#granted I feel like this online a lot too but online is easier.

[digitaldollsworld]

I always feel like it’s Alien’s First Day On Earth hours every time I have to interact with human beings irl svjssjs

[piebingo]

Some of my favourite current YR wips

Because wips deserve lots of love🫶 please add any additions you have!!

I see you in my future | 15/? | by littlefandom

Love, apparently, comes at the most unexpected moments and in the most random places. Wille agrees with that. He did not expect to meet the love of his life online, but the moment his eyes landed on Simon through the screen, it was like he knew that it was going to be something special, something extraordinary...

What he did not know then, was the distance between them, the differences, the troubles they were going to face in order to be together in the way they wanted to.

But another thing that he does know, is that Simon is worth it and that they are in this together, both of them willing to put themselves through all of the obstacles if it means they get their happy ending.

The question is: will they get it?

Their relationship is super sweet here and I love the way they handle conflict. It’s so well done.

To be where you are | 5/? | by RBlytheo8

“It will get easier, Wille, once you find your Guide. They’ll be able to help you and support you like mamma and I can’t.”

“Oh, haven’t you heard? I don’t have a perfect match. I won’t have a Guide.”

(Or, a Sentinel and Guide story for Simon and Wille.)

Super interesting concept and lovely to see their dynamic.

Bittersweet ecstasy (I pick my poison and it’s you) | 2/3 | by wthbaby

Pure blooded wolves were said to descend from the moon goddess herself, being able to shift to their wolf forms, their genes stronger than the ones of the common wolf. They were the prime species. If a wolf were to be born pure blooded, no matter alpha, beta or omega, they were automatically in line of succession.

Wilhelm presented as an Alpha, in a long line of pure-bloods, at eighteen moons of age. He had a role to fulfill as the future Head Alpha of the northern pack.

And Simon, a male omega, a nobody, had fallen head over heels for the young alpha.

The only problem? Wilhem was set to be mated to another omega.

This feels like a fantasy setting which I love! It’s a lot about them as actual wolves , which is different (for me). The dynamic is again super interesting.

Where we left off | 4/10 | by gulliblelemon/ @gulliblelemon

Simon meets Wilhelm by accident in the wake of Erik's sudden death. This story follows their lives through the years, and through more of their accidental and on-purpose meetings, as their lives change and they cross paths again and again.

The last update broke me and I’m greatful for it🫶

Royally whipped | 15/16 | by bigalockwood / @bigalockwood

Erik's death leaves Wille unable to pick up his duties as Crown Prince right away. Instead he's granted two years away from the spotlight at Hillerska. Now that he's finished his education, the court expects him to make a public reappearance.

What better opportunity for a reintroduction than Sweden's favorite baking show? It's low risk, low stakes, no distractions.

Well. If it wasn't for Simon Eriksson, musician and Wille's long-time celebrity crush, everything could've been so easy.

This is a blast to read. It’s so sweet and I love to tune in every week to ready my chapter. I’ll be so sad when it’s done!

Constellations of love | 8/9 | by spidaya / @simons-purplehoodie

TLDR: An enemies to lovers & fake dating story, with focuses on Simon’s struggle to keep his family afloat despite his father’s abuse and addiction, and Wille’s trauma and anxiety from childhood to adulthood, heavily based on the book “They Hate Each Other” by Amanda Woody

They are silly and they are sweet and they are in love and I love them too. Again one I’ve realized is almost completed which feels bittersweet already!

I’m know I have more but those are the ones I could remember up the top of my head!

[jewish-vents]

I’ve been really struggling lately with my Jewish identity and I just need someone’s advice on this.

I am a Mexican Ashkenazic Jew.

My mother is (potentially) ashkenazic by blood but is technically a convert by modern standards.

My father is a Mexican gentile who had been in the process of converting by the time I was born as to make me a “Jewish” baby.

(I know that’s not very inclusive but it was considered the norm when I was younger in the area my parents where in, people saw me as less Jewish or not Jewish at all because my mother was only a convert and my father wasn’t Jewish by blood either so my parents tried to combat that by both being being “official” Jews with conversion.)

So when my father was converting he adopted Sephardic traditions despite not being technically Sephardic himself but it was recommended by the local rabbi my parents saw at the time because he thought the traditions where “similar enough” to what my father knew from his own heritage to make the conversation process easier.

(Kinda racist I know but granted it was the early 2000’s and a lot of Sephardic traditions are things my father did grow up with or had very similar experiences—it’s possible he’s a crypto jew from how similar some of his experiences were and the basic knowledge of his family history but it was never DNA confirmed as my parents where too poor to afford it.)

For most of my life I grew up just thinking I was a normal Ashkenazic Sephardic Jew but now I’m reconsidering everything I know because of this. I feel like a fake, that maybe HaShem won’t love me like other Jews because I’m just some gentile stealing the traditions of real Jews, the real Jews HaShem loves and choose to keep the commandments.

I feel wrong for loving Judaism so much, I try to ignore that feeling because a jew is a jew to me but it’s always looming there.

When I read the weekly Torah portion it’s there in the back of my mind, when I join my mother for Shabbat prayers it’s in the back of my mind, when I follow Jewish content creators online and journal down Jewish recipes or whatever I find interesting—it’s in the back of my mind.

It’s made worse by the fact I can barely speak or read any Hebrew due to my learning disabilitys & I’ve never been able to have a bar mitzvah due to not having the money to afford Hebrew school and really anything needed for a bar mitzvah—plus being queer & trans makes me have a really complicated relationship with how I view religion in general.

Where do I go from here?

Am I even really Jewish?

Well, first, you are a Jew.

You were born to a Jewish mother, which makes you Jewish by every standard.

Not speaking Hebrew doesn't make you any less of a Jew. Not having a bar mitzvah party doesn't make you any less of a Jew.

Being queer certainly doesn't make you any less of a Jew.

And having a complex relationship with Jewish tradition is one of the most Jewish things there is.

If you want some resources on being Jewish and queer, Eshel actually has a list of queer Jewish organizations, though they are all North American or Israeli.

Perhaps some of our followers know of organizations in other parts of the world? 🐞

[urlknight]

Hi there, Love your work! I'm also doing stuff in Unreal and it feels like it's rarer to find other indie devs using it. I love how clean all your UI feels, and UI is something I seem to really struggle with.

Do you have any recommendations for workflows / tips / sources etc for getting better at UI?

Also I'd love to know more about the material / shader workflow for your latest post if you have more information anywhere.

Thanks :)

Hello there! Thank you!! I hope you don't mind me answering publicly as I feel like some people might be interested in the answer!

I really appreciate your UI (User Interface for those not knowing the acronym) compliment as it's something I've spent a long time working on and specializing in, in my career as a software engineer. UI/UX often goes completely unacknowledged or taken for granted even though it takes a lot of time and hard work to create and develop. In the engineering world I frequently had to advocate for and explain user experiences to those who didn't have as deep of an appreciation for UI or a very sophisticated understanding of why a good, visually appealing user experience makes, or on the flip side, can break everything. I think it's a very challenging, overwhelming topic to grasp and communicate, but just by being interested in it you're already way ahead!

There's a lot going on with UI. From visuals to knowing common design elements to successfully conveying a story to the user to implementation to testing to designing for accessibility to animation and I probably didn't cover everything with that run-on sentence. There's frontend engineers out there whose role is solely to maintain and improve UI component libraries for companies. And that's without throwing games, whose UIs are all uniquely visually tailored to their experiences, into the mix... I could keep going on about this honestly, but I'll get to what I think you can do personally! 1. Learn about common design patterns. What's a toast? What's pagination? What's a card? Little things like that. These apply to all software UI/UX, including video games- and knowing these off the top of your head will make it so much easier for you to invent your own UI designs and patterns.

2. Study the UI in the everyday applications you interact with. Step through menus and think about how you got from point A to point B. Take a moment to think about the why someone put a button where they did. Study the UI in your favorite video games, too! Take a lot of notes on what you think works really well and what you think doesn't. And also there's online resources that are great for inspiration. I personally spend a lot of time on the Game UI Database. - https://dribbble.com/ - https://www.gameuidatabase.com/ 3. Don't be afraid to start with basic sketches or even just simply representing everything with grey boxes. All my UI starts out as really crappy sketches on paper, or tablet sketches on top of screenshots. Visualize your ideas and then keep iterating on them until you've got something. For example, I went from this:

To this. (And come to think of it I might actually still want to make those cooler looking buttons in my sketch) 4. Break everything out into pieces and individual components. A good UI is made up of building blocks that you can reuse all over the place. That's how it stays consistent and also saves you a lot of stress when you need to go in and update components. Instead of a million different looking UI pieces, you just have to update the one! These individual components will make up your very own UI Component Library, which will be the standardized design system and source of reusable components for your project. This also applies to your visual elements that don't do anything (like I personally have a whole mini library of diamond and star shapes that I reuse everywhere).

For reference, here's a breakdown I made of my Inventory UI. On the right, I've labeled most of the individual components, and you might be able to see how I'm reusing them over and over again in multiple places.

5. Spend some time listening to designers talk, maybe befriend some designers! Many of them have an unique, interesting view of the world and how we interact with it even beyond just software. Their perspectives will inform yours.

6. Test your UI on users whenever you can. Get feedback from others. This is the best way for you to see what works and what doesn't. As game devs we spend so much time with our games it's easy for us to lose sight of the full picture.

7. Be patient and don't give up. Continue to be open to expanding your knowledge. These UI skills take time to develop. I personally am still learning even after like 10 years of doing it. Coming up with the visual elements is very challenging for me and I spend a lot of time rearranging things in photoshop before I actually start coding anything at all in Unreal.

Whew, that was a lot, but I hope that gives you some thoughts and a place to start!

I don't have any posts out there about Blender/Unreal shader workflows right now, but I'll consider making another post sometime soonish. I appreciate you asking and you're welcome! :)

[coquettedragoon]

What's your work process for making the backgrounds you use in Coquette Dragoon, if you feel comfortable sharing? I'm working on a 2D project and I want to use 3D environments for static backgrounds and am struggling to find a good environment to work in. I know blender or maya are commonly used, but it seems like such a process to learn 3D modeling to model entire detailed rooms for the background of a project that might never see the light of day. How did you get started with that, coming from your background? I'm really inspired by your work, and would love to know more about how that process looks for you.

blender is free and is totally your guy here. environments are a lot easier than they seem, follow some guides, get a habit of googling exact dimensions of things to keep the scale consistent until you can eyeball it and you can use tons and tons of free assets to create scenes too. i use freebie textures + make my own models but you can just use free models... i dont do it bc i dont wanna shortcut around learning 3d but if you wanna do it fast its a totally valid option.

i got started by just following youtube tutorials, grant abbit is my number one rec on the absolute basics, his stuff is dry but hes a good teacher.

the exact process for coquette is like.. i use a gradient map+posterization for the final output, this lowers the total colors and gives it a consistent palette so i dont need to worry too much about the colors in the 3d scene itself, or clarity of textures etc... so with that in mind, the 3d scene itself is a lot simpler than it appears.

as an example.. the manor in ch2 is a much simpler model than it appears. since the building+grass are both totally black they are just undefined flat surfaces. the cobblestone is just a texture i found online with the reflections turned up. the flowers are emissive to make them visible. use silhouettes+limited colors where you can etc... this is all pretty vague advice because i think you just have to work with 3d until you get a sense for how to simplify things or imply complexity. a lot of times if i dont want to model a whole area i just add some blur to make it all blend together or only model a small corner of the room and keep the camera there etc

i think regardless of whether your game happens or not you should learn 3d anyway because you can use it for something else later...

[blazehedgehog]

Pinned Post

Since Tumblr is moving away from custom themed pages it's easier to just have a pin.

Hi! My name is Ryan, but everybody on the internet calls me "Blaze", as in BlazeHedgehog. I've had that internet username since at least 1998 or even 1997, where I picked it for myself as a high school freshman in the computer science lab. I was trying to fit in with other Sonic fans, you see. I just never felt like changing it (and now it's sort of like "my brand.")

I'm the founder of SAGE (The Sonic Amateur Games Expo), though I haven't had an active role in the event in a good while now. I still occasionally dabble in making games, and depending on who you ask, one of those games changed the face of an entire community.

Since then, I've been growing a slightly popular Youtube channel, and I occasionally stream on Twitch. I've been doing both of those a long time -- my Youtube channel dates back to 2006, and I've been livestreaming games since before Twitch even existed (Who here remembers a service called "Mogulus"?) I even used to run multiple Shoutcast radio stations back in the day!

In terms of this blog, it is largely an ask blog. I try to make sure at least one post goes up every day. Most people ask me questions about Sonic games, but feel free to ask me just about anything as long as it's not rude or too personal. Just be aware it might take a week or two for the answer to get posted, depending on volume and interest.

I wrote a big long intro post for the now defunct Cohost. If you'd like to know even more about me, that follows under the "keep reading" tag:

I still care a lot about fangames, and people's right to make fangames. SAGE was founded on the ideal of normalizing the fangaming scene in the eyes of the mainstream. Back when I first started, fangames were often considered another form of piracy. I wanted them re-categorized to be in the same realm as fanart or fanfiction. Whether or not SAGE accomplished that is anyone's guess, but the world is a lot more accepting of fangames these days regardless. A lot of cool people have featured their games at SAGE over the years, including the developers of Sonic Mania, Spark the Electric Jester, and Freedom Planet. SAGE is genuinely one of the things I am most proud of starting in my life, even if I haven't had a managerial role in over ten years.

I have been interviewed about SAGE and how it relates to the fangaming community. Both times I've been interviewed, I was granted permission to post my (very, very wordy) interview in full, if you'd like to read them:

Cultured Vultures: The Weird and Wonderful History of Sonic Fangames

Le Monde: When There’s No Good Sonic Games, Fans Develop Their Own

I was known for a few fangames in my time. I have a Youtube playlist where I've commentated over some of those games.

I've tried to transition to making original games, the most recent one being OverBite in 2016. OverBite was a game I created for a game jam, with the intent on making it a bigger, more robust thing to sell later on down the line. The game jam version you can download today is a little basic and boring. It was created over the course of 33 days and I did nearly everything alone -- coding, art, level design, all of it. I custom-built the physics engine, I custom-built the AI, almost none of it was using prefabs or existing example code. The only outside help I received was music, which was provided by my old friend Malcolm Brown (who really needs a better online presence for links like this).

Circumstances got weird (it's a long story, and this post is long enough) but the short of it is OverBite is permanently on the backburner until further notice. I'd love to go back and flesh it out some day, and really make it something special (I have a giant design doc for it!), but I have to focus my attention elsewhere.

I registered a Youtube channel in 2006, back in the early days before they were owned by Google. Around 2009, I did my first formal video review, for Sonic Unleashed. I was inspired by the style of Gametrailers (now Easy Allies) at the time. From there, I started taking my channel a little more seriously, and recently I have had the impetus to take it very seriously.

I have been livestreaming since at least 2009, as well. For reference, that's before Twitch.tv existed, back when the site was called Justin.tv, and was pitched more as people livestreaming their bedrooms with a webcam (what is now called "Just Chatting" on Twitch). I jumped around between sites like Mogulus.com, Livestream.com, and uStream. In 2012, I teamed up with a friend, Imran Khan, to stream Sonic 06 for charity. The 18 hour marathon raised more than $1000 for relief after the Japanese tsunami disaster of the same year. When I stream nowadays, I do it on Twitch, here. Archives of past streams can be found here and here.

I used to be a paid, professional games media writer for the niche site tssznews.com, but that site imploded after I worked there for 12 years. It ran out of money, the head didn't want to run it anymore, and after an embarrassing social media gaffe, permanently closed its doors basically overnight without warning anyone else. While at TSSZ, I helped break a lot of their biggest stories. A slowly increasing amount of my TSSZ work has been archived at Last Minute Continue, and you can always use the Wayback Machine. I also have plans to archive my "professional" writing on my own site, bltn.net, eventually. Some day.

(Since writing this, I have also uploaded a large chunk of archived TSSZ articles to The Internet Archive.)

I'm also an artist, or I was. Most of my other creative outlets eventually took precedent, but I still try and retain some artistic skill. There's a very dusty DeviantArt profile out there, and an art tag on my tumblr blog you can check out. Carpal tunnel has made drawing a little frustrating these days, however.

Is that it? I guess that's it. There are even more links to things that aren't necessarily worth a paragraph on the Linktree, and not to hustle you after reading all of that, but boy it would be great if more people supported me on Patreon so I can use all this stuff to help pay my bills and get me to a more comfortable place in life. Twitch subs and Patreon donors get early access to my Discord and yadda yadda yadda...

Oh yeah, and I even turned on Youtube Memberships recently.

[orbees]

Blegh

My therapist and I keep missing eachother like this is the fourth week we've had to reschedule and part of it is def me cause I've had to ask too but @___@ damn I could rly use some therapy rn I've been like. In a constant state of anxiety. graduating opens the door for so many opportunities but also Everything about the job hunting process is terrifying. And honestly that's something I need to be working on sooner than later but I still just feel. So tired. U think after 2 weeks off I'd feel better but nope. Granted I spent most of that time being rly sick but. Yeah

I've been rly worried about that too and just having caught covid so many times in general 🙃 my lungs were already shot and covid definitely made them worse. The fatigue and brain fog lingers for so long after too it makes it so hard to do anything. It's just like wouldn't it be awesome if I did all this work not even to be able to hold down a job 👍

I worry a lot about getting sick more too I cannot keep getting reinfected with covid man and I'm like. The only one who even masks around here anymore >_< I'm hoping maybe to get an online job to try to mitigate some of these issues but they're def rly hard to find. I also have to take another test b4 I can get certified and pfhfbfhhtbfbfhtbt

Honestly all of this is just that transitional period blues I know as I start finding my direction more it'll get better just ugh. I wish this shit wasn't so hard. It's like damn for all ableds talk about wanting disabled ppl to work they sure make it damn near impossible.

I just wish it was easier rly. I feel like I say that a lot but. Damn if it isn't my constant

[stagnantmako]

i can also talk about how my nero characterization has shifted a little since the release of episode intergrade.

of all the tsviets, nero was kept the most isolated. my headcanon was always that the tsviets were allowed to wander around a little more freely prior to being infused with project g cells. given how nero and weiss show up in cc, it just seemed like they were in much better shape than they were when online mode happened. i do think that nero spent some time living with weiss in a proper housing unit (dg has a housing sector) when they were smaller, so it's not as though he's been been completely bereft of human interaction. he interacts with the other tsviets with familiarity, but i think they are also scared shitless of him because he's just not like them. nero is a walking emotional black hole, people avoid him, the only time he gets human contact is when he's fighting and it causes him to actively seek that pain because he's so starved for it. he can come across as childish but that's moreso due to being drunk on freedom... and he's also drugged. very, very drugged.

nero spends a lot of time in deepground sedated in a pod. and when he's wandering free, he's still being heavily medicated to make him easier for them to handle. i do think he plays up his childishness just a little in ffviir because he wants the staff to underestimate him. if they think he's just weiss' insane little brother, then he has a lot more freedom to move about without them paying too much attention to what he's doing.

nero is fucking miserable and, as we saw in intergrade, could get out at any time. but he won't leave weiss. the fight that he had with sonon and yuffie was probably the most alive he's ever felt, because he wasn't just being set on people who had absolutely no chance against him. they hurt him and he reveled in it.

nero is absolutely as bloodthirsty as his brother when he's not appropriately focused. though it's worth saying that nero's whole thing is he prefers to be hurt because he craves that human contact.

post-rebellion is basically the first time he's been fully lucid for any significant stretch of time since his early teens. it's why the nero of doc is much more subdued than the one in ffviir, he's not working against heavy sedatives and he's had much more time around other people. granted, most of them have probably avoided him like the plague and he's avoided most of them in turn, but because weiss is dead he has to step the fuck up and take responsibility.

nero does view death as a kindness, as an end to the suffering that is life. its why he doesn't give anyone a quick one. you're not allowed to have an easy way out if he's stuck here.

none of this is to say that nero isn't capable of kindness himself. with weiss alive (and with strict orders from weiss to behave) then nero can adapt. he will never care for anyone as much as his brother, but he can form tenuous connections with others. they just have to live knowing that nero can, and will, discard them if it benefits weiss in the slightest way.

i think if he was being completely honest with himself, nero would say he'd prefer not to exist. i think the main reason he keeps on living is when he dies, he will not return to the lifestream. he and weiss will go to different places when they die. this is the primary reason why nero did not attempt to follow after weiss when he died. there would be no point. the loneliness he feels would just be fucking eternal because he's probably aware he'll still maintain some level of consciousness. i think this is why when he opts to fuse with weiss rather than save himself, he'd rather have some part of him live on inside his brother than continue living in a world that was just fundamentally not made for him. becoming one with weiss is the only peaceful ending he can give himself.

[constellation2330]

Starfield, Final Thoughts

'cause no-one else I know has finished the game and I have to scream into the void

Starfield is a good game. There have been a couple of bugs so far (namely one where almost everything in my player home disappeared after a certain stage in the main quest, due to New Atlantis refreshing after a 'invasion' state, and a couple of naked guards), but everything has been stable and plays really well.

I like the combat, enemies will take cover, duck, run to new cover, run away, charge you. After playing a ton of FO4, it's refreshing. Outpost building and decorating is fun, and placing things is easier than in FO4. Scanning and exploration are not very exciting, but when you do them at the same time as other things (scanning a planet, flora and fauna whilst you're there for a quest, collecting resources), it can be a relaxing little side jaunt, particularly on an interesting looking planet. The random encounters, which Bethesda has always done so well, are also great.

The faction quests are genuinely fantastic. I've not completed them all entirely, but the UC one has been my favourite so far. There's some genuine 'oh shit' moments, the NPCs are compelling, and the missions are fun. I had an absolute blast with that UC one, particularly because by that point, I had learnt enough about the universe I had started taking certain things for granted that were turned on their head. There was a jump scare moment that was very delightful.

Companions are likeable, feel very grounded with 'real people problems,' and are tremendously well voice acted. I had fears they would be caricatures, particularly Barrett, but they're all solid.

Here's the bad, then.

No ground map. Particularly early on, this is a huge pain in the ass. There's actually a lot to see and do in the established settlements, but running around like a headless chicken when you're new to the game and just want to buy more ammo is frustrating. Luckily, there are some good maps online already, and after a while you'll find the layout of these places is pretty simple and you'll remember where everything is. Taking some of the 'activity' missions is also a fun and natural way they get you to explore the settlements.

Exploration, whilst as I said is a decent enough little side diversion as you do other things, is not the promised point of this game. It's boring, and I would like these points of interest to either a) have interesting enemies you need to fight b) have rare or unique loot to make them worth going to c) have random encounters or d) give you some much needed extra XP.

Companions, whilst likable, are maybe... too sane. The fact that all the main four 'full' companions are from the same, lawful, good faction is a real issue if you want to play a 'bad' or crime filled playthrough. Whilst I really like their backstories, one of the attractions of companions in games is that you get to hang out with some absolute nutters, and there are none here. We needed a mix, like in Fallout, of rival factions who would bicker and snipe at each other, at least one you can't get or lose in your first playthrough if you choose a 'side,' and at least one you can sway from their original faction. I would maybe have picked two from Constellation and one from the UC, Freestar, Crimson Fleet and House Va'runn. Sam could easily have been from the Freestar questline, as you take his place in the Rangers so he can get out to spend more time with his daughter (onto that later), Andreja could easily have been House Va'runn, who stays or leaves depending on your actions. We come to those two too late, really, when all the interesting stuff in their lives has essentially happened.

Edit: I should say, you can 'sort of' sway Andreja, but I would like to have seen YOU uncover her as a House Va'runn spy, and either let her continue (keep her secret), have her kicked out (and encounter her later as an enemy) or convince her to leave the house and join Constellation for real. The companion comments on that would have been amazing tbh.

So, the main quest. It's... a little unsatisfying. You don't get any answers about what the artifacts actually are (I'm thinking the DLC will explore this), and if you romance Sam Coe, something that really annoyed me was how easily he was willing to become Starborn, let his daughter become Starborn too, knowing the risk that they would be separated. In WHAT universe would a father as loving as Sam take the risk that he would never see his daughter again, just to fulfil some vague explorer's desire? This is done for gameplay reasons, you can't exactly wait for her to grow up, act out living a life with your family and then move on when you're all ready (although I like to think this is how it happens for my character). But it's very, very jarring. This is sort of addressed with one of the New Game+ openings, where adult Cora appears looking for revenge from a universe where Sam died, and is clearly resentful of the artifacts. But it just didn't really sit right with me.

It is, however, a really interesting and fun way to take your character into New Game+, if you're the kind that likes to do another playthrough with the same character. It's a bittersweet ending as you leave behind 'your' universe, but by the time you've done everything you wanted to do, you sort of feel 'ready.' It was nice to see the little epilogue tableaus, too.

So, yeah. Is it worth playing? Yeah. Was it worth the money I spent? Well... yeah, to be honest, considering the money off I'll get for the DLC included. But I would also recommend waiting until it comes down in price. You'll have fun and be absorbed, but I don't think it'll ever make the same splash (especially on Tumblr) that Fallout and BG3 have made.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE FUTURE OF LISP DIFFERENT

Established ones have learned to treat saying yes as like diving off a diving board, and they raised money after Y Combinator at premoney valuations of $4 million and $2. Don't assume when this happens that you've failed. The form of fragmentation, like the chemical elements. You're doing better than Dropbox and Airbnb! Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. They'd face the mother of all boycotts. They don't like that idea: the ones who did it best. A greedy algorithm takes the best of the options in front of it right now. Now companies had to face absolute rather than relative standards. Your company has to make money by creating wealth, certainly. People who worry about the increasing gap between rich and poor is growing too. So don't get demoralized.

But if it does, get the best investors is in the bank, they're also losing a lot each month, and revenue growth is either nonexistent or mediocre. This is harder to do than it sounds. But I don't have anything like this serenity when I'm writing, four nights out of five I go to bed discontented, feeling he hadn't made enough progress. And in fact it has been losing to Silicon Valley in the late 90s because they needed it for Outlook. At the very least I must have explained something badly. The only difference is how the A List is selected. The traditional series A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and one independent. Kids who went to private schools or wished they did started to dress preppy, and kids who wanted to learn about science could find better teachers than Aristotle in his own startup, go ahead. You're thinking out loud. One advantage of being old is that you should lower your expectations initially. For example, I've always been fascinated by comb-overs, especially the extreme sort that make a man look as if he's wearing a beret made of his own hair. In that case, in the now pointless secrecy of the Masons.

History seems to me that beliefs about the future are so rarely correct that they usually aren't worth the extra rigidity they impose, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little Web 2. And to the extent you push them to. And they will. E-commerce business was granted a patent on online ordering, or something like that. Meaning everyone within this world was low-res version 1, then f iterating rapidly. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. You may have heard that quote about luck consisting of opportunity meeting preparation. We need to add one more qualification: we should ignore cases where someone knows what to do in certain situations? When it comes to fundraising.

And this too tended to produce both social and economic cohesion. By the 1970s, we've seen the underlying forces at work again. Your company has to make money for a year. Everyone he knows has seen that picture. Ask if they're right. I know. When Rockefeller said individualism was gone, he was listed as an inventor on the patent Yahoo sued over—so perhaps there was something personal about it.

As well as pinching off the stream of patents at the point where they're issued, we may in some cases be able to solve part of the game. There was no Internet then. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. And since the lawyer could never admit, in front of their TV set watching the same show, at the same time. I take it as an axiom that we're only achieving 1% of what we could. These smaller groups are always arranged in a tree structure. But few big companies are extremely good at denial. Raising money has a mysterious capacity to suck up all your attention. But it was also because our standards were higher. Wrong. But I think it's worth it.

Everyone he knows has seen that picture. Overlooked problems are by definition problems that most people think don't matter. Oh, yeah. But by that time were brown with dirt. It will be easier to raise money, what should your valuation be? That suit probably hurt Amazon more than it is police or freedom? I'm describing already sounds too good to be true of a successful startup that practically all do raise outside money. Every dinner is a kind of religious conviction. So what is the difference? What is wisdom?

Wrong. What if they like you? But even in the smartest companies. And because they were admired. But if opinion is divided in such discussions, the side that knows it would lose in a vote will tend to be worried, not contented. The path to wisdom is through discipline, and the restrictions imposed by interfaces owned by other groups, he could only try a fraction of the things that makes the fatal pinch. That's schlep blindness. Surprises make us laugh, and surprises are what one wants to deliver. Another thing you notice when you see animals in the wild is that each species thrives in groups of several hundred.

[jones-friend]

I have finished playing yet another game and I have some thoughts I wanted to share!

This is one I’ve been wanting to post on bc I’m not the biggest fan of the game’s discourse. I’ve been playing pokemon since Ruby/Sapphire. I have completed gen 2 remake, gen 3, gen 4, gen 5, gen 6, gen 8, and now gen 9. I have attempted gen 1, gen 2, and gen 7 without completing them.

I want to start with that I believe this is the best pokemon game. I’ll explain in full, but upfront this is the best time I’ve had playing a pokemon game.

Another thing I want to get out of the way is the game’s performance issues. When I see the game discussed this is the only thing I see being discussed. Yes I agree the game shipped unfinished, there are many performance issues. Its easy to go online and google silly glitches. I played both this and Cyberpunk day 1: this is nowhere near as bad as Cyberpunk. In the time I’ve played this I have not experienced any bugs that forced a restart. You’ll see NPC’s taking a walk at a brisk two frames per second, windmills tick like clocks, and sometimes Fuecoco slides into the abyss but nothing I encountered broke my forward progress. That’s why this recommendation comes with a “yes if you can set aside performance issues” because they are present and they are serious.

I’m going to move forward from talking about the game’s performance issues now.

The game takes the three plotlines of the 8 gyms, legendary pokemon, and an antagonist team and fractures them into bite sized pieces. You set out and find new wild pokemon to add to your team and shape your team through the course of the game.

Theres a LOT to love here. We’ll start gameplay. I have never cared about filling out the dex until this game. Hunting wild pokemon is easier since you can see them all before you encounter them and this gen serves a wide and intriguing variety of types from across nine generations of pokemon games. I never felt walled into a single or small set of typings and I was consistently finding stuff I wanted to try. TM crafting is very helpful, most necessary items can be bought, and terastalizing is the best version of mega evolution the series has made since gen 6.

Each pokemon has a tera type, typically the typing they are. When you terastalize you shift into that tera type and moves of that type become more powerful. The kicker is your tera type doesnt need to match your type. Through raid battles and a special process to change it you can receive different tera types. I cleared the elite four with a banette that shifts to fairy. You can only terastalize once between pokecenters making it much clearer than gigantomax. Its huge for pvp play and I’m excited to tinker with it.

Pokemon has also struggled with difficulty often opting to go too easy. To me this game hits it just right. Some fights were easy but some really wrung me out. The team star fire and fighting leaders in particular gave me a run for my money. I has two pokemon left after the dragon elite four trainer. Granted I did remake my team at lvl 60 for all the path finales, it was exactly the level of difficulty I want out of pokemon that made me engage with its typing mechanics.

New pokemon are also delightful, lots of exciting type combos, cute new designs, there’s a ton of hits this generation and fantastic new evolutions.

The story is much improved as well. Essentially you have a rival per story line and they all function differently. At the conclusion of all three paths the next story is unlocked where you and your three buds you’ve become friends with over the course of a typical pokemon game go on an adventure. I wont spoil this section, but genuinely this is the strongest part of any pokemon game I’ve played. It made me feel the themes the game wants to reinforce. A+.

Also shoutout to all the team star fight themes all three are bangers.

So is this a good game?

If we’re judging by pokemon standards its incredible. To me its the closest the series has been to what the premise promises. If this gets remade I think fans will be stoked. Its absolutely one of the strongest entries.

Is it a good game divorced from the pokemon legacy? Yes*. Its got a great finale, great art direction, engaging battles that never felt too easy, the GAME here is very strong. The performance can be a real problem and if the performance of a game can make or break it for you I cannot recommend this one. You need to be able to let a lot of aesthetic performance issues slip by, sometimes daschbun just goes into the stratosphere. Sometimes Jeff from Biology walks through your pokemon battle. But if you’re able to set these issues aside I think you’ll have a wonderful time.

I think gamefreak is headed in the right direction with this entry and I hope to see more from them like this! A patch released the morning of posting this, and I’m hoping the performance issues settle to let what is a strong entry in the pokemon series get attention it deserves.

[gamerbearmira]

Labyrinth Au where Isabela wishes Mirabel away?

I assume your talking about the movie from '86 with David Bowie in it, so let's get into it!

Encanto x Labyrinth 1986 AU

In this AU, I decided to age them down a bit. Isabela is 16, and Mirabel is 10.

So Isabela wants to go out, take a break, you know. But, she's got to stay home at Casita, and help Mirabel. She doesn't want to, obviously.

Mirabel asks Isabela to help with one more thing, which is to help her read some book, and it just doesn't go over well. They get into a huge argument, and it's really just a screaming contest.

In a fit of anger and frustration wishes that Mirabel would be taken away.

A hop, skip and a jump later, Mirabel is just...gone. She disappears. Isabela starts freaking out, and is turning Casita upside down trying to find her before anyone else got home.

She's literally bawling, crying about how she didn't mean anything she said and that she'd help Mirabel with whatever she wanted, she just wanted her to come back.

She burst into the nursey and there, is a sleeping Mirabel in David Bowie's Jareth's arms.

Isabela demands to know who he is, and he ignores her, obviously. He gives Isabela an offer: To grant her wish to take Mirabel away and she'll never have to worry about her again.

Isabela obviously declines, she didn't really want her to go away. and Jareth is like:

"Ok then. But if you want her back you'll have to go through this entire maze in under 13 hours. If you don't...you'll never see her again."

Before she can even blink, she's trapped in a giant maze, and her Gift barely works; she can't use it to get out, and they're very limited.

But she doesn't have time to dwell on that! She knows she's only got so much time, so she's off.

As she makes her way through the labyrinth, she meets some other folks who at first freak her out, but later see that they mean to help her for the most part.

So, she has to go through a ton of things, but she has helped. On several occasions, she almost dies or loses track of time.

The more puzzles she solves and the closer she gets to the castle, the more she expands on her powers and discovers a ton of exotic stuff.

Eventually they all get to the castle and defeat the army, and she goes in alone, ready to brawl with Jareth.

Once again, he offers to take Mirabel away forever, and once, she declines and demands for him to give her back.

She then remembers the book and starts reciting the words, and then is stuck racking her brain for the last line.

Jareth gives her one last chancwe to grant her wish and then she finally remembers the line.

While throwing a ton of colored pollen in his face, she yells,

"You have no power over me!"

He's defeated, and Isabela starts bawling again and is thankful that she's ok. Mirabel is a bit confused, but she doesn't care; she's just happy that her sister doesn't hate her anymore.

Isabela says bye to her friends and leaves with Mirabel back to Casita.

Both leave the nursery hand in hand laughing while the other family members are coming back. Isabela is a bit confused at this because she was gone for at least 12 hours...but she doesn't mind. She's just glad she got her sister back.

_______

Decided to bullet point this so it's easier to follow! I will say that I've never seen this movie, only clips of it. So, I really based the plot off what I could find online. I know a whole lot is missing, but this is what I could get out of what I researched. But I'm happy with it and I hope you are too my beloved Asker!

---

Feel free to ask about My May-Exclusive Mermay AU, Mamabel, Papatonio, Housebroken, or any other AU you find on this blog!

I also take art suggestions for all AU's on this blog, including Cocooned!

If you have an AU idea, I will expand on it like I did here, so send those in too if you want!

[stingslikeabee]

Maybe it was because it felt safe, warm and inviting to be in bed like that, hiding away from the real world and just sharing each other's company, but that closeness (including from a physical perspective) made Melissa feel strangely at ease with a conversation that could feel very intimate otherwise. The actress had a good idea of the reasons keeping the Lumon employee away from his bedroom - and why he didn't look after himself as he should.

Gemma - Melissa had not been around at the time Mark got married and then led a different life, but Devon had told her about it before; at the time, it felt to the brunette like that sort of news article you read about a very faraway place with little impact in everyday life. The woman had not been in touch with Mark in a while, but she remembered indirectly wishing him the best through that one videocall with Devon.

But moving into Mark's home after everything was just like immigrating to that distant country - suddenly there were traces of Gemma everywhere, including those pointing to her absence. The empty closet, the labeled boxed stashed away, the way that the house barely felt like a home and more like a spot to crash, eat and go to work again. There were a lot of things around that suggested a happy life before, with hobbies, dreams and more than just office hours, but it had all been dulled and abandoned.

Until more recently - and perhaps it was because Mark felt he had been forced to look after someone who had been emotionally worse than himself, but he had stepped up his game. Melissa had been given the best the man could afford without her being seen, from special toiletries she liked and that he ordered online to making special meals he remembered his friend enjoying. Little by little, they fixed the basement, the gym equipment, unpacked boxes with so much Lumon gifts and other old belongings that had been gathering dust in dark corners.

The claim about a clingy fish parent had Melissa laughing, however; it was unexpected and silly, but heartwarming all the same. The two bettas were pretty to look at, as well as calming. The way their delicate fins moved in their bowl was entrancing and soothing, and even if Mark joked about being a fish parent, it nevertheless gave him an objective. Granted, Devon leaving Melissa at his doorstop had led to a bigger pet project - and one that talked back and made suggestions, too.

Such as the one that eventually followed his proud father moment.

"A very noble reason," the brunette nodded in agreement, the gesture meant to be rather solemn but failing to accomplish that outcome given how disheveled Melissa's hair looked from the impromptu nap. Folding one arm under the pillow and using the other one to rest over the mattress, in-between their bodies, the woman looked at Mark under the dimmed lights of the room and asked something else.

"What if I moved here, then? You keep telling me to use the bed instead of being downstairs," the actress said, bringing back into conversation all the times he had suggested that to her, "If I slept here too - would that be a good reason to make you come use your bed? It clearly can take both of us."

The ask was rather simple, from an objective perspective - it was spacious, comfortable and none of them would want for room. But on a deeper, sentimental level, Melissa was asking something different - would he let her take care of him?

Mark had done enough - and unlike Ferdie and Buddy, she could reward and repay his kindness, even if gratitude was not the sole thing underpinning that proposal. No, there was decidedly more in how good that felt - breathing the scent of soap from Mark's skin, the warm breath when he talked that close to her face and the extra weight on the bed.

Mark Scout had been part of Melissa's life when everything was happier and easier; he was now also part of it when things hit rock bottom, and pulled her back from drowning. They got there through unsavory times and painful experiences, but still...

Sighing softly, Melissa realized the promise she had made in that instant - one to him but also to Gemma: a vow to care and look after Mark as she probably would have done if circumstances had been different.

If Mark didn't already think Melissa's easily afforded kindness was like coming home, seeing the blanket lifted by her hand probably would have done him in. He can't even pretend to tease her about it; between the soft plea in those bright eyes and the promised warmth of sharing a bed with another, what resolve he might have had to remain a living ghost crumbles. The bed sinks once more under his weight, and once he's settled he nudges Melissa's hand aside only to make sure the blanket is snug around the both of them.

Christ, Mark nearly says aloud. The strange (if not nostalgic) knots in his stomach are made worse with Melissa's warmth so intimately tied to his own. As his hand rests on the bed, close to where Melissa's had come to rest, he becomes all too aware of the scant few inches left until he can touch skin. He almost wants to look away, but the last thing he wants is for Melissa to think he's repelled by her. Mark's been looking at her more than he probably should these days, though, and the proximity between them makes that truth impossible to hide.

Her question, at least, is a good excuse-- conversation means he can look at the way Melissa's face screws up when she frowns and find it adorable, and that he can laugh for more reasons than thinking she's cute when she's upset.

"I wanna say there's a serious reason for it," Mark starts, shifting slightly to press his head more fully into the pillow, "but it all boils down to routine, I guess.

"I didn't take good care of myself when I first moved here... didn't eat half the time, forgot about water, the works." Mostly I wanted to die, but kept chickening out of it. "Passing out on the couch was part of that. I wasn't really sleeping so much as I was waiting to be exhausted." He shrugs. "Lack of self-care keeps people out of their comfy beds, or something stupid like that."

He's not blind to how his own self-awareness creates the most incredibly irony. People are weird, though, and Mark is no exception.

"I never had a good reason to go up here, that's all." Mark chuckles then, tone verging on playful as he adds, "But if you want, we can chalk it up to 'I adopted Ferdie and Buddy and didn't want to leave them alone at night'.

"Being a clingy fish parent is probably the funnier reason."

[icequeenbae]

Lost and Found | BBH [pt.1]

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Continued in: Stay the Night (m) [pt.2]

Fluff, angst, newdad!Baek, falling out, exes to ???, sfw  future smut? not in this one tho

Warnings: they have a history, there’s a cute baby involved (I promise I have fics without babies too lol), a brief mention of the OC having a non-Asian appearance

Word Count: ~3.3k

Summary: Baekhyun bumps into you while dropping his friend’s niece off in daycare. It’s been almost three years since you’d disappeared, so you definitely have a lot to catch up on. Especially because your carefully maintained secret is now out…

© Please do not copy/ post on other platforms without permission.

Author’s Note: Finally!! Button pressed! It’s out! Thank you guys for being patient, my life has been a mess lately (and getting worse by the day), so I was too stressed to finish anything. But hopefully I’ll be able to post more soon^^ This one is my second sfw, I think, so I hope more audiences can enjoy it! With this fic I wanted to tell a complicated story without really laying it all out. I hope it doesn’t feel too rushed. There will be a continuation if you guys are interested (I know I was curious to peek into their future relationship...), so as always keep me posted! Your messages always cheer me up, so... love💞💞💞

Masterlist

Network tags: @superm-net  @exo-writers-net​  @bbh-net​​

It wasn’t quite early, but your son was so sleepy you had to carry the little drooling angel all the way from your car. A mother’s heart wouldn’t allow you to wake him up just yet, another precious minute of snoozing granted.

He was still so tiny in your arms. Quite heavy, yes, and pretty grown for his age, but also a minuscule bundle of happiness. Your son was your life – the two of you against the world. It was almost heartbreaking that you had no means of spending more time with him than you did. Daycare was your only option since dropping any of your jobs would result in you lacking funds to provide the appropriate quality of life for your little one. And you were not willing to compromise. You wanted him well-fed, dressed in fitting clothes (and lord do they grow out of those fast), and playing with all kinds of development-inducing toys. Not to mention how alert you were to his health… Couldn’t afford to have an empty account in case he needed a checkup. It was imperative that he came first, and it was your job as his parent to see to his well-being.

That didn’t mean that you were invincible though. Getting drained and overworked regularly, you had to make the necessary adjustments. It got much easier after you decided to stop breastfeeding a few months ago since this type of logistics was too hard to pull off while maintaining an office job. Yet the decision only became the added weight on your shoulders. As a new mom, you had no idea whether you were doing everything right. In fact, you were pretty sure you weren’t. But you had no resources to actually study the art of raising a child, and he wasn’t exactly planned (loved to the moon and back, nonetheless!), so you were just relying on your instincts, the internet, and any advice you could get along the way.

As expected, your maternal instinct soon kicked in, urging you to slow down and find ways to spend more time with your baby. So, after a while, you settled with a part-time office job (at least for now) and took small gigs like remote tutoring and online translations in order to spend more time at home with Hyunwoo.

But whenever you looked at your precious boy, so peaceful, with his plump sugar cheek pressing to your chest as he snuffled cutely, tiny hand holding onto your necklace, all of your problems evaporated. Because in those moments you realized that he held all of the meaning in your life. And your heart filled with warmth, while the inner strength and determination to overcome the difficulties rekindled.

Kissing the top of his fluffy head, you called him gently, walking into the elevator.

‘Hyunwoo-yah, it’s time to wake up,’ you slightly shook his shoulder, and he grunted in displeasure. ‘Come on, puppy, don’t you want mommy to say goodbye and give you a ppoppo?’

He stirred in your arms, and you chuckled. Since a very tender age, your son had proven to be very fond of your affection. And you were no stranger to using that to get him to do something.

‘Don’t you want to give me a kiss? And then you can go play with your friends,’ you definitely made him interested, because the grunting intensified.

As you walked out of the elevator, you asked, ‘Can you show mommy the prettiest eyes in the world? I really want to see.’

It was a little game you were playing ever so often. You always told Hyunwoo how beautiful his eyes were, ever since his mixed heritage came into the picture. He did look a lot like his father, almost painfully so, and you knew he might have questions later on. Having an unusual for Korea non-Asian appearance, you were used to attracting quite a lot of attention. And it wasn’t long until your child noticed too, especially since people were complimenting your ‘big eyes’ and ‘high nose’ left and right.

However, a few weeks ago, when you were enjoying your Sunday walk with your son, a little girl in the park stopped right in front of you and stared. Her apologetic mother, in an attempt to laugh it off, told you it was peculiar to meet someone with such big beautiful eyes. The situation itself was quite uncomfortable, and you weren’t a psychologist, but you were sure one of two things happened. Either your boy, who was right there, felt neglected (being used to the attention and compliments of strangers directed at him most of the time), or… He had his first identity crisis.

It wasn’t a question before, and you realized children didn’t really give such concepts any thought unless someone nudged them to, but that evening he looked at his reflection in every glassy surface or mirror there was. He finally noticed. And while the difference wasn’t as vast as it would probably be in the future, he was aware of it through other people’s behavior. And maybe because he was very attached to you (his only parent), this idea of him being different was scary.

Were you prepared for a two-year-old to have such a problem? Not in a million years. But a mother’s heart was the only thing you needed to guide him through it. That was when you first showed him a picture.

It wasn’t new or up-to-date, you didn’t want to look for anything recent to avoid seeing something you didn’t want to see. But one picture was enough to soothe a child’s curiosity for the time being. You didn’t want to deceive him by showing someone else, but you also didn’t want him to hold on too much to this image. It was possibly a bigger struggle for you than it was for your son.

‘It’s true that you don’t look exactly like mommy, rice cake,’ you paused, showing him the promised photo. ‘You have your daddy’s eyes. The most beautiful in the world, see? One and the same.’

Hyunwoo stared at the picture for a long while. Finding a lot of familiar features in the man’s face, he finally let go of his fear.

‘My eyes pretty as mommy?’

‘Of course. Even prettier than mommy’s,’ you cooed, and he giggled, wrapping his tiny arms around your neck.

So, you took it upon yourself to remind him of that often.

‘We’re almost there, are you going to show mommy who has the prettiest eyes? Is that Mrs Kim? Or maybe your friend Yeji?’ You teased him, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to resist.

‘No! It’s Hyunwoo!’

He blinked with a grumpy expression on his puffy face, not at all satisfied with your words.

‘Oh, you’re right. Hyunwoo’s eyes are the pre-e-etiest in the entire world,’ you agreed with a knowing face. ‘So pretty that he gets mommy’s kiss on the nose!’

You smooched the tiny button nose before quickly announcing, ‘And his cheeks!’ pressing multiple kisses to his now laughing face.

‘Are you going to be a good boy? We’re going to say hi to Mrs Kim, and then mommy is going, okay, puppy?’

As usual, he said no, clinging to your neck. You had to spend an extra minute in the hallway, convincing him to behave. When he finally agreed to let you go until evening, someone ran past – a man in a raincoat and a girl who seemed in a hurry to get to the daycare – and entered the door in front of you.

‘See? Your friends are probably waiting already, so let’s go in,’ you tickled him lightly, renewing his fit of giggles, and opened the door.

‘You’re a lifesaver! Thanks for bringing her in, I wouldn’t have been able to pick her up on time!’

‘It’s nothing. She was as well-behaved as Junmyeon told me.’ The man you just caught a glimpse of in the hallway laughed. ‘I haven’t been in the outskirts of Seoul for a while, it reminds me of my hometown. Almost felt nostalgic while driving here!’

That voice. And that laugh.

You stopped in your tracks, muscles suddenly tensing from shock. How was this even possible?

Holding your boy close, you stood there, frozen in stupor, almost scared to make a sound. You couldn’t do it. There was no other choice but to run. Trying to back away slowly, you only had a chance to take one step before Mrs Kim noticed you.

‘Oh, Y/N! I see you’re bringing our little puppy a bit late today!’

You swallowed. The man in front of you turned to glance in your direction as the childcare worker approached.

‘Uh- He is still sleepy in the mornings from the cold he had last week. Maybe I shouldn’t leave him here yet,’ you blurted, ready to be on your way.

‘He isn’t warm or fussy. You mentioned his temperature was fine since a few days ago, all symptoms cleared?’

You nodded reluctantly, evading the other adult in the room.

‘Well then, there’s nothing to worry about! I’ll be extra careful with him and will update you if needed,’ she opened her arms to take him from you.

Backing out now would be… too weird.

‘Okay, pup, I’ll pick you up in a few hours. Be the best boy for mommy, okay?’

‘Yes! Ppoppo!’ He demanded instantly.

You smooched him before allowing Mrs Kim to take him away to the playroom.

And then you saw him.

It wasn’t your eyesight or your hearing playing tricks on you. This was unquestionably him. And he was now standing there, two strides away, looking at the door through which your son was just taken. Meanwhile, your mind was racing. What could you say? Was there a plausible explanation? An excuse? What was he even doing here? He couldn’t have had a child of that age, was he bringing someone else’s in?

While you were contemplating whether asking him something was better than simply vanishing out of his sight, he turned back to you.

Pierced by his direct gaze, you instantly swirled around and disappeared in the doorway. It was only a couple of seconds before you heard him calling after you.

‘Y/N! Wait!’

The damn elevator wasn’t coming no matter how many times you pushed that button, and you were sure an attempt to use the stairs wouldn’t end well with how weak your knees were at that moment.

‘Stop!’ He grabbed you by the forearm, forcing you to face him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Nothing. I’m in a hurry, so please excus-’

‘Are you serious?’ He huffed, incredulous. ‘You’re just going to walk away?’

Avoiding his face, you looked at his collar, nodding. Anything to not see his eyes. Anything to not enhance the worry in your gut. Anything to not feel the painful clench in your chest.

‘Your son-’ You closed your eyes at the question you were dreading the most. ‘How old is he?’

Suddenly sensing how your lips quivered, you pursed them, refusing to answer.

‘How old is he, Y/N?’ He squeezed your shoulders. ‘You must tell me.’

‘He’s two,’ you whimpered, blinking away the treacherous tears. ‘He’s two.’

You heard him exhale, still holding onto you when the elevator doors opened and closed behind you. While your opponent looked profoundly shaken, you became defensive.

‘He’s mine, Baekhyun. You have your own, so don’t even think about taking mine away.’

He looked at you in confusion, and you almost faltered, meeting his wide eyes with a stubborn stare. But you knew what it was like in Korea. Generally speaking, children were a part of the man’s family. And with how little you were making compared to him… Chances you could win an actual legal battle and retain custody of your boy were quite slim. So you stood your ground with all the courage you could gather at that moment.

‘What?’

‘You heard me! He’s my son, and you will have nothing to do with him. So go back to raising your kids with your wife.’

‘Y/N-’

‘If you try anything, I swear- I will- I will-’ you attempted to come up with something menacing, but your stupid tears of terror kept clouding your vision and your sane mind. ‘He’s mine! I won’t let you take him!’ You shoved Baekhyun in the chest, but it didn’t affect him.

In fact, instead of moving away, he stepped closer, pulling you into a tight hug. You wanted to scream and writhe and get away, but he squeezed you tight and sighed in your ear.

‘Thank god I finally found you.’

You were tapping on your coffee mug nervously, feeling vulnerable under the scrutiny of his curious eyes.

‘What?’ You snapped, and he stumbled out of his thoughts.

‘Oh, sorry. You just… look different,’ he cleared his throat. ‘I missed you.’

‘Stop it,’ you clenched the mug in your palms, struggling to warm them up. ‘I’m not falling for this.’

‘I know why you’re like this. But-’

‘But what? You expect me to just fall into your arms as if your whole ‘marriage with children’ didn’t happen?!’

Thankfully, the coffee shop was almost empty at this hour, so no one really paid attention to your quarrel.

‘You seriously don’t know...? Y/N, there was no marriage.’

Eyes shot up to his again.

‘What? You didn’t- I thought you didn’t want to be a man who gets a woman pregnant and doesn’t-’

‘Right. But had you stuck around, you would’ve learned that I couldn’t just marry a stranger because of a single careless night. And when I informed her of that, it… turned out that I wasn’t so careless.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I told her I’ll be supporting the child after the clinic of my choosing runs a DNA test. It was then brought to my attention that she was pregnant since before we even- So, the child wasn’t mine.’

You searched his face for clues. He seemed sincere, yet you struggled to believe his words. Possibly because of how damn thoughtless and hot-headed it would’ve made you out to be if he was honest. If you ran while there was no actual reason to do so.

‘Um- So, you’re saying that your one-night stand lied about you getting her pregnant... Meanwhile, the girlfriend you got after that hookup was actually the one who got knocked up?’

‘You now admit that I was the one who knocked you up?’

‘I admit no such thing,’ you quipped, getting angry at your slip.

‘But you just said-’

‘Baekhyun.’

‘Okay.’

He was sulking now.

The way your son did every time he didn’t get his way. The similarities between them were unambiguous. And while you didn’t get to date Baekhyun for more than a few months, you’d spent almost three years with your son. You knew what his tantrums were like from when he was still in your belly till this morning. This… was all too familiar.

‘How do I know that you’re telling the truth?’ You asked, unsure of how you should proceed with the discussion.

‘I- Seriously? Were you living under a rock this entire time?’ He backtracked, catching your glare. ‘Sorry… I just mean- I even mentioned looking for you in one of my interviews. My last solo comeback was revolving around ‘searching for the lover I’d lost’. Every song was about you, and you- didn’t even know.’

He sounded a bit disappointed. As if he expected that you’d at least get his messages, let alone respond, and you didn’t even grace him with that.

‘I was- trying to stay away.’ You shuddered, locking your hands anxiously in front of you. ‘I didn’t even know that I was pregnant when I ran away. Figuring it out on the move was pretty damn hard, you know?’

‘No, I don’t. But I want to. I want to know everything about you and- our boy,’ he reached out to slowly take your hand between his and hummed. ‘Hands always cold, just as I remember.’

You didn’t pull away. For a minute or two, you just sat there silently, his fingers touching yours slowly. Tenderly. As if all of those long years didn’t fly by between the last time you saw each other and right now.

There was, however, an important question you needed to voice.

‘You’re really not going to take him away from me?’ You asked in a tiny voice, looking down at his warm hands that covered yours.

‘Y/N… Is that what you think of me? I don’t want to separate you from your child.’ You exhaled in relief. ‘I want you both.’

Stunned by his confession, you tore your eyes from your now entangled fingers and managed to articulate, ‘You want… us?’

To your surprise, Baekhyun nodded as if it was obvious.

‘But- don’t you have… some kind of life? It’s been almost three years, you must be-’

‘Y/N,’ he sighed, squeezing your hands. ‘I know that we weren’t together for years and decades, but it wasn’t a couple weeks either. I can only speak for myself, but to me… you felt like family. You’re my person. That’s just how it is. And now we have a son, too.’

You swallowed a lump sitting in your throat.

‘I’ll probably give you hell for running and hiding from me for three damn years but I’m too happy for that right now.’ You chuckled timidly at the statement.

His words sounded earnest and sincere, and the fearful heaviness in your chest began to ease. Baekhyun hadn’t changed. You knew that from the brief interaction you’d had, and your gut was confirming that. He was still someone you could trust. And however scared you were of this new development… you wanted to trust him.

‘I can’t just ask you to pretend that these years apart didn’t happen or didn’t change us, but… I’m asking you to give me a chance and let me back into your life. Just allow me to be there for you and…?’

‘Hyunwoo,’ you whispered.

‘…and our Hyunwoo,’ he finished, voice almost seeping honey when he tasted his son’s name for the first time.

You nodded, the balminess of his hands enveloping your fingers, warming your entire being up.

‘Tell me everything about him. No, actually, start from the day you walked out. Tell me everything about both of you.’

~

Stay the Night (m) [pt.2]

A/N: Thank you for reading~~ I hope you enjoyed this shortie ☺ Don’t forget to comment, reblog or drop in my asks to let me know what you think! I appreciate your feedback💜💜💜 And you know where to find more of my stories -> My Masterlist ✨

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: On "too easy"

I keep seeing posts elsewhere from "serious gamers" saying "waaah, they nerfed the game, IT'S TOO EASY NOW." I keep seeing posts from people who seem to think the only way to "save" SWTOR is to make it really difficult. And posts that cast judgment on those who prefer a more laid-back approach. 

I can't stand that. Truly, one of the worst things about gaming is some of the playerbase. 

I fully believe that where possible, content should have story/veteran/NiM modes available, the way KOTFE, KOTET and the non-story flashpoints do. If someone's idea of fun is to run every single thing with extreme difficulty, and that's what they get a charge from, let them at it...as long as it doesn't mean everyone else has to play that way too. That's where these discussions usually go off the rails, since these folks seem to think that everyone should play at an arbitrary high standard they deem acceptable. 

A lot of different types of players love SWTOR. Some really do want NiM all the time. Others want to decorate strongholds or dress their characters. Some are all about story. Some love the group aspect and always want to play with guildies or friends; others steer clear of all interaction with other players. Some do a mix of all of the above. Some avoid certain activities at all costs. 

I'm a solo story player. For me, extreme challenge isn't fun. It's usually enough to get me to quit. It's not fun for me to die over and over in a game or to struggle with complicated mechanics where one misstep means death. I hate things like the Onderon datacrons. I felt that Spirit of Vengeance was originally tuned way too high and had way too many mobs, even though I was fully able to finish it. 

I've gone in and done some more difficult things like Dread Seeds and veteran flashpoints solo because I wanted to see the content and complete those missions. If the entire game was tuned like the last Dread Seeds mission or those veteran flashpoints, I'd likely leave in about two seconds. In the longterm, it's not pleasant for me. It's physically painful, it's boring and I don't find it relaxing or fun.

No one playstyle is "correct" or "normal." They all are. What's abnormal is when someone insists everyone has to play a certain way. What would I say to those gatekeepers whining about content being too easy? 

The story content isn't getting people ready for endgame. 

So? 

You're assuming everyone wants to play endgame content. They don't. There's nothing Bioware could do, say or bribe me with that would get me into things like Ops, ranked PvP, PvP at all, PUGs or Master Mode flashpoints. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I am here for the story. Period. 

A training ground for endgame content exists in the form of flashpoints. The flashpoints in the game do get progressively tougher. If someone's truly interested in getting raid-worthy skills they're likely going to be doing solo flashpoints. And using groupfinder or joining a guild that works to help players progress. There are options, and those who are interested in raids will seek them out. 

But the story is so easy. It's a faceroll. Games are about challenge.  

Challenge means different things to different people.

Everyone has different abilities. You might roll through every flashpoint. The next player might die seven times just getting through the first tomb on Korriban. By the way, I'm "next player." I think my first toon may have kicked the bucket before even getting into Ajunta Pall's tomb. The word "easy" is very, very relative. 

Also, for some of us, easier content is relaxing and fun. The same way some people like a leisurely bicycle ride along the bike path and others train for the Tour de France. 

If challenge for you involves very difficult gameplay, it does exist. Go join a NiM guild for raids. Go play ranked PvP. Play another game. Why does everyone else need to play the way you play? 

People aren't grouping. They should be forced to group. 

Because you think they should? What gives you any right to dictate how other people play or who they play the game with? Are you the National Gaming Czar and nobody told us? 

This "grouping should be compulsory!" belief is bullshit. People who want to group WILL group. That's always been the case. Hell, I remember being a kid and playing single player console games with friends. We'd take turns, cheer each other on, and yell out advice to the person playing. We found a way to play in a group because we wanted to. 

Right now, the people in SWTOR there are guilds and healthy incentives to join them. Right now, the people in SWTOR who want to play with a friend or friends can do that. Even in things like class stories or KOTFE where it only progresses for one person, they can still come along and help. There are multiple opportunities in the game for players to meet each other. There are social media sites where they can do the same. There's group finder. There are people who look for groups on the fleet. There are PvP and GSF where they can play against others. 

Bottom line? Anyone who wants to group has multiple ways to accomplish that at this very moment. 

Those who aren't grouping likely do not want to group. They don't have to explain why. If you force them to group one of two things will probably happen: they will do it and hate every second of it and not want to be there, or they will stop playing. Which is more likely? Well, I'm sure we've all finished Oricon, Iokath and Macrobinoculars, right? Oh wait...

This is a game. It's not supposed to be like a job where you have coworkers you detest and still have to interact with them. It's not some life skill. It's. A. Game. Get over it if people don't want to play with you.   There should always be open world PvP. Sure, if you want a mass exodus from the game in about a day. The minute they make open world PvP non-optional or make PvP content compulsory is the day I stop playing. And I don't think I'm alone there. I feel like this comment usually comes from people who are frustrated that others don't accept their duel requests and that there isn't a huge pool of players for PVP matches. They can't get people to play with them voluntarily so they want to force it. And you should be able to tag a mob someone else is working on. I keep seeing this brought up as an ideal in other games. It seems to be a way to force people to group with you even if they've said no to an invite. You know what will happen with this? You'll have players hitting the mob once and getting credit/loot without any effort. Or you will have players following around other players to "share mobs" with them even when that other player wants to be left alone. I'm of the opinion that any type of group play should be consensual in all cases, not forced on players because they happen to be in open world.

*sigh* It's an MMO. 

And? MMO doesn't mean "group all the time" or even some of the time. It means a lot of players are co-existing in a shared online world. It means the ability to group should exist - and it does. 

People come into group content and don't know what to do. 

#1: Everyone starts somewhere. We all know that you were so miraculously gifted that you came out of the womb knowing advanced mechanisms for every boss fight, but most of us didn't. 

#2. If you want to play strictly with a team of veteran players, join a guild, make some friends in the game and have fun. That's a lot more realistic than expecting random players in a PUG or groupfinder to meet whatever your exacting specifications are. 

#3. Blame the devs for forcing players into Groupfinder to complete Galactic Seasons and other objectives. There are plenty of people who wouldn't be there if that weren't the case. 

People come into flashpoints and want to watch the cut scenes. 

Hang on. Let me process this. In a story based game, players want to watch the cut scenes? For real? That's completely unreasonable! /sarcasm

In the latest flashpoints, they've more or less removed all the cut scenes. You have your wish granted. For the older flashpoints, there are still many that don't have solo/story mode. The only way people can see those cut scenes is in veteran or master. If you have an issue with this, start advocating to the devs to make solo story versions of those flashpoints.  I feel like the bottom line is that everyone has the right to ask for the type of gaming experience they want, but they don't have the right to insist everyone else should share that experience.

[plush-rabbit]

Mental Toll - Brothers.

Request: My mom kicked me out, her 15 year old daughter out of her house. And I've been staying with my aunt but everything is taking a mental toll on me . Can I get a Beel, mammon, Leviathan, or asmo comfort?

A/N: Sweetheart, I’m sorry for this. It can be all so difficult for you, but please take care of yourself. Remember that nothing is your fault, you’re a child, you’re gonna be okay. Please don’t keep these emotions bottled up (im also assuming this is comfort on your situation, so yeah)

-

Mammon:

You’ll always have a place with him. He’s taken on a guardian role for you and while he might have hated it at first, he’s grown attached to you. Your guardians in the Human Realm don't matter. They decided to leave you, so now you’re here with him and he isn’t going to abandon you anytime soon. Mammon may not know what to do when he finds you crying and unable to speak, but he cares and he’ll try to show that to you, telling you that you can bunk with him for the night- you get to take his bed and he’ll sleep on the couch, you don’t have to be alone.

He isn’t exactly the best at comforting, using a bit too many words only to come up short, but once that initial nervousness wears off, he’s comforting. He’s taken care of a child before- granted they were much younger, and was then put into the care of witches- he knows what a scared kid looks like. He’ll offer what he can to you and let you rest your head on his bicep as he listens to you ramble about what happened. He won’t ever push for you to talk, but it might help sort out all those feelings that are bubbling up inside of you.

Of course it’s difficult for the both of you. He isn’t too knowledgeable about the mentality and fragility of a human mind and emotions but he can assume to be essentially kicked out of a parent’s home can be rough. He’s dealt with it before even if he knew the risks. He remembers the nights of pain and agony, the silent suffering that was thick in the air, and the lack of self-care. He comes in with a small meal every day, grabbing random vitamins that he thinks might be good for you, and just lets you rest. You see a more hidden side of Mammon, the one that cares too much, that acts almost like a parental figure and have a comforting smile and gives nice hugs.

You aren’t free to rest forever. He’s also seen what that kind of damage that can do to someone's mental health. He won’t ever pressure you to go out and do something you don’t want to, but you do have to move from the spot on his bed. You can hide yourself in his room for as long as you want, but you can’t live your life stuck in a bed. He knows that that isn’t good for anyone. You’ll have all the space that you could want and need, but you need to also talk to him and take care of yourself.

It’s his role as your guardian to take care of you and make sure that nothing bad would happen to you- you being in the Human Realm makes no difference to that. You’re still under his protection and he’ll take care of you as much as he can. Mammon can be brash, and have his sin take over, but it isn’t all that he is. He can be selfless and take care of you and let you just relax around him. There’s no pressure put on you and he’ll protect you. He promises that- he’s a demon, he’s lived for a long time and he’ll live for an even longer time and as long as he’s around, he’ll protect you.

Leviathan:

Coming to Leviathan is certainly a choice. He cares- of course he does! But, he doesn’t know what to do. Of course he knows how it feels, but it was different and so long ago and buried under memories and the fictional world, that he chose to forget that. It’s different with you. You’re a child who’s crying and at a loss for a parent that left them and it must hurt. He’s awkward, but he’ll sit by you and have a hand on your back telling you to take all the time that you need. He’s always here in his room after all, so you can always find him.

In the beginning, he doesn’t know what to do. Surely, there should be words or tips online that could help him translate his words and feelings better than “that sucks.” An apology feels so fake and unsure and he doesn't want that for you. You deserve something real, an actual meaningful interaction that might help you but he comes up blank. He doesn’t know what exactly he should say, so he just lets you rest beside him as he tells you his own encounter with abandonment and what helped him.

He tries to make you feel better in a way that helps him- via distractions. It helped him and maybe it could help you. You like to spend time with him so you both must share some type of interest in common. He feels so proud of himself when he offers you to read his manga or play some of his games. It’s a nice distraction and depending on what you choose, it can be a great way to just open up emotions and see what could effectively help trigger just that blockade of emotions for the both of you. You don’t have to do it, but it proves to be nice to just immerse yourself in some fictional tale.

Eventually, he starts to read what you read once you’ve fallen asleep. You gravitated towards it for a reason and it’s easier to talk to you like that. You get to be the hero, the protagonist or whoever you want, and he knows the struggles that they go through. He can help through an outside glance. It starts off simple, just him mentioning comments, prying for information about why you like a certain character and then in just a blink of an eye, you’re crying. You opened up and he’s by your side.

Comforting you is a bit awkward, but what could he expect. He sits by you and lets you talk through your emotions even if it makes no sense- your words are garbled and out of order- but he gets the main point of it. Leviathan understands that you’re hurting and who wouldn’t be. You’re a child, and the love of a parental figure means a lot. He might not be confident to have that type of relationship with you, but he can certainly be a big brother who lets you come into his room and sleep in a futon that he has when you’re feeling particularly lonely.

Asmodeus:

His eyes are sad, the usual glow and glimmer dimmed and his smile once beautiful and stretched, it pulled into a soft frown. Even in sadness, he still looks beautiful. With a gentle pull, he brings you into his room, and lets you set your stuff down on the floor. Asmodeus holds your face in his hands and gingerly wipes away your tears. You’ve had such a long day and it’s no secret that he has the best bath in the house, so he lets you go use it in order to destress, just enough to clean yourself and have time to gather your feelings and thoughts.

The room is suited to him and to only him, but he figures that you wouldn’t want to be alone. He has to rid some of the extra pillows on the bed, rid of the stronger scents in the room in order to not congest you more, and just declutter his room a bit more. It’s suited for him, a demon who can and lives for the finer things, but for you, he needs you to be able to breathe. The sheets are replaced, the towel that he has set for you soft and fluffy and the clothes clean and smelling like the house, a much better scent than the stitched to your clothes. He sends it to you via magic, wanting you to come to him when you’re ready.

When you approach him, he gives you a comforting smile and pats the bed beside him. He grabs your hand and massages it slowly, telling you that he’ll be here for you if you need anything. You can talk to him or choose not to, and he won’t pressure you in the slightest. You can take your time to talk to him. He feels a bit bad that he can’t tell you that everything will be okay, he knows it will, so sure of it that he’d bet himself on it, but it isn't what you want to hear. You just need to know that he’s right there by your side.

For now, you’re okay. You’re safe in his room and he likes being an older brother- at least to a few. He likes to spoil people rotten, and he gets to do that with you. You get to have everything good and shiny. You’re going to be okay when you stick with him, because he won’t let anything happen to you. He’s going to be your new home, your new big brother.

The process is tough, and he doesn’t rush anything. It’s subtle with Asmodeus and being ever so careful with his appearance, he makes sure to take care of yours. Mental health is so fragile and he just wants you to be okay. He’ll offer substitutions if certain activities can feel a bit too difficult for you, but he doesn’t push too much. You still have to take care of yourself and it might feel overbearing, but he needs to take care of you.

Beelzebub:

Family means everything to Beelzebub. At the very end of it, it’s part of the core of who he is. He feels your pain and is empathetic when you tell him what happened and he holds you close, letting you rest on his bed as he sits on the edge with a comforting hand rubbing circles on your back. He’s a demon, he knows just how cruel others can be, and yet, to see someone hurt someone as young as you, it makes him sick.

Your tears hit him hard and he can only hug you as you cry into him about your situation. There are too many emotions inside of you and it must be so difficult for you to handle all of them and he wishes he could help take that away, but he can only hold you and make sure that you sleep in a position that won’t hurt your neck once the tears have tired you out. It’s the little things that he does for you until you come to him and explain everything to him, and he’ll listen and won’t interrupt.

During this time, he tries to not be imposing. He doesn’t want you to run from him so he’ll give you time to come to him when you’re ready. He checks up on you often, knocking on your door and entering with a few snacks. He’ll stay if you ask him and talk to you about mundane stuff. A part of him wonders if that’s really what you want to hear, but he can’t say anything different. He doesn’t know what it is that you want to hear and he doesn’t want to pressure you any further. Anyways, it seems like you like to listen to him during these moments. Maybe, he provides a nice distraction.

He’ll always make sure that he has his phone on him in case you need him. He’s told you before that you can contact him whenever you want, and that he’ll come running to you. He’s sure it’s his big brother instincts taking over. He may be the sixth brother, but it doesn’t remove the fact that he has a twin. It’s only by his power that he ranks sixth. With you, he can be a big brother and be the cool and caring type that takes care of you. You can always come to him whenever you need something and he’ll make sure to give you whatever you want.

It comes to no surprise that you two develop a strong bond and you start to stick to him and he welcomes that. He won’t leave you alone unless you ask him to and he always makes sure to include you in whatever activity he has. During lunch, he’ll sit with you and listen to you and he’s glad that you're starting to feel better around him. You’ve both grown quite attached and he tries to do good by you. Beelzebub will give you whatever you need because beside his twin, you’re the youngest in the family. He’ll reassure you that nothing is your fault, that you’re only a child and that you’ll be okay. You’ve been there for him and he’ll be there for you.