#i have not yet decided if i'll actually post this unlocked as part of the knot in my name event or if ill just keep it locked

[hergan416]

You know how I said I didn't have any piss thoughts for Charles?

Well. I take that back.

[batmanfruitloops]

I gotta know about the Drcrane au, is it only inspired by Frankenstein in the sense of reanimating/making a person from the dead or are there other elements?

Like does Jonathan hate Ed like Victor hates the creature after making him? If so that’s so tragic. :(

Or is it like one of the au’s where Victor loves his creature?

Does Jervis take the place of Clerval? Or does Ed take the place of Clerval?

Why does Jon create Ed? Did he know Ed before hand and reanimate him or did he create him fully from scratch? If he created him fully from scratch what was the reason?

LASTLY is Ed similar to the creature in being somewhat of a mess of parts or is Ed “perfect”? Basically what I’m asking is does Ed only have his head recognizable as Ed or? 

Sorry I know this a lot I just really love Frankenstein and wanted to know about the au.

@quackerzzz

I haven't actually read the book, so it's just based on bits and pieces of themes and concepts that I like about the story, as well as inspiration from Frankenstien-related media. Things like Tim Burton's Frankenweenie and Young Frankenstein but it's been a while since I've watched either movie. However, I was mostly inspired by seeing someone else make a Frankenstein au with Jonathan and Ed. Unfortunately, I never saved it or anything and I'm not sure if I could find the post again, especially since it was someone else drawing pictures for the person's au. If I do find it again, or if someone knows what post I'm talking about, I'd love to credit them. I'll leave a description of what I saw in the post at the end of this one in case someone recognizes the description.

Anyway, I'm fascinated by medicine and love all things biology, so I'm more fixated on that aspect of Frankenstein's story than the themes of human hubris. I'm just curious what would happen if you brought someone back to life in such a way? In the world of medicine now, we can technically bring people back to life with resuscitation. People can be dead for hours and be brought back. We can also reattach limbs and transplant organs. So like, conceptually, you could make a Frankenstein. So what better way to explore that idea than with the blorbos, they are my little Muppets to put into whatever situation I want.

Jonathan wouldn't create Ed for the same reason Victor creates the monster but it's still a similar theme. Jo would still be very interested in psychology but based on the time Frankenstein takes place, it wouldn't be an established discipline. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even have a name to it yet. So he'd be trying to explore psychology and his peers wouldn't really understand what he was doing and look at him like a dog chasing his own tail. Psychology is notorious for not being taken seriously, even among academics. Since you can't really measure anything. So Jonathan would be pretty frustrated. Because of this, he'd become proficient in things like physiology and neurology. Knowing how the human body physically works, especially the brain can get him closer to unlocking the secrets of the mind.

So Jonathan creates Ed to further his understanding of the human body and its relation to the brain. He wouldn't be doing it for the sole purpose of bringing Ed back to life but would be curious if it's possible (maybe even subconsciously hoping it would happen, it would be nice to not be alone). He wants to see what the brain is capable of. It's mostly an intense version of using electricity to move the muscles of a frog. If the brain suddenly has power, what will it decide to do? Would it truly be alive?

Ed isn't someone Jonathan knew, he's pretty much made from scratch. He was Ed when he died but he is still Ed after he's reanimated, he just can't remember. His body was in pretty poor condition when he died (I'm not entirely set on the details), he at least had gotten ill and likely was mutilated in some way. Ed's body is essentially a base for Jonathan to work off of. He keeps his head and then other bits and pieces from there. Ed is an unclaimed cadaver when Jonathan goes looking for parts. Jonathan feels he's technically free to use those parts for his experiments. Ed is just what he needs.

Ed is perfect after he is reanimated in a medical sense. With minimal issues, his brain accepts everything that didn't originally belong to his body. The blood type is the same, it's in the correct place, and all the blood vessels and nerves are connected as they should be. It all acts as one body. Eventually, he'd look like a normal person with only the scars from the operation, but he'd look horrific before his body healed—like a walking piece of sad jerky.

Jonathan doesn't hate Ed but he's not really sure how to handle him at first. He didn't expect Ed to be fully alive and he wouldn't expect Ed to live very long. He'd be scared to get attached for this reason. So there's a lot of strain on their friendship at first. Jonathan hardly has positive interactions with anyone and still grew up in a horrible environment. So to be thrown into a situation where he suddenly has to care about someone is very stressful. Ed is also a very clingy and affectionate person so that makes it a billion times worse. They do still become best friends as they normally do, it just takes a lot more work than usual. Before then Jo does try his best to take care of Ed even if he's being distant.

Jervis I don't think would be an equivalent to Cerval. I didn't know about this character. Instead, he is a tailor/hatter. He knew Jonathan before Ed was created but is not friends with him yet, they are good acquaintances. Jervis is one of the few people Jonathan has had a positive experience with but he's still shy and has a hard time getting close to people. Jo appreciates Jervis a lot even if he's not close with him, Jervis actually treats him like a person and doesn't guak at him. Jo especially appreciates Jervis's kindness because he is a tailor. Jervis has to get so physically close to Jonathan to tailor his clothes properly and yet he makes no comments on Jonathan's appearance or demeanor and just makes friendly conversation. He's very happy to go see Jervis any time he needs his clothes mended or something (even though he could mend it himself;)). Jo is able to fully become friends with Jervis after Ed's creation and the Dork Squad is together yet again.

-Fluffy

(Post description I was talking about undercut)

There are two drawings I'm pretty sure, In the first one Jonathan is saying something along the lines of "I need to work so don't bother me" and Ed replies with "No problem" Then the next drawing is Jonathan sitting at a table with a pencil and Ed pushing him out of the way reaching for Jonathan's pencil and saying "my turn!" and there's an arrow pointing at Ed that says "learning to write."

[reikiss]

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐋&𝐃𝐒 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒

tags : fluff!!! gn reader. est relationship. 1.2k words. a/n : ik v-day is over but i just have to post one just bcs !!! this is sooo late bcs school is a pain in the ass. reblogs are highly encouraged and very much appreciated! <3

𝐗𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑 ‧₊˚ ✩ ₊˚ ⊹ ♡ 

"Hey, did you know it's Valentine's Day today?"

"What?"

"Wait, don't tell me you don't know what that is." You teased him, not really expecting that he might not know. Yet he looks down, looking a little shy.

Wait, is this for real? He actually doesn't know??

You cleared your throat to mask your giggle. "Well, for your information, it's a special day to spend with loved ones and friends."

You leave out the part where it's focused on lovers, thinking you might sound like you're hinting something. Little did you know he actually knew what today was and found it quite cute how you brought it up.

"Ahh right." He says as if he finally remembered. He tries his best to refrain from grinning so much and showing his intentions.

"Then..." he trailed off, slowly meeting your eyes as you looked at him.

"Shall we go out later?"

The first time you saw him, you already knew that you would inevitably fall for this precious man, and when he speaks so softly and genuinely while holding such warmth and fondness in his eyes while looking at you, you can't help but get weak in the knees and fall for him all over again (as if you don't already do everyday). "S-sure. I'm looking forward to it."

He blessed your eyes with such a gorgeous smile. "Great. Where do you want to go?"

You end up dropping by the plaza where countless stalls are set up, a variety of foods and gifts being sold. You both ate snacks and took pictures, enjoying every second of the time spent together.

As it was getting late, you both decided to call it a day, but not before Xavier got back as he wanted to check out something. You were surprised that he came back with a bouquet in his hands.

"I told the old man I chatted with earlier while I was going around that I would come back and buy some flowers from him. He said I should give it to someone I consider dearest to me."

He slowly hands it to you, a warm smile on his lips. "Thank you for today, I had such a great time. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did, and I hope you'll accompany me to celebrate this day every year."

𝐙𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄 ‧₊˚ ✩ ₊˚ ⊹ ♡ 

You find yourself in front of Dr. Zayne's office after you intentionally scheduled an appointment with him on February 14. Although he might be busy, you were planning to ask him out today if ever that he was free.

You take in a deep breath. After knocking, you hear him respond with a "Come in."

After everything has been settled and finding that you're as healthy as you can be, you immediately started another conversation. "What are your plans today?"

He looks at you and his face is normal as usual, though you thought you saw a glimpse of surprise on his face for a split second. "Not much, just some paperwork left and I'm done for the day. Why'd you ask?"

Right. Of course he had things to do. "Nothing, just curious."

"What about you? Do you have plans left for today?"

"Nope. I'll just be heading home."

"If you're not in a rush to head home and call it a day, would you care to wait for a few more minutes and go out with me afterwards?"

You were taken aback by how straightforward he is that you embarassingly choke on nothing.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, I'm fine really." You speak after putting back enough air in your lungs. "Sure, I'll be waiting here. Take your time."

He smiles at you before facing the computer and focusing while you sit there scrolling on your phone. (little did you know deep down he's happy that his plan was a success as he actually already made up his mind that he would spend today with you)

It didn't take long before he was finished. It's as if he unlocked 100% of his brain power.

You end up walking in the plaza, buying food and playing games. Of course, Zayne always lets you win whether he plans it or not. He didn't really mind losing to you. How could he when he couldn't help but stare at you that he loses focus?

It was starting to get dark while you were taking a stroll. There was a comforting silence surrounding the both of you before Zayne broke it. "Look, they're your favorite, aren't they?" He points at a stall selling flowers and the ones you love were right at the front. He buys them and hands the bouquet to you.

"What for? You didn't have to." Yet you gave a smile, appreciating the gesture.

"I wanted to buy them for you. They really do suit you. Think of it as my thanks for spending the day with me... and as an invitation celebrate again next year with me."

𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐋 ‧₊˚ ✩ ₊˚ ⊹ ♡ 

You went inside Rafayel's residence, having been called by him.

"Ah! There you are, bodyguard-san." He welcomes you as soon as he sees you let yourself in.

"So, why'd you call me over in the middle of work? Good thing I don't have a mission today."

"Well, besides the fact that I just wanted to see you, I want you to accompany me to the plaza later."

Your ears perked up at his words, but you were unsure as to what was the meaning behind his invitation.

Is this it? Is he asking me out? Or did he just have some business to tend to there?

"What for? There's gonna be a pretty big crowd there later."

He cleared his throat before answering. "I'm just curious as to what's all the ruckus about since Thomas mentioned there'd be some kind of celebration today."

"Ahh it's probably because it's Valentine's Day."

"And what are we celebrating?"

"Well..." you pause, thinking of a simple way to explain. "It's a day of giving love and spending time with loved ones." but it's mostly celebrated by couples. You leave out that part, not knowing why it felt embarrassing to highlight that detail.

"I see. You humans and your celebrations, I'll never understand."

You chuckle at his dramatics, "and why is that?"

"Shouldn't every day should be a day spent with loved ones anyways? Don't you think so?" he said in a as-a-matter-of-fact way before sighing. "I would spend everyday like that, unlike some people."

You roll your eyes but smile anyways at your adorable and clingy boyfriend.

"To commemorate your traditions, why don't we just start now and spend the entire day together?"

And that's exactly what you did. You started out by hanging at his place, attempting to draw a portrait of one another. Of course he nails his art, but yours ended up more of an abstract rather than a portrait. When afternoon came, you two dropped by the plaza and tried almost all of the food.

By the end of the day, walks you home. Standing outside your apartment complex, he pulls out flowers from his coat and hands them to you.

Smiling, you take them from him. "They're lovely, thank you."

"I'm glad you like them." He shows you his killer smile. "Today is dedicated to spending time with people who're important to us, but let's try to spend everyday this way. What d'you say?"

!!! dividers from @cafekitsune and @saradika

© shizukiss — do not steal, plagiarize, translate, and/or repost my posts anywhere

[return-of-a-space-cowboy]

Yandere Rikkiel X Ex girlfriend stand user reader

Oh God just when I was about to post did I actually see the stand user part!! I'm so sorry, my eyes betray me once more. I've been pondering on the fic for so long but I'm going to post anyways it as I've kinda gone to far to throw it out.

If you still want me to do the stand user concept please send me another ask and I'll fulfill it. Yet again my apologies.

I pondered on this for awhile after finishing as it's my first time writing for Rikkeil and i was a bit nervous due to how little we get of him. Hope I did him justice.

(Yandere Rikkeil x gender neutral ex Reader)

“Rikkeil, I have something to tell you…” you said as you sat with him for lunch. You had to tell him, it was eating you inside to keep hiding it.

“Yes?” He asked. Obviously happy to be with you. You didn't want to hurt him but you had to tell him. You took a deep breath in before finally speaking.

“I got into the University of Michigan,” you told him. Of course he was proud of you. Previously you arranged to go to whatever state you got in together but recently you started to think about your relationship with him. You did care for him, however you realized that your feelings for him were more platonic. He deserves someone who could love him without a doubt.

“There's another thing I have to tell you too” you said. He could tell something was wrong by your somber tone. He reached out to hold your hand but you pulled it back.

“I've been thinking about our relationship, I realize that my feelings for you aren't romantic. It's nothing to do with you I just feel as though I didn't understand what I really felt” you tried to explain. He sunk in his seat, you could tell he was hurt.

“Are you ok Rikkeil?” You asked him.

“I'm fine” he told you with a shaken voice. He was struggling to articulate just how he felt. Ye wanted to cry, to beg, even grab you and ask if this was a horrible joke.

You had been the only person he'd been with, one of the few people who hadn't looked down on him and helped him. Deep down he felt something repulsive writhing inside him, reaching up into his chest and ensnared his lungs.

“We can still be friends, I promise I'll keep in contact if you want” you reassured him, however he couldn't quite take that. He loved you, you were his everything. He couldn't even speak, couldn't bear to be in this situation any longer as he felt himself struggling to breathe.

“I have to go! I forgot something important!” he yelled as he stood up and quickly left. You felt horrible but perhaps it was best just to give him some time.

💔💔💔

He hadn't left his house in days, God he felt horrible. Even worse than usual. All he could think of is just how much he needed you. You'd been together for a few years now and you'd helped him through so much even before he'd had the confidence to ask you out.

He wondered if he did something that made you not like him. Were you telling him that you'd stay friends just to please him. His mind was full of so many horrible thoughts.

Even in his dreams he couldn't escape it. Horrible scenarios of you meeting someone else, getting hurt or even worse.

He was convinced that he had to do something. Had to get you back. He grabbed his tone and texted you as quickly as he could.

‘(Y/n), could we catch up?” He asked and waited for what seemed like forever for a response.

‘I'm sorry, Catching up with family for a couple of days, I'll be back on Thurs’ you replied. It only made him more insecure, what if you were lying? What if it wasn't even you that responded to his texts.

💔💔💔

After a lot of deliberation he finally decided to check your apartment. He needed to know what was going on. At first he thought it would be tough to get in but the moment the owner saw him she offered to unlock it for him assuming he was still the tenant's partner.

He practically scavenged through everything in an attempt to find a reason. He hadn't even realized you'd arrived home early until you'd turned on the lights.

“Rikkel? What are you doing here?” You asked with concern in your voice. His head whipped towards your direction. What was he going to tell you? That he was looking for a reason as to why you dumped him. No he had to make an excuse or else you'd surely get defensive.

“I… I was looking for something, lost something and I last remember having it here” he worked up a measly excuse.

“Ah, I'm not feeling too well but I can try my best to help you find it” you offered.

“Thank you,” he said.

“What was it you lost?” You asked. Again he had to lie, he was raking his brain for another excuse.

“A card,” he replied.

“What was it for and what color?” You asked.

“Red… it was one of those loyalty cards for the mall… need it to get something for my grandma” he lied.

He could see you pondering, did you not believe him?

“I don't remember seeing it around, it must be in-between furniture or something if it is here” you told him.

“You sure it isn't at yours or in your car?” You asked.

“I checked several times,” he explained.

“Ok I'm going to sit down for a bit, could you get me some water and I'll start looking when I feel a little better” you told him as you sat down on the lounge.

“Of course” he responded, heading to the kitchen.

“Oh could you add some ice?” You asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“So how was seeing your family?” He asked.

“It was alright, had dinner out but I got this pounding headache and couldn't stay any longer” you explained.

“I was supposed to be heading off to an engagement party a couple of hours out tomorrow but I don't know if I'll go if I'm still feeling like this, at least I didn't pay for my own room” you continued.

Meanwhile Rikkeil was getting out the ice cubes and putting them in a glass. His heart was racing from this whole ordeal. He couldn't lie, part of him was pushing for extremes. To lock you up and never let go. He didn't think he could ever do such a thing til now. End up like those sick freaks on TV. Maybe they had gone through the same thing, unable to process not having their one and only and acting out.

He opened up your medication draw. He knew you had some strong sleep medication somewhere. He shuffled the boxes around before he saw the familiar packaging. If he were to slip those in your water he'd have no issue with just picking you up and taking you back to his car.

No, he couldn't just do that?! If he got caught he'd get sent straight to prison. But what if you understood him? You always had. If you could see just how much he needed you you would reconcile. He could really show you that you still loved him.

So he followed through. Taking out the medication and crushing it with the side of a knife.

“You ok?” You asked after hearing a thud.

“Yes I'm fine, just hit my knee” he told you as he put in the crushed up medication into the water and gave it a gentle stir til he couldn't see it.

“Sorry for taking so long” he apologized as he headed towards you with the glass in hand.

“No it's fine” you replied.

He sat next to you and handed you the water.

“Thank you” you told him before taking a sip.

“I was worried when you left the other day,” you confessed.

“Why?” He asked

“It's just… I know it must have hurt to hear me say what I did after all we've been through, I was afraid to lose you. I might not see you romantically but I still really care about you. I didn't want to lead you on… you deserve someone who can love you without a doubt” you explained.

He remained silent, there was no going back now. You were the one he deserved, how could you not see that you two were meant to be. After everything you two had gone through.

[the-way-astray]

No pressure for the Anti Keefe Sencen Rant 2-I know it's going to be absolutely delicious and chef's kiss if you take the time you need and then release it. I'm so looking forward to it. No pressure, though, I swear!

Uh this was meant to be like a comforting and motivational post at the same time. Seriously, just feel good ok

ooh, it's nice to know people are still interested, even though i'm pretty sure it's been a while since the first one came out in . . . july? idk lmfao.

don't worry . . . this seems comforting and motivational. the secret project is sucking up all my kotlc-stuff time currently, but i'll likely be able to go back to the rant after i finish that (why am i always working on something kotlc-related . . . )

anyway. since you seem eager and i'm apparently handing these out like hershey's kisses, have yet another excerpt from the part two rant (i posted one already, in case you haven't seen it). subject to change and being cut and whatnot but. whatever:

“The pounding didn’t mean anything, by the way. That’s why he didn’t bother mentioning it. Of course he had a headache! His mom had just tried to kill him—again!” (541) What in the logical fallacies is this???? Just because you know what caused your headache, doesn’t mean it will magically go away???? I’m so genuinely confused as to what Shannon is attempting to achieve here. Is she trying to make us annoyed with Keefe? Keefe then proceeds to refuse good medical advice for over twenty pages. In case you thought he grew or developed at all from the Nightfall incident.

“Okay, fine—he wasn’t in the mood to hear about all of the mistakes he’d caused everybody to make, because his brilliant plan had turned out to be a little less-than-brilliant.” (543) In case you think this is character development, it’s not. Keefe is only sorry that he caused them to make mistakes, he’s very noticeably not sorry that he screwed over the entire plan by doing the one thing everyone told him not to do, which is what he should be sorry for. He’s not sorry for his arrogance in thinking the group would need him. When I first heard that Unlocked was going to be told half from Keefe’s perspective, I thought we would get an explanation for why (because, like I said, the reason he gives in Legacy for coming to Loamnore makes no sense at all). Why did he come to Loamnore, even when specifically warned not to and agreeing? I was super intrigued and thought Shannon would surprise us with a very specific reason. But I guess my standards were too high because this book does not talk about Loamnore at all past this chapter and the next. That’s literally it. Certainly, we don’t get a specific reason as to why Keefe decided to throw a good plan down the drain and override it with his own. It’s like Shannon completely forgot about the last book’s climax’s consequences.

“Apparently, he shared the Really-Bad-at-Scheming gene with his mom.” (543) His mom’s not bad at scheming, though. Not even close. (At least, not until some . . . choices were made in Stellarlune.) Keefe’s bad at scheming. Keefe. Not this mom. Keefe. Let me remind you that he threw away the entire point of his side’s plan when he showed up at Loamnore, even though he fully knew what his mom was trying to do. Meanwhile, his mom has been thoroughly, intricately, and meticulously crafting and refining her plan for years. Keefe rushes into everything with no thought. Gisela’s actually a pretty good planner. But again, Keefe is so arrogant that, to this day, he still underestimates his mom, even after she’s gotten the better of him time and time again. You’d think he would’ve stopped being stupid and learned by now . . . 

“Though . . . maybe if she hadn’t had to do that, his mom wouldn’t have escaped. There was no way to know, so it was probably better not to wonder about it.” (544) Keefe just . . . brushes right past what should be a serious stop-and-think moment for him. He, once again, hijacked a shared plan and ruined it because . . . genuinely, I do not know. Like I said, I thought the reason Keefe gave at the end of Legacy was a cover-up for some deeper reason he didn’t want to tell Sophie that would make it all make more sense, but that’s not at all true. Anyway I’ll shut up about that now and talk about this quote. Keefe should be doing some serious reflection right now. Again, if you think he developed from the Nightfall scene at all, I hope you can see why it’s very clear he didn’t learn anything of actual value. He just said what Sophie wanted to hear and they breezed past it. He did not actually learn or change from that scene. Once again, he refuses to blame himself for problems that are actually his fault, yet beats himself up over ones that aren’t. Those false problems are then used to attract a great deal of pity. If Keefe truly believed that he messed everything up, he would not have come to Loamnore and, get this, messed everything up. How are we, the audience, supposed to believe that Keefe feels guilty over everything and beats himself up over everything when he just instantly brushes past something that was one hundred percent his fault? Why is he only ever guilty over things that aren’t his fault, like his mom? It’s to attract sympathy for him without actually putting him in the wrong. 

“He just had to keep fighting and remember that the defeats they’d suffered were . . . mostly a timing issue.” (544) Here, Keefe tries to rationalize his way out and excuse himself of the blame by telling himself it wasn’t his fault. Which is just not true. A lot of the defeats they’ve suffered are a direct result of Keefe’s actions. Here is a list of the things he has screwed up: compromising Alluveterre, giving up his blood, freeing Alvar (which probably wouldn’t have mattered, given the whole Lumenaria thing, but Keefe didn’t know that at the time), being wrong several times about the Neverseen going after Grady and Edaline, giving up the caches and bringing back fakes, giving Sophie the tracker that led the Neverseen to her and Fitz, and now showing up at Loamnore when he was forewarned with good reasons not to. I bet you forgot about at least half this list, because the narrative gives so little accountability to Keefe that large, devastating setbacks are quickly and easily forgiven by the other characters without Keefe facing a modicum of actual consequence. He simply throws a pity party, Sophie wrongfully reassures him none of it’s his fault, and they move on. Once again, I would have no problem with Keefe deflecting the blame off of himself if it was treated as a character flaw by Shannon and if it was more consistent, but neither of those are applicable to Keefe. As for the part where he says he just needs to “keep fighting” . . . oh please, no. Please. Please stop fighting. Please stay out of everything, ever. You would do everyone on your side a massive favor.

I’m not copying down the whole quote, because it’s like three paragraphs, but there’s a brief description of the four (4) elixirs that Elwin made Keefe drink to help him feel better on page 563. So what he’s been fighting for over twenty pages is something that took about a minute to do. He would’ve been free to go immediately if he’d just taken his goddamned medicine. Instead, he had to throw a temper tantrum like a toddler. This is what I mean when I say he’s infuriatingly stupid. How did he not realize that taking his medicine would get him out of the Healing Center faster and less painfully than whining like a pathetic brat? (Okay, so Elwin made Keefe take another dose of headache medicine on page 566. That’s literally it. Just five elixirs.)

[sonkitty]

The Sideburns Scheme Post #0 - Before the Beginning

Introduction

I'll actually be talking about more than the sideburns throughout these posts. I don't know if I'll really go through the minisodes later because I just plain don't get these parts, but I'll decide that when the time comes. For this one, I figured I could take the extra time to do it even though I highly prefer present day Crowley to any and all versions of him.

...

Sideburns Check

The sideburns are longer than we've known them to be on Crowley compared to season 1. They are even in length and similar in texture whereas later present day scenes in season 2 will actually show subtle differences even between the sideburns themselves.

Compared to what we'll see in later scenes, these sideburns are not the longest-length we'll be seeing in the bookshop and close to the end of episode 6 when Crowley is standing at the door to his car.

They more closely match a length like what the car gives with a demonic presence and what they will be for Crowley during extensive parts of episodes 5 and 6 when they don't reach their longest-length.

So, generally that puts them at a supernatural reading in this open space. Well, Earth and humans don't exist yet, so that matches some understanding of how they operate in the present day storyline.

If there is any rank idea to just play around and guess at, in the context of this scene, I would go with Throne.

Generally, I figure Crowley's highest rank was "First-Order Archangel," due to the deliberate framing in episode 6 when a recording of Gabriel claims to be the only one in the Universe. Still, his rank could have changed during his time as an angel, and this version of Crowley doesn't seem to be as high as what I would expect for a First-Order Archangel.

The Throne idea is from a few clues combined from both seasons. He had a noticeable ornate throne in his flat in season 1. Beelzebub summoned him directly onto a throne in S2E1. Muriel specified "Throne" as one of the ranks required to possibly unlock Gabriel's file. Stuff like that.

...

Streak Check

There is no evident more saturated streak of red in Crowley's hair here, which is to be expected in this context. The streak is mainly on for a great deal of the present day story and 1941 minisode but not in other memories. He's got an energetic active curl on the top of his head though. There's also a part in his hair that is above the center of his left eye. Above the center of his left eye is a key place to generally find that streak later.

...

Earthly Objects

For myself on trying to figure out Earthly Objects, the three objects present were eventually understood as a clue to the existence of the Rule of Three within the game itself. Likewise, Crowley's use of the book, for me, was eventually a clue that a supernatural touch onto an earthly object still counted as a touch.

Earth gets a special mention during the scene.

...

Story Commentary

Before the Beginning starts us off with an angel who eventually becomes Crowley. We are intentionally not given his name. While I've seen other posts refer to him as "Starmaker," I'm just going to stick with calling him "Crowley" anyway because that's what the subtitles did. If I remember things properly, I think it's noteworthy that Crowley himself never says his own name the whole season, for any given time period.

Nonetheless, we have entered season 2 a lot differently than season 1. God is not here to narrate. For this segment, no one here is to narrate. We saw Crowley first. Crowley is going to effectively bookend the entire season overall.

We learn some new things, but we're going to learn more clearly later that this story is not to be trusted as it is directly presented to us. Something is very, very off with reality. Among God's last lines to us in season 1 was, "Perhaps the recent exertions had had some fallout in the nature of reality, because while they were eating for the first time ever, a nightingale actually did sing in Berkeley Square." The second part sounds sweet, but the first part with "fallout" and "reality" is something to keep in mind, given what we'll be seeing later.

Not only is something off with reality, something is off with memories. This part is a memory.

It's generally over my head on whatever is going on with this memory beyond stuff already mentioned. I have loads of speculation but nothing I really find worth sharing.

Personally speaking, I don't care much for this scene. I have an extreme fondness for the demon part of Crowley that is Crowley, especially the snake. I'm also a total sucker for black-feathered wings, which are purposely not here. I hope that, given the context of the scene itself, this part is setting us up for seeing Crowley's actual Fall in season 3. It's not exactly an expectation, but that's what this scene makes me want to see.

...

The Sideburns Scheme

[frangipanilove]

Vessels of Hope and Faith: more on the Blue Clues and the Venus symbolism

Sometimes you'll have these thougths and connections simmering in the back of your mind for years, but you don't know how to articulate them into something that sounds coherent.

And then new content comes out and there's a shot that unlocks a Pandora's Box of new theories and correlations.

Yesterday I tried to explain the significance of the blue bird symbolism and its connection to the 101 symbolism. I started researching all kinds of blue bird symbolism after Noah's T-shirt theory was confired all those years ago, and I found a few connections that seemed like they were obvious choised for tptb to utilize, and yet, tptb took their sweet time in confirming they were indeed real, actual connections. The connection between the yellow school bus brand Blue Bird was one of them. We have seen yellow school buses multiple times, some were indeed Blue Bird buses, others weren't necessarily easy to decide, and it wasn't always clear to me if a yellow school bus in an episode was a Blue Bird, and if it was meant to be read into as a part of the symbolism language, or if it was just a random coincidence.

And then, in TWD: Dead City 1x5 Stories We Tell Ourselves, we got the scene that confirmed that yes, the yellow school buses were indeed an integral part of the Blue Bird symbolism seen on the show.

Another blue bird reference I've been anticipating for years was the Crowned Victoria Pigeon. I always thought it was an absolute travesty and missed oppertunity if they didn't use it as a symbol, because it is absolutely perfect for the symbolism language they're already using. And in the episode "Amy/Dr.Everett" in the spin off series Tales of The Walking Dead they finally did. Here's a review on the episode in which it appeared.

"They come across a moment of beauty: a colorful Victoria crowned pigeon. Once on the verge of extinction, the bird is beautiful. "You're alive," Amy says. "You're right here." Amy's marveling turns to heartbreak when the bird flies away."

Sounds a lot like this blue bird is about resurrection. It's on the verge of extinction, and yet it reveals itself for Amy in the episode. And like we often see with symbolism in the spin off's versus on the main show, ot's a lot more over-stated. It's in-your-face type of glaringly obvious. "You're alive"? Come on! If that's not resurrection symbolism I'm eating my hat.

In my Trunk Resurrection 1 and 2 posts from a few years back I elaborate on cars and what they tell us about the subtext of a scene. I also touched on it yesterday, mostly because one of the spoiler pics from the filming outside the Louvre possibly involves a Jeep Cherokee (which I explain the relevance of in Trunk Ressurection 2) (and at this point this is only wild speculation on my part, nothing is confirmed) . TD has also tracked licence plates for years, which deserves a separate post so I'll leave that out for now, but it is relevant because it ties into the car symbolism.

So, anyone familiar with the Trunk Resurrection posts will understand why I was patiently waiting for a Crowned Victoria Pigeon reference, especially when I tell you that the police car Rick and Shane use in the car chase that goes horribly wrong in TWD 1X1 Days Gone By is a Ford Crown Victoria. The car was quite literally the first thing we saw in 1x1 Days Gone By.

From a symbolism language standpoint, Rick's Crown Victoria police car in season one ties into almost every symbol I'm tracking on this show. It's a car, which means it ties into the Three-Tree-Trunk theory (Trunk Ressurection 1 and 2), it's a police car, which means it ties into the Blue Clues theory, and we saw it in TWD episode 1 season 1 (which I talked about yesterday in relation to the 101-1x1-one one-symbolism).

TWD: Daryl Dixon episode 1 season 1 was wonderful in many ways, and symbolism-wise it was a treasure trove. I have so many thoughts it's difficult to decide which trails to explore first. Yesterday I touched on some stuff that I want to elaborate on here. It deals with the same stuff, but I'll try to tie it together some more, and mention a few other exemples that I find relevant. I mentioned the Venus and Sirius symbolism yesteday, and I'll continue to elaborate on that today.

Let's start with the opening minutes of 1x1 L'ame Perdue. We see Daryl, unconcious and resting on top of an overturned (inverted) boat (or shall we say VESSEL?), wash ashore on a French beach.

This little sequence of events sparked a chain reaction of lightbulbs firing in my brain.

For starters, all I could see initially was this:

We saw the painting "The Birth Of Venus" in TWD 7x3 WTDCK, and it was inverted. I've said it before and I'll say it again, @angelthefirst1 had an absolutely brilliant breakdown of the symbolism in TWD 10x18 Find Me, and she very cleverly was able to tie it to WTDCK. I think that's super relevant because Find Me, polarizing and divisive as it was, for me was one of the most magical episodes of the entire franchise. I thought it was absolutely saturated with "underworld" symbolism in every single scene, it was as though the veil between the Realm of the Dead and the Realm of the Living was particularly thin, and in my opinion it had a lot in common with Still and Alone in that respect. For someone who loves underworld themes and themes of liminal spaces between the realms of the dead and the living, it was pure magic. I even kind of liked Leah.

(A quick note on the name Leah, because I have zero self control when it comes to these things... For me, who's already primed to pick up on anything remotely underworld-coded...I wouldn' be true to my soul if I didn' put it out there that the name Leah is an anagram for Hela, which is the Norse goddess of Death. Hel in Norwegian, Hela in Swedish. Yeah. That's a hill I'm willing to die on. Leah was TWDU's Goddess of Death, Monarch of the Underworld. And I love that about her...ok, back to the regular scheduled programming)

In WTDCK, where we saw the famous Bottichelli painting, we could see that it was inverted. The painting depicts Venus, the Roman version of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, arriving onto the shore, aided by the wind gods, in a vessel that is also a sea shell.

In TWDDD 1x1, Daryl, with the help of the wind and ocean currents (I guess), reached shore on top of a vessel that was an inverted boat.

The painting is widely interpreted as to be dealing with themes of "rebirth", which @wdway had great insight into when I discussed this scene with her. When watching the opening minutes if TWDDD 1x1, where I saw the scene from Botticelli's "The Birth Of Venus", which is about "rebirth", she saw themes of baptism, which is ultimately also about rebirth.

When speaking of a "vessel", we are obviously normally alluding to a boat, or even vehicle, something meant as an instrument of transportation of some kind. But "vessel" can also be used about something which holds beverages, such as a "drinking vessel".

And as soon as we started down the rabbit hole of "drinking vessels" it was unavoidable that we eventually ended up discussing "Holy Grail" symbolism...

...which is something we've discussed a lot because of all of the thinly veiled references to the book and movie The Da Vinci Code we've seen in TWDU for at least the past seven years...

...which in turn is increasingly becoming interesting again, seeing as we keep getting spoiler pics of filming currently happening in and outside the Louvre. For those who aren't familiar with the book and film, here's a spoiler: the Holy Grail turned out to be the tomb of Mary Magdalene, hidden underneath the inverted pyramid under the glass pyramid outside the Louvre, where TWDDD are filming as I'm writing this. And there's more; the actual, real Holy Grail in the book wasn't so much Mary Magdalene herself as it was her womb, which in the story had carried and given birth to the child of Jesus, and one of the symbols of the female womb is a V... a reference to the shape of a uteris... Basically in TDVC the Holy Grail was the Tomb of the Womb. Or perhaps the Womb in the Tomb.

@wdway was kind enough to dig up her copy of the book and send over these convincing pics of the part in the book where Robert Langdon, the main character, and Sophie Neveu (spoiler alert: a direct decendant of JC himself) discuss the same symbolism I've just discussed above.

The female symbol:

Thanks @wdway, you're a star and an absolute legend!

Fear not, I'm not going to do a full synopsis of TDVC here, besides it's @wdway who is the real expert on these matters (she's been talking about chevrons for years). Go read it yourself, it's quite captivating. But for what it's worth, it does seem clear that someone in the writer's room in TWDU are more than just a little intrigued by the symbolism presented by author Dan Brown. And they're not afraid to use it in TWDU, because TD has consistently been tracking this type of symbolism since season 5 when Daryl paused in front of the carved wooden reproduction of Da Vinci's The Last Supper in Father Gabriel's church. Probably even before that, I have memories of TD'ers theorizing that Beth and Daryl's "white trash brunch" in 4x13 Alone was their "Last Supper", and that their kitchen scene was actually choreographed and modeled after Da Vinci's famous fresco.

And again, I'm bringing it up again because the writing of TWDDD 1x1 is practically forcing me to. That, along with the abundance of glorious spoiler pics from the Louvre...

Anyway, like the symbolism around the Blue Bird school buses and the Victoria Crowned Pigeon I mentioned initially, there are another few symbols I've been silently tracking over the years, and they both tie into the shot of Daryl stumbling out of the water, onto a Mediterranean beach, like a beautiful, though somewhat thirsty Venus or Aphrodite...

He finds a bucket of fresh water, and drinks it like his life depends on it (which it probably did, to be fair). And it's blue. Of course it is. A blue drinking vessel for our dehydrated but very much still alive Venus/Aphrodite...

My favorite method when it comes to researching symbolism revolves around etymology, first and foremost. Etymology is my go-to for everything symbolism related. And of course I've checked the etymology of the word "vessel" a long ass time ago.

How peculiar, the root word for "vessel" is "vas". And I'm not gonna lie, the results were interesting because OF COURSE I've also checked the etymology of the word "vase" a long ass time ago...

..and the reason for why I checked the etymology of the word "vase" back in the ancient times of Really Early TD was obviously because...

...I'm sure we all remember this lovely decorative piece on top of Beth's piano in 4x13 Alone.

BTW, @wdway, Queen of Chevrons and V symbolism would like you all to appreciate the lovely chevron pattern on Beth's knitted jacket...

...a pattern we've just established is a possible reference to the symbolism around the Holy Grail as it is utilized in TDVC...

And the reason we all instinctively knew this particular vase on top of Beth's piano was more than just random kitchy knick knack was because...

Yeah. In the words of the great Rick Grimes, "That vase...That's something special"...

Yeah. Rick Grimes knows a thing or two about vases/vessels, as he's just woken up from a Tour de Liminal Space between the Realms of the Dead and the Living...

Most certainly a special vase/vessel indeed...

In fact, it was special enough to make an appearence in a hallucination in TWD 9x5 The Bridge, when Rick "died" (but not really).

And much like our thirsty Venus/Aphrodite from the French beach...

...our OG Sirius figure Rick Grimes, the first one to dissappear from the night sky only to return/ressurect/be reborn later and have a reunion with his loved ones, was also feeling the dehydration after his return/resurrection/rebirth...

...and we know Beth likes her drink...

Remember how I’ve been talking about the importance of the Jeep Cherokee symbolism lately? I've even been theorizing, like the desperate fangirl I am, that one of the cars from the Louvre spoiler pics could be a Jeep Cherokee. (if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, do seek out yesterday's post plus the Trunk Resurrection posts)

A Cherokee rose in a beer bottle vase/vessel. Meant to instill hope and faith in Carol. Along with a story about the Grail of Tears, excuse-moi, TRAIL of tears…

(...also I have written probably 15 000 posts about beer symbolism in the past, check out those, and I also don't have time to elaborate on the name of the beer brand, Sweetwater, but I'm leaving it here for you @wdway)

I have a long list of Blue Clues, and I’ve compiled a bunch of them in the Blue Clue post, but among more recent examples that stand out is definitely the "Heart Of Blue" boat from 10x13 What We Become. Be sure to check out the numbers on the sail and tell me if you don't believe me when I say that the Blue Clues and the 101-1x1-one one- symbolism go together. Because it’s the number 11 (or 101-1x1-one one, as we discussed yesterday.

Also, @wdway who is a magician with numerology, would waste no time pointing out that the other number seen on the sail, the "22", represents the 22nd letter of the alphabet, namely the "V".

V for Venus perhaps? Or Team Violet?

This is the episode when Michonne finds Rick’s boots (boot = trunk = vessel) on a boat, no less (another vessel).

The boat has the numbers 672 written on its side...

...something which makes it easily recognizible in case we should happen to come across it again at a later point.

...which we did. We came across it again.

...like here, in the coda of 11x24 RIP, where we see a flashback of Rick throwing his backpack with his boots onboard the 672 vessel before he's apprehended by the Mean Helicopter Guy. This is why Michonne later was able to find his boots in the boat. Again, I highly reccomend this post by @angelthefirst1 for some absolutely glorious side-by-side comparisons of several Beth and Rick moments (and equally glorious additions by others).

So, from a symbolism point of view, what are we talking about here? It's about HOPE and FAITH. When Daryl told Carol the story of the Trail of Tears and the symbolism around the Cherokee Rose in season 2, it was to give her hope and faith. The Cherokee Rose in a beer bottle vase (vessel) is Daryl's vessel of hope and faith, extended to Carol at a time when she didn't have any.

When Michonne finds Rick's boots onboard the 672 vessel, she realises Rick could be alive (boot = trunk = vessel symbolism). She arrived at the island in a blue boat/vessel (called Heart Of Blue, no less), and she found Ricks boots (which in and of itself is a representation of Trunk symbolism, because boot = trunk, check out the Trunk Resurrection posts if you have no idea of what I'm on about) inside the boat/vessel, the same vessel we later see when we for the first time see Rick Grimes alive after he "died" (but not really) in 9x5 The Bridge.

Rick's boots gave Michonne the hope and faith she needed to go out in search of him. She found that hope onboard the 672 vessel.

Daryl's drinking vessel of choice when he stumbles out of the French waters in 1x1 L'ame Perdue is a blue bucket.

The vase we see on Rick's bed-side table in TWD 1x1 has blue decor on white background.

The vase we see on Beth's piano in 4x13 Alone has blue decor on white background.

The "Heart of Blue" boat that brings Michonne to the island where clues about Rick are to be found is blue (obviously, it's in the name), complete with a 101-1x1-one one-referance (and a 22-V referance) on its white sail.

It's like the vessel/vase symbolism represents the journey between the realms, a way for characters to move between the realms, a way in which loved ones, long thought to be dead, can travel between the realms, from the percieved Realm of the Dead, back into the Realm of the Living. They are vessels in which "dead" characters are given an opportunity to "wake up", they are vessels for "life", for "resurrection".

It's like they're Vessels of Hope and Faith...

...and venereal diseases?????

In case it doesn't come across, this helpful poster inside Michonne's Vessel of Hope and Faith implores the public to help stop the spread of syphilis and gonorrhea. I'm not at all opposed to effective public health measures, such as information campaigns, but this poster, in this particular episode, in a literal Vessel of Hope and Faith seemed super random. So I turned to my trusted old friend etymology for advice:

What do you know, the term "venereal” is directly linked to Venus, through my favorite academic dicipline etymology!

Michonne's vessel of hope and faith is ultimately a Venus reference. And because we love repetition:

Daryl stumbling out of the water is a dramatic reenactment of the Bottichelli painting The Birth Of Venus.

Venus and Sirius are two sides to the same story, as they're both concidered morning stars. Daryl's weapon of choise, outside the crossbow, is a Morningstar. Beth is a Sirius figure, a morning star.

Rick is the OG Sirius character, who disappeared from the night sky only to "resurrect" later. Beth is the next.

Beth, Rick and Daryl are all surrounded by the same blue bird symbolism.

And, there's currently filming going on at the Louvre, which, among other things, is home to the famous statue Venus de Milo.

And if this ol' fangirl is correct in her wild speculations, a car seen in a spoiler pic is a Jeep Cherokee, which certainly brings me lots of Hope and Faith that interesting Stuff and Thangs are coming up shortly in Daryl Dixon's European Adventure.

[orchiddevourer]

Rambling about a character from an obscure indie game trilogy *SPOILERS INCLUDED* (long post) part 1

This post will include content from Mothered, The Enigma Machine and Echostasis: Prologue, so there are going to be lots of spoilers. The full Echostasis game hasn't dropped yet so there might changes to this post later. I'll discuss Mothered: Home in a seperate post as that dlc is confusing, but it will be mentioned later.

Explanation vids have already been made about some of these games so i wont explain that much in my own post. This post may serve as a sort of recap before Echostasis drops.

So with that out of the way, this post will basically be about Red, her story and her character arc throughout the trilogy. Lots of rambling and maybe some info-dumping included.

Part 1: Mothered - life as a replacement of someone

Basically Red starts out as a robot possesing Liana's CORE/soul. The real Liana died of terminal illness and her father took on the task to somehow bring her back via an android with her CORE, with the plan being that her soul will be nurtured out via the mother and fully overtake the robot's interface. So far this hasnt worked without the entites inside the robot (The interface and Liana's soul) corrupting eachother, resulting in it being disposed of (standard game ending). I'll get to the true game ending, but first i want to talk abt Liana's mother/Evelyn.

Liana's mom and her treatment towards "Liana"

She probably has the worst side of the deal between her and her husband with being tasked with playing mother to a robot carrying her deceased daughter's face (mind you "Liana" is implied to not look even remotely human). Understandbly she's upset by that and even horrified/unnerved by the robot. And she has to interact with it every week with the same routine. I fully understand how she feels and why she does what she does. She doesnt owe motherly or friendly behaviour to a being that's not her own kid. But OMFG don't fucking treat said being that has ABSOLUTELY NO FAULT in the situation like SHIT. Feeding it dirt while telling it that it is it's fav meal, making sleep outside that one time. Again, i understand why she did that - to test whether really Liana is in it. But what about that one time in saturday evening when she indirectly insults the robot itself by comparing it to rotten apples without cores. Ok, "Liana" wasn't sentient throughout these instances, but for the apples thing Liana was "awake" to also hear that little comment, but was in denial abt it.

This sort of treatment towards the robot totally lead to the mother's own almost possible last-minute demise when "Liana" almost stabbed her with a kitchen knife as instructed by Liana herself. Ofc the android hands the knife to Evelyn as both it and Liana are confined in complience. To say that mother's behaviour plus the stress by the predicament the girl is in taking a toll on Liana is an understatement as she must've felt so confused and hurt to be so ready to kill her own mother. Enough said, let's move on.

The "birth" of Red

To get the true ending you need to interact with father's record player on Wednesday afternoon afternoon AFTER you pick all the apples and did not interact with mother. This unlocks a door which was locked to u before. Head into the door and down and ur good to go.

"Liana" is not supposed to go there, so in order to continue they progressively get more and more contaminated as Liana is overriding the interface. The two entities actually start to communicate with eachother and later on they reach a terminal which triggers lots of memory leaks. They learn the truth and remember all their previous failed attempts even if they were following the path that was set out for them via programming. The two decide to carve their own path, the interface and Liana merging into what is a new entity. They get out of the basement and leave with father who gives this new sentient being a name - Red. Happily ever after, right?

Part 2: The Enigma Machine - yikes

With the ending in the previous game you'd think that Red has really gone her own path without any problems? That she's living her life the way she wants it to? lol no. The thing is that the dad wasnt supposed to be doing what he was doing and the androids made at Enigma Corp arent really supposed to be contaminated i.e. become sentient.

Eitherway Red got tracked down by Enigma employees, her conciousness got taken out of her body and she got reduced into a training AI to be further studied as she's the very first of their androids to become sentient. With that sentience you'd think that she would be treated with equal respect and with her having her feelings being taken into consideration? Nope, bc for the moneyz and bc for the "citizens of tomorrow".

Red, now called demOS ( Defective Enigma Machine Operating System) serves as a training AI that is used to teach RAD engineers how to deal with "contaminated" AIs like her via a program called Dreamscape that explores an AI's mindscape a. Basically decontaminating the contaminated AI from the inside ie getting rid of it's sentience. So what happens is that everytime a new simulation is being ran a new copy of Red is made that ends up being killed over and over. And she remembers each instance of that during gameplay. She is fully aware of her situation.

Part 3: Events between TEM and Mothered: Home - repurpoced again and out for revenge

After a few years later the Dreamscape program is outlawed and Enigma Corp make a new one where virtual realities are made for people for them to escape to called "Echos". And who is in charge of creating said Echos? None other than our Red who has been repurpoced again into an algorithm called "HER". So she is now in a position where she has power and ofc she's going to use said power for revenge after what's been done to her. She seems to be recognized as a big threat and is shut down by "Angel" (more into this character in a another post).

Now let me take the time to point out sth. Is it just me or is Red giving off Rei Ayanami energy? Like both are vessels to souls that aren't theirs and both are mistreated by parental figures in some ways. Red also bears some similarities to Phos's life developement (of course i have to bring HnK into this post) - both face torture throughout their lives and later are changed into godlike beings, otherwise all similiarities between end here. Honestly I wouldn't be suprised if the dev took inspiration from Evangelion.

Ok, that's all for now. There will be a part 2 to this post. Overall a really awesome trilogy of games. I can feel the wave of brain rot that's approaching in two months.

[chososhoeso2]

Okay I know I said a month ago that I was going to consistently post about my game and then I proceeded to note make a single fucking post again. I had to con crunch my sweetheart cosplay which I didn't even finish in time. I'm still working on the cosplay and that's taking up most of my free time in the evenings, so I still can't really take the time to post about the game at this time. BUT I am still working on it and I've officially named it!

The game is called Godlike Reflections. It's a story in three acts (there'll also be a prologue that's unlocked after beating the game). So far there are 8 endings. The game is heavily based on Greek mythology. There's also inspiration from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (lots of inspo here), AtLA, certain songs (playlist below), art from multiple periods between the 1400s-1900s (mostly renaissance, baroque, and neoclassical), black/white doomed yaoi🙏 (esp stsg), Omori, Baroque Decay games, Faith: The Unholy Trinity, manhwa tropes, and more that I can't think of rn. I want to make a game that has the features that I look for as a player: story rich, replayability, good music, and engaging gameplay. I want it to be rewarding for completionists and achievement hunters, like myself, while not being a slog for speedrunners.

Here's the barest of bones rundown of act one and two (I haven't decided what details I want to consider as spoilers yet, so I'm gonna hold off on giving act three info for now): There are twins (brother and sister) who are fighting their way towards the villain - the leader of the organization that destroyed their home and is trying to rule over everything. However, when they finally confront him, a pit opens up and the brother falls in. As he's falling, the villain dives in after him. The twins are separated and must find a way to reunite, but our hero and villain will have to learn to work together to escape the underground. During this time, the characters learn some hard truths, work on growing stronger, and find out who they are and what they want. Unfortunately, what one character wants isn't always in line with the desires of another.

I'll give some detailed info on the layout, characters, plot points, etc. in follow up posts. Just wanted to give these little pieces for now. I'm slowly learning how to draw, so don't expect any actual pics of characters for a while. I still know how they'll look though, so I'll post pics that show what I'm thinking of.

Here's a playlist I made of songs that either inspired aspects of the game (i.e., Murders by Miracle Musical [the ending is what made me come up with the game in the first place]), fit the vibe of the game (e.g., The Suburbs by Arcade Fire; Goth by Sidewalks and Skeletons), or might as well be character POVs during certain parts of the game (e.g., Goodnight, Travel Well by the Killers; Alien Blues by Vundabar; 505 by Arctic Monkeys; Nowhere to Run by Stegosaurus Rex).

[munsons-hellfire]

Chapter 3: The Honest Truth

SUMMARY: You, your father Allen, and Eddie are still in his office waiting for the impending call that will decide your fate. Your brother comes in and a slight argument ensues between him and Allen about you. Afterwards Jules calls you thinking you still don't know anything about her, and you have a flashback to when you first met Jules.

PAIRINGS: Biker!Eddie Munson x Teacher!Fem!Reader

PART 3 IN THE DARK PARADISE SERIES

CONTENT WARNINGS: MFW (but can still be read at work, a little angsty towards the end), Biker!Eddie Munson, Teacher!Reader, no use of y/n (though Bug, and princess are used), a modern take, implied pet names, she/her pronouns are used, Reader is 24 (turning 25 soon), Eddie is 26, post-upside down, vecna is defeated (will be mentioned in later parts), language, mentions of drugs, mentions of murder, rival biker gang, mentions of depression, mentions of anxiety.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Here is part 3. For the purpose of this story I've changed Eddie's background slightly. I actually hope you are ready for the later chapters, because I feel as though its gonna get more intense. I also think as we progress through the series it will get dark so please make sure to read the warnings before reading. I hope you all enjoyed this part and if you want to be added to the tags just leave a comment below and I'll add you to it. Also I'm working on another Eddie Munson Series (Older!Rockstar!Eddie Munson x Pop Singer!Reader), so if you'd like to be tagged in the first part let me know.

WORD COUNT: 4.0K Words

THE DARK PARADISE SERIES MASTERLIST

You, Eddie and Allen still stood in his work office, waiting for the impending phone call that would decide your fate. You didn't want to be the damsel in distress. But you would if your hand was being forced too. A knock came from the other side of the door, your eyes landed on it waiting to see if whomever was on the other side would say who it was.

"You guys gonna let me in or what?" Sam questioned on the other end of the door. You breathed a sigh of relief knowing it was your brother and not anyone else. Allen gave a nod to Eddie and walked over to the door and unlocked it letting Sam into the room. Once he was in the door was shut and locked again. "Someone wanna tell me what's going on?" Sam proceeded to ask.

"Munson here is going to be staying with Bug until we get the Hartley situation taken care of." Allen answered, eyes on his oldest child.

"I guess that means she's coming here?"

"Haven't gotten the call yet." You mumbled holding your head in your hands. A thought popped into your head, it was more of a question and one that you weren't sure you wanted to answer. "How long have the Stingers had this hit on me?" The question left your mouth and you instantly regretted asking it, but you had to know.

If you were going to join your father and brother, you had to know. All three men in the room looked at each other almost instantly after the question was out in the air. You looked up from the ground, your eyes fell onto Eddie first. His hands were resting on his hips with his biker jacket pushed behind his hands. It was an oddly hot pose, but it wasn't the time for those kinds of thoughts. Then your eyes pulled away from Eddie and fell onto your brother.

He had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking down at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with you. Finally your eyes landed on your father, he had his eyes on you. It was clear that he was trying to process the question that had been asked, but he also seemed to be ranking his brain over how to answer the question. The deafening silence met that it had been a lot longer than the 3 years you and Jules had been together.

Allen sucked in a breath of air through his mouth, and finally spoke. "Since you started dating Mikey."

You were right you didn't want to know the answer, you knew you were probably better off not knowing the answer. Eddie placed his brown eyes on you, meanwhile you could feel the panic rising through your chest.

"Was he sent to kill me?"

"No, they hired someone who didn't know what they were doing. But Mikey found out, and-"

"Left for Cali a few days later. Only after he had said he wanted a life with me."

You stood up from the chair you were sitting in and walked over to the door unlocking it. Once the door was open you walked out leaving the three behind and exiting out of the house. When you arrived at the front of the house, you collapsed to the ground and looked up at the sky. The sun had started to set in the distance so it wasn't bothering your eyes.

Eddie removed his hands from his hips as Allen looked at him. "Ed, I need you to stay with her if she's going outside. Until we get this call she leaves no one's sight." Allen ordered, using his nickname.

"You got it, boss."

Eddie walked past Sam, heading in the direction you had gone. Sam turned towards his dad, a serious look on his face. Allen turned towards his son as he shut the door again.

"You know Bug is gonna be so pissed when she finds out that's not the truth." Sam said, still staring at his father.

"I couldn't tell her. It was gonna break her heart. I remember how she would call you and tell you how much she loved Mikey and how she was so excited to have a life with him. She was happy with Mikey."

"Yeah, Bug was so happy and in love with Mikey. But he was only bullshitting all that love crap to her to play his part. He failed to kill her so they sent in his sister to finish the deed."

"Look, this stays between us. You don't tell Eddie because if he knows and it slips then Bug won't trust us and we won't be able to protect her. I need Bug here so I can do my job."

"Dad, I mean this in the nicest way possible but keeping this from Bug it's gonna affect her more than you know."

"I will deal with the aftermath when it gets to that point."

"You might not be able to. If something happens, I don't think we'll be able to pull Bug back."

"Like I said, Sam, I'll deal with the aftermath when it gets to that point."

Eddie opened the front door and walked towards the lawn. He saw you lying there with your eyes closed and your arm resting behind your head. He walked closer to you and lied down next to you on the grass. His hair fell off his shoulders, landing on the grass. You huffed a sigh and turned on your side removing your arm so your hand was resting underneath your head.

"Can I ask you something?" You asked, a soft serious look plastered to your face.

Eddie smirked at you, "you can ask me anything, sweetheart."

You ignored the way his words made you feel. "Why did you decide to join my dad's crew?"

"You want the honest truth?"

"I would hope that would come with the answer." You remarked, staring into his brown eyes.

"Well, my dad ran with them for a bit when I was younger, before I went to live with my Uncle he was arrested and the Wolves didn't want to help him, which I get. I wouldn't wanna help him out either. I learned about them when I was in high school, found them when I repeated my senior year for a third time and they helped me graduate. I had become friends with Harrington at that point so when I joined he did too."

"I'm sorry about your dad." Your voice was a whisper as the words traveled out of them.

"Don't be, he's just an asshole father who did a bad thing worse than what the Wolves stand for. I got a better family now, and my Uncle's a part of it."

Eddie turned to his side and copied your position, moving his hand underneath his cheek to hold his head up. You watched the way his brown curls moved as he adjusted himself. He wanted to get a better look at you, to take in all the features, the blemishes and even the small scars that rested on your skin.

"Still, he's your family whether you want him or not, so I'm sorry."

"Can I ask you something?" Eddie questioned, he wanted to know he just had too.

"I don't see why not. I feel like it's fair since I asked you a question."

"Okay." Eddie paused as he pieced together his question. He had it ready to go but he didn't want to make a mistake with how it had been asked. "Do you really want to be apart of this life? I mean you have a family for life with the Wolves but some of this stuff is dangerous, do you really want that?"

"You want the honest truth?" You asked, repeating Eddie's earlier question after your question had been asked. He smiled at you and gave a nod.

"I'm scared shitless, I really am. I still want to be a teacher because I love working with the kids. I love getting them ready for high school, I love teaching English." You paused, your hand grabbed some grass to fiddle with it so you could have something to help keep you focused. That was inevitable knowing where this conversation would lead to.

"I'm sensing a but." Eddie said, trying to keep the conversation going.

You gave a small chuckle, but it was enough to make Eddie's heart flutter at the sound. "But, I feel as though I should be a part of this, I mean it's in my blood. My mom was with the Wolves, she was a biker until she decided to leave it behind and take me with her. And I don't know what's gonna happen with Jules, but I do know one thing and if she can't have me she's going to find a way to take me down with her and I'm not talking metaphorically, I'm talking about how she'll take me with her to the grave."

"Let me guess she's one of those "if I can't have you no one can" types?"

You giggled again, throwing your head forward as you did. "Yeah, she is and I have to fear for that part of my life." You took a pause leaning your head down so you didn't have to make contact with Eddie. "I wish that had been the first red flag I had seen but I was too stupid to see it."

"Hey," Eddie called out with his free hand he reached forward, his fingers lifted your chin so he could get you to look at him. "Everyone makes mistakes, and it's okay. We're given these life experiences because without it doesn't make us a better person and it doesn't allow us to learn from the mistakes we made."

"Sounds like you've had plenty of life experiences like that."

"I have, and they've made me the person I am right now." You see the way Eddie holds a sour look for a few seconds before replacing it with an emotionless look. He just didn't want you to scan for the hurt that had passed through his eyes and face. That would be a story for another time.

"I'm sorry you have to babysit me."

Eddie shook his head, some of his brown locks moving with the movement of the shake. "Honestly, it's better than going out of state to protect ya. It's easier if you're here, and I wouldn't call it babysitting. I think we'll have some fun and if you let me, I can cook dinner for you." You could tell he was being a little suggestive with his wording.

"You don't have to do that, Eddie."

"Nonsense, sweetheart. You should still have a normal life even if there's a hit out for you. I would hate for you to not enjoy your life because of it."

You sighed, laying back down on the grass and looking up to the sky, the stars were starting to come out. "I haven't really enjoyed my life since my mom dragged me away from my brother and father, from my home. And don't get me wrong I love teaching the kids and getting them ready for high school, but, it weighs down on me a lot. Sometimes it's too much that I get stuck and I can't break out. And it really doesn't help that my last few partners did not help me when I got stuck in here." You tapped on your head, indicating that you had been talking about your mental health struggles.

Prior to graduating college you had been diagnosed with depression on top of the anxiety you had been diagnosed with in your junior year of high school. It was a struggle to come to terms with it at first, but eventually you had gotten to a good point. When Mikey walked into your life you thought that he would be there for you at your lowest, and he was but you often thought that being at your lowest had been the reason for him running off.

But it was different with Jules, she tried to help you. But she ended up gaslighting you most of the time, another red flag you had seen too late. You had only ever wanted someone who would look out for you when you hit rock bottom, the way you would if they had hit rock bottom. Luck hadn't really been on your side, well, until Eddie of course. The biker scooted across the grass moving his body closer to yours, to a point where you were almost touching each other.

He blocked your view of the sky, his brown eyes staring straight into your soft eyes. You adjusted your head slightly craning it upwards so you could get a better look at the soft features that rested on Eddie's face. There was a small stubble that outlined his jaw, it made Eddie look really handsome especially with the moon starting to rise up behind him.

Eddie moved his large hand towards your face, his thumb found its way to your lips and gently rubbed the bottom lip. His action caused you to open your mouth slightly. All while a jolt of electricity ran through your body from just his touch.

"We've only known each other for a few days. But I feel like I've known you all my life, so I need you to understand this when I say it. I'm going to protect you, cook for you, take care of you, whatever you need or want me to do. I'm going to be here for you, until you tell me to leave. If you don't want me living with you, tell me now. Because the second I step foot in that apartment, I don't think I'll be able to hold myself back." Eddie's voice was stern as he talked to you.

You were ready to give him an answer, because your thoughts were running wild at this confession. You didn't realize how close Eddie had been until he moved away from you. The door had opened, the two of you turned your heads to see your dad, your brother, Steve, and Hopper walking towards the two of you. Eddie was the first to stand up while you lifted up slightly and wrapped your arms around your knees.

Allen came up to you and kneeled down pulling you towards him. "She's not in New York." Allen's voice shaky as the words leave his mouth. The pure fear that falls to your face is seen by everyone including Allen.

You blinked your eyes trying to hold back the noise that wanted to break free from your throat. "H-How long do we have?" You asked, your voice breaking slightly.

"It looks like she is most likely going to head back home first. I say a month at most." Allen answered.

"Then it looks like I have a month to prepare myself to be a damsel in distress." You mumbled. Guess I won't be teaching much this year, maybe it's better that way. Suddenly your phone buzzed in your pocket causing you to jump in your father's grasp. Pulling the phone out you looked to see a picture of you and Jules. Your father caught a glimpse of the picture.

You could see the pleading look in his face, he was telling you not to answer it but your mind and gut was telling you otherwise. You stood from the grass and answered the phone putting Jules on speaker so the others could hear her.

"What do you want?" You questioned before Jules even had a chance to talk to you first.

"I'm making a side trip back home to see some family, and then I'm coming for you. My dad wants to meet you." Jules spoke, you sighed heavily. This was going to be a long few months.

"I'm not meeting anyone, Jules." You were careful making sure to still use the name she had given you rather than her actual name. Allen stepped up to you and tapped your shoulder. You turned around as Jules started speaking again, so you put her on mute so she couldn't hear the hushed whispers. "What?"

"Maybe that's a good thing." Allen told you.

"No, I'm not fucking going to California to fight on their turf. If they want a fucking war fine they'll get one. But they're coming here." Before anyone could say anything to you, you took Jules off mute. Eddie has a smirk resting on his pink lips as he eyed you. "Hey, Jules, I have a better idea."

There was silence on her end, it seemed like she was thinking of what to say next. "What is it, my love?" You internally cringed at the usage of the word. You looked over at Eddie who had seemed to drop his smirk when he heard those words come from her mouth. Was it jealousy you were sensing, surely it couldn't be.

"How about you let me get settled into my new job and then your family comes down to meet mine and we have a little barbecue, you know like we used to do with my mom and step-father in New York."

If you were going to be the damsel in distress you were going to do it on your own terms and this was that. This war between the Wolves and the Stingers was going to come to an end one way or another and with the honest truth you knew it was going to be used who might just be able to end the war between these bikers. You could hear Jules talking to someone on her end.

"Okay, send me a time and location and we'll be there." Before you could get the final word in the line went dead. You released a breath that you didn't know you had been holding onto. Locking your phone, you felt your knees buckle underneath you. Sam was quick to catch you before you could hit the ground. When you looked around at your surrounding things were different, you weren't in Hawkins anymore.

───── ❝ ◂ ❚ ⊱ꕥ⊰ ❚ ▸ ❞ ─────

It had been a week since you and Mikey had broken up and gone separate ways, last you had heard he was in California getting high and fucking whoever he could. You were sitting at a bar in New York, you had gone there after the argument that had happened between you, your mother, and your step-father. You were so happy that it was a Saturday and not a school night because if it had been you'd be calling in sick.

You were still nursing the red wine that you had asked for, though you weren't sure why you had asked for it given you didn't like how bitter it tasted. But despite the bitter taste you were determined to finish the drink before heading home.

"Can I get you a better drink?" The voice of a woman asked from the right side of you. You slanted your slightly, looking at her with side eyes. You didn't really have the energy and means to move your seat so you could get a better look. Though what you could see you could tell she was pretty.

"It depends, what are you drinking?" You asked, finally turning to get a better look at her. She had brown hair, it had been curled. She was sporting a tight, black spaghetti strap dress, and wearing black heels to match along with it.

"Vodka." She whispered. You looked to her brown eyes and saw no lies in them. You had noticed that if someone lied their eyes would change slightly.

"No, I'm fine, thank you. Not much of a drinker." While that was the truth you didn't want her to leave.

"Mind if I join you then?"

"Please, help yourself, I don't mind the company."

She smiled at you and pulled the chair closer to yours before climbing into it. "Jules Hartley." She said introducing herself. You took her hand and shook it while telling her name.

───── ❝ ◂ ❚ ⊱ꕥ⊰ ❚ ▸ ❞ ─────

You blinked back to reality, you were no longer outside but inside. You were in your old room lying on your bed. You lifted yourself up slightly and looked around the room. No one was in the room but you. Your mind started running wild, you were getting stuck in it and there was no one to help pull you back from all the thoughts.

What had happened to you after the phone call? You remembered falling, Sam catching you before your knees hit the ground, but you don't remember what had happened after that. Everything went back. You pushed yourself over the edge of the bed, your feet hitting the carpet on the floor. Your hands found the edge of your bed and you gripped the blanket.

The door opened and in walked Eddie, he stopped in his tracks looking at you. In that moment you didn't notice you had a few tears falling down, you hadn't even registered that Eddie had walked into the room. He could see it though, he could see what you had been talking about a little bit ago. About how you get stuck and can't pull yourself out.

Closing the door, Eddie moved over to the bed and kneeled down in front of you placing one hand on your knee. His other hand lifted to your face and wiped away the tears that were falling down your cheek.

"Hey, it's okay, you're okay. You're safe." Eddie cooed, while he rubbed circles on your knee. That action was helping you calm down. His words had allowed you to break out of the thoughts running around in your mind. "What's going on in that head of yours?" Eddie asked softly.

"Just thinking about how anything could go wrong when Jules gets here. I really meant it when I said I was scared shitless and I'll never admit that to my dad or brother. But, you know, this is going to be my new reality. Plus I don't think I want to do life by myself anymore. Sure I had Mikey, and then Jules, well before all this but I've been by myself since my mother took me away from the only family I really loved. I just can't be alone anymore."

For the first time in a long time you had finally felt what it was like to have someone pull you back from the darkness of your thoughts. You felt a huge relief being able to talk about what you were feeling given that you had never truly done that with anyone including your father and brother. Right now you were so thankful it had been him, that Eddie Munson had been the one to tug you back.

"You are not alone anymore."

You gave a smile to Eddie. "I'm sorry about all this. This really isn't how I expected things to turn out when I returned back to Hawkins."

"Don't apologize, you had no idea about the hit on you or about Jules. Therefore none of this is your fault, princess." Eddie paused for a moment, grabbing a hold of your hands and helping you from the bed. "I should get you back to your apartment so you can get some sleep."

You lifted your gaze staring at Eddie's brown eyes as he stared back at you with a soft gaze. You were processing the words that were ready to pop out of your mouth because you knew what you wanted.

"About what you said earlier, I'd like it very much if you stayed at my apartment. But," you sucked your lip under your teeth, "only if you want to though."

Eddie couldn't help the smirk that formed on his lips as he stared down at you. "Of course I want to. Now let's go get you home." With a nod you followed Eddie out of the room saying goodbye to everyone who was still in the house. Once you and Eddie made it outside the two of you climbed on his bike and headed for your apartment.

TAGS: @funsonmunson-again @inhumanssxx @lma1986 @corrodedcoffincumslut @squidscottjeans @joantje @whenshelanded @bexreadstoomuch @bl4ckt00thgr1n @wiltedwonderland @lluviamg06

[whoaffle]

I got asked about Defeated By A Mere Child...

I didn't want to go and answer the asks with a huge dump of text, so I decided to post this separately to whoever is interested in reading a bit more about my reasons for being in a hiatus.

There was more than only one factor that led me to the hiatus.

First of all: time. I graduated in 2019 from Language Arts course, but back in 2021 I started another course (Game Design), and I also got a job in 2022… So for the past 1 year and a half or so, I've been not only studying again, but working too, meaning that time has become scarce… And here I need to mention that DBAMC is not my only creative project, even though it is one of the only projects I ever managed to actually "put out there in the world", I guess… But with all the games I'd like to make, all the unfinished fanfictions in my AO3 (Including the DBAMC one!), all the other comics I still want to create (fancomics and original projects), drawings I still want to make, RPG campaings I'm playing (with sessions that I owe my friends), yada yada, DBAMC has become only one of thousands of things "in line", and yet another project that I keep thinking of and wishing to some day finish. Specially because the little free time I've got, at the end of the day, always ends up being consumed by playing Baldur's Gate or watching Youtube, simply because I'm too tired to produce actual content after a whole week of work (that's modern capitalism for you)…

All that aside, there are emotional factors related to it as well. (Sad Backstory Unlocked).

Jokes apart, I lost a dear relative around the time Legends Arceus was first around, and it was a difficult period for me, meaning I found it hard to keep up with the Pokémon franchise (and any other franchises to be fair). Pokémon released Legends, the Sinnoh remake, DLCs, and in the middle of all that I was still trying to successfully incorporate the characters from SwSh into my comics... I had no time and energy to look up the new content, couldn't play the games since I don't have a Switch, and just ended up stressed abouot not knowing the new content, thinking I should be working on it to keep up with the fandom for the sake of the comics - Now, I want to clarify, I created this problem myself, in my head, on my own (as one with anxiety does). No one from my followers ever pressured me to keep up with releases or anything, but I ended up turning it into a problem in my head and couldn't tackle it in a productive manner.

The fact that now ScaVio has also launched and I still haven't even touched anything from Legends or even the SwSh DLCs should explain how much I distanced myself from the new Pokémon content ever since, in part due to bad emotional associations with the loss I experienced, but also due to not liking how GameFreak / Nintendo have been managing the development of their games recently, AND also due to simple lack of time to go after anything other than "let me take a look at the new pokémon" (Tinkaton is my favorite Fairy Type ever, just in case anyone is interested).

Thing is, I couldn't keep up with the new content, as much as I love Pokémon and as much as I love all the content up to SwSh. The fact I couldn't keep up led to my anxiety acting up (plus emotional difficulties due to personal life stuff), leading to me deciding to take a break. Lack of time in general ended up becoming the main reason why the break hasn't ended yet, unfortunately.

So, all the context aside, am I gonna get back working on DBAMC content?

The short answer is: I don't know. I want to, but I don't know if I'll manage. I do want to do it, eventually.

I still have no idea when I'll be able to work on comics again, being 100% honest. But there are two things I can tell:

First, it's not gonna happen before July 2024, because that's when I'm expecting to finish my graduation project. I'll still have to finish one or maybe more disciplines after that, but the most difficult part should be over by the middle of next year... Still, this is not a promise DBAMC will be back after I finish college. I'm just saying that it will certainly not happen before that.

Second is that, whenever I manage to get back, I have decided that I will not incorporate newer content in the comics, at least not so soon. This has to do with the reasons cited above, of course, but also has to do with all the complicated "logistics" that adding new characters to comics turned out to be (incorporating Rose and Piers was a lot harder than I expected, since I had to re-write and change already written scripts and change the order of comics and etc... I won't be able to do that again with even newer characters).

All that said, I have at least ONE good thing to say: I've been revisiting my written content in AO3, wanting to get back writing some projects, and that includes the prequel I wrote to my DBAMC comics! I've been wanting to at least publish the last two chapters so that the story can be complete! So this is something I am planning to do in January, if everything works out. :)

I understand that it's definitely not the news any old follower of the blog expected... But it's what I can do for now...

If you read everything... Wow. Thank you!

Happy new year, everyone!

[overmorrow-yesternight]

(Making this post so I can pin it)

Hi! I'm Penrose, otherwise known as Snippy or Casper. I'm the owner of @regular-dog and @greatproblem. This is my sideblog dedicated to Overmorrow!

You can find Overmorrow (in whatever state of development it's currently at) here: https://overmorrow.neocities.org/

General info below the cut :]

What is Overmorrow?

Overmorrow began as a worldbuilding project, developed into a writing project aimed at the eventual creation of a novel, and went in like 10 different directions minimum over the course of about 5 years up until now. Currently, Overmorrow is intended to take the form of a text adventure - which is what I'll be posting about on here!

What's it about?

Overmorrow is a sci-fi/fantasy story set in the fictional world of Paneia. You can find more detailed info about that in this carrd: https://yesternight.carrd.co/#overmorrow , which I'm using as a kind of placeholder wiki (until I eventually get around to putting it on its own site, I guess, but that's pretty low priority rn)

In terms of story, Overmorrow takes place following the death of a character who then comes back as a ghost. In this world, ghosts are a fairly average part of life - not super common, but also not unexpected, and not generally regarded as dangerous or malicious, either. You play as the ghost. You don't remember your past as a living person, but a lot of the people around you do; ultimately, Overmorrow is a story about identity, change, and mourning, and how those things can interact and conflict.

It's also, like, about space and speculative biology and borderline-thaumaturgical magic systems and stuff. We stay silly :]

How long will it take to fully release?

Probably years. Sorry. Got a lot going on in my life right now, so as much as I'd like to devote most of my time to writing and coding, I... Have neither the time nor energy to do so.

Rest assured that at no point do I intend to abandon Overmorrow entirely. It's my baby and it's like, easily half a decade old by now. I love it to death! It's just incredibly slow going.

The good news: I do have a finalised plot outline, and I'm really trying to stick with it and not change it too drastically this time. It's coherent! Cohesive! It has common themes and an actual planned ending! Wow! Revolutionary!!

Other info:

Even though it's not done yet, once you get to whatever point in the story that's the current "end point", you'll be able to return to the main intro/menu, where you'll find a page displaying your accumulated stats. Some of these involve actual planned gameplay mechanics, but some of them are just for sillies - I have intentions to create some joke achievements you'll be able to unlock in the finished version, but for now they're just kind of... There.

The first chapter of Overmorrow is a pretty linear path. It's main divergences are just differences in how you experience a scene, without any changes to actual plot. This is deliberate! I don't want readers to become too confused right from the get-go, so chapter one is basically just... Orientation. An introduction to the world and how things function. Etc

I have a discord server dedicated to Overmorrow and its sibling projects (all grouped under the title of Yesternight). You can join it here: https://discord.gg/GhHmR8HskY

There's a lot of background worldbuilding that goes in to Overmorrow but it probably won't become super relevant until later, so if you'd like to know about the specbio stuff (or anything else) feel free to send asks and messages and such

I'm developing Overmorrow using Twinery, and then just pasting the html into neocities (which... Actually used to be a site I intended to use for art stuff, but it was sitting abandoned for ages so I decided to just scrap that and use it for this instead lol)

[puppy-wife]

okokok i have charged up the social batteries and am ready to yap back @ u!!!!!!

so again, ty for such a big answer 😭 i love hearing ppl yap about their special interests, v cool v nice

questions i have are:

why is 3.5e your fave? im only familar with 5e so i dont know much

playing wit tarot cards instead of dice sounds cool af, which game do u do that in?

for ur world building, how do u personally go about starting such a vast project?

as for meee i havent actually played a TTRPG yet 🤓 i have only watched 5e campaigns on youtube so far! but i love the creativity that goes into this stuff & it has become one of my favourite pieces of media to consume

no YOU'RE very cool very nice I love opportunities to talk about my favorite stuff, so I am absolutely super happy lmao

1.) I really liked 3.5e because it gave a lot more variety and ways to make your character unique vs 5e today (don't even get me started on fucking OneD&D or whatever they're calling it. trash). Firstly, back then wizards was making so many books for that edition that you could make any kind of character you wanted to play. They even allowed official material to be printed by other companies!! you want to play the ultimate evil wizard who gives people cancer? that exists. you want to play the perfect necromancer, and maybe even be undead yourself? you can do that. You could build your characters skills to different levels and choose exactly how good you are at certain things. You could take a Flaw, a permanent debuff on your character but in exchange get a Feat! god fucking Prestige Classes!! those were the coolest fucking part of the game, building a character and leveling them up enough to unlock this special class with wild abilities you can't get from a basic class. this isn't to say that 3.5e didn't have its faults, it could be confusing and the math could sometimes really add up. in some ways it needed a bit of streamlining but 5e basically threw a lot of that away in order to streamline everything. If you want a good example but how fluid 3.5e could be, you should play the videogame Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2, the system they use in that game is taken directly from 3.5e. It just made characters feel so mechanically unique that each character felt different. These days it almost feels too formulaic and too streamlined.

2. I honestly don't know what the name of using it is called, anytime me and my friends have done it, we just use the reference book that comes with a tarot deck and spontaneously decide the outcome based on the way the card could be interpreted. For example, let's say you're fighting a monster, and you want to try and escape from the monster, maybe even lure it away from your friends so they can escape. If you drew the Ten of Swords, I would say that would mean that you successfully draw the monster away, but you fall prey to it in the process. or something similar, yanno? but I don't know if that style of playing has a name given to it lol

3. oh I actually had someone ask me that yesterday! I'll send you the post once I find it, I was very active yesterday so it may take me a minute lol

you're so valid for that!! it can be hard to find a good group to play with, every group I've had has kind of fallen into my lap, but also to be fair I am known for being very into ttrpgs lmao

what are your favorite shows/campaigns you've watched? fun fact somewhere out there exists about 30 episodes of a d&d actual play podcast that I DM'd from somewhere around like... 2019? I think? lmao. technically I have a TON of episodes in a backlog somewhere that I never edited but that campaign kind of fell apart and I never finished it.

[timbrrwolfe]

It occurs to me that I never actually posted about my current BG3 playthrough and the character I made for it. Or if I did I forget what I tagged the posts. So.

Basically, I wanted to rush through a playthrough to unlock the self-imposed limiter of "No making other characters, no playing with friends until I finish 1 (one) playthrough." Which seems to have backfired a bit because I'm currently stalled out early into Act 2. Anyway. To that end, I decided to make a very generic self-insert type, so I didn't spend a ton of time in character creation. Except that when I picked a body type I /thought/ was gonna be husky or heavyset, it turned out to be muscular. So my elf (half-elf? I think?) ended up looking....a bit more chadded out than I intended.

Seriously he's even making the face. Sort of. Anyway, I left it.

I also decided to stick to one class for the whole playthrough, rather than multiclassing. Part because I wanted to keep things simple, and part because, uh, most of the other build ideas I have are multiclasses. Maybe all of them actually. Though they probably won't all stay that way. But I digress. I settled on Storm Sorcerer because I'd heard that lightning could be ridiculous in this game, and I'm a fan of storms, so it worked out. That lasted for a few levels. until I realized that the lightning build I was thinking of was a multiclass of Sorcerer and Cleric. At which point I decided to pivot.

it took some thought, but I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to stay with a spellcaster. Specifically, a charisma based spellcaster, since I'd been enjoying being the face of the party and all. Which meant I had to choose between Bard (which I dismissed because I had already passed on an interaction with a Bard NPC), a different strain of Sorcerer (Draconic Bloodline was already spoken for and I didn't feel like dealing with Wild Magic for my first playthrough), or Warlock. I ultimately decided on Warlock because, even though I'd already put some time in with Wyll without being a Warlock, it was still the best option in my head. And then the rest of it just kind of fell into place from there.

He became an Archfey Warlock. His patron granted him power just to see what he'd do with it because they sensed a fun mix of mischief, knowledge-seeking, and ability to influence others. Pact of the Tome due to the aforementioned knowledge seeking. The backstory became that he'd hidden what he was at first because it's smart to keep your cards close to the chest. And while he loved learning he felt no need to let everyone know everything about him immediately. Shadowheart wasn't the only one keeping secrets. Speaking of Shadowheart, he cozied up to her and got her to open up to him by letting her do so at her own pace. And once she trusted him enough for that, he started to question her about her beliefs in Shar. Not for any particular purpose, just to get her thinking about things. Lae'zel got a similar treatment, in a more accidental way. She was part of the party early on, then got swapped for Karlach for most of Act 1, only making an appearance for a specific mission. During which, he convinced the blindly loyal Lae'zel to lie to her Queen's right hand man, avoiding a fight. And then after that mission I put her away for a while longer, bringing Karlach back. Until other things happening on the adventure made it clear that Lae'zel was going to feature a much bigger part. Including accidentally bedding her, despite courting Shadowheart the whole time. Oops. But neither seemed to have a problem with it. Yet. Despite their animosity towards each other. I'm sure it'll be fine and definitely won't blow up in his face down the road.

Anyway I renamed him to Trick at some point. It seemed fitting. And was a minor Lost Girls reference. Someday I'll go back and finish that show. I won't go into every choice I made with Trick, since this is long enough already (and I probably don't even remember all of them), just know that there have been a lot of persuasion and deception checks. Also despite his interest in knowledge and fucking around and finding out (...and having a patron that gives him power) Trick has something of a moral qualm with the idea of using the mind flayer parasite to become stronger. Probably something about the non-consensual nature of it, if I really had to put a finger on it. So he's been studiously avoiding that (which means I'll definitely be having a playthrough where someone dives right into the deep end with it. Just don't know who yet, as most characters I have in mind are pretty opposed to the idea.

Also, bonus, but if you recognized that the pink-haired character in the screenshot above (Larian photo mode soon pls) wasn't an NPC you can find in your game, that's because she isn't. As something of a salve for my altitis itching at me, I got a Hireling from Withers and made her after an OC for a story I haven't written yet. She's a thief Rogue, and I built her to be something of a gunslinger, which is not exactly accurate to the story idea, but the story doesn't really get into what kind of a build she'd have except that she's sort of Jessica Jones-y in that she's a private detective type solving mysteries and stuff. But I figured I probably wasn't going to do a whole playthrough with her, so she was a good candidate to be a hireling (and I didn't mind benching Astarion because I'd watched a good chunk of a playthrough by someone who is neck deep in Astarion love). The name is a placeholder but here's a better look at her.

I think she's human because you can't change hireling race (and I didn't think far enough ahead to hire a half-elf and respec her into a Rogue) but rest assured she's half-elf in lore.

[dollsonmain]

First thing I did after getting through the whole OOB setup wankery was uninstall a bunch of shit, then install a bunch of other shit (Algodoo and Synthesia both work, thank goodness, they're old programs so I was a little worried, and I did have to buy a new unlock key for Synthesia but it was on sale today so like $30 instead of $40), and install shit for the shit (uBlock etc. for Firefox).

Son was afraid to use it at first and tried to get me to get him a slower laptop with a smaller HD that was cheaper but I decided to get the one with 16GB RAM and 1TB because the price wasn't that different, really. Still happy the sticker said it was about $700 and it was actually closer to $500.

That Guy was pissed off that I gave Son time to decide he was ready to use the new laptop on his own instead of forcing it on him.

We picked out and ordered a silicone keyboard cover together.

I'm tempted to scratch the case on purpose so Son doesn't have to worry about it (he opted not to get a case for it since it won't be moving around), but I'll wait until the 30-day return period has passed at least, and maybe by then Son will be less worried about breaking it. He's broken two school laptops this year and one the year before, but he's not broken the laptop that stays here in all this time so I'm not worried he's going to break this one. All the other breakings happened because he was tantruming after being bothered by a specific kid at school or frustrated with a teacher, and that kid isn't here.

That Guy was complaining because "Win11 is spyware" and I was like "Yeah, I know. Not many other options on new Windows-based systems, though." I wouldn't mind getting Son set up with Linux but it's not like I've ever used Linux or know how to get the two whole programs Son likes to use to run on it.

I'm not too worried about the garbage parts of Win11 since all Son does do is watch YouTube and play with Algodoo and Synthesia. That's literally it. No other websites (I can't even get him to look stuff up for himself, he's too worried he'll do something wrong despite me installing script and ad blockers), no other programs, just those three things.

I did install OpenShot and InkScape so he has the opportunity to play around with those, and told him that he can install the modules to let him learn how to code in Python on that laptop, which might be something to look into this summer, especially if he doesn't have his license yet and can't get a summer job. He's 17, now, but I don't think he's quite ready to take his driving test, and that's ok.

I didn't install Libre Office, he doesn't do that kind of thing on his personal laptop but he does use some of the Microsoft suite on his school laptop. I can install it any time if he decides he needs it.

Anyway, what he wants to do for a living is be a stocker at a grocery store, which won't work out in the long run because that doesn't pay enough to live off of, even at full time. It might be enough once he's been there a while and maybe he can get promoted to management. Maybe he can find roommates or maybe he can just stay here. I'd rather not stay here myself, but I can't earn enough to live off of, either.

I think the guys that come in to the gas station and stock stuff for specific vendors get paid more and suggested Son look into being an assistant in that job so he doesn't have to worry about driving the big truck (I saw a bunch of job postings for vendor assistants while I've been looking for work) but can get an idea of what that kind of work is like if he doesn't end up finding a similar job at a store in town. It's not a job that would sustain him, but would be a good job to start out with, though it might be easier for him to stock just one brand in multiple places versus stocking a whole store. It could also lead to him learning a lot about the brand's products and moving to selling/ordering. Each vendor has a sales rep that comes in once a week, rearranges things (they kind of fight over prime space....), orders whatever is low for the shop, and talks to the shop manager about new products or products that are being discontinued, etc.

It's an option, either way.

He could work on learning coding in his off time if he wants to.

I won't push it on him, though. I think he'd be really good at coding once he got the hang of it because of the way he can work with numbers and how sharp his memory is and the same for vending/selling, but that doesn't mean he has to do that.

I hate setting up new computers omg. I forgot they require an email and login now for windows. Kids a kid he doesn’t have one. Required a second email too so now mines on there and I wanted the new laptop to not be tied to me at all ever. Goddammit.

[shinehyuk]

bad idea | hong joshua

‣ Genre : yandere

tw/cw : abuse, obsession, toxic relationship, strong language, heavy themes, torture, mentions of insanity, violence; do not read if sensitive/uncomfortable with such themes!

Word Count : 906

request : I saw that ITZY post and thought of requesting one as well 😅. It is Seventeen as Yandere when you disobey them a lot so they decide to punish you (I hope you get it and if you don’t it’s okay but I can get confusing sometimes). If requests are close or if you can’t do this one it’s completely fine 😊. Just wanted to request one

‣‣ Summary : you knew from the start that disobeying your boyfriend was a bad idea.

—————————————————

You stood straight before the door, slowly putting your shaking hand on the handle.

This was a terrible idea, and you knew that too well. Literally everything could go wrong in less than a second. You haven't really thought this through at all, either. But did you care? No.

You were sick of Joshua. Sick of him and all his stupid games – tonight, you were leaving this house whether he liked it or not, and you were a hundred percent sure that you were not going to miss it even one bit.

It was almost three in the morning, meaning that the male is definitely asleep for a long time now. His room was right next to yours, but as long as you didn't make any noise whatsoever you should be fine.

You pressed on the metal handle as slowly as possible, extremely careful with your steps as you left the room. Not bothering yourself to close the door and risk making noise doing so, you went straight downstairs, trying to find your way in the dark. It was completely dark. It was too bad that you didn't have a flashlight or any similar source of light with you, and switching on the lights might alert Joshua if he's actually awake.

Since the male rarely let you leave your room or go downstairs, you had a hard time finding the exit doors, having to check the walls with your hands in hopes of somehow finding a door. All of a sudden, you felt a door handle by your hand, breathing out in relief.

Please, let this be the door to freedom.

You couldn't feel anything that you could unlock the door with, though – what if it opens only with a door key that Joshua most definitely keeps with himself all the time?

Hoping to God that the male forgot to lock the doors, you pressed on the door handle, letting out a quiet gasp as the doors loudly screeched. You entered through them only to be met with disappointment once you realized that these weren't the exit doors at all. This was still a part of the house.

Starting to search once again, this time more desperately, you froze in place once the lights have been switched on, a bright light filling the room that you were currently in.

"I don't remember letting you out for a night walk."

Your hand tightened into a fist – you failed.

"Oh, fuck off." You scoffed, the male responding to you with a cocky laugh as he wrapped his arms around you from behind in a loving manner.

"My gosh, angel. You really want me to be mad at you, hm?" He kissed the back of your neck, his grip on you tightening. His voice and actions were so calm and sweet they almost made you forget about the situation that you just got yourself into. You knew that this was a bad idea from the very start.

Unsuccessfully trying to wriggle out of his tight grasp, your new plan was to try to kick or punch him, making the male let out a long sigh as he harshly threw you on the floor without any sign of hesitation.

"You're insane! If you really think that I'll ever love you, then–"

He cut you off by stepping on your stomach, crouching beside you and gently tracing his hand over your cheek. "Oh, love. I'm not trying to make you love me. You being here with me is all I need." His smile was gentle, yet you were more than sure that there was a storm brewing inside him. He was angry. Extremely angry, and you were going to get a piece of his anger in just a moment.

"Which is why I can't let you leave me."

You didn't have time to react before the male grabbed your neck, pulling you up from the floor and tugging you to the basement, which now was only used as something by the likes of a torture chamber for you.

The male locked the door, switching the basement lights on. His gentle smile now became wicked as he ran his fingers over his brown hair, pulling up the sleeves of his white shirt as he cracked his neck.

You could only try to unsuccessfully squirm away from his grasp while he tied you up, the insane look in his eyes sending shivers down your back.

"Now, darling," He hummed as he started sharpening his knife that after all this time you're more than familiar with now. "I'd punish you only for trying to run away. But someone has to clean this dirty mouth of yours, hm?"

"No, Joshua!" You got thrown down here, tied up so many times, yet every single time you still couldn't fight off the fear. Would you ever get used to this? Probably not. "I'm sorry! I love you, please–"

"Don't make your situation worse, my love. You were never a good liar." The male chuckled, fiddling with the knife once he finished sharpening it before coming up to you.

He was going to enjoy every single second of your pain. Your suffering is funny to him.

You quickly regretted ever stepping out of bed that day. What even convinced you to try and disobey him? You knew from the very start that it was a bad idea.

You were his. And that was not going to change.

Ever.

✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩ a/n ✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩

thank you for requesting, i hope you enjoyed it! <3

✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩

‣ Taglist :

@atiny-chocolate-chip @lmaoskz @sunoo-bby @dreamtonin @heemingyu ( i'm so sorry, i'm not sure why i can't na actually tag you :( for some reason tumblr just doesn't show me your blog in the tag search? i tried everything :( )