Kinda looks like a surfboard on a wave? 2247: There's Photochat! 2248: Oh that's a different box, also it's published/made by SKYACOM. Interesting... 2252: Ok so we know that logo belongs to a company called GREENROOM now (Like, is this a reference to Doc Scratch? His room was green, i guess it could also be the felt manor back in Homestuck's Act 3 Intermission. Could also be nothing.), also we now see the desktop! Interesting it says INDEX for the home button, we also now have the EXACT TIME which is 5:30 PM, this will be useful for setting up a timeline! (Not that I'd really bother doing that right now.)

KGTAC PAGE 2253

Homestuck Page 6

2253: Wait what the hell! Random Act 1 Cursor Appearance? This sorta popped up in Act 1 of Homestuck due to the fact that Homestuck was originally designed to be made entirely in flash. It's interesting that it's showing up here. Maybe it means something, maybe Cole didn't want to animate Fred grabbing Photochat then putting it into the pc. 2255: Hm he's been to a library, maybe there is some credence to him being of the mind aspect (/j) 2264: Ah! I can't believe Cole was so bold to do it so early to kill off such a major character so early, to the forgetful ones in the audience back in my analysis of the FLOPPY DECK (my beloved) i talked about the fact there are only 3 points on the floppy deck, when the BETA Floppy deck had 4 points. I made a crackpot theory that one of the character's would die in Home-Skillet as a big event early on in the story. And well, here we have it folks! Fred is dead, dead dead, deadity dead dead, dead. What a bold move. his death moved me to tears. KGTAC RELEASE

2265: Sweet! Just putting this to note but the pages for this day's of updates (2/3/24) weren't released all at once, we had to wait like an hour when Photochat was downloading. The images were actually uploaded before this and i probably saw them before most because i decided to check because i noticed some pages were being released 1 at a time. Just putting this for historical reasons for anyone reading this in the far future in the [S] END OF ACT 2 flash when Nan unites everyone for the big fight against LORD HUSSIE (/j, man I'm including a lot of jokes in this one) because this small detail would probably be forgotten a few years from now. Heck, I'd probably forget it. 2276: LMAO 2279: Farty Gas, an excellent choice of a name good sir (Lol) 2285: Holy heck, Fred says frick! Also i love the fact he wrote this as if it were a letter, even ending it with a "Take Care" Zimodo in the comment section summarized it best. MEME

SIDENOTE 1: I just noticed… For some reason there's barely any "NAME: DO STUFF" in the ENTIRETY of Home-Skillet. Its mainly just DO STUFF, like seriously. it's not set up like a standard Homestuck command at all. Even KGTAC ACT 1 + INTERMISSION did that when a character was doing stuff. It wouldn't even be forced. Like in pg 2236 it could've been "[S] Ana: Play the sax in triumph." but it's just not? Like before the HIATUS, there was like 1 use, now its like half-n-half and I'm not sure if this is intentional or accidental. Even worse, we started seeing a lot of the standard Homestuck command structure starting February, not before... so even after the Hiatus the command structure didn't include names. Is it because Ana and Fred are talking to each other to prevent confusion or is there some deeper reason... PRE HIATUS

FEBRUARY FOR SOME REASON

2295: Death theory… (Specifically, DC can't enter into his session as his FLOPPY DECK, seemingly died in a valiant battle against time. This is incredibly bad for when you're playing the game that kills you when you don't play it. Now of course this is assuming that HomeSkillet is operating under the idea that the meteors are like destined to hit you and not that the games summon the meteors (I personally don't understand why people think that, was that ever confirmed or is that just popular fanon) But overall, this likely doesn't bode well for DC) 2303: ARG WARNING, DEAR GOD I HAVE TO SOLVE A MYSTERY NOW THESE ARE IMAGES… or not It looks like BrainFuck so uh… Yeah i don't think it means anything big (aka i don't know how i'd even transcribe the text into a working program! Also thinking about it, this might be the item duplication thing i joked about earlier, y'know with the fact that if items are just code on a floppy disc, whats preventing people from copying that floppy. Or in this case putting something on the floppy disc to get an item. Unknown: Crosshair activated towards sector 121 09

newone: Crosshair activated towards sector head_port 1 fuck

(Might actually be helga port 1?) We can guess that these are the coordinates for the meteors, for obvious reasons. And somehow P(ee)P(ee) did something to affect these coordinates. Very interesting. 2311: Light aspect /j 2326: Yep, it's green. Took you awhile farty-gas. It took you page 28 of the BETA to do that. 2332: Reference to Poltergeist 1982, Just noting this because i looked it up. 2335: Welp, that's confirmation. Edmond is dead, Grandma just sorta hid the fact because he probably was 5 at the time. 2359: YES! NO SYLLADEX GAMING! I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE A SBURBVENTURE WHERE A CHARACTER DOESN'T HAVE A SYLLADEX. (To the point I've always imagined making a character for one that doesn't have one, or has some notable issue preventing them from using it fully.) 2390: Music is the same, the art is different when compared to the BETA version KGTAC ACT 2 2390

Home-Skillet BETA PAGE 159

2410: If you don't want to waste time by leaving things behind, try carrying them Doofus. Too big? That's what the FLOPPY DECK is for Farty Gas. 2411: Interestingly enough, the image for the timer (381.gif) is in the wrong order if we'd line up these images as if they come in 1 after the other. As if it was meant to be put in a different order. Presumably after page 2404 (Because that's 380.gif) SIDENOTE 2: there is a unused image here! I guess to improve the pacing this got cut out last minute. 376.GIF

2420: I'm just going to show my comment here

2425: Fun fact, i saw this image like 20 seconds before the page went up, because ever since the loading screen, i've been checking for that sort of stuff. It looks like we are about to hit an [S] Page. SIDENOTE 3: The Saxophone was always there lmao, i can't believe i missed it, it was even referenced in the text of 2186. I guess you miss stuff when you end up analyzing nearly 100 pages worth of content while trying to balance 6 college classes at the same time.

SIDENOTE 4: These have all been pretty good panels so far, I love all the work that's been put into them, with all these details, especially early on when Cole went and animated the runs there.

So that's the end of the analysis, I'd like to thank everyone here, I should do a re-reading of Home-Skillet to see what I've forgotten. I hope you enjoy and lets see what comes next! Sorry that it took so long, i wasn't exactly putting in tons of work to get this out soon. There's no rush. Y'know.

Nope, In my usual fashion, Digging up one thing digs up another. And I've discovered CONSTUCK. An April fools joke made in 2022 that i missed which is a "KGTAC RELEASE" with Act 1 just being the "Beta" https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=1490 1: Ah yes, Karkat 2: A general thing i've noticed is that it looks like each panel was drawn by a different person. 9: What an amazing reboot. KGTAC DISCORD GOES TO A CONVENTION PAGE 52

CONSTUCK PAGE 12

12: Holy **** Lois! KGTAC Server goes to a convention? Honestly, i had to dig a bit to figure out this is commentary on it as i never read this. The turnaround here is insane tbh looking into it, March 25th the public apology comes out, March 29th the commentary on it on it comes out as an April fools joke. Mildly impressed. Though i can't help but feel bad for the people behind KGTAC Server goes to a convention here being referenced like this. Personally speaking I'd keel over and die here, though to be fair it just takes me remembering something stupid i did a decade ago to make that happen. 13:Lmao "astrosized into out" 28: Now for the reason why I'm looking at this. FRED WILMORE STRIKES AGAIN 30: Helga? I can't remember who that is… also Nan's here and her dialog implies she's writing Home-Skillet. Maybe lore important, maybe the author is just speaking through Nan as some extra commentary on KGTAC Discord goes to a convention. 31: Nan is a Muse of Time? Neat! 32: And now for the main reason im here… TO BE CONTINUED… This if it's not just a silly April fools joke draws a direct connection between ACT 1 and ACT 2 of KGTAC. It's not much to go off of due to it's dubious canonicity but we already know MSPFA exists in the actual comic itself thanks to mspa reader to cite a more recent example and also NAN went on MSPFA in the flash [S] It was the ideas it inspired (and also uh, Act 1 takes place in what could be considered Earth, modern day. So MSPFA existing makes sense) Thanks to these facts it means that it's not impossible this is a sign of things to come, that perhaps we see how ACT 2: Home-Skillet fits into ACT 1: Karkat goes to a Convention

And now this is the end.

Also while looking i found some unlisted pages! read em if ya want! https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=1057 https://mspfa.com/?s=27317&p=822

Now this is REALLY the end, No PSYCHE X3 Combo's here….

See! it's just the end. Thanks for reading my analysis, Here's to the next one. I'm also less busy as of late so i should be able to get these out more frequently than when KGTAC took a break before, so i don't think i have to change the general format of this series. 1 MONTH LATER....

Me in 3/17/24 Land here. Man this took a while, as i said before, i wasn't making this a high priority because I'm working on a MSPFA called CHAINED + 4 college classes gives me time only if i make time for it. But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this analysis, if you noticed something i didn't, have any questions, or your own theories. I'd like to here em, my asks are open!