#i actually have more of these preloaded

[khayalli]

(fashion by lady gaga blares in the distance)

[transgenderer]

im not a primmie but i feel like i "get" it in a way i didn't used to, now that ive read some ethnographies of them. like. i mean, obviously it sucks. it is, on net, dispreferred. we shouldnt reorganize society towards it. but i think the hunter gatherer lifestyle does have particular virtues that modern life doesnt. they're hard to refer to. i dont think theyre *actually* more subtle than like "freedom" or whatever as concepts, but we dont have a whole societal thing about referring to them, so i cant just use a premade word and give you all sorts of complex preloaded concepts.

one of the virtues is...explainability-autonomy. but specifically like. everything you own (i mean, except for a few luxury trade goods) is something you know how to make, or you know a guy who knows how to make it. so you're not in a "matrix" the way we are, on the scale of a community you're more atomized. as soon as a culture gets mined metal this goes out the window, your livelihood is dependent on far-away people.

and this explainability-autonomy holds for the social world as well, even if your culture has an elaborate hierarchy it's a local one, you know everyone in your hierarchy structure. so you can know your social threats in a way you can't in the modern world (i mean, unless you count an ambush-massacre as a social threat).

and then seemingly opposite there's a feature people gloss as "community" but which i think is more like....absolute interdependence. like, you have these people around you, and theyre your only social interaction, or entertainment, and theyre essential for you getting food, and building the house you live in, on and on. like you just depend on each other so intensely (ofc this will depend on the particular H-G group, some were more interdependent and some were relatively independent, depending on hunting style, type of dwelling, etc). and this doesnt seem like a PLEASANT state of affairs but it is *intense* and maybe even beauitful. its like soldiers in the same squad. warriors bond.

this isnt all of them, but its a distinctive pair

[shadowed-dancer]

The Harbinger Wheel - Proof Capitano Has More Story Coming

(This contains plot spoilers for act 5 of the Natlan archon quest. Do not read if you don't know what happened)

This post was written when the 5.3 preload leaks had just come out but it still stands.

I truly believe this is not the last we've seen of Capitano. Let's turn our attention to the fatui wheel:

This thing has teased the order of the fatui from the start, and so far it seems to be accurate. But remember! This is not the order they are introduced. That order would be Signora, Childe, Scaramouche, Dottore, Arlecchino, Capitano, and that is clearly not what we see here. This wheel is teasing their "release" in the game as playable characters and/or bosses.

Childe was the first to be playable and a boss, followed by Signora's boss fight. Then was Scaramouche/Wanderer in Sumeru (whose boss fight actually came a version earlier than his banner) and Arlecchino in Fontaine.

While I will not try to assign the other symbols to harbingers, that crying bird thing is obviously Columbina. To follow the pattern, this means she will be the next to be playable and/or a boss.

After her would be the three nails, which people have ascribed to Capitano for years now. Even if you don't believe he is the nails, he would have to be something on this wheel. This couldn't just be for his appearance in the story because that's not the order any of them appeared in. That symbol is deliberately teasing something else, some sort of return in the future.

He can't do anything until Columbina gets "released", so we will have to wait. But the fact that his symbol is after hers suggests that this is not the last we've seen of The Captain, though whether he will be playable or just a boss is yet to be determined. Personally, I am still holding out hope for him being playable.

It's not capitover until I say it's capitover

tldr: Capitano has to appear at some future point to justify his symbol's position on the wheel

[so-much-for-the-seashells]

It’s A Love Story…

Colt Seavers (The Fall Guy 2024) x Reader

-Part 2 to Coffees, Plural-

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters in this story except for Sheila and the reader insert!

Author’s Notes: Background is summarized on part one! I tried to get Colt as in character as possible, but it’s hard to perfectly capture him 🙃 also, this is not edited!! idk if it’s cringe or cute, but if you enjoy the story, please leave a comment! I’d love to see what you think! Icons by @gosling-girlx !! She’s the best!

Content/Content Warning: nothing serious! Just some suggestive themes and some smooching at the end :)

Part three is out!

Reader’s POV

Looking back on it, I think my crush on Colt Seavers really did develop on day one. But little did I know, it’d only get stronger.

Dramatic, right? It’s not wrong, though…

After bonding over his affinity for coffees,- yes, plural- that first day, I knew I was down bad. At first I thought it was just stupid butterflies- I was prone to falling fast- but as I got to know him I realized it was far more than just stupid butterflies.

There was just something about him- a lot of somethings, actually. It was- it is- his puppy eyes. His coffee addiction- affinity, sorry. His sense of humor, the way he comes preloaded with sarcasm at any given time. The way his legs bounces when he’s nervous, bored, excited, or all three. His perfect smile. The way he pays attention, the way he cares…

I could go on. And on. And on. And on. But you get the idea.

And oh, that voice… that’s enough to-

Sorry. Anyways.

Over the past nine-ish months we’ve gotten pretty close. I’ll meet him for lunch on set, we’ll meet at each other’s trailers just to hang out, sometimes we’ll find ourselves down by the beach… it’s just nice.

Also, over the past year, I’ve rekindled my friendship with Jody Moreno. We hit it off immediately after I arrived, as if no time had passed at all since the last time I saw her. We’re close again, just like we were back in college, which is also really nice.

She knows full well about my little (big) crush on Colt. I didn’t even have to tell her, she just burst into my trailer one day a couple months ago, accusing me by exclaiming “You like Colt!”

She’s lucky I love her so much, because otherwise her incessant teasing and blatant attempts at setting us up would be just a little annoying.

Today I was on set, watching Colt get thrown around while being on fire. I couldn’t help the way my heart tossed and turned with worry while watching him do his stunts- yes, he’s a professional but that doesn’t mean these crazy stunts scare me any less. He teases me about my worrying, but I can see the way that sometimes the thumbs up he’ll send the director’s way isn’t genuine.

By the fifth take on this stunt I could tell he was beginning to grow weary. Thankfully the stunt coordinator takes mercy on him and tells him to take five after the crew extinguishes him.

He gets up and looks around before setting his eyes on me. My face grows warm as I watched his face light up when he recognized me.

“Heya stud,” I say by way of greeting when he approached me. “How you feeling?”

“Never better,” he responds with a trademark thumbs up.

“You know that that’s still cheesy, right?” I ask. He gives me the thumbs up pretty much anytime I ask him how he’s feeling, and I tease him about it every time.

“Yeah, but you love it,” he shrugs playfully. I swear, he purposely lowers his voice sometimes. Not that I’m complaining, it’s definitely not unattractive…

“Maybe a little,” I concede with a small smile. “Anyway, I brought you some brownies for lunch,” I said, taking a brown paper bag out of my satchel. “They’re from that bakery we tried a couple weeks ago.”

“Aww, [nickname], you shouldn’t have!”

“Oh don’t you worry about me, I ate like three for breakfast,” I say sheepishly. They really are that good, the baker must be putting crack in them with how addictive they are.

“So you’re telling me I can’t offer to split one with you on the beach?” he asks, bringing out the puppy eyes- at least, more so than usual given that he always has puppy eyes.

“Now how can I say no to that offer?”

“You can’t,” he says with a cheeky smile as he starts walking back to set, noticing the stunt coordinator waving him over.

I wave goodbye to him, and then sneak over to the directors chair to say hi to Jody.

“Aw, look at this blush!” she greets when I meet her, pinching my cheeks. “A certain stuntman got your panties in a twist?”

“Why do I subject myself to you?” I groan.

“Because you love me.” She’s not wrong.

“How’s the scene coming along?”

“Perfectly, I’m just torturing your boyfriend until he agrees to go to karaoke with the rest of us tonight. I think he’s still embarrassed from last time,” she laughs.

Last time he drunkenly sang that Love Story song by Taylor swift and was straight up bawling midway. Everyone laughed and has a recording of it, and holds it over his head.

“You’re pure evil, Jody Moreno, and I very much aspire to be you,” I say, watching Colt get flung into the rock again.

“It’s an art, what can I say,” she shrugs, before grabbing her megaphone.

“Oi, stuntman!” Colt sends over a thumbs up before she can continue her sentence. “I feel like we can salvage that last take…” she smirks.

He groans, out loud. And even from like 25 feet away, I can hear it. And I don’t like how hot I find it.

“All I need is a double thumbs up,” she chides. The rest of the crew is also turned his way, with a lot of snickering coming from our little peanut gallery.

He meets my gaze and I mouth “please” with as much puppy eyes as I can, hoping that he can read my face from where he’s at. He scowls in a comical way, closes his eyes, face dramatically tilted toward the sky before finally looking back at us- at me- with two thumbs up.

“Perfect, that’s a wrap!” Jody exclaims, cackling maniacally after she’s turned off the megaphone. “See you at nine, Seavers!”

He gives a little sarcastic wave, but a smile takes over his face as he meets my gaze again, and I can’t help the way my heart skips a beat when I send a coy wave his way.

***

Colt’s POV

You know that feeling, when your heart starts pumping and you start smiling all stupid, when you’re telling yourself that you’re a dipshit but it’s because she’s just too perfect?

Yeah. That’s y/n to me. Anytime I’m near her I have to remind myself to breathe. It’s like the movies, like some sort of rom com that she loves so much, except better. So much better, if you ask me.

Honestly, I’ve had a crush on her since the beginning. Man, I just used the word crush. For some reason I can hear that dipshit Tom Ryder’s asshole voice in my head, calling me a “pussy bitch”- a personal favorite “original” term of his- for using the word. But I don’t care, because how else do you describe… butterflies.

You know what it is? It feels like a Taylor Swift song. Like a Love Story, if you will. And baby, I just want her to say yes.

I think I need help.

I still remember how flustered she got when I accidentally scared her when I met her that first day.

We had both been running late, me more so than her due to coffee(s- yes, plural) related reasons- it’s an affinity, not an addiction.

I had went to say hi while she was in the middle of doing her own makeup, I think she got bored waiting for me, and she jumped like six inches, and accidentally dragged her makeup brush down the side of her face.

I felt so bad, the look was gorgeous, very northern lights- esque with greens and blues and purples- but at the same time, I was too stunned to speak. Y/n is gorgeous, as it turns out, with or without makeup, and even with a steak of yellow going down her face that would make anyone else look like they had a jaundiced scar.

Thankfully, I still don’t think she noticed my dumbfounded disposition as she ran to the sink.

But the thing is, she’s not just drop dead gorgeous. She’s also the sweetest, cutest woman in the entire world. Her sense of humor- the self deprecations, the sarcasm which perfectly matches mine… how flustered she gets when I’m driving her around, the way she gets cold and smuggles into my side when we sit in the trunk after a night swim, shivering but still trying to talk with her teeth chattering. The way her hand’s so small compared to mine… you get it.

Also, the fact that she doesn’t make fun of me for being a Swiftie.

At least not as much as the others do.

Which frankly, isn’t saying much, now that I think about it.

Anyhow, even after being thrown against a rock four times I’m still not ready to wave the white flag at Jody. I told myself I would never step foot in the karaoke bar again, not after last time…

Sorry, I just got war flashbacks.

<Author’s Note: these war flashbacks sound a lot like Love Story by Taylor Swift>

But then of course, she just had to be on set. She’s got me wrapped around her little fingers, bringing me brownies and calling me a stud. The last straw was the puppy dog eyes from across the set- I have no idea how she hasn’t figured out the effect she has on me. Or maybe she has, and is just an evil genius. I don’t really know.

Not that I need to know, because if the words “Swan dive off of a bridge” fell from her perfect lips I’d probably do it.

Looks like I’m going back to karaoke…

***

Reader’s POV

“Come on, y/n! We’re gonna be late!” Jody yells as she raps her knuckles on the door of my trailer.

“I’m not coming out! I look ridiculous!” I yell back. I had let her pick out my outfit, and she picked out a short black romper with a tight bodice and flowers printed on it. I don’t think it suits me very well, and I’m seconds away from wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I don’t feel like doing my makeup, so that’s one less thing to worry about, at least.

Wait, why is it so quiet now? Where did she go?

“Y/n, this is your last chance,” she warns, apparently having took a quick break from peer pressuring me into coming outside.

“I’m. Not. Coming. Out.”

“Fine,” and for some reason, I can hear the smile in her voice. That’s never good.

“Y/n?” a new, softer, lower, more gravelly voice comes from outside my cabin. For fuck’s sake.

“Colt?” I ask, rubbing my temple.

“Yeah. Can you please let me in?” he asks so sweetly, it would be impossible to say no.

I mentally punch myself before unlocking the door to my trailer, and of course, to no one’s surprise, he looks perfect. Jody must’ve scampered off, because now it’s just me and him. He’s wearing a white tank top underneath a completely unbuttoned black short sleeved button down, black slacks and white shoes. His usual necklace, the gold chain with the small medallion, accompanies the look. His hair is tousled, and I don’t even think I have to mention how pretty his face is- that part’s a given.

“I, um, you-,” he stutters, and then stops to compose himself. “You look beautiful.”

My breath hitches in my throat. The thing about Colt is that if his words aren’t sarcastic- and you can tell when they are- they’re so, so genuine. And he just called me beautiful.

“I- thanks- so do you-“

Did I really just say so do you? By the smile creeping on his face I think I did.

“I’m sorry, I’m being awkward,” I say with an awkward laugh, proving my point. “But you look really handsome.”

“Aw shucks,” he says, his words slightly sarcastic but the blush on his face very real. “Now cmon, we don’t want to be late?”

“But this romper looks so stupid,” I say, drawing out the last word. And you look so stupidly attractive, I think. What if I just kiss him? What’s stopping me from telling him how I feel about him?

“Permission to touch you?” he asks, ignoring my comment.

To… touch me? Fuck, I’ve read far too many romance books. His stupid voice can turn anything into a double entendre, I swear it.

He raises a brow when I don’t answer.

“Uh, sure?” I don’t really know what he’s up to.

“Great,” he smirks, and before I can realize what he’s done he has me slung over his shoulder, like I weigh nothing more than a sack of potatoes. He shuts my trailer behind him as I hit his back, telling me to let me down, but the bastard just starts humming “Livin’ On A Prayer,” by Bon Jovi.

“Asshole! Put me down!” I yelp, but he just holds me steady by my legs as I flail behind him. Curse his actually useful muscles.

Finally, he sets me down in front of his truck, reaching out to steady me. My hands fall on his chest. His very well defined chest. Which perfectly matched his very well defined back.

Colt’s POV

My hand is on her hip, I tried to steady her. But shit. I wish I could just squeeze it, maybe while I’m…

Puppies dying at the end of a movie, Colt. Dead puppies.

We stay there a moment, in front of my truck. Everything in me wants to just tell her how I feel and press her into that truck with kisses that tell her I’m never letting her go. But now doesn’t feel like the right time. But when is? Why wasn’t it at her trailer?

And I just had her over my shoulder too…

Alright, come on, dipshit. Get it together.

But of course, her small hands are on my chest…

Focus.

“You’ve got two options,” I tell her, removing my hand from her hip and holding up a two to make a point. “We go to karaoke and I drive, or we go to karaoke and you drive.”

I can’t let her not go. She loves karaoke, and she looks beautiful regardless of the lies she tells herself.

“Do we have to go? We could just stay home and watch a movie?” she diverts. A smile is playing at her lips though, so at least I know she’s not uncomfortable.

“Tell you what. You can drive,” I start, which is a great start because she hates when I drive and use my stunt skills. To be fair I just do them to show off and get her to slide into me on the long bench. It’s fun, sue me. “We’ll go, and if you still don’t want to be there after my song, then we’re going to come straight back here, get under some blankets and watch She’s All That.”

She’s All That is her favorite movie, in part due to the main plot but I also think she identifies with Freddy Prince Jr’s sister in the movie. She’s a sarcastic makeup/hair artist in the movie, and who do I know that sounds like that? Yeah, exactly.

“I don’t like how well you know me,” she says, biting into her lip as she pretends to mull over what I suggested.

“You’re right, you love how well I know you.”

“Okay, fine,” she says, fully smiling now. “You were serious about me driving?”

“As a heart attack,” I tell her.

‘YES!’ I’m shouting in my head, because I nailed it! Getting a smile like that out of her is the best prize you could ever get, I swear it.

I think the only thing that could be better is knowing that she’s mine.

But that’ll come, eventually.

***

Reader’s POV

Ten minutes later we’re at karaoke. I truly cannot with Colt Seavers, the only person who could make me feel pretty in this stupid ass romper.

He spent the car ride talking to me about his day, which was adorable, the way his nose scrunches up when he remembers something funny, and intermittently singing along to the song on the radio. I love when he lets me drive his truck, I feel like I can taken care of him for a minute and just listen to him. Oh, and I also don’t feel like I’m seconds away from dying because unlike him I don’t stunt drive. Although, I will say, I don’t mind when he does those stupid circles because it always presses me up against his side, which is never a bad place to be.

Right now Gale, the producer who always seems to be drinking a Diet Coke, is singing Toxic by Britney Spears. She has an incredible voice, and the entire bar is rightfully captivated by her stage presence.

“Hey! You made it!” Jody says, walking over to Colt and I. We’re sitting in a booth, on the same side, both slack jawed watching Gale.

“No thanks to you,” I say with an innocent smile.

“If you say so,” she smirks. “Thanks for getting her out of the trailer,” she tells Colt.

“My pleasure,” he says charmingly, squeezing my arm.

“Alright, I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it. Phil Collins is calling!” she dashes off to the stage as Gale is almost done with her song. She must be cued next.

“I see what you did there!” Colt comments after her. Collins and “calling” sound similar with her British accent. I must be blushing-the whole “lovebirds” thing-, because he looks over at me, amused, saying “What? Do I have something on my face?”

I go to answer, but all of a sudden Jody is singing “You’ll Be In My Heart” by Phil Collins, and I immediately pull out my phone to video. Jody has an incredible voice as well, and I love listening to her sing.

Once she’s done, she runs over with Sheila in tow, who must’ve just got here. They lift me up out of the booth- I’m starting to get sick of being man handled- and push me towards the stage against my protests. Colt is laughing- jackass- but all of a sudden “Any Way You Want It” by Journey is playing and I’m singing.

Now, I have a mediocre voice, but the thing about karaoke is that you could sound like a rabid raccoon, but if you have a song that everyone knows, you’re the shit. And also, I don’t really care what anyone thinks of me, so I just went for it.

So naturally, I was the shit. Everyone was singing along, and I couldn’t stop looking back at Colt, who was smiling so big as he sung along. He’s so, so cute. Finally the song was over, and I gave a dramatic bow. Colt met me by the stage, holding a hand for me to grab as I jumped down.

“You were incredible,” he compliments sweetly.

“Thanks,” I say, looking up at him, my hand still in his. His touch is electric, I can feel his heartbeat. His lips are ever so slightly parted, and I’m sure mine are the same… if he would just lean down-

“Is there a Colt “See-aye-vers” in the house?” the emcee asks into the microphone, completely mispronouncing Colt’s last name.

“Fucking Jody,” he mutters. We both turn to see Jody literally cackling by Sheila.

“Your turn!” I say gleefully, pointing at him so the emcee can see him.

“Mean,” he pouts jokingly, before going up on the stage and taking the mic from the emcee as I Was Made For Lovin’ You by Kiss begins to play.

And he’s staring right at me as he sings it.

Well shit.

That’s the thing- apparently all of my coworkers are extremely talented singers. Maybe it was a requirement? Who knows.

Colt is no different.

And the thing is, I’m severely attracted to his voice. The gravelly, yet low and softness of it. I love listening to him talk. Like, he could read the nutrition label of a soup can and I would be completely locked in.

His singing voice? A whole other story. Between the rasp and the range, I could literally lose it right here and now. He sounds incredible.

And he’s looking right at me as sings about being made for lovin’ someone and about that someone being made for lovin’ him.

And I don’t want to assume, but by the way he’s looking at me…

I think that someone is me.

Colt’s POV

Kiss?! Are you shitting me?! That’s the song Jody picks for me?

I should’ve kissed y/n right then and there, I’m thinking as I head up to the stage.

And then there it is. A Kiss song. Not just any kiss song, the Kiss song.

I can work with this.

At this point, I don’t think I can handle her not knowing how I feel anymore. Not knowing if she feels the same way. Fuck “eventually.”

So you know what? I’m going to do my grand romantic act, just like in the movies. And I’m going to sing this damn song, to her.

And if she still doesn’t notice, I’m going to go down there and kiss her until we can’t think straight. Asking permission to before, of course. I’m not a jackass like Ryder.

So I sing the damn song, and my eyes are on only one, singular person. My one, singular person.

And she’s mouthing the words right back to me, her gaze never leaving mine.

I don’t even hear the applause as I jump down the stage, Tom Cruise style, landing right in front of her. “Hey,” I say, trying to sound cool.

Naturally, my voice comes out as a squeak instead.

She doesn’t say anything, just takes a step closer.

“I, um…”

Of course now is the time I decide to choke on my words. Not when I’m singing in front of thirty people, literally never before. But now. Damn it, Seavers. See-aye-vers. Fucking adhd. Shit. Wait.

“Colt?” she says, her voice only loud enough for me to hear. I’m all too aware of the beginning of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” behind me.

“Yeah?” I whisper. Looking down at her.

“Kiss me?” she asks, and it’s the last straw. My lips crash against hers before I even realize what I’m doing, and it feels like fireworks. Like the whole world could end but it would be fine because her lips are against mine.

***

Reader’s POV

This isn’t happening. There’s no way this happening.

Those are the only thoughts running through my head as I look at him. That song… it was electric. Coming from his voice, as he stared into my soul? I can barely think.

I don’t notice anything, nor anyone. Nothing at all, except for him.

So when he jumps down from the stage in stuntman fashion, looking me in the eyes up close… I can’t help it. I can’t wait any longer.

And now his lips are on mine, as Jody sings more Phil Collins, but I don’t even hear it.

I’m sure we’re going to get teased for it, but I can’t help it.

Not when the only thing I can sense is his soft lips on mine.

So when we finally release, there’s no question about what’s going to happen next.

“Colt..?” I breathe.

“Yeah?” he asks, parted lips already puffy and pink from our kiss. Gorgeous.

“Can we go outside?”

He doesn’t even answer, just grabs my hand and starts walking to the door. Thankfully we didn’t buy any drinks, and have no tabs to settle, because quite honestly I don’t think we’d have cared.

Finally, we stop in front of his truck. I’m smiling like an idiot, and he’s smiling right back.

“Colt, I really, really like you,” I tell him.

“Y/n, I really, really like you too,” he says.

And that’s all that needs to be said as he crowds me against the truck before pressing a kiss to my lips that leaves me giggling.

“What’s so funny?” he teases.

“Everything,” I tell him, before threading my fingers through his hair. He shakes his head bemusedly before kissing me again.

I couldn’t ask for anything more, anything more at all. Because in the words of his favorite song, this is a Love Story and baby, I will always say yes.

[questionablecuttlefish]

wow, thanks for the quick response! i have one last question: how about the take that jinx actually has privilege? not in the traditional sense that the word usually suggests, but on account of silco being her father (and arguably the wealthiest person in zaun?), jinx likely had access to money and resources that most zaunites wouldn't. i've seen pushback to this saying that jinx couldn't be oppressed if she had any material comfort, but... look at lux lol. i think that could be another point they could have in common!

Oh boy, the Oppression Olympics...

I find that whole angle to be disingenuous to the point of making me feel a little queasy, but yes, it is true that both as one of Vander's kids and as Silco's kid, Jinx was under the protection of one of Zaun's informal leaders in both phases of her young life. So she wasn't exactly a starving guttersnipe.

But that doesn't make her ...not a part of an oppressed underclass living in a toxic city and literally breathing poison every day? Any more than Lux having the admittedly enormous privilege of being the daughter of House Crownguard nullifies her also being born a Mage and therefore needing to live her life in fear of being dragged off to the Mageseeker dungeons if she ever lets her masquerade slip.

It's not a sliding scale. There are Complications in both situations that add conflict for our girls. As a crimeboss's daughter Jinx has witnessed and partaken in truly soul-scarring violence from a young age (read her Council Archives files for some chilling snippets) and Lux's assumptions about Demacia and her place in it have crumbled out from under her the moment she saw People Like Her being dragged off in prison carts and fed petricite potions.

Both positions also come preloaded with the guilt and horror of knowing that you are protected but only while you fulfill your exact role to someone else's expectations. Powder very nearly ended up dead at the cannery if Silco hadn't had a change of heart and it's plain from S1 that Jinx has extreme paranoia that he'll abandon her if she doesn't impress him and live up to his ideals of strength through violence. Being Vander's daughter didn't protect Vi from being thrown in Stillwater for 7 years of abuse and incarceration, either.

Lux's family were willing to summarily execute Sylas on fabricated new charges and forcibly marry Lux to Jarvan just to cover up the scandal of her befriending an imprisoned Mage. Sure, her privilege would have protected her but there was a price. Lux has tremendous privilege and autonomy within the confines of the Crownguard Name and no agency outside of it.

Only when everything burns down around her and she's forced to flee the capital as a refugee does Lux, ironically, finally find some measure of freedom in her canon, just like Jinx is only really free to find her own path when Silco's dead and she sits in that chair.

So yeah, that IS another point of parallel between them.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

Veilguard was trying to pull off an underlying plot thread of “Varric and Solas are both roguish trickster types and Rook is following the footsteps of that ‘do what needs to be done’ roguish behavior, but with Varric out of commission, Solas is now putting Rook through their paces in being more cunning and versatile” and it’s obvious this was the point when you finally trick Solas and he’s like “you learned from me” and you can choose to say “No I learned from Varric”.

This sort of cheese has been pulled off much better and with way more efficacy than what was in this game because even though Solas is in your fucking head, you are still distant from him because your opportunities to directly speak with him and interact with him are extremely, extremely limited. Not to mention that your backstory has already all but hinted that you already possessed the chops to do what needs to be done, and no amount of demurring “oh I can’t lead the group, not like Varric” remains convincing. No, you’re able to do it. There is no ‘growing into the role’ because your character is incapable of saying a disastrously wrong thing. Your character comes preloaded with the means and temperament and personality to pull off this mission because that’s all the game allows you to have, even more blatantly narrow than Inquisition did.

No matter what, you’re a veteran to adventuring. You’re good friends with Varric so you know how to make the most of a situation and use people and things and opportunities to your advantage. There isn’t anything more you are learning from Solas in all actuality. You aren’t being corrupted or hardened by Solas by “learning manipulation” because that is a skill that you are proven to possess minute one of the game in your very first dialogue choice in the bar (persuade or fight). It is implied you have gotten as far as you have because you are roguish, and you make it repeatedly clear that your mission is to stop Solas, so this “learning from him”/“You unconsciously learned from me, the villain, this entire time” plot hook is hella empty.

[auroras-void]

Hmnn it's been years since I've run a DnD campaign, but I saw that Brennan Lee Mulligan quote about the power of friendship being nothing compared to chronomancy and I just got the coolest idea for a villain.

I'm thinking a powerful chronomancer, but no one knows they're a chronomancer. They're introduced simply as an ordinary mage, who is an absolute perfectionist. They talk to everyone as if their old friends, somehow always knowing exactly what to say, their spells are weaker than what the party normally encounters, but miraculously always seem to have deadly precision.

Now, the real gimmick though, is I want to use loaded dice for them. Specifically, I want to design and build my own d20 that I can rig to land on *any* face.

The mechanism is dead simple, I'm going to take a hollow d20, place a strong neodymium magnet inside, and then fill it with a carefully measured indium-gallium alloy. The idea is to create a blend that has a density as similar as possible to neodymium, while still being solid, or mostly solid at room temperature.

That way at any point you can simply hold it in your hand above a spot on the table where you've hidden a powerful magnet, and the metal inside will liquify under your body heat, allowing the neodymium magnet to move freely inside and be "reprogrammed" by the larger magnet under the table. At which point you remove your hand and allow it to resolidify, locking the magnet in place. All while still managing to pass an inspection and hopefully even a balance test within reason.

(I also actually already have a crazy strong magnet for hiding under the table, ripped a pair of them out of some old PA speakers, very hard to get it unstuck from my file cabinet, and it doesn't even look like a magnet at a cursory glance!)

Additionally I think with a carefully constructed dice tower, it may be possible to hide the unnatural movement the magnet imparts.

Finally, and this is maybe the craziest part, if I can perfect my design, get it to successfully evade suspicion and land on a design that's somewhat cost effective...

I want to make one pair of identical dice for each player, rigged like this. Then only hand them one each, without telling them what they are.

Now the clever part here, I mentioned making a dice tower designed to hide the shenanigans afoot. If I'm doing that, I can do a little more than just that. I'm thinking, make the dice tower attached to the DM screen, ostensibly so I don't have to reach over the screen to put a die in. But in actuality I intend to put in a mechanism there such that as it falls I can swap the die halfway down the tower for one I've preloaded into a hidden slot with a bit of mechanical slight of hand.

The idea being, I can take the secret duplicate, and reprogram it in advance, meaning I can now rig *any* roll to *any* number.

(Maybe I make them match some of the decorations on my DM screen so that it seems more reasonable to as for them back at the end of the session, to reduce the chances of anyone figuring out the gimmick or accidentally discovering they're magnetic.)

Imagine the possibilities! I can have them lying dormant for most of the game letting them be natural rolls. But whenever they encounter the BBEG, suddenly the numbers look a little... suspicious... Maybe before they're even revealed as a villain, whenever the players are around them, their dice suddenly seem to roll in strange patterns. Maybe no one rolls an even number 10 times in a row. Maybe the sequences of rolls start to repeat themselves. Reality around them just fundamentally feels slightly off.

It should be as subtle as possible at first, the players should only be able to pick it up if they're being very observant. Additionally it should be reserved, most encounters should not fuck with reality, both to reduce suspicion of dice tampering and to provide contrast against the times you *do* fuck with reality. There should be red herrings and alternative explanations that buy you time to weave a mystery for the players to work out. Executed well I want it to feel like a magic trick. Because it essentially is one, given all the insane fuckery and sleight of hand I'm coming up with.

It doesn't even have to be limited to the dice either, any way of playing DnD has ways you can fuck with things behind the scenes. If using a digital or projected battlegrid you can move things behind the fog of war and shift the room in any way you like. If using theater of the mind you have the plausible deniability of forgetting details when you rearrange things in your narration. Not to mention any other styles and rule changes you can make if you're homebrewing or using a ttrpg besides DnD5e. If you add deck building to your game you can even literally use close up magic sleight of hand to stack the deck!

Then, as things kick into gear you can do all sorts of crazy stuff, maybe the party finally catches the villain in a corner, and for once, everything seems normal, all their dice are rolling true and they seem to finally have them caught off guard, they dispatch their minions easily and the villain opens a doorway and makes a break for it. When the players rush in to pursue though, the next room has exactly the same layout as before, complete with the exact same minions they just killed. After some confusion the party begins the fight again, but if they're particularly observant, every roll they make has exactly the same results as last time, meanwhile the villain is only repeating numbers if they were already high to begin with, and their spell slots seem to have refreshed.

Towards the end of the campaign the players have figured it out now, but the chronomancer continues to perfect their craft. Their stats remain mediocre as always, but now they're *only* rolling nat 20s every. Single time. Meanwhile the players are suddenly only getting nat 1s. Now the players have an interesting mechanical challenge here, where they have to figure out how they take on a foe who *always* gets perfect rolls with the abilities at their disposal. The only way they win is by thinking outside the box, coming up with a strategy that either has enough overwhelming force to fight through the debuff, or that sidesteps the need for rolls in the first place.

As the campaign progresses the time manipulation grows more and more powerful, but it also starts to visibly take a toll on the villain. They're aging, *fast*, and their sanity is beginning to unravel just as quickly. They have far more scars than the party could have possibly inflicted.

By the final battle they're a force of nature, powerful enough to take on a god, able to manipulate reality enough to poke at the fourth wall, they can introduce mechanics like forcing the players onto a turn timer. Or maybe something like Time Eater from Slay the Spire where the players have their actions limited in some way that can still anticipate and come up with counterplay against.

But it's come at a great cost, any goals the villain once had are long gone now, I'm thinking either they start to show signs of dementia, and the party needs to delve into their past to unravel then and talk them down, or they become a Jobu Tupaki, able to see every timeline simultaneously, experience every timeline simultaneously, and they've gone mad with eternity and try to cope with it by trying to impose order, perfection, onto *all* of them.

Maybe they're a likeable villain, and you can plant seeds all the way back when they were still aligned or at least, not opposed to the party, hinting at their motivations that the players can use. Or maybe they represent some kind of force that the party must oppose and destroy. Or maybe some other secret third thing,

In any case though, by far the most effective solution for the party here is of course, the power of friendship. They need to be able to talk them down, gather enough allies to overpower them, or come up with another creative solution to either bring them down peacefully or create an opening where they can kick their time wizard ass.

Ooo!! And I just came up with the perfect name for them!

"Kai", short for "Kairos".

Kairos of course coming from Greek. Here referencing the concept of time as it's experienced qualitatively. (As opposed to Chronos, the mere passage of time).

[hiskillingjar]

Strade with an autistic mc?

One of my characters has low functioning autism. She’s really sensitive to bright, noisy light and cold air. (It could trigger a meltdown). Her special interests are stuffed animals, especially if they’re big and cuddly, and apple slices.

She’s not really great at verbal communication especially when she scared or nervous. She’s good at physical communication tho? Expressions?

Also she’s part tanuki soooo do whatever you want with that.

autism gang rise up

i'm gonna make this a headcanon post cus i've written something adjacent to this for strade before (cw for. strade lol)

ren 🦊

suddenly he is the sweetest boy in the world

like so kind, so patient, so sweet

you're out in public and get triggered by bright lights, loud noises, you have a meltdown? ren is literally dragging you out and making sure you're okay

he's speaking to you so sweetly, so gently, he won't touch you if you don't want him to

he's just so patient with you

kind of like...he's the only person who really understands you? the world is so cruel and mean to people like you...and you're so sweet and gentle, you shouldn't be out there...you should be with me, you should let me take care of you...nobody else will

manipulating king. gaslighting king

to be fair he does win your affection with stuffed animals and like. good sensory stuff. blankets, pillows. got a whole autism nest goin

he'll replace all the lights in the house too

doesn't mind when you stim by touching his tail or ears. it just makes him curl into you that much more <3

and like obviously he's doing this cus he's a horny monster that wants you to depend on him

but he does genuinely just want someone to care for

like even if you can't make eye contact all the time, or if you don't understand what he says or tells you sometimes, he'd still be so patient

he knows you struggle with that stuff, and you're doing your best. that's all he asks for <3

law 🥀

autism 4 autism

law is so autistic, are you kidding.

granted their autism manifests kind of differently though. they got the liveleaks autism, the monotone drawl autism, the twin peaks autism (me too)

but like. providing that you survived the first night (cus they might not be able to stop themselves from just watching you wilt)

they'd be reasonably patient and gentle with you

i mean there's like no prolonged eye contact between you

but you'd communicate remarkably well (with what little you did actually talk)

they know how it feels to be misunderstood after all...and you're so delicate and need to be cared for

they wouldn't. totally understand your special interests (cus they like bones and taxidermy and roadkill) but they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from buying a few soft toys

you just look so sweet and comfortable when they leave you for work, why would they deprive you of that?

they might panic if you started having a meltdown, but they'd eventually clue in and. get you settled down (give them a break, they have meltdowns too)

and like. autism 4 autism...you know there's some sadomasochism happening. good for you! good for you...

strade 🔨

i mean. i've written it so. lol

strade would be such an asshole i'm so sorry

like come on you've come preloaded with triggers and buttons he could push to make you panic and freak out. he couldn't NOT fuck around with you

he might get a little overwhelmed himself by how much he likes fucking around with you. it's just so easy

keep a few bright lights on, play some music too loud, put on the air conditioning, that's all it takes? buddy you are NOT surviving this one

but okay okay. on the concept that you DO survive past the first night (lol)

strade would still be pretty shitty about everything

like he wouldn't yell or be mad at you for meltdowns but he would not understand in the slightest (and you know his ass is not looking anything up to make it easier)

it would kind of be on ren to make adjustments (changing lights, reminding him about your sensitivities) and like. maybe then he'd pay attention to some shit

he's better with your special interests and sensory needs tbh. he might even think it's kind of cute that you infodump when you're excited or curl up with blankets and soft toys

that doesn't mean he's not gonna fuck with you though lol.

also. full german stare at all times. will trigger your conversation sensitivity at all time. he loves it.

[luigiblood]

An interesting view of Retro NSO Patents

So a bunch of patents from Nintendo recently got published and got my attention: They are related to the retro Nintendo Switch Online service and how it works and it brings a bit of an interesting view of it, with features that are DEFINITELY not inside the apps as of now.

As I went through them, I decided to also go back a little bit to earlier ones.

Just in case, for every reader:

At no point this describes the future of NSO! Let that be clear!!

Unlike most people who reports on patents, I actually will LINK the original patents.

US11003312B2 - NSO User Interface

You can find this patent here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11003312B2/en

This seems to be among the earliest ones, it's from 2018, right before the launch of NES NSO that happened in September 2018.

This is an exact description of how the NSO UI works, where each image (or box arts, as they are usually used) are scaled roughly equivalent to each row so it always fits perfectly.

They had planned initially for details to be basically on the box art, thankfully they changed that completely for a full window in the final version.

They also had Special versions / Extra versions also nailed down already at that time, which are just games with preloaded save states, which the patent does explain. And the whole NEW thing where a new game is packaged like a gift and you just open them as you select them, that's already in the final app as well.

But here's something cursed:

This is a full vertical version of the user interface, which we've never seen so far.

US20240165505A1 - GB/GBA Multiplayer

This patent can be found here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240165505A1/en

This existed since late 2022 in Japan, but got a US version the next year, then published this year.

This patent explains how multiplayer works for GB and GBA NSO, as in emulating multiplayer between different linked systems, whether through LAN or online.

It gets complicated to read, but it's really about different ways to handle emulation of multiplayer, from one way where each player run their own emulator on their systems, to what I believe to be actually used: Running up to 4 emulators on each player's systems at the same time and keeping them synchronized through each player's input, but only display one of them corresponding to each player.

I believe this last way is used because all data sent through link cable is expected to be instant, you cannot delay this data, because this is asking for constant lag, but emulating all consoles on each player's system does solve this problem.

There also some quick algorithms in there about how to handle connections, disconnections and so on, but at this point it's not too interesting to explain because it works just like the apps.

US20240181342A1 - NSO User Interface (Save System)

This patent can be found here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240181342A1/en

It's dated just like the previous one, actually.

It might sound like the first one, but this one is more than meets the eye. Some articles talked about this as like, new Switch OS UI which is just bullshit (hi GameRant), or as GameCube NSO (wtf are you smoking to think of that straight up), but this one is actually about saves!

This image is actually having the main game on the left side, and everything to its right are all save states! You can see 2 saves for the first game, and 5 saves for the second game, it even has two rows for a single game which never happens on NSO apps. Of course, each save are just essentially having a screenshot of when the save state was taken at that moment.

This can very well be an alternative way of things, as I think this looks quite a bit cumbersome in how much space it uses.

But what's interesting is the Auto Save feature, which is not a feature of retro NSO currently. It is explained that the auto save can be enabled or not, and can happen anytime, including within a repeated time interval. This would be very nice in case of crashes.

And then, the elephant in the room: Yes, this looks like you could do more than 4 saves, with a peek of the suspension menu with a way to scroll through saves, the first option being to create a new save, without necessarily having to choose a numbered save state ID.

US20240173627A1 - Mission Play Mode

This patent can be found here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20240173627A1/en

Now, this one is really sad because this shows an actual mission mode for retro NSO apps with objectives and rewards!

This has a new mode included called Mission Play, and you are provided with a mission that you can enter.

In this case it's about hitting enemies, keeping a count for a mission, but also even keeping a count of every single player in a region, and then the world!

This is really cool! I really think they should be doing this, but it seems Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition might do it instead.

That said, this being planned for retro NSO systems is definitely not entirely news for me, because I had noticed a long time ago that the SNES NSO emulator definitely kept track of specific game information as you play, it wasn't necessarily sent anywhere, but they were thinking about it, for several SNES games.

Funnily enough, these are real examples of detections for Super Mario Advance 2 specifically. This is pretty much how the memory and code looks like for the game.

I want to insist though: These are patents, these are for ideas, so this patent might have been publicly published because of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, but through experience, most of the time, as much as they describe stuff for illustrative purposes, it is usually describe a real example that was in development at one point or another.

Again, though: At no point this describes the future of NSO! Let that be clear!

But it gives us a view of what Nintendo and NERD had in mind for development. And, at least, I actually give links unlike a few who loves to tease bullshit through those.

[diavolo-is-babygirl]

Happy Birthday, Diavolo! Birthday Fic between Diavolo x GN Reader: Nook

—————————————-

The day before Diavolo’s birthday, you stayed up late, carefully arranging the final touches in a small, secluded corner of his vast castle. His week had been a rough one—nonstop meetings, decisions that weighed heavily on him, and an air of exhaustion you’d rarely seen. You wanted to give him a gift that wouldn’t be just a physical item but an escape, a space of his own where he could find peace and let himself breathe.

You’d chosen the coziest corner of one of the lesser-used sitting rooms, a nook with an arched window overlooking the misty woods below. The late autumn sun peeked through the trees, casting golden light over the small space you’d prepared, draping the area with a gentle warmth. You set a thick, plush rug on the floor, layering it with pillows in deep, comforting hues of burgundy and gold. A knit blanket hung over the side, just begging to be curled up under, and a small wooden table held a stack of new novels and a small lamp that cast a soft, inviting glow. You’d even brought in a laptop, preloaded with an assortment of anime he hadn’t yet seen, and a pair of sleek headphones so he could escape from the world without interruption.

Satisfied, you took a step back, envisioning Diavolo nestled into the cushions, surrounded by all the warmth and comfort you could offer. You’d even added a small drawer stocked with his favorite autumn teas, along with a little jar of snacks he loved, neatly tied with a ribbon. It was your way of saying, “Rest here. Forget everything else, even if it’s just for a little while.”

When you finally went to find him, he was just coming out of his study, his shoulders slumped slightly, eyes shadowed with the weariness of a long week. But when he saw you, he perked up, flashing that warm smile that always sent a spark through you. “There you are!” he said, his voice a little rough but genuine. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about me today.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Trust me, I couldn’t. I have something for you, actually.”

His brow arched, curiosity replacing his fatigue. “A gift? For me?”

Nodding, you took his hand, leading him down the hall, feeling the anticipation grow in your chest. When you reached the nook, you paused just outside, turning to look at him.

“It’s nothing grand, but… I wanted you to have somewhere just for you,” you explained, your voice soft. “A place to get away from everything, where you don’t have to be ‘the future king’ or anyone but yourself.”

With that, you opened the door, revealing the cozy little corner that seemed to glow with warmth and invitation. Diavolo’s eyes widened, and for a moment, he was silent, taking it all in—the cushions, the books, the subtle scent of cinnamon from the tea drawer. “This… This is incredible,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “You did all of this for me?”

You nodded, suddenly shy under his gaze. “I thought you could use a place to unwind. Somewhere to read, or watch some anime without… well, without Barbatos finding you right away.”

He laughed softly, the sound like a balm, and turned to you, his eyes warm and filled with something deeper than gratitude. “I don’t know what to say,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “No one’s ever done something like this for me. It’s… perfect.”

You smiled, your heart thudding in your chest. “I’m glad. I just wanted you to have a place where you could be at peace. Even kings need somewhere to hide every once in a while.”

He took a step forward, enveloping you in a gentle, heartfelt embrace. His hand lingered on your back, and for a moment, he simply held you there, as though this small gesture of comfort and love was more valuable to him than anything else in the world.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice warm against your ear. “For understanding me so well. For knowing what I needed… and for being here.”

The two of you stood there, wrapped in each other’s warmth, as the golden autumn sun poured through the window, casting a soft glow over the nook you’d built with such care. When he finally pulled away, he gave you a look that was equal parts gentle and mischievous.

“So, what’s first? A book or some anime?” he asked, his grin making your heart race.

You laughed, feeling the last bit of tension melt from his frame. “Well, I’ve got some snacks ready, so I think anime might be the perfect start.”

Diavolo settled into the cushions, patting the spot beside him, and as you joined him, he reached over, taking your hand in his. It was a simple touch, yet filled with unspoken words of gratitude, comfort, and perhaps even a hint of something more.

In that quiet, cozy nook, with the gentle hum of the laptop and the golden light filtering in, you watched as the weight of the world lifted from Diavolo’s shoulders, if only for a little while. It was just you and him, tucked away from the world—a small haven you’d made for him, where, for a few precious moments, he was simply Diavolo, the man you’d grown to care for so deeply.

[blood-orange-juice]

4.5 preload datamine has a book with a Khaenri'ah lorebomb

Text on Project Amber

Excerpts and thoughts under the cut

vol.1:

"In those days, a crimson moon shone down upon the subterranean realm, and not the dark sun of latter days."

Something something Eclypse dynasty.

Due to the Kingdom's unique position, things from outside this world were always leaking into it. The Kingdom's weapons would wipe out the calamities slipping in, but what of all the other objects? Such as, say, a child who may have come from some destroyed world?

What the hell what the hell what the hell

"Oh high lord of the nobles, a child once told me a tale of another world: Once upon a time, there were sea people who believed that the gods came from the sea. Each time they discovered a shipwrecked person, they would treat them with the utmost honor, for they believed that the gods would take the form of the shipwrecked to investigate the mortal realm."

I can't connect it with anything but I feel it's important. Parsifal's and Skipper's story mention a shipwreck. Two, actually. In some sense the twins are shipwrecked and Paimon was fished out of the sea.

The ocean and the sea were often used as a metaphor for the space projected by the stars.

Why sea and Abyss get conflated with it sometimes: Khaenri'ans were more familiar with the Abyssal stars than the sea.

In anticipation of the arrival at their Kingdom of gods from beyond the so-called ocean — or rather, the arrival of beings who could transcend the gods — they founded an organization, an orphanage to take care of such children. In latter days, the orphans of the Kingdom and those who wandered in from outside were accepted as well.

Everything fun in Teyvat is made by kids in orphanages.

The young Perinheri's first memory was that of being asked by the grown-ups to crawl through a dark corridor. This passage might have been a chimney for winter fires, for it was filled with coal ash, and there was not a single crack in it through which smoke or light could pass through. As he crawled, he would sometimes stumble in the pitch-black darkness. Fortunately, the corridor appeared designed for the passage of children in the first place, so the falls were not very painful. It also lacked any annoying cobwebs. When Perinheri reached the end at last, the exit had not opened yet. He knocked, only for the grown-ups to coldly ask: "Are you dead?" Well, how was he to reply if he was dead? But the grown-ups did not like this response. They kept asking the same question, until he at least shouted, "Yes, I'm dead!" The adults then asked, "Did you see it, then?" Perhaps it was the fear brought on by the darkness combined with hunger and exhaustion, but Perinheri did indeed see an illusion. The crimson moon, hanging high in the pitch-dark night sky, suddenly turned around, revealing itself to be a titanic, horrified eye. The adults opened the door and embraced the soot-covered Perinheri: "You have traversed the fire of two worlds within the hearth, and here you are reborn."

Moons being goddesses' corpses, the fake sky, whales, the rebirth ritual in the narcissenkreuz notes. Again, I can't connect it.

Though the crimson moon set, and the dark sun descended into a yet darker dusk, that transcendental person from beyond who the Kingdom orphanage was awaiting never arrived. But unusual individuals they had aplenty, and many of those who strode forth from the gates of that orphanage became great knights of the Kingdom. Perinheri was, in his time, the leading figure amongst their ranks — that is, unless, he were forced to compete with his best friend, Hleobrant.

tl;dr: Khaenri'ah casually welcomed travelers from between worlds, visitors from dead worlds especially. or at least hoped to but didn't get many

[ourloveiselectrifying]

Hi...!

I saw your game update post and I have to ask, how did you make the character custom thing? I'm a noob in creating games, so honestly the amount of options you've got there terrifed me! It's awesome but the work... Nevermind, would it be possible for you to do a tutorial? Or at least give some tips, or maybe suggest a person who explains stuff like that? I would be very, very thankful 🙈

Btw, amazing job, you're talented ;)

Hello! :3

I don't normally do these on the blog because it's not Kevin/OLiE, if you want to join the OLiE discord server you're welcome to and if you're stuck on someting me or another dev might be able to help out!

But- a small tutorial!

It's just tons of variables and condition switches within condition switches, this is most of them for the customiser! :3

This is the hair colour button. It's action is to increase the "haircolour2" variables number! there are 30 different hair colours. I don't want the button's action to let the variable go past 30 so that's why there's the If statement, which sets the variable back to 1 and then it can go back up to 30 again. ("If(haircolour2 > 29")

the "at customiserbutton" is a transform so I don't have to make a hover/idle image and it's 29392394X cooler than having an image change on hover, there's a very simple guide on doing a transform at the bottom of this ask :3

This is one of the condition switches for a hairstyle, you can display something different for each variable. This condition switch changes the secondary colour for the first straight and short hairstyle. The hair is is uncoloured/greyscale. The image is the same but theres a transform applied to each variable number (" matrixcolor=TintMatrix("#212121")) ") This changes the grey uncoloured hair to like black! The #numbers are a hex/html colour code and you can goog "html colour picker" and goog will give you one. :3

This is a composite. It's like layers in an art program, the first is the bottom and the last is the top layer. For the hair there's three layers, the bottom colour, the second colour, and the line art! The first set of numbers is the size of the image/canvas. The other sets of numbers next to each layer determines the placement of the layer. I've got it set to (0, 0) the first number moves it left/right and the second is up/down, I wanted it to be exactly where I saved it in my art program so I've not increased/decreased the numbers.

that composite then went into a condition switch for each hairlength (hairstyle)! Theres one of these for each hair texture too, then a whole set for the hair on the back of the head, and another set for a few that needed middle layers (parts of the hair behind the head and infront of the body.

Then each of these hairlength condition switches went into another

and finally these hairtex condition switches went to the the displayed image/character/composite!

I fucked up the placement of the eyebrows and the entire character, so that's why the placement for each layer is -15, and the eyebows are 1! Didn't have open everything in my art program and move it! :3

The amount of switches and variables for this was insane and actually managed to lag the game. So I don't know if I can say I'd recomend my stupid way of doing a customiser until I can figure out how to let Renpy/OLiE have some more crumbs of ram to preload the hundreds of images for the customiser Sdkfskdfjl

Have a tip! Add this to the end of every single condition switch!

( "True", "gui/playericon/nothing.png", )

Make it an image that's easy to recognise mines the players thoughts icon. It will display when your variable is set to something your condition switch doesn't have a displayable for (for example if my hair colour variable somehow went over 30) instead of just crashing your game and giving a confusing error code or none at all.

Another is if your game is crashing when you make the condition switch/composite, make sure you've put a capital C and S, ConditionSwitch and Composite, I've made tons of these and still forget a " , " and capitalisation all the time.

Don't get discouraged because your game keeps thowing out errors/crashes that's just how it be, take a few deep breaths and have a break before looking over your code again! :3

I hope some of this was useful lol, and I wish you good luck on your project!!! 🍀🍀🍀

[cassiesdevblog]

I Don't Wanna Know Anything!!!!!

Don't try to teach me anything!! I don't want to know any of it! ...Why?

Because this terrifies me...

...and this doesn't!!

So don't tell me anything! .....Except what I actually need to know!

I want to zero in on the Binding of Isaac's seemingly lackadaisical approach to teaching players. This is a game loaded with hundreds and hundreds of different items with various effects, and the biggest effort it makes toward explaining what any of them do is never more than one short line of text, which is sometimes more of a catchphrase than an item description

This is enough for some people to call Isaac a "wiki game," and many will say you should just download the mod that puts a detailed description in the corner of the screen before you pick up an item, but I'm here to make the case against that

As a new player trying to get into Dead Cells (the game I pictured above with the detailed item descriptions), I found it overwhelming to try and digest all the information given to me every time I found a new item. The deluge of stats and attributes made it all feel super important, like I was already being expected to carefully consider every morsel of info while I was still trying to get to grips with the basic controls and movement. I'm sure some people are into that kind of thing, but I dropped the game fast

And I think the big question here is: would I need all this information to have fun?

Isaac's answer would be a firm no!!! You can pick the game up, not understand half the items you find, and have a blast anyway. Most of the time though, you'll have enough of an idea of what something does just by the short blurb of a description that you can make effective use of it without needing all the details

I think it would be awful if the game had the item descriptions mod (pictured above) preloaded by default. I'd like to think I'd just say "I'm not reading all that" if I found it overwhelming, but it's hard to ignore juicy, helpful information. After all, the player's job is to win, and it's the designer's job to make that process engaging

Not only that, but Isaac's approach actually removes the decision making from the process entirely for new players, because it doesn't give you any information until you pick the item up. If you waltz into an item room and see something you've never seen before, are you just not gonna pick it up? No, of course you just take it, and if you regret it later, that'll stick in your mind and you'll remember it next time. As you play, you'll gradually build your knowledge of what each item does, and eventually the game will be full of interesting decisions because of it

The short, catchy "item descriptions" are perfect for this purpose. It's easy for them to get stuck in your brain so they can help jog your memory next time you see the item. After playing enough, I've found myself reciting the ones I remember in my head before even picking an item up

It's a system that works great for all kinds of players, because the game is already fun even when you know nothing (plus, it's fun to discover what items do organically!), but you can reach new heights of strategy by naturally building a well of knowledge as you play, usually without even trying to

...Alrighty, so that's all nice and ideal, but what if players just crack open the wiki anyway and drag out the pace and volume of information waaaaaaay more than they would by downloading the item descriptions mod?

Well... I think that's fun too actually! If you're willing to go to the effort to go to the wiki and type in the name of every item you see before you pick it up, it's probably because you're super engaged with the game and you're in the mood to gather knowledge so you can make super informed decisions

Speaking personally, I sometimes do play with the wiki open if I'm in the right mood for it. But even then, I only actually look something up if I really want that extra advantage. The slight inconvenience of having to type into a search bar means I don't overdo it and suck the fun out of it. Rather, I generally only use it when I'm in the sort of mood where I find it fun!

Isaac is able to match so many people's moods and levels of experience by sparing the details and encouraging curiosity, discovery, and long-term accumulation of information, rather than trying to make sure you know everything upfront. I kind of think this is at least half of the game's secret sauce...!!! Seriously!

So if you ask me, the next time you want to tell your player something, you should ask yourself:

Do they need to know this to have fun?

(btw me and my friends just finished a whole ass game go play it)

[local-null-nb]

I got an anonymous ask about DIY nullification surgery - my thought is DO NOT EVER DO THIS!!! I get the impulse/desire but like the person getting surgery needs to be under anesthesia for one thing, which I'm anything less than an ideal environment with a trained professional is an easy way to die. Not to mention the surgery itself????

My DIY medical story is getting a biomagnet implanted in my finger, which came in a preloaded syringe. The person who tried to do it was very confident and had done a punch of piercings in the past - halfway in they started having trouble and weren't able to complete it. That's a case of just a big needle implant thing, actual surgery is MUCH more complicated and dangerous.

The reason I didn't answer the ask directly is because they mentioned some persons content and them getting arrested?? I couldn't find what they were talking about so I don't want to spread it without knowing the situation.

[umathurwin]

i could fly home, with my eyes closed

john b routledge/sarah cameron, pope heyward & jj maybank, kiara carrera & rafe cameron

Summary: Sarah and John B are in search of treasure one only finds in legends. She left her wealthy family to run away with him, and with her older brother a dangerous man disowned years ago, she learns her younger sister Louisa is deemed the heiress to the Cameron throne.

JJ and Pope scavenge for goods out of abandoned ships, ruined planets, and other wreckage. On another ordinary trip, they are joined by Cleo, a mercenary who was left by her team to perish in some rubble. A complicated journey ensues as the boys learn there is more to this survivor than they once believed.

Kiara is a runaway—backed into a corner in her old life, she left to save herself. She finds herself working with Barry to stay alive, but Rafe kidnaps her to bring her back to her parents for a price. However, after spending weeks traveling the galaxy to return to Figure 8, he wonders if he’ll be able to give her up.

***

or, the OBX/Star Wars AU

tags, warnings, and more on ao3!

John B quietly cancelled the route for the Pogue but the ship never slowed. He preloaded the next destination into the computer and silenced the interface so the change wouldn’t be announced aloud. The motors on his right side fired louder as the entire vessel made a gradual turn and he squeezed his eyes shut. 

Sarah knew, anyways. She hadn’t talked in an hour. The dash lights reflected off her skin, flashing and glowing along her cheekbones and eyelids. She’d curled into her chair, part of her face obscured. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of her shoulders, John B would worry if he’d lost her some time ago.

His girl had a powerful aura. Eggshells lined the entire ship’s floor, and the hologram playing the fateful message from earlier looped in the air, muted. The silence was so unfamiliar to him— breaking it felt taboo, but he couldn’t do anything without words. The helplessness filled his hands, spilling into his lap and out of his control. 

“I don’t want you to think I’m excluding you,” John B started, and grimaced at his own introduction. It got her to look at him, though. “But if you think you want to sit this one out, I’ll understand. I’ve done this alone before. I’ll see what I can do on the ground, and you can stay back here while I—”

“No,” she interrupted, looking away again and out the front windshield. Clipped. The first word she’d spoken in so long. Warm relief seeped into his bones, even in her distress. “I’m fine. I’m just… thinking about my sister. I haven’t seen her since I left.”

John B nodded, his jaw in a tight line. “I understand. But if you want to tap out at any point…”

Sarah stood up and puffed her chest at him. “I’m going with you. End of. Good night.” She pushed past him to get out of the cockpit— she wasn’t due for bed for another few hours, but he let her go.

He really did understand. Perhaps not from a personal perspective; he didn’t grow up in a family of near-royal socialites. His life hadn’t been planned for him from birth, from second trimester. He never got an exclusive and lavish upbringing— funded by the control of galaxies like the very ones he’d actually grown up in. He hadn’t abandoned it all to run away with some poor larrikin, chasing after riches, ones without any familial ties, in all corners of the universe. 

Of course, John B considered disobeying her. He’d invested too much already to risk this. He couldn’t count the sleepless nights, the lightyears traveled, the bribery and blackmailing he’d had to do. Sarah didn’t understand what it meant to go without, didn’t understand what it meant to have nothing to her name except tenacity and dreams of something better.

This wasn’t the end of his journey. 

With the ship on autopilot, he watched the message over and over. He still didn’t dare turn the sound on, but it had burned into his brain the first two times he heard it. Staring at the old woman’s lips as they mouthed the words, hallucinating the sounds as she talked, drifting in and out of focus…

Oh, thank you for your kind message! Of course I remember who has the map. There’s this gentleman who lives out in that beautiful ecu, Figure 8– he’s the one who bought it. I think he just got it as a display piece, so you could probably get it off his hands without trouble. And how lucky is it that your next stop is Fig 8! That place is just lovely. I went once as a girl, and my favorite part was the glittering pink waterfa—

And the holo loops again. The poor woman must not have watched her clip back before sending, or just didn’t care that she’d hit the time limit. 

The pit in his stomach that formed when he heard the name had yet to dissipate. It’s funny, the indescribable dread of going to one of the nicest planets in the sector. A destination most only dream of. Where the most exclusive of the most elite raise their families, and where the rest wish they could. John B would rather go to Moraband.

He couldn’t imagine how Sarah felt, walking back into the slaughterhouse, chancing an encounter with those who violently forbade her from returning. Her family was too large, too powerful for a visit to be smooth or cordial. 

Sarah entered the dining pod where he sat— another part of the ship entirely taken over by the hunt. The table hadn’t held food in months, instead covered by books, maps, dictionaries, loose sheets of paper with languages unknown to any droid. The walls were no less busy with photographs and diary entries stuck to the metal panels with tree gum. Multicolored twine stretched between any two items with a connection, turning the entire room into an overstimulating mess of clues, red herrings, dead ends, and uncracked cyphers. Ducking under the strings to move around was second nature by now. 

John B stared at the hologram, but saw her enter from the corner of his eye. Sarah folded her arms across her chest, rolled her shoulders back. 

“I know you’re thinking about leaving me.”

He knew better than to show his hand early. He said nothing, but looked up at her. 

She continued. “And I’ll forgive the transgression, if you trust me when I say I want this as much as you do.”

An argument climbed from his throat, combative and biting at his teeth, but he swallowed it down. The idea was laughable, frankly—that she could even fathom how much he wanted to finish what his father had started, let alone that her own desires rivaled it. Still, he was a smart man.

Sarah’s mouth tugged up a little. “You think I can’t hear your thoughts? I don’t need force sensitivity to read you.” The smugness dropped from her face and she leaned in. “When we land on Figure 8, and we go meet this guy together, I want you to take a good look around and think about what I sacrificed to join you on this adventure.”

She spun on her heel and weaved out, letting the door slide shut behind her. 

*

The ship was still when Sarah awoke. Her slumber was so gripping that this fact didn’t register for several more minutes as she organically stirred. She tolerated a lot of cruel and unusual living conditions on the SS Pogue but decent sheets on their shared bed were non-negotiable. A soft smile crept on her face at the thought—how lucky was she to have a compromising partner to travel the stars?

Her hand crept over the off-white sheets, searching for his warm torso but finding only fabric. This finally alerted her into sitting up; not once in their time together has he ever woken before her. The bed was empty, the rest of the room actually tidied for once. Sarah scrambled out of the bed and felt naked despite her normal sleepwear. 

Sarah’s eyes dropped down to her wrist, bare, and realized how she’d slept through her reliable alarm. She’d set her comm the night before to wake her before the ship arrived on Figure 8, but John B must’ve cut the device off her arm while she was out. Her nostrils flared as she burst out of her room looking for him.

The ship was stiflingly empty. Every room, the cargo hold, the dining pod, she even checked the food storage to be safe, unoccupied. Sarah ran to the front of the ship to reach the cockpit and saw the ship was parked in a visitor’s lot, and the familiar sun washed over every inch of the room. Her face pinched in disgust.

She ripped off a note stuck to the dash and scanned it. “Fucking— that idiot!” Sarah crushed the paper in her hands and threw it to the floor, running back to the closet to change out of her sleepwear. She quickly gave up on the idea of finding an outfit nice enough for Figure 8; every item she owned was torn, stained, or once belonged to John B. Hopefully her appearance would help her blend in long enough to conceal her identity, the disowned Cameron daughter.

Settling on linen pants, a cream shirt she had to wear inside out, and a hair wrap too warm for the weather outside, she tugged on her shoes. The only ones she had left were her boots, so she made a mental note to step lightly wherever she went. Sarah looked down at her wrist comm out of habit, hoping to see John B’s last pinged location, and groaned when she remembered where it was. Or really, wasn’t. When she hit the button to open the boarding ramp, she was a bit unnecessarily rough.

The note left for her fluttered on the ship floor as outside air blasted through the gangway. Though a little crumpled, John B’s famous scrawling was still legible.

Going alone. Do not follow me. I’m so sorry. JB

***

JJ’s boots squished the mud underneath them and sunk in to its cool embrace. He hated coming to planets so swampy; the humidity was hell on his wavy hair, and it took extra power to launch the ship off when they leave. Much like his shoes, the ship legs sank into the mire and suction held them down, threatening to make them a permanent part of the earth.

But this one had had a big rainstorm recently, and that pretty much guaranteed a visit from these boys. All that water will unearth tons of ancient debris they could sift through, and maybe even turn a profit on whatever they found. Last week, another moon housed artifacts the boys had sold to a historic society, and they both craved that high again. 

“Check out this metal plate… it’s so dense,” JJ noted, weighing the slab and trying to make out some of the markings. JJ had a few languages under his belt, but the lettering was unlike anything he’d ever seen. “I wonder if it was some kind of shield, like a mobile armor unit—”

“It’s part of an old hoverboard,” Pope said after one look at the panel. “It says right here, ‘Keep at least two limbs on vehicle at all times’. Stupid legal warning from who knows how many years ago.”

JJ stared at the metal, dumbfounded. “How the fuck can you read that?”

“When exactly is the last time you read a book?”

“Unrelated.”

Pope usually did most of the talking at these auctions.

Other times, they came across crash wreckage with the abandoned goods of a poorly-piloted ship. Today, they sifted through a collection of small weaponry after it appeared the storm was too much to escape the planet’s atmosphere. 

The vegetation of the forest grew fast enough they could watch it expand, so they both knew time was of the essence. Forget the mud— no chance their ship could take off if the vines and branches tangled themselves up in the leg mechanisms.

The boys worked as good as droids. JJ would dig through their loot, often exposing him to dangerous, hostile, or just downright gross conditions. He could sniff out valuable items like a truffle hog, and he’d stabilize, clean, and hand them off. Pope was in charge of organizing and securing the haul, strapping in every weapon and ensuring they won’t fly around the ship in motion (much like JJ would).

“Hey!”

The boys snapped their heads around to see who was calling for them, and saw a little frigosian running their way. He chirped angrily in his native language and stumbled over the tree roots, but appeared unarmed. “You kids can’t be messing around with that stuff.”

Pope’s jaw dropped. It was rare that they were caught looting, and even rarer that anyone took an issue with it, so he blanked at the confrontation.

“Actually, we can do whatever we want,” JJ scolded, taking a step towards the furry little guy. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a black leather cardholder. “Junior Imperialist Troops. We’re collecting artifacts for analysis and preservation. Do I need to contact our base camp to let them know we’re having an issue here?” 

The frigosian adjusted his thick goggles, struggling to read the specific wording below the Imperialist heading. JJ reached for his holster, holding nothing stronger than a peashooter but appearing as a blaster to anyone half-blind, and the little creature jumped.

“No need!” he warbled and skittered back. “M-my apologies!”

As the walking dander fluff hobbled away from the boys, Pope turned to JJ. “What the hell was that?!”

JJ handed him the case, which held unquestionably a legitimate Galactic Empire identification card. There was no photo, and the name was hard to read from a distance. “My secret weapon. A few weeks ago, I met this total newb on Coruscant and beat him in a high-stakes game of hintaro. He bet this along with some Imperialist ship codes, so we can access planets that might normally say no. Cool, right?”

“No! Not cool!” Pope sighed, rubbing the back of his hand against his forehead. “First of all, I’ve told you to stop gambling.  Second, do you know what the Imperialist fucks would do to us if they found out we were using their shit to impersonate them?!”

”Relax,” JJ insisted and took the ID card back, pocketing it. He picked up the last box and shoved it into the other’s hands. “Imperials are way too busy with other shit to worry about two low-grade impersonators. It’s not like I’m gonna make a habit out of it, alright?”

Pope’s stomach still turned. “Just… warn me next time you’re gonna do something stupid like that, yeah?”

“Oh, my dear friend…” JJ shook his head, loading up the hold. “Even I don’t know when that’s gonna happen.”

*

“This is my part—no, don’t sing this part, it’s only mine!”

Like two siblings fighting, JJ and Pope scrambled to take the lead on their miniature karaoke session while the ship auto-piloted home. The quick-heat meals they made in the adrenaline rush sat cold in the dining area, probably to be eaten later by one of them, stoned on spice.

Brotherhood wasn’t the worst descriptor, either. Neither boy had ever had a friend quite as close as the other. Codependent was a word they’d hear often— if they spent any time away from the other. By the time they were young teenagers, and they’d both quit school for opposite reasons, there was no chance of breaking that tie.

“What was your favorite thing we got today?” JJ asked, admiring the camera that looked into the cargo hold. He pet the screen, feeling the static under his fingertips, and Pope rolled his eyes. 

“You ask that every time.”

“And every time, you avoid answering. Wanna try changing that?” JJ tsked. “We’ve only been doing this together for… hmm, fifteen years? If you count that first heist in primary. I do. Teach’ had no idea what was coming when she fed the rugger that morning, right?” 

When he realized Pope still hadn’t answered, he continued. “Mine was the jogan fruit launcher.”

“You mean the explosive sling?”

“You’re genuinely allergic to glee.” Pope raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just being overdramatic. But seriously, pat yourself on the back! This wasn’t our biggest haul, but we’ve been on a roll lately. Two best thieves on Synthecut, hey?”

Pope tensed his shoulders up. “Hey! We’re not thieves. We’re… basically garbage collectors.”

“Whatever you need to sleep at night.” JJ patted his back, a little roughly but it got his friend to relax.

He rolled his eyes again, but nodded. “I guess you’re right. And that rocket launcher is pretty cool…”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about! We’re not selling that one, by the way. We’re keeping that bad boy all to ourselves!” JJ whooped, pumping his fist in the air and almost celebrating above the volume of the navigation system.

Pope shushed his friend and turned to the computer screen. “Yes, Tans? What was that again?”

The robust system blurred the windshield and replaced it with an indigo hologram depicting their location in the stars. The ship, a white figure in the center of the screen, slowly crawled along the path home, the map shifting down with it. Tans illuminated a small mark, something in the weeds they’d brush off as debris, and zoomed into the vicinity. 

“Based off your request to scan nearby ships, I’ve detected an abandoned craft six parsecs north-northwest that meets your constraints. This particular model is typically owned by a Twi’lek company of electronics commuters, and appears to have broken down. The craft’s engines are off, and no distress beacons have been sent from the comms.” Tans displayed schematics of the ship, a blueprint of the exterior as well as rudimentary information about the general specs.

JJ narrowed his eyes. “How many life forms aboard?”

A pause, a lull only filled by the engine’s natural hum and the mechanical whirring of their computers. Tans found his answer. “One.”

“ Tanny ! Just what I like to hear!” JJ cheered, pulling up the hologram and calculating the distance. 

“Will you stop calling the Talking Assistive Navigation System ‘Tanny’? It’s Tans. You sound like a child. Right, Tans?” Pope asked, pleading for the robot to take his side. 

Not in its programming. “I respond to any name my users wish to use.”

The younger boy realized that JJ was checking the fuel level. “Wait, bro, what are you doing? It just said there’s someone on the ship. Last I checked, we go after carrion, not live flesh.”

JJ tapped his temple. “Pay attention, Heyward. Tanny didn’t say someone, and I only asked for life forms. It’s probably just a rat. You heard him, it was a bunch of Twi’lek truckers loaded up with circuit boards. No one is surviving on that once they’ve broken down.”

Pope grumbled. Their usual scores were typically less fresh than recently broken down and rotting. Over the years, he’d become accustomed to bones and dust, not still-wet meat, and he couldn’t ignore how his appetite was starting to reawaken. Still, responsibility prevailed. 

“Why are you interested, anyways? We just got stuff. We’re headed back now, remember?” he asked, fingers tapping against the monitor that showed the half-empty cargo hold. 

Tans completed the proposed route and displayed the directions with an ETA— not too far out from their current path. The computer also reminded the boys that they had more than enough fuel left to make the detour. 

“Whose side are you on?” Pope asked, looking up at nothing and getting exactly that as a response. He weighed over the options, looking at the flashing display and his best friend’s pleading blue eyes. “Fine. One more stop to pick over this mess. But then I want to get home and eat my mom’s cooking again, clear?”

“Oh, man. You have no idea how badly I want that, too,” JJ admitted, and reset the course for the abandoned ship. 

***

Kiara held the nozzle of the fuel pump as it dispensed— a task easier said than done. Her boss’s rust-red ship was clearly older than when the stations standardized the whole set-up and the intake valve was just a bit too large. The hose threatened to pop out of the fuel tank and make a massive, expensive mess, so all her focus was on the task at hand.

The planet was hot. Sandy, too, and the coarse air forced her eyes squeezed shut. At least her dust mask covered the noxious aroma of the fuel spilling into the tank. Her head remained exposed, and sweat collected on her temples.

She tried to relax her shoulders. Her time on this desert hell was coming to an end, after all. Her boss’s shitty job-of-the-week had wrapped up nicely with her help, this time being silo maintenance for a grain storage system. Barry had declared an acute fear of heights and demanded she climb the ladders— on silos that rivaled skyscrapers, scorching in the sun and rusted shut at the top. Even with the protective gloves the client had given them, her palms ached with tender blisters. 

Kie never asked exactly what his title was when they’d met. She wondered how he advertised himself. It had to be an intergalactic message asking for “shit no one else wants to do”. 

“Is this your ship?” 

Ripped from thought, her head lifted. A local, a scaly man, with dry, crunchy skin and jaundice eyes cut by slitted pupils. His mouth split into a virulently pink grin when they made eye contact, and he took another step towards her and the ship.

“No.” 

A full sentence. She dropped her head down to look at the hose again, which she wished was self-containing and didn’t require her to be so exposed. Where the fuck was Barry, anyways?

The man’s thin, squirming tongue broke out of his face and flicked a bug out of the air. She physically recoiled. “Mmm. Wanna help me fill up my tank, then?”

Disgusting. Her neck stretched out again, as much as she could move without losing her grip on the gas pump. She hadn’t seen Barry leave the service station, but the restrooms were around back and totally out of sight of the—

“Hey!” her boss called from behind, making both of them turn. Barry strode across the parched lot with a smoke hanging from his mouth. “Fuck outta here. She works with me,” he snapped, clearly getting a read on the situation from a distance. 

The creature hissed, literally spraying a burst of sizzling venom onto the dirt, and slunk away before Barry (and the blaster visibly on his hip) could get any closer. Good thing the mask covered her smirk.

“How much more does she need? I want to light this up before we take off and I don’t feel like causing an explosion,” Barry muttered, the little stick bobbing between his lips. 

She looked back at the meter, slowing as the tank filled. “S’almost done. Give it two minutes.”

Her boss nodded. He looked up at the two fulgid suns and flinched, regretting it immediately. “God— fuckin’ hate this bright light. Next job is on another ice planet, one that hasn’t had a sunrise in centuries. That’s what I’m talkin’ about…”

Tears pricked her eyes. It wasn’t common for clients on cold planets to supply them with the necessary equipment, like gloves, boots, head wraps. She had to make do with whatever scraps of clothing she had laying around, and the last job left her with raw, chapped hands and cheeks for days. 

Perhaps it was silly, standing in the scorching desert and nearly weeping about the last time her fingertips and nose ached, and she truly knew what it meant to be cold to the bone.

*

Kiara grabbed the container of transmission fluid and unscrewed the cap hurriedly. The bottle was already sticky down the sides from where her boss had messily poured it himself, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who cared about that. Or putting in basic maintenance for his ship before the belt kept slipping anytime they got above half lightspeed. 

Adding more liquid wasn’t a problem, but the bastard refused to throw the ship in park for even a minute, so the repairs had to be done while the ship was in motion. She was tossed around the engine compartment as he dodged debris, and the fluid splashed on her hands as she shakily guided it into the chamber. The fumes choked her in the small space.

“Y’done back there Juliette?” Barry called. “S’a pain in my ass keeping her steady while you’re not buckled in.”

This was ‘keeping her steady’? She was working on her second concussion. 

She’d have more complaints about her boss, but Barry was incredible at not asking questions. Questions like where she’d come from, why she’d run away, and why she always seemed to not respond immediately to the name she’d given him when they first met. It was her middle name, but his accent turned it into joll-yet and it often took a moment to even register in her brain.

The belt caught, and the ship’s speed increased. Kiara struggled to keep her balance as she replaced the lid and set the bottle on the ground, cleaning her hands off on a dirty rag and climbing out of the engine compartment. Chills erupted on her body as she passed through the loading dock and into the cockpit where Barry gave her a weak thumbs-up for her efforts.

She slumped down into the seat, wiping the sweat from her brow. The engine compartment of the ship was always ridiculously hot and the systems had been acting up all evening, clearly still fussy from the desert air. Barry didn’t like even the idea of letting her navigate, so he’d always send her back there to take a look at it first. They both knew she had no idea what she was doing, so he let her take the holopad to quickly look up solutions, but sometimes it was a quick fix. 

Kiara’s chair in the cockpit was hardly even that— a square bucket turned upside down and tucked into the corner. She’d collected chunks of carbon and plastic to act as a back and armrests and tossed an old fathier blanket over the entire thing for comfort, and Barry was a good enough man to not mock her for how goddamn ugly the whole thing was. Especially since he had her sitting on the floor when she first joined him. 

“Goddamnit,” Barry muttered as the engine faltered and whined again. “This piece of shit is worthless. Never buy a used ship from a fuckin’ Gamorrean. They treat it like ass and hand it off to you with a bow on it…”

He grabbed the handbrake— Kiara only had milliseconds to brace her hands against the ship’s frame above and next to her before the entire vessel came to a screeching halt in the middle of nowhere. The aft-facing rockets flared outside, loud enough to hear through the thick, steel walls and she swore she felt the warmth from them too.

Barry shifted the ship into park and stood up, pointing at Kiara. “I’m gonna go take a look at it. Don’t touch anything,” he warned, and ducked out of the cockpit. Hilarious that he trusted her to cook his food, repair his engine, and sleep in the bunk above him, but not to steer his shitbox out of the way of an asteroid. Whatever.

Her boss’s heavy boots trailed off as he disappeared in the back, leaving only the chirps and beeps from his panel. She didn’t know what a single one of them did, couldn’t read any of the dials. Navigation was the only task on board she hadn’t been able to do yet, and her curiosity always outweighed her enjoying the lack of responsibility. 

Still, working with Barry was about sacrifice. She knew this. It was safety over comfort. It was choosing her fate over her friends, her family, her life, her actual name. God, how she missed hearing her name. She tapped it with her fingers, repeated it in her head over and over, like she’d forget it one day if she wasn’t always reminded of who she was. 

With Barry occupied tinkering around in the back, she peered into the hall one last time and slipped into his seat. She was more than careful not to touch anything on the control panel in front of or above her, but the buttons called to her. 

She examined the panel, letting her fingertips brush over the textured buttons. Several lights blinked, red and green and blue and white. The only display in front of her that was even slightly familiar was the classic emerald radar, scanning around and noting the asteroids in the vicinity. It was interesting, looking down at the screen and out the windshield to match up what the system detected and what was visible.

Until, when her gaze reached the left corner of the windshield, there was something out there that didn’t appear on the radar. It was a ship, solid black, and fucking massive. Kiara double, and triple checked the monitor to make sure she wasn’t crazy and no, there was a ship there with the capability to not appear on Barry’s equipment. 

Like, say, a cloaking device.

Kiara’s stomach fell. Those kinds of ship mods weren’t things often found on altruistic vessels. With the hairs on her arm fully standing upright, she scrambled out of her boss’s chair. She had the urge to call his name but was voiceless. She wasn’t sure what he could do, but he probably wouldn’t want to stay in proximity of that kind of vessel either. 

An alarm set off on the dashboard. The sound rang out in the small space, echoing in her head, sharp, panicked. The light wasn’t labeled, so she couldn’t tell what the problem was or how to fix it. Her eyes darted over the panel looking for something to make sense, something to be familiar from Barry’s steering in the past. Nothing. Rows of buttons and switches and those damn blinking lights, mocking her. 

Kiara stumbled out of the cockpit and immediately knew what exactly the ship had been alerting her— the loading dock had been opened. 

Someone had boarded. In the middle of space. 

It wasn’t exactly a manufacturer-recommended method of using the ship; opening the door in space put stress on the hydraulics and the temporary atmosphere wasn’t temperature resistant, so the entire vessel was now icy. Kie stumbled backwards, and the walls she leaned on for support were so cold, her forearms burned. 

Barry’s voice rang out from the engine room but was cut off sharply. She gasped, debating turning back or running in his direction. The hall darkened as the light from the back of the ship was blocked off by a tall figure looming over the doorway. Her options depleted in front of her eyes. For the first time in months, Kiara felt unsafe again. 

“Hello, Kiara.”

[our-future-is-up-to-us-2]

'Cause You're A Brand-New Species

Here's another oneeee

You're all going to be sick of me at some point but I'm gonna keep posting!!

Title is from Touch-Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon, and the idea for this fic supplied by @daeagon !

Word Count: 1.4K

Relationships: Bianca Pullman & Charles "The Jackal" Calthrop, Bianca Pullman & Vincent Pyne

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 9! A sprinkling of content from Episode 8 and also a tad from the beginning of Episode 10/Season 1 Finale.

This is a post-episode 9 fic fyi!!

~ Read the fic under the cut ~

The boat chase is highly exhilarating, if the Jackal says so himself. 

UDC is dead, his minions and the authorities racing after him… It’s all a victory lap, really, to really solidify the achievement. 

As he approaches a place to dock, he turns back to face the crowd. He can spot at least six boats tailing him, out on the water. 

A crowd of law-obsessed maniacs, they are. Some are just driven by hell and high water, doing it for whatever reason fits their purpose. 

And in that crowd, he swears he recognised one or two of those authorities, talking to each other, crouching down in their vessel… 

Right. He can’t take any chances. 

In times like these, he hates thinking on his feet. He always needs a schedule, everything meticulous and prepared well in advance. 

But being The Jackal means being able to suit up for any situation, to adapt like the tides beneath his feet. 

He lets himself laugh, smiling wickedly as he drops something in the driver’s seat, docking the vessel, and escaping. 

After all, he makes everything seamless. From a boat to a car, zooming down Croatian highways… 

It’s a beautiful thing to be wild and free of burden… Well, for the most part. The authorities are connected and he’s certain they’ll find some way to trace things back to him. 

Perhaps that’s exactly what he wants. 

All he has to do now is wait, and keep his eyes focused ahead. 

***

Vincent Pyne groans as the boat halts, many others surrounding Bogdan’s. He shakes his head and tuts, exchanging a glance with Bianca. 

“Remember how I told you he’s a fucking ghost?!” He exclaims, gesturing to the vessel ostentatiously. “Motherfucker just comes and goes without a trace. We had eyes on him!” 

Bianca huffs and crosses over from their MI6 vessel to where The Jackal was. 

There is nothing to hide, The woman thinks, even as she searches every nook and cranny for a lead, a clue, anything, And The Jackal does not make mistakes…  

When she takes her attention to the driver’s seat, finding an old cell phone and a number preloaded to dial, she’s left smirking. 

This is not a mistake. Nor is this a trap, so she hopes. This is an intentional move. 

“He must be desperate,” She picks up the phone, waving it in Vincent’s direction, “There’s no way he would’ve left this without noticing.” 

The man crosses his arms and watches Bianca as she steps back over to their vessel. “Well, we have no other choice, do we?”

She shakes her head. 

The other authority boats do not leave their post, instead drawing their guns in case of sudden fire. 

She feels better with the security, with Vince as her right-hand man. So why can’t she help the tremor in her fingers as she hits the dial button? 

***

He allows the phone to ring four times before picking up. 

“There you are,” He says, soft, slow, with the same satisfaction he had before killing UDC. 

Finally, they could speak, bringing this cat-and-mouse chase closer, more personal, even. He doesn’t know why he’s thrilled by the whole scenario… She could actually find him and he’d be arrested, worse, dead, in a matter of days. 

Maybe it’s because he hears her breath now, steady, but holding back from so much worse. Maybe it’s because she’ll start speaking, then start yelling at him, losing all her MI6 professionalism. 

He eases his foot off the accelerator, just to focus on her. In his mind, she should be feeling very privileged. 

“Yeah,” Bianca hisses, “Here I am, right where you want me,” She ends up sighing, glancing over at Vince. 

His eyes tell her everything: This is our chance. Rip into him, do whatever you can. Find him, Bianca.  

“I’m here, left with Bogdan’s tarnished boat… And you’re in a car, judging by the engine I hear, driving speedily down some roads, in…” 

The Jackal scoffs, tapping his hands against the steering wheel, “You really think I’m giving myself up? Leading you right to where I am?” 

“I’d appreciate it!” She forces out a laugh, and forces herself to take a few breaths. She can’t let her ambition and zealousness get ahead of her, not this time. 

Not when the MI6 agents have him on the ropes, closer than ever before. 

“You could tell us where you’re headed. Better yet, who’s paying you millions of dollars to take out these hits. Or…” She says slyly, letting out a laugh, “Why don’t you recall something for us?” 

“Oh, yeah?” His eyebrows quirk up, but of course, she cannot see that. She’s left with his curiosity in the moment and a hint of mischief that she hates to define, “And what will I be recalling for Bianca of MI6?” 

He remembers spelling out the details to Zina, convolutedly asking for her help: First name Bianca, tall, black, mid-30s or so, and another male, white, about the same age.   

He never ended up finding the name of the other male, but he has Bianca. Bianca, a woman of MI6, on the phone with him, right on his tail. 

“Your time in the British military?” She says in a knowing tone, “Must’ve been quite the journey. Expertise, weather and all.”  

She sits down now, aware of how long this call could take. At least, that’s what she thinks: That she should be taking notes, making sure not to lose any detail. 

Vincent grunts as he sits down next to her, admiring the crystal-clear view, the water, calm and fresh. Working in the MI6 does present plentiful opportunities for sightseeing… 

Bianca simply rolls her eyes at his sudden lax behaviour. This is not a time for slacking. She tells him with furrowed brows, pointing to the phone. 

The moment of silence lasts longer than she expects, and she’s prepared to press as though she hasn’t done so throughout the entire investigation. She’s killed to get here, and she’ll threaten more if she has to, if it means finishing up the job. 

The Jackal’s voice is softer when he next speaks, “I dunno, Bianca. It’s pretty… Complicated. Expertise can come from anywhere, these days.” 

He shrugs it off like it’s nothing, because he does his best to regard it as nothing. His whole unit, taken out by his own invention, and he’s still alive, making a sharp left turn onto a desolate street?  

Well, that’s how the cookie crumbles, so he’d like to think. 

He presses his sunglasses closer to his face, “Speaking of killing, I wonder how all that guilt is treating you these days.” 

The woman clenches her fist, laughing drily, “Yeah, and I wonder the same for you. Every day, you seem to pop a bullet through someone’s body. Innocent, corrupt, billionaire… You’ve gotta care, Jackal.” 

“I care about the work and that’s all.” He smiles, “I really think that you and I are one in the same. Bye, now.” 

It’s easy to hang up, to leave her with that parting thought. He can feel the mirth in the air he breathes… Everything is oh-so effortless, and everyone is oh-so gullible! Feelings are the key to unlock necessary hope in her, while providing no substantial intel. 

Her words happen to play on his mind, however. 

… Military, must’ve been quite the journey… You’ve gotta care, Jackal. 

And perhaps, that was her intention all along. 

***

“You think we were successful?” Vincent asks, shuffling closer and peering over the phone. “Sounds like we were.” 

“Yeah, right…” Bianca rolls her eyes once more and pats Vince on the shoulder. “All we know is that he’s on the move, and that he’s potentially being chased by authorities. Knowing him, they’re either dead or exhausted.” 

“So we got jack shit. Hip hip fucking hooray.” He scowls, shaking his head. “Apologies for the optimism, Bianca.” The sarcasm in his voice is as clear as day. 

She looks between the phone and her co-worker, thoughts running through her mind. We may have never reached contact if he didn’t leave this for us…  

She shoves the phone into Vincent’s hands, determination ablaze in her eyes. 

“Not quite. We look after this phone, call him at random intervals. We judge what we can on voice, sound, and intel, along with anything from Isabel and Osi. We can’t give up on this fight.” 

Vincent nods, smiling broadly, “I never said that we were.”