#for the entire time i've played this game on main my main team has been some variation of the og national

[lucy90712]

Can you write a story about verstappen sister who also races at Red Bull and is dating joao

"Max do I have to go no one ever notices me there anyway" I whined 

"Yes you do you're part of the main team now if you don't go you and I will get in trouble" max said 

"Fine but don't expect me to enjoy any of it" I said 

"If it makes you feel any better it's not just the usual people it's all red bull sponsored athletes from across Europe that could make it so there will be new people there" Max said 

"Great more people to ignore me while I stand next to you" I said

"Just go and get ready if you don't have a good time we can go and get ice cream after" Max offered 

"You should've led with that let's do this" I laughed 

I went and got myself ready which wasn't too difficult because a brand had already sent me a dress to wear to this event as there will be lots of media there taking pictures. Apart from the dress I had to do my hair and makeup but that wasn't too difficult as I've got quite good at one look which I use every time I have to go to a fancy event. It took me around 20 minutes to get ready which is just in time for the car taking me and Max to the event to arrive. The driver spent the entire time talking to Max and completely ignoring me like everyone does at these events. It used to annoy me but now I've just got used to it, in fact I quite enjoy being free to walk around without anyone caring who I am. Some people recognise me as Max's sister and strike up a conversation for a few minutes but it's only ever about him and not my own racing career. 

We arrived and the driver opened the door for Max while I had to open my own door which is just typical. I was told I'd have to do a few interviews as I entered the event but everyone wanted to talk to Max instead so I just walked straight in and went to a quiet corner where I can sit by myself until Max tells me we can finally leave. There was a lot of people here most of which I didn't recognise but a few I did, there was some MotoGP riders who I've spoken to before and some footballers who I've never talked to as I have a feeling they wouldn't care enough to talk to me. 

Everyone talked to each other while I just watched from a table in the furthest corner. Max did come over for a minute and say hi but he was quickly dragged into a conversation with someone else and left me alone again. That was until I noticed someone walking towards me I recognised him slightly but I couldn't place from where. He came over and introduced himself as Joao Felix which is when I worked out where I knew him. He's a football player for Barcelona and I recognised him because Max has made me watch a few games with him. 

We spent pretty much the rest of the event talking we both talked about our struggles but also just life in general. It was so nice to have someone to talk to for the night and he was so lovely he didn't treat me differently because I was a women or because I was Max's sister he just seemed to want to get to know me. No one bothered us for the rest of the night until the event was coming to an end and Max came over to see if I wanted to get a taxi back with him. Joao offered to drive me home so I took him up on his offer as I wanted to spend more time with him. He dropped me home and we exchanged phone numbers with the promise that we would see each other again. 

~~~~~~~~~~

8 months later 

Since that red bull event things have changed a lot, that week Joao asked me on a date and within a month of knowing each other we were dating. We have now been together for 7 months and we've told a few friends but I haven't told Max. Max is very overprotective as I'm his younger sister and he doesn't want anyone to hurt me which is why he has told me never to date another athlete as he says it will only end badly. That's one of the reasons I'm scared to tell him about me and Joao another reason is that he likes to watch Barcelona play and he likes Joao as a player and I don't want him to be mad that I'm dating a player he likes. Joao has been very understanding of my apprehension over telling Max about us in fact I think he's a bit scared about his reaction too but not telling Max does mean we have to sneak around which is getting increasingly harder. 

So far this season Joao hasn't been able to make any of the races as we have been all over the world but finally we are back in Europe and Joao is coming to watch the race. He arrived late Friday and I snuck him into my hotel room so we could spend the night together. He watched all of the track action from yesterday from the back of the red bull garage which luckily no one thought anything of seeing as he's sponsored by red bull too. Any time we had a few seconds alone he had his arms around my waist and his lips on mine but we had to be super careful to hide from the media as well as Max. Last night we had dinner in my hotel room and watched a movie together, which has become our version of a date night as we are always trying to avoid going out so we aren't seen together but it was fun I loved having him there with me as I've missed him a lot over the last few months. 

Today is race day so I had to get up really early to get to the track so I left Joao asleep but I left him a note and text him to tell him to let me know when he gets to the track. Usually I'm a bit nervous on race day as it's always the climax of the weekend but this week I'm extra nervous as today is my first time starting on pole position. I know the team expect me to win and I didn't want to let them down but I'm just not as good as Max and he's starting next to me in second, I know at some point he's going to overtake me and he won't take any mercy on me that's for sure. One thing Max has done is teach me how to deal with nerves but today none of the techniques he gave me seem to be working my heart rate is still higher than it usually is and my hands are shaking like crazy. 

I've been so distracted preparing for the race and trying to calm myself down I didn't look at my phone at all and completely forgot that I left Joao at the hotel that was until we was stood in front of me in my drivers room. He looked worried which only made me feel worse as I must've scared him when I didn't answer his texts or calls. He came and sat next to me pulling me into his lap which instantly made me relax a little bit. 

"Are you ok my love?" He asked 

"I'm just a bit nervous I'm sorry I didn't answer my phone I've been completely in my own world" I apologised 

"You don't need to be sorry I'm just glad I'm with you now because I can tell you are more than a bit nervous" he said 

"Ok I'm really nervous the team expect me to win but I don't think I can beat Max he's just too good and he knows all my weaknesses" I said 

"You've got to believe in yourself I know you can do this and so do the team they expect you to win because they know you can you know you share some of Max's DNA so you can go out there and perform just as well as he does it's in your blood" Joao reassured me 

"You really think so" I questioned 

"Of course I do I've watched you race this season and in the other categories you are great you just need to believe you can do it" he said 

"You're right I just need to believe in myself" I said 

"That's it now get yourself ready and psyche yourself up you got this" he said 

Joao stayed with me for as long as he could but I had to go to the grid before I knew it so I left him with a kiss before running off to get in my car. Getting my car to the grid I looked around the track thinking about where I need to be quicker and where I might have to defend more but it all seemed possible. If you'd have asked me earlier I would've told you there's no way I could win but now I think I can do it I've been quick all weekend quicker than Max so why should I resign myself to second behind him. 

The race was quite stressful it wasn't one of the most exciting races but I was stressed. I was so focused on getting a good start then staying out in front which wasn't easy as Max kept trying but I held on. Pit stops were also stressful as it had to go perfectly to give me the best chance of winning and sometimes my crew make some mistakes but today they were amazing and we had the best stops we've had all year. At one point Max did get in front of me for a while but I kept within drs range of him and eventually his tyres started to wear and I was able to get back in front. Once I was in front Max dropped back and then it was just about managing until the end which I did until I crossed the line for the final time. 

All of the emotions finally hit me as I saw the checkered flag I did it I finally won my first race. I proved to myself and others that I'm a good driver who is capable of competing with Max. My engineer was congratulating me over the radio but I couldn't get any words out to say back as I was just so overwhelmed with emotions. Driven the car into parc ferme and getting to celebrate with the team was so fun and Max was right there to congratulate me too but the one person I really wanted to see wasn't there but I knew he is waiting for me back in the garage. 

As I won I had a lot more interviews to do but eventually I made it back to my drivers room where I only got to sit down for about 2 seconds before Joao came in with a big smile on his face. I got up and hugged him tightly while he leant down to give me a kiss. We shared a few more kissed until I saw the door to my drivers room open widely and someone shout. I recognised the voice straight away and knew I was in big trouble. 

“What the fuck” Max yelled 

“I can explain Max” I started to say 

“No why are you kissing some footballer in your drivers room I thought I warned you about dating other athletes” Max scolded me 

“He’s not just some footballer you know that you said you liked him plus we aren’t just kissing he’s my boyfriend” I yelled back 

“That’s worse what are you thinking” Max raged 

“If I can just step in here hi Max I’m Joao I know this is a bit of a surprise and I’m sure we all wished it didn’t happen this way but it’s too late now y/n and I have been together for about 7 months now and I can promise you that I really like her and the last thing I want is to hurt her” Joao interjected 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Max asked calming down a bit

“Because I was scared about how you’d react I know what you’ve told me and believe me it’s stuck with me but I really do like Joao maybe even love him and I can’t ignore that just to protect myself” I said 

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have yelled and I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t tell me I know the advice I’ve given you but as long as you are happy that’s all they really matters but Joao if you even so much as make her cry know that I won’t hesitate to let you know how you’ve made her feel” Max said 

“I get it but I won’t be doing that” Joao replied 

“Maybe later tonight we can all go to dinner to celebrate y/n’s win and get to know each other” Max suggested 

“That sounds great we’ll be there” I said 

With that Max left us alone again and I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. As much as that was tense for a while it felt good to finally tell Max about my relationship and to know he’s willing to get to know Joao makes me even happier. 

“So you think you love me eh” Joao laughed 

“I don’t just think I know but couldn’t say that in front of Max” I said 

“Well I love you too my winner” he said 

[paper-starz]

WELCOME HOME THEORIES AND ANALYSIS! FRIDAY THE 13th EDITION!

HUH?? A surprise Welcome Home Update???

WITH LORE AND SECRETS?!?!?!

Ohohohoho! You know yours truly loves lore! And oh boy... Theres a lot to unpack here.... So buckle your seatbelts folks! I might've discovered something BIG

WARNING! THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE HALLOWEEN UPDATE! OH AND THIS IS GONNA BE VERY VERY LONG!

Ok, first things first, THE THEORY

I might've figured out who the main antagonist could be, and it's not Wally or Home. In fact, it has been staring at us the entire time, we've just never realized it.

I think the main villain of Welcome Home could be the spooky swirly void living inside of Home.

"WHAT?!?! This early on in story??" I hear you say! "This couldn't be possible!"

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE DEAR VIEWER! And truth be told, there could be multiple antagonists in Welcome Home, but all evidence points to this swirly guy being the source of everything wrong thats happening. Also, from now on, I'll be calling it the Entity. (Spooky swirly man sounds so silly!)

EVIDENCE 1: It makes people sick.

It seems like the Entity emits some kind of black "ink" that makes people sick once you touch it. It also seems like the WHRT knows about this too! Going into great lengths to order everyone to wear gloves.

Writing on sticky note atop vinyl glove box reads: Put on gloves before handling ANY art. Call me if we run out!

Not to mention that think ink also seems to effect anyone psychologically, making them want to discover more about Welcome Home, even if it harms their own health.

In the ABOUT US page:

When I unwrapped the first letter, I felt it. I heard it. Open. Open. Open. I want it out. I’m going to get it out.

In the STAFF ONLY page:

Everything is so disgusting to touch. Sometimes the mail doesn't come for weeks. I want to rip into everything I have. My head feels so muddled too. Ever since I opened the envelope.

I keep getting phone calls, now. Or at least, I assume that's what's happening. I keep hearing it ringing. All day, sometimes. I check my phone and there's no new messages. I thought maybe some of the site staff were pranking me, but I tore up the workspace and couldn't find another phone that might be ringing. All that was there were the toys for the exhibit, and obviously those couldn't be ringing. But I kept hearing it anyway. The phone ringing and ringing... ...I keep digging and digging. I've poured over every recovery the WHRP has given me access to, every inch of their website, and the things I find make less and less sense. If I didn't know better I'd say everyone was coming together to pull an elaborate prank on me. I can still hear the phone ringing now. I don't know how to answer the phone. I need to answer the phone.

The NEWS PAGE also mentions ringing! (This could be the same person who has been affected by the ringing)

So many guest signatures… So many of them are trying to communicate. What are you telling me for? Do you think I can answer? What are you trying to do to me? I’m closing that guest book, I’m not playing this game anymore. The ringing is enough.

And even affecting them physically as well!

NEWS PAGE

What is it, I hear you pleading! Clawing at your screens just as we have! Coughing, headaches, nausea- I know. I know. It will take a lot of cleaning, preparation, and polishing on our part, but it is a worthwhile labor of love.

Coughing, headaches, nausea.... The Restoration Team is growing sick, yet they are completely obsessed with restoring more evidence for Welcome Home.

They even know that they are growing sick, they wear gloves, they clean, they prepare, they polish the artwork over and over and warn anyone NOT to touch the ink, but it's not enough. They need to restore Welcome Home, even at the cost of their own health.

Heck, the entire page (and studio) is literally dowsed with black ink!

And it seems to be growing too...

Theres more stuff on the walls I keep hearing phones ring.

"More stuff" as if he's surprised, as if there were less ink on the walls than before. And he keeps hearing phones ringing... Its growing...

And it made its way into the real world....

EVIDENCE 2: SALLY'S HORROR STORY!

Ah yes! Some evidence from the Halloween Update! This time, from Sally Starlet’s Macabre Menagerie of Monstrous Mischief Making! Specifically, I want to analyze the "noticeable gap" in the audio, the only part where the WHRT did NOT transcript. (This was written by yours truly btw!)

SALLY: What?! No, no, and no! …It is because this town is rumored to have visitors at night… Something from deep within the forest, far beyond the hills and mountains… No one knows what it wants or where it’s going, just that it is persistent… Just that it arrives here. So many stories have risen about their origins… But I know what it is searching for. It is looking for neighbors who have stayed past the daytime, to gobble them up whole. That is why so few live here. It moved through the streets at night, but it doesn't break into homes. However, on rare instances, it will find itself with an appetite left…. unsatisfied by its aimless wandering. Even the occasional unfortunate insect that has crossed its path is not enough… Those who have lived through the night say it isn't quiet about it either. They always say you can hear when it gets closer to you. Do you know what sound it makes? I hear it. Every. Night. You can hear it too, if you listen. Especially if you wait next to your window. First, theres rustling in the bushes. Then, A scratching on the pavement and the walls as it crawls up. Finally, if you're quiet, you can hear its guttural sound…

Now, I know what you're asking. Why even bring up this little story at all? What does this story have to do with the Entity?

Context, my dear viewer. If you listen closely, the audio is too clear. No static, no nothing. This segment is also the only part where it didn't get transcripted because it was "inaudible". Which is strange, because you and me and you and that guy and me can hear it just fine! And THAT is why it got me theory senses tingling.

Plus, the story is about a monster too! Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

So let's analyze!

"…It is because this town is rumored to have visitors at night… Something from deep within the forest, far beyond the hills and mountains… No one knows what it wants or where it’s going, just that it is persistent… Just that it arrives here."

This could be talking about the Entity. We don't know what exactly the Entity wants, just that it looks like it's determined to reach a goal that we don't know much about.

"It is looking for neighbors who have stayed past the daytime, to gobble them up whole. That is why so few live here."

It feels like this is talking about the portal-like properties the Entity has. "Gobbling" up neighbors whole and sending them to another dimension, ours.

Sally also states "That is why so few live here", which makes me question how many neighbors used to live here before. Perhaps Julie's siblings, Howdy's family, Barnaby's mom? Were they sent to another dimension? Where are they now????

Not only that, but Sally makes it clear that it goes after neighbors at nighttime. And what time does Welcome Home usually update? 7 PM (*Now, this time could be different because of timezones, but the updates usually happen during the night)

"It moved through the streets at night, but it doesn't break into homes. However, on rare instances, it will find itself with an appetite left…. unsatisfied by its aimless wandering..."

"First, theres rustling in the bushes. Then, A scratching on the pavement and the walls as it crawls up. Finally, if you're quiet, you can hear its guttural sound…"

I think Sally is giving us an EXACT description on how the Entity managed to break into Home.

1st, theres rustling in the bushes. Home does have bushes surrounding him.

Then, a scratching on the pavement and walls as it crawls up. The Entity could've broken into Home by either climbing through the window or through the roof.

Finally, a guttural sound. Now... where did I hear a guttural sound in Welcome Home before.... Oh yeah! Wally. <- Click this handy-dandy clip and you can hear something quite monstrous right below Wally's voice!

"Wait a minute.... Did you say Wally has a guttural voice???"

I did, dear reader. I did.... Which brings me to my next point:

EVIDENCE 3: POSSESSION AND PUPPETEERING!

Throughout our inspection of the Welcome Home website, we've seen countless times of Wally becoming more and more distressed as each update comes out.

But we've also seen a lot of inconsistencies regarding our lil' Darling! In fact, I even compiled these into a theory in which there could be 2 people hacking into the website!

And while that I still do believe there are more than 2 people hacking into the website... I don't think the Question Answerer is the one doodling. He's still hacking onto the website, but unlike Wally, he writes it out.

The last piece of evidence just proves its the same guy writing this! The Question Answerer!

I want to rip into everything I have. My head feels so muddled too. Ever since I opened the envelope. (see above)

Ok but if the Question Answerer isn't the other guy doodling... then who is making all of the inconsistent doodles??

Why, the ENTITY!

Not only are the doodles inconsistent, but even the sound of Wally's voice sound... quite off if you compare enough audios.

For example! Compare the interview audio with the newest Happy Haunting audio, do you notice anything peculiar about Wally's voice? Especially in the Happy Haunting audio? (If you have trouble finding it, compare these few timestamps below)

4:08

4:51

8:45

13:39-15:29

It sounds... off. Robotic even! It's slow, and the articulation is way different from the interview audio. In the interview audio, you can hear how happy Wally sounds! Even in this audio (and this one too), you can hear Wally growing increasingly frustrated. Yes, its still monotone, but you could hear emotion!

But the Happy Haunting audio, it's neutral. Yes, it IS monotone, but it feels like someone doing an impersonation of Wally rather than Wally actually speaking himself. In fact, the audio reminds me of the phone audio right here. It has the same pauses and neutral tone, save for the very audible growl right underneath Wally's voice.

But speaking of the phone audio.... Did you catch that?

...Do you know who I am? [The heart beat and ambience resume.] [Gasp.] Oh no. Well that’s not neighborly at all. We’ve never met before. But don’t worry. Even though you and I haven’t spoken before, I’ve seen you... Every time you have looked into my eyes. I want to know… What did you see? [Silence.] I hope you saw a friend, but I’m not sure you saw a name... Stand still. Let’s start over. Ring ring ring. Click. Hi, I’m Wally. I’m so happy to finally meet you, I think you’re the absolute most.

...That's strange, isn't it? We definitely HAVE met Wally, not formally, but we do know about him (this fandom is proof of that!) So how come Wally is saying that we haven't?

Especially when in another audio, he says that we DO 'know him'.

…Why won’t you answer me, neighbor. Why can’t I hear you. You know me. You do. Please open. Let me in.

Contradictory, isn't it? We can't both know Wally and NOT know Wally at the same time. That's impossible....

Unless the phone audio Wally isn't our Wally... its the Entity.

Technically, we DON'T know about the Entity. It's not a character in Welcome Home and the things that we do know about it are just mere theories and speculations. It is our 'first' formal meeting with it.

Then why did it introduce itself as Wally? WELL BECAUSE ITS POSSESSING HIM! It's trying to convince us that it is Wally, using his signature catchphrase and even saying 'I hope you saw a friend'. Besides, if you were a weird portal monster, I doubt you would introduce yourself as one if you wanted to trick someone.

And if this possession theory does turn out to be true, it does explain the major inconsistencies happening in the website! Such as the doodles!

The Hearts!

THE HANDWRITING

THATS NOT WALLY'S HANDWRITING! He writes in CAPITAL LETTERS and in RED (not all lowercase and in blue!).

WALLY CAN'T DRAW HEARTS SO WHO'S DRAWING EM???

AND BOTH OF THOSE BARNABY DRAWINGS SURE DO LOOK INCREDIBLY DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. ALMOST AS IF SOMEONE WITH LITTLE DRAWING EXPERIENCE DID IT.

But if you still need a bit more proof to convince ya, here's some more!

W a L L y: You won't write back Wally: You're looking for me. Silly. Silly.

I think W a L L y is our Wally! He's getting desperate, but he knows that we won't be able to write back. Wally on the other hand is the Entity, it knows that we are looking for the main big bad antagonist, and it knows. It even mocks us.

And I think we've seen evidence of these possessions before. Look at none other than the bug audios!

In every single one of these bug audios, we are in the perspective of Wally himself. But in these bug audios, Wally doesn't say anything at all. Rather, he sits unmoving, listening into the conversation whether he has been invited there or not!

In this bug audio, Wally has been listening in on Sally and Howdy's conversation the entire time!

But thats not all! All of these bug audios are connected according to the conversation between Barnaby and Home! Which means that all of these bug audios are happening on the same day at a very short period of time, which is concerning on just how frequent Wally appears to be disassociating. Or if that's even Wally at all!

If that is the Entity controlling Wally, it feels like he's observing them, studying them. Perhaps that's why the audios always cut out whenever a neighbor says Wally's name, it snaps him out of that trance and reminds him that he is in fact the real Wally!

Which brings us to our latest bug audio (and by far the most worrying one), the Candy Spider! The Halloween Bug?? Idk it's this one <-

We've just gotten proof of Wally munching on an apple. This would've been fine and dandy in any other situation, but remember viewer! Context matters! Especially if we put into consideration that that is not Wally.

BARNABY: ‘Ey, how’s my little devil doin’ over ‘ere? You guardin’ my apple for me, pal? [There is a brief pause. What is he doing.] BARNABY: Oh— heh, I guess ya didn’t do a very good job at it. [Barnaby calls out to the room] Hey! Who took a bite outta my apple? I think I see some fang marks, Frank!

Yeah that SURE is definitely not worrying. Nope, none whatsoever!

Oh boy... I think that's everything. Well, not everything everything. I still don't think the Entity is the only bad guy, just the main one! The Playfellow Workshop is very suspicious, and while I do believe Wally and Home are most likely victims of everything that is going on, I don't think I should say that they are quite innocent yet.

In the banner, they are the only two NOT separated by hearts! It seems to me that they are working together to give out more evidence to the WHRT.

And Marlo... another company that is VERY suspicious. What did their logo look like again?

A house logo with an eye in the middle.... Why does that look so familiar?

AH.

Well that's clearly not suspicious!

[asharkapologist]

mini rant about Julia Brine's wasted potential

hi. I am back with even more Ad Astra stuff, this time with something to complain about. I'm hardly the first person to talk about this, but it's something that's bothered me ever since I played The Conspiracy. Spoilers under the cut.

Julia Brine is so underdeveloped and underused compared to her fellow Ad Astrans -- she's literally the only one of them who doesn't get a quote on the wiki page -- and Pretty Simple did not always use her screen time well. I don't hate Julia or anything, but she ranks as my second least favorite of the main five Ad Astrans (we don't talk about the junior Ad Astrans), not because I don't like her but because there's so little to work with. Note that this isn't a character analysis of her or anything, just complaining about how she was written.

She is introduced SO late in the game, for one. We literally see Louis in the first case in the entire game on video, are properly introduced to him in the second district and he pops in and out a few times throughout the districts, are introduced to Bateman in the second district even if he goes away for a while, are introduced to Rozetta in the first case of the third district and she is extremely important to the rest of the game, and are introduced to Warren halfway through the game, and although Warren doesn't have as much of a presence as the other three initially, he does a lot in Newmark. But Julia isn't introduced until the 8th district, and she barely does anything in Newmark compared to the other three. I feel like they definitely could have woven her into the game earlier somehow. Maybe her company has some shareholders in the Financial Center, or she's invited to some events in Maple Heights or something. I don't know, they surely could have done something to make her relevant before the third to last district!

Speaking of which, her story is so rushed in Spring Fields. That district was juggling Mia's story, the Fornax plot, and Bateman's reintroduction. I think that Mia's story was handled pretty well, but the same cannot be said for Julia. Her plot was chilling-- burn the fields, then distribute corn she'd been growing laced with drugs to brainwash and mind control the population through their food. But it's also over by the halfway point of the district and she's unceremoniously dumped in prison and swapped for Bateman, who the team focused on. I feel like the Fornax plot should have been the entire district, with Mia's story being in some other district or somehow tied to Julia's. You can release Bateman from prison, sure, but have him and Julia's stories combine somehow, so it doesn't seem like you're just abruptly ending one Ad Astra story thread and swapping it for another.

And finally, Newmark, the biggest bit of wasted potential. I've heard people say that Julia should have survived the blast and been a suspect in Blaze of Glory instead of Joe, but I think if they did that, then Joe would be pretty underdeveloped, since he also appeared sparingly up until that point, plus they were kinda setting up something with him starting in Reap What You Sow, and I feel like him surviving the neohumans initially and being in Blaze of Glory makes sense logically with the way his character arc was going in Newmark and wouldn't have made sense if Julia was there instead. Either way, lose-lose situation, I guess. She kidnapped Jake and Carter, yes, but Ad Astra is more of a felt, not seen, presence at the start of Newmark. They're mostly running and hiding then (while still managing to hurt and traumatize people in the process because that's what they do best sorrynotsorry). But the fact that. The ONLY thing that Pretty Simple could figure out to write for Julia in Reap What You Sow. Is having her be in love with Christian "I fantasize about torturing women and brutally murdered a woman for rejecting me and enjoyed it" Bateman is WILD. WHAT?! Joe and Rozetta both were vital to the plot of that case, but Julia? She did nothing! The only thing she did was talk about how she was in love with Bateman but he insulted her! How on EARTH is that a good use of her limited (because you don't talk to her in the AI) screen time?! Yes, I know that unfortunately, some women do fall in love with murderers. But like.... seriously??? Pretty Simple couldn't think of another way she could have had strife with Bateman?? That's it??? Of all the characters she could be in love with.... him?? Meera is cursing her out somewhere.

And then of course, she agrees to fight with Joe and then later with Rozetta against the neohumans. Joe initially proposes the idea, saying Julia was already on his side regarding the idea, and you have to work to find and convince Rozetta to do so, once again pushing Julia aside in favor of Warren and Rozetta being developed. It's nice that she agreed with Warren to fight against the neohumans, but that agreement happened completely off-screen, with no conversation with her one-on-one. And then she dies in an explosion unceremoniously. The end.

It's unfortunate. They really could have done a lot with her, but just....they kept pushing her aside in favor of other members of Ad Astra throughout the game and did not always use her screen time wisely. She could have done a lot more and been a lot better.

Thanks for reading!

[kradeelav]

status update ~

thought i'd write a summary of what I've been up to, and what's next art-wise! honestly, I'm finding that I work well mentally consolidating projects to quarters of the year; it gives me hard deadlines while allowing nuttiness to blow up two weeks (or more) of my life at a time and still not be stressed.

year recap first!

(Q1) collaborated with @/lululeighsworld to give gunter the fabulous possessed gacha entrance he deserves!! leigh's writing here to this day feels uncannily and perfectly in-character, no small feat with the mind games this devious possessed old man likes to play ~

(Q1) also finished the 140k your ruin, my ruin gunter/corrin revelation fic! the reception from y'all has been absolutely exceptional and while I don't think I'll ever write another fanfic of that length (lol) being able to point to it re: my fire emblem fates: revelation feelings is so ... satisfying. the ossan smut holds up pretty damn well too.

(Q1) NaZine (I) anthology printed and completely sold out, but the digital version is eternally available on the shop if you're still interested. I'll admit that anthologies are not normally my thing for being too prim and milquetoast, but this is anything but. if you've been dying for more sleazy uniform fetish, we got it there!

(Q2) Comics-wise, both Dead is Calling and YRMR:[Epilouge] were finished and ready to be collected in my planned gunter/corrin doujinshi called ashes and ghost; there's one more (eye-blistering smut) strip planned there with a few internal pages.

(Q3) Website-wise, IRON CROWN moved to rarebit from wordpress, and the main landing page was revamped entirely to better pave a road for preparations to self-host the website.

that's not even counting the smaller flash artwork like the fe: alphabet challenge, and hellsing exchange work also done in between everything else.

what's next?

(Q4) you might have seen me show wip's from a FE:Heroes (gacha) comic; while it's tonally softer than my usual work, It's 14-ish pages of some very, very guilty pleasure topics. raw feelings but in a different way? idk, you'll see.

(Q4) I have a personal deadline to get the website updates done by November, namely moving my art/update logs off of wordpress, and also likewise either moving to a different host or self-hosting the entire site (on a rasbpi lol) and removing the middle-man entirely.

(Q4/2025) finishing ashes and ghost (the gunter/corrin doujinshi)! I've been taking a needed break from it (something learned back in the webcomics days) but I can't wait to get back in some hentai level smut that's frankly, going to push me in so many ways. :D;;

(2025) NaZine II will likely be printed in the upcoming year with the same team heading it up. There's delicious stories already planned including multiple shotas and Daddies, oh my - needless to say, it's the kind of sleaze and sauce i dig.

that's all for now!

[kranagok0]

Oh boy, this Is a complete love square....

Guys, I don't know what I have about polyamorous romances but it's like a strange feeling of 'look at that, no one is sad and everyone loves each other.'

That just crossed my mind when I saw the new member of the trio of strange friends (now it's a quartet).

Louise is a breath of fresh air among the extroverts that make up the group.

Louise is practically an introvert. Someone closed who was even the last to be chosen on the boat trip (if we leave aside the trio of protagonists). Louise mentions that she has been in the Sparrow Scouts for some time now but has made almost no friends (or so I think).

I understand what it's like to be an introvert, more or less. I am the type of person who acts with a lot of concern, nervousness and gets serious so as not to say something stupid the first time they meet him... However, when I gain the necessary confidence I transform into someone different. I go from being 'a mouse thinking carefully about its next move' to becoming 'a monkey with a shotgun'. I hope I'm not the only one to have that strange way of being....

My life aside, I'd say Louise is kind of like that too. At first she tries to fit in by being normal with the team, but then she begins to get to know them and identify what things the trio of friends think are right or wrong and that is when Louise begins to show more of her personality. It emerges from the cocoon like a butterfly to show its true colors.

And in short: it is perfect for the trio of friends. It's so weird and different that I feel like it's necessary for the group, and I'm speaking in a positive way when I say weird. A good time.Now the main topic..... Romance.

I've seen a lot of Frida X David, Hilda X Frida, David X Frida fanfics and blogs, there's literally everything. But with the arrival of Louise the combinations are doubled. Now it could be Louise X David, Louise X Hilda, Louise

*Music from a 80's TV game show plays*

Hello ladies, gentlemen and other magical creatures who visualize us! I want to welcome you to this little head-canon idea I had of what each character in the trio of friends would be like if they were Louise's partner!

To do this, we will see the qualities of each suitor and what their dynamic with the character would be like:

Let's start with the one who represents better than anyone the shyness and courage that exists within us, he died twice to try to demonstrate it. Here we have David.

David may be a scary guy, but he will definitely come to save you if you are in danger. This kid would literally show what he's made of on a battlefield if he feels like he needs to prove something.... Don't tell me no, we've all seen the Vikings episode.

Our next contestant is not only smart in school but also in witchcraft. If you ask him about a certain topic, rest assured that when he finishes his talk you will at least have knowledge of the entire topic and its related subtopics. She is willing to do anything for her friends, she would even open a portal to the unknown and create non-existent spells just for you. Let's give a big, fervent wave of applause to the young city witch: FRIDA!

Frida may have been a bit of a perfectionist in the past, but after meeting Hilda and experiencing several events she went from being miss perfect to becoming the smartest friend you can count on. To be honest, sometimes Frida can be a bit boring, but that doesn't stop her from reaching your heart by showing great gifts of her intellect and the magic she possesses means that any topic can arise from a conversation. So, if by 'boring' we mean a lot of context and extremely long topics that she explains to you with excitement and great happiness, then boring is pretty good.

Finally we have the icing on the cake, or in this case the blueberry. Coming from the wild and with more extroverted energy than any of the other candidates mentioned above, we have a young woman with blue hair as long as she could grow it (I don't doubt that she would have let it grow longer if it didn't bother her in her adventures). This girl can literally make friends with almost anything and her circle of friends is huge, ranging from elf scribes to giants who are no longer on this planet. She would be the one to always take the first step in battle with her sword if I see it necessary and— Wait, where did he get that sword?

With you, Hilda!

Seriously, where do I get it from?

Hilda is by far the most outgoing and curious person I have ever seen. Don't you remember what Tofoten was triggered by his curiosity? Dude, it was literally the end of the series. And if you hadn't already noticed, this girl would fight barehanded against a king to save her loved ones. She would be the first to take up weapons to save her friends, she is capable of moving every rock in the entire city to find her pet, she is even capable of doing an act of terrorism just because the bells were bothering her friends.

Oh my god, I'd be afraid of this girl if I were someone who played some practical joke on David in the past or something. I would be locked up at home for what might happen to me. Better confinement than meeting Hilda on the street and having her recognize me.

So.... In a little while we will see Louise's possible choices about who she would like to be with, why I think they would be a good couple and also about what their relationship would be like. And it wouldn't just be from my point of view. Indeed, dear reader, you can also have your opinion. Comment what you think a relationship between Louise and any of our favorite trio of friends would be like.I retire to write incorrect quotes and more about this romance because I am burning with emotion. See you later

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

Ask game for Skye?

Aw yes our beloved tiny Cockapoo XD

My first impression - Why is there only one female pup and why is she so much smaller than the boys-- Is she a Cocker Spaniel?? Could've been a bit bigger...

My impression now - "Thank you Mighty Movie for giving her some lore and anything at all other than what little the show gives us"

Favorite thing about that character - She's one of the only three characters who are girls in PINK that I think the color actually fits them really well, instead of just color coding girls with pink just because. She DOES look good in it, it fits with her actions and general behavior, just as well as all pink/violet shades she wears with other colors for highlights. It may sound of not much importance, but pink is a strong color, not a "feminine" color. It shouldn't ever be "lowly/lazily coded" for girls just because girls, it can and should be used by anyone, as long as they get it. Don't see pink as "feminine/gay" color, see it as "lighter red, passion, fire, love, care, nurturing, protecting". Someone who takes others under their wings and care for them, protect them, fight for them. Skye is persistent, she cares, she's passionate, she's always giving it her all and some more. She deserves the pink color.

Least favorite thing - Being the only girl in the main team when there's a demand for female rep makes it so she's exhaustively OVERUSED to the extent of shading out other pups who would be more suited for certain kinds of rescues, kicking them out of the scene only for being males and their need for showing more girl power. I've been missing Everest showing up more times, heck she lives just close to them, it's closer than Liberty, at least they wouldn't need to overuse Skye so ridiculously much...

Favorite line/scene - This scene lives rent free in my mind

Favorite interaction that character has with another - That moment in the first movie when she went to pick Chase from the rooftop and bring him back down to ground level. I think she could understand he was panicking and made sure he would hear her voice, state her intention and next moves "I'm coming to get you" so he wouldn't be caught by surprise, she asked what happened, made sure he would know people were safe now and he could let go and go with her, she was a total darling there. 10/10 emotional support pup.

A character that I wish that character would interact with more - Chase and Liberty. First I miss Skye and Chase being absolute dorks together, second I loved Skye's dynamic with Liberty in the Mighty Movie, with the two often talking and throwing shade at others or being generally sarcastic to make each other laugh

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character - Uran, from Tetsuwan Atom, specifically the 2003 anime version - you might know her as Zoran, Astro Boy. But the American dub for that anime literally changed EVERYTHING to the point if you watch the anime dubbed and subbed, you feel it's two entirely different stories. "Zoran" was nothing like "Uran", they managed to change and reshape her personality in such a way they're literally two completely different characters, so I'll be precise and say I'm talking specifically about the Japanese Uran character, not the dubbed Zoran character.

A headcanon about that character - The show gave me nothing to develop ideas about her, sadly. So I don't have any interesting headcanons to go about- just that I believe she loves strawberry bubblegum scented shampoo lol

A song that reminds of that character - "Defying Gravity"

An unpopular opinion about that character - I prefer her movie verse over the show verse. I can't feel a "personality" in the show... She's cool, but if it wasn't for the movie, I feel like we wouldn't ever have anything to work about her at all?? She's just-- always happy, likes to play Pup Pup Boogie, flies her 'copter, is afraid of eagles. Isn't it weird that I just listed four things about her and still feel like I don't have much to work with her at all??? The only friend I know who has her as his favorite pup told me it's because she's the flight rescue pup - he's hyperfixated on aircrafts. It's not for who she is, only for her being the one to fly 'copters/jets. It could be ANY pup instead of her. That's just freaking SAD. The Mighty Movie wasn't perfect but at least it gave her SOMETHING ELSE if you get what I mean now.

Favorite picture - I didn't get there in the show yet but this is my favorite outfit of hers already, hands down. She looks hella cool.

[charlie-pippin-faraday]

danganronpa v3 chapter 3 pre-investigation running commentary (writing down my thoughts live as i had them):

all that kaito and maki stuff i'd heard about prior to playing the game? i get it now, i've finally reached the bulk of the content. it's cute. the bright sunshiney guy dragging the murder girl around and making her be involved even when the rest of the group wants to shut her out - this is a recipe for ship success

i remember awhile back being like "is the vibe of this ship 'aw he's the first person that's ever been truly nice to her'?" and i was close. it seems like the vibe is more accurately "aw he's the first person to ever truly believe in her." that line of thinking is gonna go a long way in breaking down her mask that he CONSTANTLY talks about and getting her to trust him. yeah this is the good shit right here, i'm into it

i do wonder what these people are thinking watching me come into their labs and tear apart the entire room looking for money

the fourth floor music is so funky and strange, i love it

tenko flipping shuichi onto his back and then doing the EXACT same thing to himiko is the most i've respected her this entire game. finally, some equal rights. and her treating himiko semi-normally

sooo...miu and keebo were definitely having robot sex, right? do we all agree that that was robot sex that i witnessed? that was uhhh charged and dirty and i felt i shouldn't be listening. shuichi is definitely not beating the pervert hat allegations by fucking spying on them during that oml

maybe now that they're fucking this means miu and keebo will unionize together against kokichi's bullying. they could certainly use the help from teaming up. i feel like kokichi has been targeting those two specifically. (and also maki, but i don't think maki is worried about him lol)

i may be playing this game as shuichi, but i'm pretty sure kaito is actually the main character of this story lol, he's certainly acting like it

tsumugi calls herself "just plain" like WAY too much. i'm getting suspicious

god damn it when am i going to see MY ultimate lab? i want to see my moody detective lab!! where the fuck is it?? on the damn roof???

actually now that i think about it that's probably where kaito's lab is. btw there is nothing i want to see more than the astronaut lab, that's gotta be beautiful and trippy af. tbh i'm hoping it's just decked out in galaxy patterns

so as of this chapter there are 6 labs left to be uncovered: shuichi's, kaito's, keebo's, kokichi's, tsumugi's, and poor dead rantaro's (whatever rantaro's might be). kaito's has gotta be on the roof, and i'm pretty sure kokichi's is the mysterious black and white checkered door on the first floor that i can't open (matches his scarf). there's some empty space out in the courtyard so i think one of the remaining ones will appear out there. i think someone's might be hidden past that weird scroll on the fourth floor? and at least one of the remaining ones will be on the roof/top floor with kaito. guess i'll have to wait for a future chapter to see those

miu is already getting horny toward me in like her second free time event, and if i get her the bondage boots that are currently available at the casino i think that may be a one-way ticket to her fucking me

when i approached tenko during free time she was standing on one of the pillars in her dojo which was way funnier to me than it should've been

every time i talk to gonta but don't spend free time with him i feel so horribly guilty

what's going to stop me from just spending all of free time endlessly walking about the school gathering money?

answer: the 999 coin limit apparently

noooooooooooo my beloved keebo got brainwashed!!! keebo snap out of it!!! noooooo!!!!!!!!!!

i wanna know how angie does her brainwashing. she got tenko who hates her, and then she somehow managed to brainwash a robot which i'm very curious about

doing the "man's fantasy" scene immediately after the student council atua scene felt very clashing and jarring lol

shuichi is DEFINITELY not beating the pervert hat allegations after uhhh watching the girlies change in the locker room???? uhhhh dude wtf. if miu knew i'd done this AND walked in on her sexy time with keebo she'd never let me hear the end of it

i'm worried about kaito, he's been acting very strange ever since the formation of the "student council." since he's a very vocal leader, did angie, like, poison him to keep him out of her way???

maki will hang out with me now???? dude i was so shook i changed my free time plans. i usually hang with keebo but i didn't want to spend time him while he was brainwashed, so i hung with maki instead and gave her boba tea. emos need to stick together. side note: does kaito have a type? i'm pretty sure shuichi and maki were cut from the same cloth lol

does maki ring the doorbell incessantly exactly like kaito? lmao that's cute

i knew we weren't done with rantaro, there are too many unanswered questions about him

lmao nice reference to junko and mukuro. suspiciously meta

kokichi bringing up that rantaro might've been working with the mastermind and they let him get killed on purpose is a fascinating possibility

so we're killing angie, right? we're all in agreement that we're killing angie? she sucks, and that's the most efficient way to stop this brainwashing

this resurrection ritual is most definitely a trap. it's going to require sacrificing someone and/or backfire and lead to someone dying

i want the kaito monopad theme, because the purple theme is so aesthetically pleasing to me. but it costs so many casino dollars, which means i am going to sit here playing salmon fishing until i go insane. brb

we did it, gang. we made miu fall in love with me

i have been pursuing free time events with 3 people this playthrough: kaito, keebo, and miu. keebo and kaito have kind of been locked out for the latter part of the chapter bc keebo is brainwashed and kaito is mysteriously ill, so that led to me to fast-tracking my miu events, and i've got 5 fragments and her skill. additionally i've hit the bullseye gift-wise, i think i've given her top tier gifts every single time, so i like to believe she's extra in love with me

shuichi doesn't really seem to care all that much about miu's feelings for him, other than to remark "that's a bit over the top. but i'm glad we're bonding!" miu admitted her love and said we're going on a date when we get out of here, and shuichi was like "k cool whatevs." the feelings are not requited on shuichi's part lol. i guarantee you if this was kaito shuichi would be all 😍😍😍

why did she give me her underwear tho? i am uncomfy about this. miu is the only person it makes sense would give me her underwear. is this what everyone gives you at the end of getting all their fragments?? someone plz tell me if i'm on track for acquiring kaito's and keebo's underwear in the future

i was over here concerned that someone had poisoned kaito but it turns out he was so afraid of ghosts it made him sick to his stomach lmao kaito plz

aw kaito got cute nicknames for maki now?? yeah she's absolutely gonna fall in love with him and hate herself for it. he's definitely already got it bad for her but there's no way he's aware of it yet, he's just treating her like this on instinct lol

i knew tenko wasn't actually brainwashed! that hadn't made sense to me, she hated angie way too much to willingly go along with her plans like that

the second himiko said "i've been calling to her but she won't come to the door" i said to myself "oh she's dead in there"

bro is kokichi following me around? he popped up out of nowhere to unlock the door. i get the feeling he's a little obsessed with me, but he's also a little shit and i don't trust him

well, i say that, but he was actually among the people whose opinion i trusted the most once the student council started asserting their will. i tend to trust people who aren't brainwashed ya know

my reaction to learning that angie was dead:

can't say i'm that upset about it, she sucked tbh. now can we get to unbrainwashing the rest of the council? because i need my boys keebo and gonta back. and like tsumugi and himiko too i guess, but like whatever i sincerely do not care about either of them. but i need keebo returned to me i miss him and seeing him brainwashed is breaking my damn heart

[yakuzabrainrotlive]

I have had NO time to play lately fr. And when I have played, I've been growing Ichiban's social network, picking stuff off the ground and taking pictures. AND killing hundreds of evil santas at the mall because their money yield levels are nuts and I want good gear.

But. I HAVE also made progress with the main plot too. And have had time to... process it a bit.

Yeah, I got to The Reveal :) I am Suffering :) Got to the beginning of chapter 5.

So. What witty lil' thing am I supposed to say here? Like... fuck. Just. Fuck. It shattered my heart to see him break the news with this smile I can't interpret. I mostly see a man who's accepted his fate and made his peace with it, which would be in-character considering... well... *gestures at this man's entire life and then the way he was in Gaiden*. I feel like I'm sadder and more bitter than Kiryu himself is about the whole situation. Or maybe he's just hiding his true feelings very well.

I hate the fact that Kiryu's disadvantaged position in society as an orphan keeps hurting him even this late in life. It feels so unfair, it hurts, it's... incredible writing.

....yeah. Not even remotely surprised. This is just Kiryu in a nutshell. Always looking for people in need of help, a job that needs to be done, a cog he can help turn. He's always looking for a purpose; something to keep him going. And while that's something most people want, I feel like Kiryu is always living to be able to benefit other people. Very noble, but not healthy.

The start of Y3 felt like the closest we'll ever get to him properly settling down and BREATHING for once. I can never go back to that game without breaking down, huh.

THANK YOUUUU ICHIBAN WE'LL BE DOING EXACTLY THAT ❤️ we'll drag that old man into the hospital kicking and screaming if we have to ❤️❤️

Ichiban's overall reaction to the reveal surprised me. I know he's VERY compassionate and caring, but he felt so genuinely distressed it was almost shocking to me. I know they had like... mutual respect and trust going on in LAD, but I didn't get the vibe that they were THIS close. Maybe I have to go back to their shared cutscenes from LAD again. Or maybe Ichiban just feels that strongly, especially after this brief... thing they've had here in Hawaii. Nothing wrong with that at all. We love and respect Ichiban in this house.

Ichiban and Tomizawa... hmu. I will give you soup and warm cinnamon rolls. No questions asked, no need to pay.

Kiryu... please, for the LOVE OF GOD, let them help you. Let someone help you. No, don't just let them help you help others, LEAN ON THEM.

Love to see how effectively Ichiban brings out the sass in Kiryu. This dynamic is peak. They're so silly together.

*banging on my apartment walls* LET ME OUT!! LET ME OUT OF HERE!! PLEASE!! HAVE MERCY 😭😭 I don't wanna see Kiryu like this!! I'm gonna throw up!!

We're in chapter 4 and I wanna crawl into a hole to cry. I am NOT going to survive this game.

:)

ANYWAY YAYYYY!! New party member ^_^ she's SOOO cool, she's STAYING.

Okay so I already kinda have a team I really like and everyone works well together?? How the hell am I supposed to pick 3 people when the old squad (besides Eri, RIP my MVP queen 😔) is definitely coming back as well? Tomizawa and Chitose have grown on me so I don't wanna bench 'em, and I will literally be 6 feet under before Kiryu even looks at the bench, so... I'm in trouble 😭

I'm gonna have to see if Tomizawa and Chitose can be built around Ichiban and Kiryu, or if others will fill roles better. If anything's gonna make me bench 'em, it's going to be my hyper-optimizing, excel-sheet making brain that loves to make my teams as BROKEN balanced as possible.

OKAY ALSO. That better not have been it for the Barracudas. Like, for real. They were portrayed as SOOO spooky and dangerous and they honestly felt like The Threat to me. Are they really folding this early? I hope not.

THE SQUAD HAS ASSEMBLED! So pleased to have a full team ^_^

[beeboos-creativecorner]

artefact - an assassin's creed au

For day 2, I uncover an Assassin's Creed Kenway family AU I made back in 2021 for an English creative writing assessment. Everyone was none the wiser hehe. I adore this one for its concept, if anything, because after reading it over recently, I don't like the style it was written in, but that may be due to my skills and tastes changing over the last few years. The whole AU was inspired by fanart of Haytham Kenway in Assassin attire, taking on the role of what could have been if things were different AND the clean version of the song We're Good by Dua Lipa (specifically due to the lyrical difference from the original version of the song). Each character's names were changed, but it's pretty easy to figure out who's who from characterisation alone (a highlight of this piece imo !!) - aside from Avis and Wren, a couple of OCs I entirely made up there and then just because. Let's ignore the fact I copied a section straight from the Forsaken novel, shall we ? I look upon that bit with unmeasurable disdain and disappointment. I've rambled enough. Have at it <3

Fic under the cut x

TW for blood and canon typical violence

Mist curled around his feet as the world constructed before him, a recognisable venue fading into view. The tendrils of mist dissipated, the draught and eerie ambience easing off. An evening chill nipped at the bare fingers of the man scouting the abandoned streets. His breath clouded as he adjusted the faint-coloured tricorne upon his head, collecting his thoughts, preparing his speech wisely. To him, this was a regular occurrence, a meeting pre-planned, messages exchanged to arrange it in secret. So far, it was effective and the opposition hadn’t the foggiest clue of the gathering taking place. To him, this was normal, this was business. To his descendant, however, this was wrong, all wrong. 

—

Descendant: an observer, witnessing only the events that took place through this machine. He shouldn’t be back with this ancestor, he lived out enough of this man’s time. Where was the life he was meant to be reliving? Descendant could not affect space and time, though he could file a complaint to his team outside the machine. And that’s exactly what he did.

        “Guys, what’s going on? What- what’s happening?” he spluttered, refraining a panicked curse, failing to articulate his thoughts. Wait… he could speak now? A rushed response from his female companion, Crane, clarified next to nothing.

        “It seems we have stumbled upon some kind of glitch or something. I’ve done a couple diagnostics and- well… I can’t pull you out of the machine right now. It’s too big of a risk, we need to get back on track with the original timeline, but I gotta do it from the inside. I don’t know why we’re back here, with this ancestor specifically, since we were much further ahead yesterday. Anyway, my advice is to just play this out and see where it goes. I’ll work on repairing and rearranging the data, so we can go back to searching for the artefact.”

        “So what you’re saying is the machine has glitched, and I can’t go back to the previous save state?” Descendant asked, a question too evident now. “Huh, it’s kinda like a video game,” he added to himself, forcing himself to make light of a dim situation.

        “No, this is not like a video game, Des. A video game will glitch and often crash. This, this is more like you’ve suddenly discovered a secret level and you can’t get back to the main game until you complete it,” came another voice, more masculine, more matter-of-fact. Descendant’s other loyal colleague, friend second; his words. They called him Robin, believe it or not. None of these names were particularly inventive, considering being labelled after birds, but it was the best one could do whilst being a fugitive from a technology company that integrated itself so smoothly into society. Nothing was ever easy when one was dubbed as the ‘bad guys,’ despite being anything but.

        “Uh, okay. So, does anyone know how this actually happened?”

        “I don’t know how, but your brain is fighting the machine. I knew this could happen, though not like this. It appears your brain is subconsciously withholding information and is altering events to its preference. Maybe,” replied the technician, sharing her uncertainty and plausible theory.

        “Maybe?” Not all took her words with a grain of salt though. A well-known fact about Robin was that he was quite analytic, making him sound arrogant and pompous at times, which got on everyone’s nerves. Especially now, when everyone was feeling pressured to repair the errors that had mysteriously generated before them. “Even your car is in a better state than your theory, Crane.”

        “I don’t see you handing out any bright ideas,” she snapped, leaving no beat between Robin’s insult and her venomous retort. “Just play the thing out, Des. Hopefully I can get you outta this.” And, as the body of a familiar stranger, Descendant took his first step into a new world.

—

The roads weren’t well lit on this particular night, the only providers being a few oil lamps in the distance and the natural beams of moonlight, casting a soft glow on the cobblestone beneath Griffon’s tan boots. The resplendence of the streets at this hour were immense, considering the lack of bustle in the surroundings, though he hadn’t the time to appreciate such small moments alone. Missions to complete, people to report to. Busy, busy, busy. Much unlike the scene outside the venue.

        His chin tilted up to set his gaze on the building’s sign, cautious about the headpiece he wasn’t accustomed to donning. To Griffon’s distaste, this was a formal gathering, one not appropriate to wear bloodstained robes to. Also not one to bring an arsenal of weapons to, which came as another reason not to be attending the performance. But one man can’t have it all. Fortunately, if the worst case scenario comes into action, he’d be prepared. Besides, he could use the bare minimum - his hands - to disable an enemy. He would kill if need be, if a threat presented itself. He was an adept in the art of death; he was taught to be that way. He took no pleasure in it. Simply, he was good at it. When one was taught swordcraft as soon as one could walk, this was how one would see themselves. This was how Griffon’s brothers-in-arms saw him: a talented death dealer. 

        Anticipating the unexpected, the killer disguised as a nobleman entered a whole new atmosphere.

—

“Father,” Griffon hummed low, eyeing the stage and surreptitiously taking his seat at the booth. “What news on the artefact?” Both his father and sister had arrived at the meeting ahead of time, varied reactions between them. His sister, Branwen, clad in voluminous purple fabric, gave a tight-lipped acknowledgement to her younger sibling. Their father, Corbin, much more forbearing and glad for Griffon to join the party.

        “Your sister and I were wondering the same. How did your previous search fare?” His father’s eyes, flecked with steel, yet held such patience; this was a man that raised a strategic murderer. This was a man who could hide his true intentions behind a smile.

        “Fruitless, I’m afraid.”

        “Ah, no matter. Your sister, in fact, has found a lead.” Branwen smirked, arrogant, not catching her father’s stern eye as she did so. That was deliberately for Griffon’s notice, and hit its target dead on, a rippling effect of envy and fury spreading throughout his body. “Which is why we’re here today,” Corbin finished, setting his hands face down on the table. Griffon repressed a grimace. There it was. If there was one thing he could rely on about his father, it was that. There was never a family get-together without the mention of business. Not anymore, not since he was in his tender years. Corbin gestured towards his daughter and she took the liberty of presenting the information herself.

        “A flock of little birdies told me,” she paused, winking at her own awful pun, “that an influential figure is in possession of the artefact. As luck would have it, they’re said to be attending the performance tonight. Which is exactly why we’re here instead of the chocolate house a few blocks down.” Corbin’s lower lip jutted out at the mention of the chocolate house, his mind set on a hearty tankard of ale, which would never come to be.

        As soon as Griffon opened his mouth to further the conversation, a thunderous applause erupted from the audience, forcing him to cut himself short and turn his head. A woman cantered onstage, the band playing behind her incredible vocals. He was caught gazing upon her figure, though not out of lust. As upon her neck, was the artefact. She had the amulet. 

        This meeting wasn’t a waste of time after all, Griffon relished in that knowledge, bringing his boiling blood to a settled simmer. That brought him a sense of solitude, albeit a temporary one.

        “Oi,” Branwen elbowed her brother to attract his attention. “Does she look familiar to you?” He squinted, as if his eyes could zoom in on the performer, who was busy singing something about feeling distant from an old lover and how they weren’t meant to be. Not that any of this concerned him to any extent, he was trying to determine who this woman was. Squeezing his eyes shut and opening them, he focused in again, using the gift that he was endowed at birth. He could see her now. And then it collided with him head-on. By the Spirited Eagle, it was her.

        In an instant, she wasn’t any performer and these words she was spieling off were no longer meaningless. He cursed himself for how ironic this panned out. It could have been anyone, a wealthy aristocrat perhaps, or a corrupt member of Parliament, but no. It had to be his ex-lover, Avis, reappearing into the world after being declared missing seven years ago. Missing, that eventually concluded to the status of ‘deceased’ when he abandoned the search for her with reluctance. His jaw clenched, how dare she show her face again. His mind refused to register it, she was dead to him. She should be dead. Although, he couldn’t deny the flutter of hope that his heart manifested, that animated feeling he hadn’t felt in an eternity. No, he shoved it to the back of his mind, where the notion was meant to belong. For now, he’ll bide his time, watching, listening to the song that was - upon analysing - written for him. It was a song at the minimum, a message at the maximum. That’s what this was, he gathered: a message. A beckoning. He’d made his decision in a heartbeat. If he was being called, he was going to answer.

—

“Uh, we found it, guys. You can take me out now.” Descendant’s voice wavered, a tone of fatigue hitting his final word.

        “In your wildest fantasies, maybe,” Robin spat over the intercom.

        “You gotta keep going, the end of the memory is close. You’re doing fine, just hang in there a little while longer. I think I almost cracked the code.” Crane, however slight, was more optimistic regarding the conditions. Descendant groaned, throwing aside any composure he had in reserve.

        “Okay, quick question before I keep going: who’s the chick? You know, the one that has the amulet.”

        “From the scrambled data we can gather, she seems to be a past lover of Griffon’s, which doesn’t make sense because- well, his son- we already know the messy details,” Robin reported in a split second. He was in charge of linking these historic events, yet the way he pieced it together was unnatural and expeditious.

        “Maybe this is like the whole ‘memory inside a memory’ thing, except this is more your ancestor’s dream-like state. Basically what I’m saying is that your brain is fighting the programming, but it’s not you who messed up the machine.” Crane pitched in with another theory. Descendant sighed,

        “That’s a relief.”

        “I think this is what Griffon wanted to happen, instead of what really went down.” She sounded sure on that one. Robin grumbled a few profanities under his breath about her speculations. Akin to their first spat, Crane told Robin to shut his mouth, before she sewed it shut for him and bade Descendant to keep moving forward. Which he did, to avoid becoming a part of his friends’ disagreement.

—

“Father, sister, if you’d excuse me-”

        “So you do recognise her?” Branwen interrupted, with the air of a child who was desperate to know a secret. Corbin raised a hand to halt further questions, oblivious to their conversation.

        “Do what you must, son. I give you leave to go. Bring us the honour we deserve.” ‘I give you leave,’ that was a phrase Griffon wasn’t attuned to hearing. Straying away from his superiors for an extended period of time had allowed him to abide by his own laws. He never needed anyone’s permission on what leads to pursue and whose life to put an abrupt end to. For years, Griffon had played the role of ‘lone wolf’, and in that moment he realised, he desired to keep it that way.

        Corbin presented Griffon a discreet gift under the table: a feather-shaped blade that - in spite of the low lighting - winked at its new owner, welcoming the new partnership. The son grappled onto his newly acquired asset, testing its weight. He slipped it beneath his cape, to not arouse suspicion. He hoped that there wouldn’t be the necessary means for his blade to taste blood, nevertheless, it would suffice. Branwen intoned,

        “May the Spirited Eagle guide your hand, brother.” Her prayer fell on deaf ears, as Griffon was passing through the crowds, on the path to success.

        This path steered him down various halls, tracking the footsteps of his target. His advancements reduced the distance between them. Better yet, his prey was unaware of being tailed, giving him the upper hand. A wry smile contorted his features, drawing his hat lower on his face to obscure himself from any potential witnesses. He was able to detect her footfalls, his sharp hearing continued to prove valuable. Then, the rhythmic clapping of steps ceased. 

        Griffon skidded to a stop, scanning the surrounding hall. Everything looked the same in this accursed place. Panic surged through his blood, the pattern of his breathing matching that of a feral beast. I can’t lose her. Damn this interminable labyrinth! Unconsciously, he fumbled with the knobs either side of him, as if either would open and give him resolution. Neither did, as they were locked. On the verge of another outburst, his fit was prevented by a slam of a door in the nearby area. All his senses activated at once, bolting down towards where the sound originated, discovering a door in which the lock was absent. Without a moment to lose, the man shoved it open, coming face-to-face with the one he sought.

        “I suppose you got my message then.” It struck him that it was indeed her. Back from the dead, Avis. Distance couldn’t deceive him anymore.

        “Hmm, quite,” he replied, and he could never be so quick to sour. His sight went wandering from her complexion to the pendant resting on her chest. Her expression relaxed and she laughed, flitting a hand to a sunken-eyed pianist. They played a melodious tune, while Avis opened her arms, leaving herself vulnerable.

        “Once more for old time’s sake?” Griffon was plunged into conflict. Every muscle yearned to hold her again. Still, there was that nagging in the back of his mind, telling him to drive his blade through her heart, to punish her like she did to him. No, he assured himself. Now is not apt. Years ago, he vowed that he wouldn’t be fooled twice. And he was going to stick by it. Stepping into her embrace, he needed no words to affirm that he was to play her little game.

        They swayed to the music, the way they used to do as children. Whatever the pair shared in the past had diminished, nothing was the same. His hands crept upwards to her neck, her breath hitching at the contact. This was not a display of affection, in spite of her response. The dance was a ploy, his fingers were following his crafted method. His nail caught the knot of the amulet, having it within his grasp. The woman was almost distracted enough to dismiss the thievery. Almost, but wasn’t. Griffon’s fist retracted, coming away with his prize. Mission accomplished, or so he thought.

She wormed her way out of his clutch, an evident mark of betrayal etched on her face. The pianist hit a false note and sent a wary glance over at their employer, discontinuing to play once assessing the situation. Griffon passed the amulet through to the inside of his sleeve, putting on a ruse that he hadn’t nicked a thing. She shook her head, she wasn’t ignorant.

        “You’ll regret this,” she said, folding her arms over her chest as if to protect herself.

        “No, I rather think I won’t.” He reversed, exiting the room before overhearing the words:

        “Wren, get the boy.”

        Griffon had himself a new enemy.

—

“I ask for a simple trade, Griffon. Don’t make this difficult for yourself, or for the boy. Come on, where is it? Where is the artefact?” Avis barked, deluded. The wind whipped at her hair on the rooftop, an utter change in scene from inside the theatre. She was trembling, possibly because of the evening air or the young boy struggling against her arm.

        “Father, help! Help me!” The boy began to sob, choking against his words, the lock on him tightening. The child was about four, yet intelligent for his age, much like his father.  Griffon had reached an impasse: sacrifice his son for the artefact, losing the one reminder of genuine, pure love to save the world from being cast into eternal shadow. Or, save his son, surrender the artefact to her and fail his mission to endanger everyone. The kid wailed as his father devised a plan of attack. 

        His child, Corvus, was his treasure; a product from a feeling so broad, so true. His mother wasn’t present, hadn’t been for years and she wasn’t here, on this rooftop. She had remained in her own country whilst Griffon trained their son to fill boots too big for him. Irresolution struck him at point-blank, staring into the glossy eyes of his son to find some solace. What he did discover though, was that same raw strength and defiance that attracted him to his mother. Gathering these memories and feelings, he would use them, or at least try to. As much as he’d want to speculate how his son made it to the theatre, the clock was ticking so it would have to wait. The choice had been finalised, he knew what he had to do.

        “Alright,” he called, keeping his voice level in the circumstances. The amulet was out in the open once again, a pulsating glow spreading over his hand. “Here.” He tossed the artefact to her, watching it skitter across the surface like a skipping stone on a lake. She released the boy at the sight of the pendant, scrabbling at the floor to repossess it. Griffon wanted to laugh: she always used to be his little magpie. Used to.

        “Father!” Corvus scrambled over to his father, clinging to his leg with a leech-like grip. He caressed his son’s head, relief washing over him.

        “Corvus, I want you to go downstairs, back to your grandfather. Can you do that for me?” The lad nodded profusely, already out of view within the passing seconds. He prayed to the Spirited Eagle that Corvus would be seen home safely. Griffon would have followed suit, but he had some unfinished business to attend to. It seemed that Avis did too, as she was facing him again, the cord of the amulet dangling between each of her digits.

        “It’s funny, we’ve been at this for centuries - searching for these artefacts to keep them from the clutch of our enemies, to supposedly ‘save the world’. But, have you noticed, Griffon, that all it’s ever done is caused dispute? Wars that raged for years because either side refused to find common ground with those we deemed wrong for the world. Does it humour you that we insist on repeating history over and over? Or are you just as much of an imbecile as the ones you call brothers?” Griffon composed himself and denied himself the right to speak. “If we had an open mind, if we had it in our hearts to forgive our rivals for the mistakes of the past, would we be better off? Could peace be attained? But no, you and your ilk are the reason why peace cannot endure. You speak often of unity, but do you know its true meaning? Of course not, which leaves me one option left: this.” The amulet left her hand, tossed off the roof and began to plummet. Griffon stood both shock and awe of her action, seeing the glow dissipate and plonk into a stream metres below them. It was gone. Washed away with the flow of the current. He wanted to scream, thrash about violently, dive recklessly after it, but he knew it was hopeless. The sounds never came, nor the movements. He was stuck. More importantly, he had failed his mission, his family, himself.

        “Aren’t you burning with a passion to kill me? Aren’t you furious like your brothers of old that I have demolished your goals? Go on, draw your weapon. Kill me.” She was goading him, that was all too obvious. Then why was it he let the thought in? Why did he consider unsheathing his blade? She wasn’t the woman he grew up with, she wasn’t the one he spent endless nights with. She was a monster. A monster who’s incessant ranting filled his ears.

        “I’ll give you a head start,” she said, stepping closer to him. “Do you remember when we spent an entire night talking on and on about our future? How we vowed to live by each other-”

        “And die by each other,” Griffon finished, the words programmed into his brain by the stain of a memory. “How fitting.”

        “I’ve thought a lot about this day and what it stands for us now. Which is why I said that we’re not meant to be, that’s never going to change. So let’s at least agree to go our separate ways, huh?” It all clicked into place, her song. She had seen this play out beforehand, but how? “The decision is yours to make, but I think I already know which side you lean towards. I’ve played my part in all this, I assume you will honour yours. Let’s end this like we should.” Hunched over, she took a few more steps, being now in close proximity. Griffon’s head hung low as he procured the dagger from his cape, turning it over thrice before asserting himself. The artefact may be lost, but he could still finish the final stage of his mission. Applying pressure with the tip of the blade against her chest, he heard a squelch as he punctured through a vital organ. He was already lowering her to the ground during her dying breaths, focusing in on the crimson blood blooming from the void, his hands slick with it. She had space for her final words.

        “We’re good,” she burbled before the blood spilled from her mouth, and the last of her life ebbed away into infinity.

—

“Wow,” Crane exclaimed, baffled as anyone else about what unfolded. “You’re good now, Des. I can get you out. Welcome back.” The alternative reality dissolved, pulling Descendant back into the present day.

        “Man, that was insane. Does anyone have any idea of why that was so messed up? What kind of happy dream world was that?” Descendant rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of it all. In fact, no one could gather a clear concept.

        “We don’t know, but I’m glad we got you outta there. Robin was worried about you.”

        “I was not!” Robin defended, flapping his arms about like a crazed octopus.

        “Anyway, I’ve rearranged the data and deleted some unusual codes I found while you were in there. We’ll be back to normal by tomorrow.”

        “Thanks.” Descendant gave his gratitude to his friends that had worked overtime to save him from another perilous situation. He lay down on a nearby mattress, allowing his aching muscles to relax. “By the way guys-”

        “Yeah?” Crane shot back. The escapee of the machine spoke the words that were at the front of his mind.

        “We’re good.”

[andydrysdalerogers]

Cross-Checked ~ Chapter 1

Andy Barber x OFC Leighton "Leia" Andrews

Summary:

Andy Barber is having the best year of his life. His game is on point. It’s gets to play with his best friend and his fiancé just... dumped him?!. 

Reeling from a sudden change in status, Andy decides it’s time to just focus on hockey. Until his best friend's sister comes out with news that rock the entire organizations world., 

Andy has always carried a torch for the untouchable Leighton but in her hour of need, is now the time to shoot and score or risk getting cross - checked again? 

Warnings: Cheating (but not by the MCs); slow burn; friends to lovers eventually; SMUT!; pregnancy; jealousy; evil exes...

I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site, even if you give me credit. DO NOT REPOST MY FICS. Reblogs, comments, likes, and feedback ALWAYS appreciated

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Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Chapter 1: it's supposed to be my year - Andy 

Third Person POV 

The Red line is a good place to hide from the world. 

A dive bar that's only really known by locals and a perfect hideout for the local team, The Boston Bruins. This is where we can find the hero of our story. Or a broken heart reeling from the shock of a lifetime. The bartender puts the third glass of Glenlevet 12 in front of the broken man at the corner of his bar.  

Andy 

“You want something to eat Barber?” 

I shook my head. The idea of food just made me want to throw up. This must be the worst day of my life. Sitting at our local dive, all I wanted to do was to drink myself to sleep. Maybe then I'll wake up from this nightmare. Have you ever been stood up at the alter?  No? Lucky you. 

“Knew I’d find you here.” I looked over to my best friend and alternate captain Lukas Andrews. He signaled to Mike, the bartender, and pointed to my glass. “You ok?” 

“I'm great. Just perfect.” I pulled at the tie on the collar of my tux. “I mean I paid for an entire wedding and the down payment on a house, but my bride decided to fuck my team mate the night before our wedding and lucky me I overheard them arguing about it right before she was going walk down the aisle.” I slammed back my drink. “Oh, and she runs away with said teammate.” 

I signal for another. And dropped my head to the bar. “Andy maybe you should slow down?” Luke said. 

“Why? I don't want to feel Luke. I just want to numb the pain.” Can’t he see that I just want me heart to stop hurting.  I was betrayed by two people that I trusted tremendously and now have to deal with not just one heartbreak but two.  

“I know buddy but maybe you should sleep?”  

Luke’s a great best friend to have.  He always tries to take care of me and I’d do the same for him.  But right now, I don’t want to take care of myself. “No, we drink.” 

That's the last thing I remember. 

Please let me be dead.  

That could be the only explanation as to why I was in so much pain. The alternative is that its a massive hangover and that would suck worse. I cracked an eye and sunlight hit me like fucking a truck. Fuck, I’m alive and it was going to be a hell of a day. It took everything to get to the bathroom and throw up like I’m a goddamm teenager.  

I’m a 31-year-old professional hockey player. I don't get drunk anymore. 

At least I didn't before yesterday. And it hit me that the love of my life screwed one of my best friends and teammates the night before our wedding and I got listen to him beg her not to marry me. 

Fuck Fiona and fuck Craig Bailey. 

I wandered downstairs, the aroma of fresh coffee hitting me like water in the Sahara. This is why Luke is my best friend. Fully expecting to see him sitting at the island, I'm stunned when I see my other best friend and Luke's sister making breakfast. “Morning?” 

Leighton Andrews.  

If there was one girl I wish I could marry it would been her. I’ve known the Andrews siblings since Luke and I were in kindergarten. Hell, I've been around since Leia was just a sweet little baby. She was an annoying brat for most of my childhood. But then when we came home for Christmas our freshman year of college and every change. Leia was only 14 at the time but she grew up way more than that. She had always been short, taking after their mother but everything else had grown up. She had tits that were perfect, a banging ass that I wanted to feel in my hands. 

There was just one small problem. 

She's my best friend's sister. 

To call Luke overprotective would be the biggest understatement in the world. After their dad died in a freak accident, Luke took his job as “man of the house” very seriously. He made sure that his mom didn't feel lonely, and he made it his mission to protect his sister by any means necessary. 

As the dutiful best friend, I, of course, helped him in his mission to protect her. 

Did I have selfish reasons? 

Yes.  

Did I tell him that? 

I'm alive so what does that tell you. 

“Hey Andy, good morning!” Leia chirped.  She had always been a ball of sunshine and it was something that I loved about her. Except, wait, how did she get into my townhome? 

“I say this with love, Leia, but what are you doing here? And how did you get into my house?” 

She flashed me that goddam smile that makes me give her whatever hell she wants. “Mike called.” 

Sadly, that's enough of an explanation. 

“Where's lover boy? I thought you guys were attached at the hip?” I poured myself a cup of water, drained it with two ibuprofen and then moved on to coffee. 

“Bret is on a business trip right now. He'll be back on Friday.”   

Bret.  Blah, the man was a waste of space in mine and Luke’s opinion.  He’s a stockbroker for some Fortune 500 company. When Leia started dating him, he was the epitome of douche bag. For the last year, Leia had subtly changed.  She used to be a free spirit, dressed however she wanted.  But Bret wanted a sophisticated partner that was like the other wives of brokers in his company.  He would spend money to upgrade her wardrobe and then they bought a house together six months ago.  I hated that. Even when I was with Fiona, I knew Leia deserved better. But she’s happy, and that’s all I can ask for.  

“Was he even at my wedding? Or as I call it the implosion of my life?” 

Leia came over and wrapped her arm around me and put her head on my shoulder. “He was there. He told me to tell you how was and sorry that Fiona was a complete bitch.” 

“He did not say that.” 

“Ok, fine, it was me but that's because it’s the truth.” Leia smiled at me sadly. “I’m so sorry, Andy.” 

“Thanks, Leia.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I guess I'm just glad I found out before I married her.” 

“She's an idiot Andy. I mean who in their right mind ditch a man like you?” 

This really wasn't the time to get a semi. Her compliment is doing things to me.

“Please don't tell me she did it because I neglected her or drove her into another man's arms? I mean I know I’ve been busy but I was trying to secure our future, you know?” Fuck, did I screw this up? I was working to be named captain this upcoming season.  The Bruins made that announcement a couple of weeks ago.  It had been awesome at the time but was it tainted now? 

“I don’t know. She’s been with you for like three years. She knows what it's like to be a WAG. She’s a fucking idiot Andy.” She moved to rub my back. 

I looked around my townhouse. “I have to move out of this place because I have a new home. That she wanted. Fuck,” I dropped my head onto the kitchen counter with a thud. “Ow.”  

Leia chose at that moment to let out a series of adorable giggles, her second-choice weapon in her arsenal. “Feel better?” 

“No,” I mumble. 

She came over and kissed my forehead. “Everything is going to be ok. You are the captain this year. Your best friends are right beside you. And we'll always be by your side.” 

I looked up at her. “Promise?” I held out my pinkie, something the three of us have done since we were kids. She took it with her own. 

“Promise.” 

“Fuck, who turned on the brightness?” Luke wandered into the kitchen. He took a seat next to me and lowered his head into his arms. “I’m never drinking with you again Barber.” 

“I didn’t say you had to match me drink for drink Andrews.” I looked around, searching for his girlfriend. I vaguely remember her coming with him to the bar. “Where is Miranda?” 

“She’s sleeping.  I tried to wake her, but she said she’s not getting up unless I can promise pancakes and bacon in bed.”  Luke looked at his sister.  “I love you.”  

Leia rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, yeah.  I’m doing this because I need to make sure you guys were ok. I gotta get back home for a meeting.” 

I smiled at her. “You’re the best Leia.” 

“And don’t you forget it.” 

After the banging in my head subsided, I went to the new house. I needed to make this place my own. Fuck whatever Fiona wanted. I would make this the home of my dreams, not hers. As I walked up to the front, I saw someone sitting on the stoop. “The fuck are you doing here?” The nerve of this guy showing up to my house. 

Craig stood up. “I just want a minute to explain.” 

“Explain what? How you "accidentally" slept with my fiancé or how you were trying to convince her to leave me?” I raged. This fucker has balls, I'll give him that. 

“Andy, it’s not like that. I'm in love with her. I have been for a long time.”  

“You slept with her once and all of a sudden, you've been in love with her for forever? Bull shit man.” 

“It wasn't just once,” he said quietly.  

I stopped. “Wanna run that by me again?” I must have not heard him clearly 

“It wasn't just the once. We've been seeing each other for the last year.” 

We all heard that right? 

“You've got to be kidding me! You've been fucking my fiancé for the last year?” I don't even let him respond. I deck him across the chin and drop him to the floor. Lucky for him, Luke shows up just when I go to hit him again. 

“Andy! Stop! He's not worth it.” Luke grabs my arm and pulls me back. Another set of hands takes mine. I look back and see Leia and I calm a little under her touch. 

“I fucking hate you! You were one of my best friends and you did this to me. Fuck you! You're dead to me!” 

“We are on the same team Andy!” Craig argues. “I’m sorry but I love her, and we didn’t mean for this to happen.” 

“I don't give a shit. She was mine and you fucked me over. I'll work with you on the ice, but I never want to speak to you or look at you outside of the arena ever again! Go back to your bitch and tell her I'll send her shit to her mother's.” Luke pushes Craig away from me and down the drive. I turned away and Leigh wrapped her arms around me, and I buried my head in her neck, sobbing into her. “Why?” I asked her. 

“I don't know Andy but I'm right here.” She rubbed my back as Luke dealt with Craig. “Let it out, I've got you.” 

This was supposed to be my year. I had the captaincy, I had a championship caliber team and a fiancé that I thought loved me.  

This was supposed to be my year.  

Now I know what it's like to get screwed over with my pants on. 

Life is funny like that. 

NEXT

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[hovershiplogos]

Guess who's doing rewatches again? It's me, and well, not entirely a rewatch:

Yes, that's right, it's Enter the Matrix. Because it's criminal that for a blog named for the little ship that could, I've haven't actually done a deep dive on the game itself! So I'm going to fix that!

I'm also going to play through as both Niobe and Ghost, as depending on who you're playing, the missions play out slightly different, and the cutscene dialogue varies as well. Also, not going to do like a  blow by blow kinda thing. Only going to comment on things that caught my  interest, or seem rather amusing to me.  If you want a little more context, I suggest checking out the couple of playthroughs/cut scene compilations on youtube.

Also of note, the game picks up right after the Animatrix short Final Flight of the Osiris.

Anyway, let's get to it!

AND IT'S THE MAIN REASON I'M STILL HERE, BECAUSE OF THIS PESSIMISTIC SNARKY COWARD RIGHT HERE. And he's self aware about it as well.

Also interesting to note is that according to this cutscene, Sparks has been operating on board the Logos for 3 years. Now, a standard US navy tour of duty (and I'm going with Navy rather than Army as Zion's army is referred to as a Navy fleet) is between 2-3 years. Not really going anywhere with this, but it's interesting to note.

Niobe is a 'my way or the highway' kinda person. No wonder it didn't work between her and Morpheus. It's also telling that Ghost has known Niobe for long enough to know that this is what she's like. I wonder if Ghost is the glue in this ship dynamic? As in, he knew Niobe and Sparks separately before they knew each other, if that makes sense?

And it's the little hovership that could, the little lightning bug of the fleet! Those red lights on the ship look like they're the same as the ones on the sentinels. I wonder if a bulb blows or something they scavenge one from a deactivated squiddie as a replacement?

It's not particularly clear, but I never realised that Niobe's hair is tied with what looks like string with gold in it? Maybe a metal band with gold on it? I'm not sure, but it's pretty!

Also, I appreciate that they give a reason why Niobe is going after this drop, rather than waiting for someone else (ie: Neo) to go get it.

Also, saying are you red or blue on this is a very cool in universe way of saying are you with me or not?

The subtitles are missing here, but what he says:

"You know me Niobe. It's not a choice, it's a way of life."

Ghost, you're awesome, you know that, right?

I get Sparks' complaint here, there are only two of them, and it would be a lot safer to wait for back up to help them out. But nope, you know what Niobe's like, get it done.

Also, as I remarked earlier, the fact that Niobe is willing to risk going in without support , especially given what she says about Thaddeus not using the drops unless he had no choice? And now they're all dead? They definitely need to get that package before the agents do.

I personally love Niobe's little eye roll here.

I also love that Ghost is more chill and amused by Sparks than exasperated like Niobe is. Yeah, Ghost is the glue holding the team together.

Also, a little mention of Zion funerary practices. As someone pointed out to me years ago, I suspect that the gardens is similar to the Exodus fleet's method of burial, but who knows?

Yup, words to live by!

Once again, Niobe is rolling her eyes behind the sunnies. This is what she has to put up with. Also, I would love to think that one time Sparks pranked Ghost by running some program that sent his guns soaring upward.

I always used to think that Ghost was the serious, no nonsense one in the crew, but I'm beginning to think I'm wrong on that front.

Sparks, why do you want his boots? They're too small for your big feet!

Niobe has great taste in old muscle cars. Good old 1967 Pontiac Firebird, in eggplant purple instead of black. Very stylish!

That's all for now, next up will be the post office. See you then!

[thewadapan]

In light of the good news, I've finally sat down to watch skibidi toilet. It's pretty good, not too surprisingly! Absolutely no wonder that Michael Bay seems to have such a genuine fondness for it, considering how much of a love-letter it is to his work on Transformers and how dedicated it is to just producing spectacle above all else.

The first-person-POV of the cameramen in the show is easily its most inspired element, giving an intuitive structure to the episodes (about 50% of the time the episode ends because the cameraman gets fucking bodied). As it escalates in scope and ambitions, you see the device being used in more impressively inventive ways towards narrative ends, as cameramen and TV men are used to diegetically transition between subplots. But it's also used in more subtle ways, with different effects or overlays, or simply in how the cinematography itself can communicate the emotions of the cameraman doing the recording.

Moreover, the whole thing is very video-game-y, isn't it? Not even just in terms of the assets, but in terms of the action, the beat-to-beat plotting. It's a lot of sneaking around open-level environments, picking up new weapons from dead enemies, encountering new types of enemies or bosses with their own attack patterns and weaknesses. It instantly transported me back to being a teenager, fucking around in Garry's Mod, playing Team Fortress 2 with my mates, getting through Half Life, and all that. The SFM-filmmaker aesthetic isn't just a mode of convenience—although obviously the fact that DaFuq!?Boom! has managed to maintain a pretty prodigal output can be partly attributed to the fact he's using software and assets he's clearly very comfortable with—but rather, it informs everything about the storytelling.

People love to performatively (or ignorantly) act like skibidi toilet is some incomprehensible, unprecedented "brainrot" that the kids are into, but it's nowhere near as absurd as everyone likes to pretend. I feel like I've seen something very similar to it before, but the closest thing that comes to mind is the old trend of stick-figure fight animation borne out of Newgrounds. Or if not that, then yeah, the Transformers films! It's like the entire back half of Dark of the Moon depicting this huge guerrilla war in occupied Chicago—that's clearly the main touchstone.

It's a crime that the most absurd (and often disturbing) part of the show, the SKIBIDI DOB DOB DOB YES YES earworm constantly being repeated by the skibidi toilets, has seemingly been copyright struck, resulting in many portions of the official uploads suddenly just going silent for multiple seconds. It actually incenses me that someone, or some organisation, has been able to do this. I don't really have an ethically-consistent model of how copyright should work, but in cases like this, it seems like obviously a net negative for the world. For whatever reason, the Shorts versions of the episodes seem unaffected, but they're unideal for their own reasons.

The main thing is that past a certain point, the Shorts clearly become cut-down extracts of the main widescreen episodes, which presumably have the intended aspect ratio. Some of the longer uploads have what the content-slop lore freaks describe as "secret scenes", added-in, revised, or unabridged, often containing more of the long-term plot points. The idea that these might be "secret" from the perspective of anyone just watching the Shorts is really funny to me. Also, the fact that the episodes are being collected into "Season" compilations is hilarious to me in its own right—in what attention-deficient world can 20 minutes of a show be described as a full season? Gen Alpha is so cooked bro.

Thankfully, I was able to find a Google Drive where somebody's managed to archive the full series so far with uncensored audio. But then I was checking the YouTube uploads, and I realised some of the newer ones actually have closed captions for certain lines of dialogue! As in, the reversed speech of the cameramen etc, or even what some of the skibidi toilets are saying! These subtitles are missing from that Google Drive archive, meaning it's not a perfect way of watching the show either.

But the thing is, I also think adding subtitles to the show is a huge misstep on DaFuq!?Boom!'s part. One of the things I found most surprising about skibidi toilet is that, for the most part, it actually requires the viewer to be paying pretty close attention in order to follow any of the "plot", insofar as there is one. You have to be able to tell apart all these near-identical and often silent appliance-head guys. Sometimes the POV will be some random cameraman, but other times it'll be a recurring character, and noticing that will add something to the viewing experience. Most of all, the lack of speech (and lack of expressions) for most of the characters forces you to constantly be interpreting their body language to understand what they're communicating to one another.

The subtitles stand to ruin this aspect of the show. Also, the dialogue itself is poorly-written, bro. It's nice that the writer does have something in mind for everything they're saying to one another, but it's a complete mistake to actually present that as part of the text. Frustratingly, I can't even commit to just watching future episodes without captions, because what if he decides to seriously start putting load-bearing plot stuff in them?

(According to DaFuq!?Boom!'s word of god, all the skibidi toilets can understand all languages, they just choose to speak their superior skibidi language. God I love that.)

The main completed arc of the story, set in and around a bunker, is honestly fantastic, thrilling stuff, with some individual (rudimentary) character arcs and tons of great setpieces. My favourite episode of the show, in the immediate aftermath, delivers a legitimately great twist in a brilliant way. I'm excited for the next episode to drop, but moreover, I'm on the absolute edge of my seat waiting to see how skibidi toilet transforms itself for the mainstream media of TV and/or film.

[crystalelemental]

What do you wanna see the postgame in Pokemon you want? I feel like it's kinda tricky to figure out myself when I replay the postgame content in numerous times.

Okay this might go for a while, because the short answer is "I don't think I know anymore."

Part of the issue is defining what count as "postgame." Like, is Kanto Redux in Gen 2 postgame because the League is the finish point, and Red is optional superboss content, or is that part of main game? Is the second half of Unova optional postgame content, or is it main game because you technically never finished your League quest? Some situations, like the Emma and Anabel quests in Gens 6 and 7, feel pretty decisively postgame, as do things like Delta Episode. But what counts and what doesn't is up for some debate, and I'm...not really sure where I draw the line. I've referred to everything in the second half of Unova as postgame, but now I question that decision.

More to the point, postgame runs into two specific problems in both story and gameplay areas.

Gameplay is probably best explained by Bopper's Gen 2 video. In it, he expresses that a major selling point of Pokemon is the emphasis on continued growth and development, talking about how moves being learned late or late appearing Pokemon give players something to work toward, and keep the game fresh and interesting. And to be honest, this tracks. As someone who's owned cheat devices most of his Pokemon career, you do try to hack in final teams right at the start and they get stale really fast. Having something to work toward is part of the fun.

Postgames tend to run into the problem of not having anything left to specifically work toward. The difference between Crystal's Kanto Redux and Platinum's battle island is that in Platinum, my team is done and has learned everything. As a result, that island doesn't really offer anything particularly fun. While I've been a proponent of Gym Leader and League rematches in the past, they also have the issue of...not doing anything different. Red as a new final conflict requires a different approach from facing off against Lance and the League, but Cynthia 1 and Cynthia 2 go down to exactly the same strategy. There's less to work toward, so the island feels entirely boring to me. It's a complete slog.

While there are opportunities to switch up the team, sometimes that comes a bit late, and isn't exactly...engaging. It works in a game like Crystal because of how type matchups work, where Misdreavus can be caught and immediately blank Red's Snorlax, or Tyranitar countering half of Red's team. Or in Emerald, Mawile can hard counter Steven's entire team with careful play. But later games don't have that opportunity. It's just lower level stuff, sometimes weaker stuff, with no real gameplay benefit.

Which leads to the main thing. This is a Monster Collecting game. Its postgame is effectively completion of the dex. Which is something Pokemon is uniquely terrible at. A game like Nexomon (which is excellent and should be played) lets your postgame be hunting down everything, which is all available in that one playthrough. But Pokemon has version exclusives that demand two games, and internet connection, and with Switch paying for online connectivity. In addition, while Nexomon has a ton of Legendary status mons, it also gives a ton of Golden Nexotraps for assured captures to simplify the process. Meanwhile, Pokemon gives you one (1) Master Ball, then gives you a gauntlet of like a dozen Legendary Pokemon that are wretched to catch because of how annoying their systems are. Monster collecting in the most popular Monster Collecting Videogame is terrible by design. It's never been good, and they're never going to make it good. Though I guess they tried with Galar's Dynamax Adventures and Paldea's fights with main legends. Though they both still do the stupid catching thing in other ways, like the Galar birds and Treasures of Ruin.

I think ideal gameplay actually gives you something to work toward, but also Pokemon really just needs to improve how it operates with catching everything. Which I think it has. To its credit, Galar and Paldea do make it easier to complete the dex by making near everything available. But that's also predicated on dealing with the awful raids and dens, which is somehow worse.

The other element, story, is where things get dicey, and I'll use a comparison to explain. In Nexomon, your postgame events are...honestly the most story intensive segments. They're really good, and my personal favorite parts. More critically, they're continuations. Nexomon 1 follows up the main story of defeating Omnicron with your story of destroying his soul so he can't regenerate (spoilers I guess). Neoxmon 2 follows up all the heavy stuff that happens with a bit of a departure, but only in the sense of setting up the connection between things that happened and things that are about to happen. It's all excellent, and the postgame story is the hook. Granted, alongside new boss fights and challenges and developments that are engaging too. Shame about how the hunt for Tyrants goes, but I digress.

Gen 2 and Gen 5, while they offer postgame, tends to be very light and disconnected on story. There's not as much relevance. Even with things like XY and SuMo and the Paldea DLC, which are much heavier on story, they have...literally no significance to the main event. Like okay, you can argue the thematic relevance of Emma as a character, or that the UB hunt is related to Lusamine's actions, but like...it's really not that connected to what was going on before. Teal Mask is just 100% disconnected, and when they do connect in the Mochi Madness thing, it kinda sucks ass and they wrote Carmine out of it entirely like assholes. I will never forgive that.

I can't say Pokemon's ever really had a great story-centric postgame. It completely lacks in that area, and tells the story it wants to tell centrally. Not that Pokemon's ever been that intense on story. So this is an area it can't really work for. But the ones that do stand out...also run into issues. XY and SuMo have great events with Looker, Emma, and Anabel...but the actual playing of those segments isn't great. And going back to the initial question, does Teal Mask count as postgame if you can do it, entirely, from nearly the start of the game?

The final issue is one of...well, the Battle Facilities. I hate them, personally. I have no investment in playing literal cheating AI at reading minds. Gimmick frontier stuff like in Emerald and Platinum can be fun, but stuff like the normal Battle Tower sucks. Add to it that legendary Pokemon don't count, and there's also very little benefit to gathering legends. You don't really get to do much but stomp the League with the box legends, and...then what? Do a bunch of extra stuff? Run battles that don't allow them? What's the point of having the postgame without those benefits? Galar fixes this a bit by letting anything into Tower, but it's a small concession more than a proper fix.

Honestly, I don't really know what this all adds up to. Part of it is desperately wishing Pokemon had better capture mechanics, because god do the current ones suck. Part of it is thinking that postgame should be a little quick, because usually my complaint is it goes on too long. But I really don't even know what I'd expect anymore. I think that, to some degree, postgame in Pokemon works while the generation is current, but falls off in importance on replays. It's why Daybreak made Legends Arceus worse.

[ournachojesus]

I just saw your death note time loop au (which is everything I've ever looked for in a death note time loop au btw thank you so much) and I have a game to recommend! It's called In stars and Time and it's about being stuck in a time loop! It's a really really good game and I hope you try it!

Oh ya! I saw that in my recommendation at seem point and started watch a game play of it. Didn’t make it far since I didn’t have time but just from the get go the entire time fast forward concept is super interesting to me cause it has some bases in how our brains work.

Let me explain. Do you ever noticed how the drive home always seems shorter than driving somewhere new even if it’s the same amount of time? The reason is, your brain isn’t interested in things it’s already seen. When taking in new information/surroundings you end up being more in the moment. A lot of the time you are partially spacing out when you are seeing the same thing. It’s part of the reason why time seems to go faster the older you get! Lots of things are just not new anymore. Of course being super engaged makes time fly by fast but if it’s like medium level then you experience all the time.

Sorry but I’m going to say stuff about death loop since I want to bring this up. Light and L are eventually going to start having failing memory and/or start showing signs of mental health decline due to this reason. It’s not the only reason and isn’t the main cause for a lot of their weird/horrible behavior but it contributes. Like how animals in zoos need enrichment, so do they. First, failing memory would set in sooner not just because of the amount of time passing; even with each reset that brings their minds back to peak health it doesn’t stop the effects of memories. The body catches up with the mind. I feel they’d be smart enough to avoid this outcome. The behavioral systems though, they’d probably be dumb enough to only due onto what’s necessary, to keep their memories intact. Boredom, they’d start hurting themselves and others (they’d already be doing that due in a different way due to the NPC effect as I’m dubbing it). Like touching a burning stove or grabbing someone too hard. After a couple small moments like these they would probably be told by the team in the loop it started in to go on a vacation cause everyone thinks the case is taking a toll on them (kind of right). So they go to some European country in that loop and stay till the next reset. Every few loops it becomes a habit for them to go out on these vacations. It be weirdly sweet? More scary if you’re anyone but them. 

The behavior they’d start showing to eachother when the vacation stuff starts to become a habit is more of an accepting codependency. After the two incidents would this take place. The minimum stimulation they’d been doing to not go crazy from nothing new would end up frown out the window for a bit after those two incidents. The mix of this and the trauma of what they both did leads to the hurting thing (honestly isn’t the worst thing they’d done during the loops to the other people. Really tame compared to other stuff but it’s the first loop they are doing something so low level.)

The dependency they have is disturbing because they are getting more physically affectionate, not cause they are building a bond in a healthy way. It’s literally the case of being the only to captives in a prison. Light hold onto the bend of L’s arm when they walk the streets of Toronto or L pressing his forehead to Light’s as they listen to the sounds of people in the streets below their hotel in Taiwan. It isn’t the soft quiet content you have with a loved one, it’s the shaky breaths you take as you try not to cry. Breaking usually means things end or you pick yourself back up and move on. Change is an opportunity that has been robbed of them. Only the free will to act upon one another is all they have left.

[syn4k]

digital media i watched this year that i really really enjoyed: a (non-exhaustive, non-ranked) list

hi everyone! ray keys here. i'm writing this on Dec 21st because I know I'll forget to post this on time if I don't schedule it beforehand.

i don't watch things on streaming services because i don't have any of the apps downloaded on my phone and most shows just aren't my thing anyways (ATLA has been the only exception) so all of the links here go to YouTube or other (free) sites

here we go!

Misc. Series and Standalone Videos

17776

17776 is a multimedia webnovel (?) about American football in the year of, you guessed it, 17776, written in 2017 by Jon Bois. It's told through the communications of three space probes made by humans and it's genuinely comforting as someone who's generally terrified by the concepts of eternity and immortality. Trigger warning for unreality at the start.

17776

20020 (the sequel, written in 2020 by the same author)

Code MENT

Code MENT is a YouTube series made by PurpleEyesWTF, of which the first episode was released in 2010. It's a fan-made abridgMENT of the anime Code Geass, voiced entirely by one guy (or at least i think so), and some parts of it have become legendary (see: Soup Store). Trigger warning for murder, infrequent use of the R slur, and depictions of blood and gore.

Code MENT playlist

Star Wars The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West

Star Wars the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West, uploaded to YouTube by GratefulDeadpool in 2017, is a video where somebody put the entire script of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in Google Translate, translated it to Chinese then back to English, and dubbed over it. Yes, it's the entire movie. No, it somehow hasn't been taken down yet.

Star Wars the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West

Mianite (S1)

At least some of you should be familiar with Mianite, seeing as how it has taken over my entire blog over the past month or so. The World of Mianite is a vanilla Minecraft SMP launched in 2014. It was streamed live, but the recordings of those livestreams were later uploaded to YouTube. The main members of the serverlist are CaptainSparklez, II_JERIICHO_II, SynHD, and OmgItsFirefoxx. Mianite has had three seasons so far, but I've only watched the first from one perspective so that's what you guys are going to get.

CaptainSparklez' Mianite S1 Playlist

MAMASb0y's Mianite Animations Playlist

Mianite Purge Highlights Playlist

Alan Becker (and his Team)'s Work

Hi! This channel gets a special section all to itself because I just finished the Animation vs Minecraft series and I'm pretty sure my life has been irreversibly changed forever.

Animator Vs Animation

Animator Vs Animation (shortened: AVA or AvA) is an animated YouTube series by Alan Becker. The first episode was originally posted in 2006 and was later reuploaded to the platform in 2018. I recently binged the entire thing and was NOT expecting it to be as fucking incredible as it was. This is the de facto best place to start if you want to jump into Alan's other works featuring these characters, which I highly recommend because all of them are fantastic!

Animator Vs Animation Series Playlist

Animation Vs Minecraft

The stick men play the block game. Do not read the comments of any of the episodes until you have finished the entire series. Do not go in with any prior knowledge if you're able to. Set yourself up with a bowl of popcorn and a big ol' glass of ice water, sit back, look really closely for continuity because it is there and it is GLORIOUS, and enjoy.

Animator Vs Minecraft Series Playlist

[gentle-giant-swag]

Gentle giant swag

Apricot bracket semifinals battle 1

TOTORO (my neighbor Totoro) vs FEZZIK (the princess bride)

PROPAGANDA UNDER THE CUT

Totoro propaganda

Is the gentlest giant

i've never watched totoro but he looks so big and soft i want to nap on him

Same than previous anon. Haven't watched it but he looks very huggable

Also I have several childhood friends who absolutely loved him

(Totoro fans, wake up, your propaganda is made by people who haven't even watched the movie)

Fezzik propaganda

Fezzik is like actually a giant man (played by famed wrestler Andre the Giant) but he has a huge heart and a strong sense of fairness. He manages to work with Vizzini for a long time, which involves a lot of belittling, and not strangle the little bastard. He is ordered to kill Westley by smashing him with a rock before he has a chance to fight back, but he does not consider this a "sportmanlike" battle, so he challenges him to hand-to-hand combat instead. He joins up with Westley and Inigo to save Princess Buttercup from being killed and basically spends the whole movie being a cinnamon roll despite being the largest and strongest person around by far.

just a very nice and polite man. loves his friends!!! and big

I mean who is more of a gentle giant than this wonderful man?! Sure he is an accomplice in kidnapping the prince’s fiancée but he spends much of the time very calm and playing a rhyme game, and he seems to care about her more than the other two. He is on the brute squad (he IS the brute squad) but he takes care to help sober up his best friend and tell him about what’s been happening since vinzeni’s death. Speaking of that, I forgot to mention that Fezzik didn’t really know what “his way” was and, sure, he threw a giant rock at Wesley and is trained in group and individual fights, but he insisted on honorable rules and encouragement. He did not want to kill Wesley. His main violence comes from not knowing his own strength and playing off other peoples assumptions, which if you’re a giant is kinda understandable. Plus he got a holocaust-cloak from Miracle Max just cuz! Fezzik speaks so gently and when the other two were off chasing vengeance/rescuing princesses, he found his way to the stables and was able to lead four horses out and around to his friends. Plus, you think if he wasn’t a gentle giant that Buttercup would have jumped into his arms like that?

Absolutely the archetypical gentle giant. Hired to kill Westley, but doesn't want to fight dirty or kill people even though he could have easily won just by throwing stones at him. Teams up with Westley to rescue Princess Buttercup. I once fit an entire orange in my mouth but I didn't think ahead and it turns out it's much harder to get an orange out of your mouth than it is to get one in. This doesn't have anything to do with the character but I figured since you gave me this opportunity to provide you with unnecessary extra information I might as well use it.

He likes rhyming and takes time to have a polite chat with the guy he's supposed to kill, while he's actively trying to kill him