#i just don't have the coherency to write more

[revui]

so i have been tasked with explaining myself, by multiple people

i'm gonna start by saying that i'm actually a strong swimmer, but this was in the ocean, so i was outmatched from the beginning. my brothers and i were a bit far from shore, just kinda bobbing on the waves. i had a little flotation device tethered to my wrist because i wanted to relax, and leaning on it was easier than treading water. i wound up a little farther out than either of them, which meant i had to face the shore in order to talk to them, instead of looking at the place where all the waves were coming from. my first of two wise decisions.

i happen to turn around midsentence (second wise decision) and a wave breaks directly into my face - immediate lungful of delicious sea water. and my fun little flotation device does the opposite of its job, as it begins to drag me underwater with the wave before the strap breaks and i am left to the whims of physics, unable to orient myself at all. so i'm underwater, trying to cough up even more water (difficult!), still pushed around by the current, only able to tell where the surface is because occasionally the ocean flips me over and my vision turns white.

my first coherent thought is "oh, so that's where up is." my second coherent thought is "WRITE THIS DOWN." i don't have any paper with me, sadly, so i just flail about for a bit while doing my level best to commit the whole thing to memory until the ocean vomits my body onto the shore. my brothers don't know anything is wrong until they see that the strap of my TREACHEROUS TWO-TIMING flotation device snapped, and they follow me to shore where i am able to properly throw up all the saltwater, like a lady. and i am already trying to totter back to our umbrella so i can open the notes app on my phone. 6/10 experience

being a writer leads to a genuinely helpful but also very stupid kind of mindfulness where you'll be having a sobbing breakdown or the worst anxiety attack of your life and think "okay, I really need to pay attention to how this feels. so I can incorporate it into my fanfiction."

[ssentimentals]

Hello! Requesting Jihoon + suggestive prompt 16! Love your writing🫶💕

aww, thank you so much for the kind words, sweetie!! and thank you of course for requesting, hopefully you will like it! 💜

suggestive prompt: 'i only want to please you.'

'ouch! jihoon!' it comes out muffled by the pillow, so you move your head to the side, determined to make your displeasure known: 'hurts, jihoon!'

your boyfriend's face comes to the corner of your vision and he looks very unimpressed. 'i barely touched you.'

'and it already hurts!' you push stubbornly.

well, being very honest, it didn't really hurt but it was unpleasant and knowing jihoon and his focus, he's about to make knot on your back go away with very, very painful moves. in retrospective, maybe going to an actual masseur was a better idea.

'how do you want me to work on your knot without touching you?' jihoon questions, exasparated but fond. 'of course it's going to hurt, baby. i'll just try to make it hurt less.'

you sniff, turning your head more so you can have a good look on him. 'i don't trust you.'

jihoon chuckles and leans close, kissing your cheek. 'good to know. now turn your head and don't move, let me make you feel better.'

it turns to not be as bad as you expected. jihoon is clearly not a professional, but he does try his best to work on the knot between your shoulders as gently as he can, letting you have small breaks before he starts putting pressure again. uncomfortable tightness leaves gradually and you melt into the bed, sighing in relief once he finally leaves the knot alone. jihoon moves to your shoulders then, massaging them nicely and almost putting you to sleep with his actions. you stay coherent only because he starts switching between massaging and kissing.

'mhm,' you move a little, when his hands grip your waist and his lips find your neck. 'this is nice.'

jihoon hums, biting a little. 'i only want to please you.'

very slowly his hands sneak under your t-shirt, caressing naked skin with gentle care, making you sigh in satisfaction. 'is that so?' you question, moving your head to the side.

instead of answering, jihoon trails his kisses lower. his warm hands grip your sides and he signals you to turn around, which you do with an annoyed grunt. amused at your antics, jihoon leans in, kissing you sweetly. 'don't grunt. i said i only want to please you.'

'so what you want me to do then?' you ask, closing your eyes as he moves to sit on top of you.

jihoon grins. 'enjoy, love.'

a/n: request your own here! <3 - nini

[jsprnt]

as the saying goes: with every high, comes a low

kenan yıldız x reader

A/N: writing this brought back both good memories and ptsd from the euros 🥲🥲 based on this request, thank you for requesting 🤍🤍 also this is so sappyyy, guess who’s in her feels? 😛

W/C: 1.090

ninety minutes of straight-up torture.

a small fifteen-minute break to calm your pounding heart down, before it starts heavily thumping against your rib cage again.

you wouldn’t be surprised if you dropped onto the floor due to the amount of times your heart rate had skyrocketed.

anxiety and anticipation.

the only words that could describe your mental state in the moment.

losing a match was painful, but even more painful after turkey had been doing so well in the tournament.

as the partner of a football player, you carried your own sadness, and your boyfriend’s sadness.

you bite your lip when the referee ends the match. enough to draw a small amount of blood. the metallic taste fills your mouth, and makes you feel even more horrible.

the chants of the turkey supporters had been non-stop since the start of the game. at first full of joy, then encouragement, then slowly trailing off to tears and disappointment.

even so, everyone had an incredible sense of pride in their hearts for their country. no matter the loss.

when you're given the go-ahead, all family members and friends of the turkey players make their way out of their seats.

you hurry as you go down, your heart aching as you imagine all of the disappointment and anger brewing in your lover’s heart.

when you finally reach him, kenan immediately pulls you into a private room. without a word, his arms wrap around your back, and he buries his handsome face in the crook of your neck.

feeling his breath hit your skin, you sigh shakily. not caring about his sweaty hair and body, you reach up to run your hand down his back.

"are you okay?"

of course, he wasn't, but you could barely register how fast the team had lost control of the match. let alone form a coherent, comforting thought.

you rake your unoccupied hand through his hair, your heart beating in your ears as you try to find the words to comfort your boyfriend.

though, his lack of response told you enough.

after a long stretch of silence, you start spilling your thoughts. licking your dry lips before speaking.

"I'm so fucking proud of you, kenan.."

the words leave your mouth with deep emotion. followed by a tremble of your lip as you try to keep your tears at bay.

"whatever people say, whatever anyone says doesn't matter. you worked so fucking hard, you put your entire soul and body into it. that's what matters. you tried, and I know you did your best.."

you pause as a shaky sigh leaves kenan's mouth. his athletic body pressing into yours, the smell of sweat, notes of his musky cologne, and your perfume creating a familiar atmosphere.

your heart breaks when you hear a small sniffle. your eyes closing as you hold back your own tears.

"you can cry. it's okay, cry it out. I know it hurts, baby.." you whisper, finally feeling hot tears hit your own cheeks, as his transfer down your neck.

"I worked so hard. so many nights and days- and this is the performance I put on when my team, and my entire country is leaning on me!.."

"shh, don't blame yourself, honey. I know it will sound cliché, but you did your absolute best. you can’t do more than your best, baby..”

you pause to pat his back, tears messing up your makeup, and making your nose run.

"it was going so well, you guys created so many chances. it was just an unlucky second half.."

"to have something in the palm of my hand, and then to just lose it within twenty minutes- hurts so fucking bad.." his shoulders shake with the painful sobs. the emotion expressed by your boyfriend causing a soft whimper to leave your own mouth.

"never ever think that the entire thing was on you. It was destined to be like this. as humans, we will learn and grow, even if we don’t see immediate results.."

kenan moves his head to look at you, your heart practically cracking at the sadness on his face.

the hopeless look in his beautiful brown eyes, the irritation of his soft skin- and the fastened pace of his pulse.

"why are you crying?" he asks, and you can swear he starts crying harder after seeing the tears on your face.

"because, you're hurting. don't ever want you to feel bad or upset.." your voice cracks, and you tighten your grip on the fabric of his training jacket.

"fuck. don't you ever cry over me, baby.." kenan rasps, cupping your cheek with his roughened palm. both your eyes visibly red and irritated from the salty tears.

"how can I not?" you question, before pulling his head into your neck again. cradling the back of his head, as you hug each other as tightly as humanly possible.

"i love you so much. your joy is mine. so how can your hurt not be mine?" you ask, raking your fingers through his hair.

"i love you too. so bad it kills me to see you cry over me.." he chokes out, his fingers curling around your body, holding you incredibly close against his warm skin.

you hold each other for a couple of minutes, the only sound in the room being the cold air conditioning, and the sound of your combined sobs.

you can hear kenan take a deep, stuttering breath, before he speaks.

"we’re such crybabies.."

his voice is raw, but thick with fondness and warmth..

your lover always knew how to lighten up the mood, while others could never do so in similar situations.

you chuckle a little through tears, pulling back to look at him. you raise your hand to wipe the tears on kenan's cheeks, his bloodshot eyes on yours.

pushing back his hair, you expose his forehead, wiping away the rest of the moisture with your sleeve.

"your eyes are all red.." you comment, knowing you probably looked the exact same.

"what do you need when we get back to the hotel? a bath? a cuddle? good food?" you inquire, wanting to provide him the best comfort you could offer.

you watch him take a breath before he speaks, and he whips out a tissue from his pocket, before dabbing at the tears on your face.

he was so gentle and thoughtful, like always.

"I just need you. I just need my sweet baby next to me, and everything will be alright.."

[vapolis]

I really want to meet merc's partner in the story and learn more about them. so many opportunities for angst... but also I can't see merc leaving anybody for them at this point. and I can't imagine this meeting not being a huge pile of misery for both parties. merc is all fucked up and broken and so so different, they have a new life with new people in it and leaving this life behind is not really an option right now. if they meet it will probably hurt this person a lot. like a lot. meeting merc already hurts enough, but seeing what they are rn makes it worse. and merc doesn't even know shit. they don't remember anything. and then it hurts them in turn. and I don't even know if remembering would make it all better or worse.

I really like merc. and I'd like them to remember at least something from their past. at least some bits. to remember what and who they were. I don't know if it would help them, but I think they deserve it. and as much as I am a sucker for orla, I really want merc to be respected more. to be more than a tool. to be a person, whose opinion matters, whose life matters, whose feeling matter. I want them to be loved and wanted, I want someone to care for them, to listen to them, to actually listen to them. merc deserves so fucking much and I would give them the world I swear, I love them so much, none of these people deserve them. most of them wouldn't really care if merc went and died and I hate them for it deeply.

also I really need merc to cry, that's a carnal desire of mine. sex is good but my god this bitch (affectionate) needs to let it all out. too bad there's no one willing to listen to them and crying on the bathroom floor is a mood but not when you have to go and kill someone for orla right after. I don't know if there will be a happy ending for this game but oh god I need it. I would kill for a happier and more mentally stable merc I swear. I know I'm not treating them good either by making them romance jax and orla (and that's with their dog x mistress dynamic going on. god have mercy) but still. I have hopes. I don't know if I am a fool for having them but god. I need things to be good. at some point.

I'm so so sorry for this wall of text but I swear I can't make it better and neither can I express my thoughts coherently. but I just love merc. yeah. thanks.

the meeting/reveal of their former partner will certainly be interesting! I don't want to spoil anything but I think it'll be as confusing and angst inducing as possible.

them remembering stuff however... I'm not sure if that would be good or bad for them but how things are rn I'd say merc remembering more would send them spiraling. more than they already are.

orla and merc are complicated as fuck but probably my fave dynamic and the scenes I'm writing for chapter 5 are already soooo. a little further going into the direction of orla acknowledging merc as someone beyond a tool to wield.

and I think I've answered an ask about whether the ROs would care if merc dies and vaguely rmr saying yes... they're not as indifferent to merc as it feels and we're also only on chapter 5. so lots of moments that bring ros and merc closer are still to happen!

I'm personally excited for things to pick up a little more now and one or two of the things you describe are yet to happen :)

[oldworldghost]

Are requests still open? If yes could we maybe see a jealous P please? Like he’s learning his emotions and he learns he doesn’t like jealousy or something

Jealous Pinocchio! ☆

↳ Hello nonnie! Requests are indeed still open, and I love jealousy prompts >:3 also sorry to everyone who has sent in a request that I haven't answered yet, I have been sick and busy, well, playing the game </3 Under the cut because this is a long boy

➸ Okay so jealousy with Pinocchio obviously depends, much like you said, on how human he is; how much he knows about not only his own emotions, but emotions in general. It's because of this that, at first, there really isn't a lot of instances of jealousy on his part, and what instances there may be are not going to be immediately recognisable as such. And of course this is due to the fact that Pinocchio just doesn’t have a good grasp on his own emotions initially; he knows he’s feeling something and that that something is almost unpleasant, he just doesn’t know what to do with it or even what to call it.

➸ The main way jealousy at first manifests with Pinocchio is a little off putting, almost. You could probably mistake it for a sort of increased protectiveness; when he sees you talking to someone he stands close, glares at the other person or just watches like a hawk for the duration of the conversation. He doesn’t say anything or really do anything and it gets a little creepy. Don’t get me wrong, Pinocchio doesn’t mean it in a bad way whatsoever – he just wants your attention – but to everyone else it looks like he’s waiting for whoever you’re talking to to suddenly attack or something. It’s his eyes that do it, they’re so dead that is just doesn’t inspire any form of ease when it happens. Luckily, these instances are rare and fairly easy to handle. Just give him your attention and he’ll relax. And of course, as he grows this habit of his simmers down and changes.

➸ [Honestly though this could be so funny too because like, despite the fact that it’s both unnerving and rare I imagine that everyone would eventually end up catching on to what’s happening and god they have a field day with it. Especially Venigni. He doesn’t mean any harm but seeing Pinocchio look like he’s going to combust on the spot is a little bit funny. Do the rest help enable Venigni and this habit? Maybe, maybe. Eugénie is the main co-conspirator here.]

➸ As Pinocchio changes and becomes more human he settles into his feelings more, he learns and grows to not only feel them but process and identify them. And this, of course, goes for jealousy as well. Through both his own experiences and talking with humans Pinocchio is able to realise that yeah, he’s felt jealousy. That that's what that uncomfortable tightness was. However what is most interesting is that the more human Pinocchio becomes the more jealous he finds himself getting, and on a more regular basis. A part of this is because there is an increasing depth to his character and emotions, so naturally they grow more intense, but the more important part is the growing cause of his jealousy; that being his nature as both puppet and human.

➸ Now I do believe that Pinocchio never had an inherent desire to be human, and that it was something he strove to become because he believed that his father would want him as one, and because as a “special puppet” it would only make sense for him to try and change his nature. And so what Pinocchio was or should be never quite bothered him at first - more just filled him with a sense of confusion – but as he grows more human the more he genuinely wants to be one, and your relationship with him plays a major part in that and his jealousy. You see, Pinocchio wants humanity so he can truly love you, but it is this growing humanity and desire that places the weight of what he really is on him; a puppet and as such not enough.

➸ It is jealousy born of insecurity, the more he tries to change the more his faults become apparent to him. His perceived inability to emote, to understand; the disconnect between himself and you, the gap that Pinocchio wonders if he will ever be able to truly close. He is worried, very much so, about being replaced or cast aside, because if the choice came up between himself and someone fully human, well, why on earth would you chose him? This insecurity is only heightened post game, where – and of course spoilers – Pinocchio has been betrayed by his own father, the person he thought loved him despite his being a puppet. I don’t want to build it up too much, but being told you’re only there to be replaced and that you’re not enough by someone who you trusted has to leave its mark, especially when you share memories with the person you were supposed to be only to realise that they were never enough either. Like, yeah. Ouch!

➸ Of course as Pinocchios’ emotions grow so do the rest of his abilities, including being able to tell what he truly does vs doesn’t like feeling. He could always kind of do it, but now he is able to fully articulate the why of it, and jealousy has landed itself into the category of “I Do Not Like This”. Now that itself is fairly obvious, no one likes being jealous, but the main reason its there for Pinocchio is because it makes him feel bad, almost guilty. To him jealousy indicates a lack of trust in partners, but the kicker is that he does trust you. Despite everything that’s happened Pinocchio places his full trust and faith in you day after day, or at least he thinks he does, and on top of that even if you did end up finding someone better and/or leaving he would have no right to stop you. If you wanted to it would break Pinocchios heart, but he would let go because he would hate to try and control you; to force you into something you don’t want to be in. And so not only does his own jealousy make him feel bad but it confuses him greatly, because Pinocchio knows that he can’t control you and that he can trust you, so why does he still get that sinking feeling when he sees you with someone else? [It’s the unresolved issues, but you didn’t hear that from me]

➸ On a lighter note though, while Pinocchios jealousy is heightened and most frequent post-game it will naturally simmer out, much like how the whole protective-jealousy phase did. That is not to say that it is a fast process, naturally it is slow and time consuming - and that in part is due to simply how many things there are to do now that his father and Simon are dead - but with the support of yourself and a few makeshift therapy session with Gemini and Sophia [i.e. literally just talking about what he’s feeling], it ends up being something that he can handle a fair bit better than before. Still a slow process, but manageable [also PAUSE imagine Gemini on a table and Pinocchio laying on a couch like they’re actually in a therapists office with Sophia taking notes].

➸ Anyway yes, the main thing that helps is through talking to you. It gets to a point – and rather quickly at that – where Pinocchio finds that he just really needs to tell you what he’s feeling. He feels bad about it, of course, but I think what he really needs to be told at first is that it’s just natural. People get jealous even if they don’t want to or mean to and sure maybe not like he does, but that is something that can be worked on. Pinocchio needs support in his own ways and for his own things, even if he might not necessarily want to admit it, but luckily Pinocchio can also a very transparent lover, especially after becoming human.

➸Okay to drag this whole thing on let’s back peddle a teeny bit. How jealousy manifests at the heightened point actually shares similarities with how it initially manifested. However instead of coming off as protective it very obviously comes off as jealousy mixed with something akin to fear, for reasons already discussed. He also develops the habit of just quite literally pulling you away from whoever you’re talking to and taking you somewhere else. Pinocchio does this under the guise of “I’m human now so I want to spend as much time with you as I can to bask in it” but it is very obviously just Not That. Or more not fully that, anyway. It does retain a little bit of the humour it originally had, and yes there’s still a little bit of poking fun and riling him up [especially from Venigni] but that is rare, mainly because it’s kind of also just sad that he feels the need to do it after everything they’ve all been through together. And Pinocchio knows rationally that none of them are going to try and “steal” you off him, for lack of a better word, but that rational thinking just doesn’t help much here. However this is also not the only habit that develops, sometimes Pinocchio will simply avoid you for a little, a sort of self pitying isolation mainly because he doesn’t want you to see him upset or jealous. None of the hotels residents know which one is worse to witness, honestly it might be a tie.

➸ Okay so on an actual actual lighter note [and because we cannot be here all day], once both Pinocchios’ relationship with his humanity is better his jealousy becomes something fairly rare, much like at the start. And by that point Pinocchio has also come to terms with it too, it’s a part of him he can accept and make peace with. After this, a lot of instances of it are just kind of cute. Like I will be absolutely real with you he is playing it up to get your attention; you’re getting puppy dog eyes, pouting, and in private Pinocchio’s going to go on some very light hearted spiel about how you no longer love him, all “woe is me” on you. As a human Pinocchio has grown a rather mischievous and sassy yet still gentlemanly personality and it so fucking shows here. A lot of these instances of jealousy are caused by, you guessed it, Pinocchio not getting enough attention, which is a little funny because by this point he’s very able to be alone by himself for a while. The other instances are people just getting too close [i.e. Venigni and Eugénie] or things of that ilk.

[amethystina]

So things are kind of shit right now...

And I haven't been able to write and draw as much as I had planned because of it. Or even answer comments. I feel like I just disappeared off the face of the earth or something.

And I just wanted to say that it wasn't intentional and I'm still here but I'm also really stressed and basically on the verge of a breakdown (due to various things happening in my life right now) so we'll see when I'll get everything sorted. I'm trying my best but I admit it's hard. I had so many hopeful plans and it sucks that I have been forced to postpone pretty much all of them :C

I hope you're all doing well, though. I'm very much out of the loop right now but I'll try to get back on track, slowly but surely. Please take care 💜

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa

[misiahasahardname]

TURTLES BY NIGHT, BABY!

FINALLY WORKED UP THE COURAGE TO POST ABOUT MY AU (but apparently not to draw faces??? idk what happened)

so basically turtles by night is an au of mine in which the 2012 turtles are kraang experiments.

rather than fighting off the kraang droids, splinter (and consequently the turtles) is captured and taken to a kraang facility to be experimented on.

the kraang were working on perfecting the mutagen and had started creating various different strains to see how different balances of ingredients would affect mutation and be most effective in their mission to mutate the planet.

for the turtles, this meant they'd get a little more human.

by night they are the same humanoid turtle mutants we know and love (hence the name), but every morning at 7am they begin to transform into regular humans.

in their human forms they live a relatively normal life -- they go to school, hang out with friends, etc, but they have to be a lot more cautious and keep a lot of secrets, which makes their classmates suspicious.

splinter and the boys beleive that they have done a good job at hiding the truth, but that changes after their 15th mutation day, where they are forced to go out of hiding for a while to save the life of a classmate (and her father).

oh yeah, and the kraang have been spying on them this whole time, too. who would've thought?

hopefully i'll draw more stuff to post... anyways here are some low quality doodles :3

idk guys..... this might be a stretch but i think mikey is michalina's favourite turtle.......

[moe-broey]

Some. Sort of spectrum. From most likely to least likely.

And by kitten-pile I mean This

I'll put a transcript under cut for easier reading! 🫡

How Likely Are They to Kitten Pile?

__

Mirabilis: "are you tired..? do you need a break...? ohh we could take one together..."

If she likes/trusts you even a little, she wants to cuddle about it!!!

-

Sharena and Peony: "Okay! 💖 Yay! 💖"

Shari: The only thing stopping her is social conventions -- making her MORE likely to jump at the opportunity!

Peony: Learning social awareness as she goes, and is surprisingly good at it?

-

Triandra: "Aren't we a bit old for that...? But... even so..."

Embarrassed, conflicted, but feels strangely nostalgic at the notion...

-

Plumeria: "I'm not so petal-soft that I'd resort to such INDECENCY, I mean even if your intentions are Pure USE YOUR HEADS YOU FOOLS!! Girl, the IMPLICATIONS!!!"

Desperately wants to join the kitten-pile, but her Issues and Pride gets in the way.

-

Moe: "aw, so cutes!"

Generally touch adverse, extremely picky even with the people it likes/loves -- everything is entirely on its terms.

[a-compass-without-a-needle]

"I've connected the dots"

"You didn't connect shit."

"I connected them."

[yesterdayiwrote]

For someone who's so thoughtful when he speaks, Lewis really does still give some absolutely terrible quotes when he's talking to journalists...

[artemisiatridentata]

I just finished reading Fourth Wing after picking it up because of all the hype, and because I love dragons, and... I have to say it's the worst book I've read in quite a while lmao. the dragons were its only redeeming quality

[constantvariations]

Okay so, I like that Professor Rumpel is both Rumpelstiltskin and the miller's daughter-turned-queen, and that her weapon invokes the spindlewheel from the tale, but the guessing of the name is so utterly lazy that I could chew glass

Spoilers for Before the Dawn btw

It literally comes out of nowhere. There is no buildup to the mystery of Professor Rumpel's name; she just randomly says at the start of the fight that if Fox, Neptune, or Yatsuhashi can guess her name that she'll let them go chase the Crown

It would have been so easy, too! Just have it be Rumpel's game whenever the students want something. Late to class and don't want extra homework as punishment? Guess her name and you're free. Got caught getting handsy in an inconvenient spot? Guess her name and she'll let you off with a warning. Hell, have some of the staff lean into it for comedy and comradery

This would naturally set up why Rumpel would offer an easy out to the fight and establish how steep a demand that is for our heroes. If no one's guessed her name in the many years she's been at Shade, what hope do they have of figuring it out in the next five minutes?

But, no. We get zero setup and the payoff doesn't even land! They guess her name and Rumpel attacks Neptune anyway. Right in front of the whole school, including Headmaster Theodore! In what world does that make sense? I get that she's desperate, but it feels contrived so Yastuhashi can do his thing and accidentally break the mind control

These books honestly read like a first draft of a story that really could've been something if more time and attention had been given. Rwby in a nutshell, eh?

[shimmerluna]

i do think there's probably something suspicious about the way everyone loves Ca$h and Quinni and their depth while essentially reducing Darren to their shared supporting character and/or the sassy black woman(/person in this case) stereotype, but I feel somewhat hypocritical bringing it up

[ehlnofay]

19! :)

19: sea change

In the last few days of the year 200, Torr kills the Emperor. In early 201, a war breaks out.

It’s not wholly unexpected, at least not by those who know where to look. The Emperor’s death is no small blow to Solitude, the city that sent him off on a voyage he would only exit under a pall; especially considering that the guard had patted itself on the back for successfully foiling an assassination attempt right before his ship left, only for his throat to be slit under their noses, anyway. The head of Skyrim’s Penitus Oculatus appears to have vanished. No-one reports seeing anyone out of place on the boat until they started stumbling over the bodies. The Empire mourns through all the official avenues as the heir prepares for succession; Solitude’s government is busy trying desperately to smooth it over, putting out excessive bounties on the assassin that failed and scraping up intel on the one who succeeded. Not that there’s anything much to find – it’s a locked-room murder, and every logical suspect has an alibi that holds up to interrogation. There are no leads to follow.

And Windhelm is a powder keg.

It always has been, ever since the Great War, as long as Torr or any of his kids have been alive. Short-fused and disillusioned, crowds moving hot as blood through its winding stone streets, it’s always been something tough, hard-throated, splintered into careful lined sections. Torr walks whatever lines he wants, but not everyone has the energy to straddle them; not everyone can.  The upper city is all harsh-cut stone and ice, the bricks ancient, the crowds in a hurry, even though none of them seem to know where they’re going; the Grey Quarter is where the snow runs when it turns to slush and the walls are stuffed with rags. The planks keep snapping with dry rot, sharp and gaping as broken teeth. They need to be filled to keep the cold out. The Cornerclub keeps the fire roaring. Talres goes there to work most days and doesn’t come back up to the house until the streets are empty. No-one knows it’s going to happen, not exactly, but there's no way anyone couldn't know. There are a lot of people who have been waiting on an opening, and all eyes are pointed elsewhere.

With little fanfare, the Jarl and his entourage leave Windhelm.

The city stops being a fuse and starts being the wreckage after it’s blown. Torr is told that there’s a span of a few weeks where Talres stops leaving the house completely. Katla gets arrested again and weasels out of it on her own. The ill-drawn posters of something approaching Torr’s face stuck up over the walls of Solitude are covered up with announcements and calls to join the Legion. Windhelm floods with bodies ready for the rebellion. Aventus’ house is already crowded; in a few months, Torr hears, it’s nigh impossible to walk in for the bedrolls and blankets spread over the floor. The city has never been a warm place in any sense of the word; Torr’s siblings are inundated with more kids and more kids with nowhere else to go. They don’t know if Solitude is much better; they look different now than they did on the night of the assassination that wasn’t and then was, hair cropped shorter and uneven, face gaunter, the weight they’d managed to gain over their comfortable months in Falkreath sloughing off them like a spider’s old skin, but even so it’s a bit much to step foot in there so soon, some of the bounty posters still mouldering on their posts. One of the kids says something about needing a whole other house. They’ve only got the one. Still, it makes Torr think.

(Skyrim has one orphanage, a little wooden hall down on the banks of Riften’s canals. And now there is a cursed house in Windhelm.)

Torr doesn’t go to Solitude. They only occasionally go to Windhelm. When they’re not on business, they stay on the outskirts of Danstrar; the Pale, all frozen winds and snow high enough to ice a horse’s knees, is an unappetising enough target that aside from an announcement of alliance with Windhelm’s Stormcloaks the war has not truly reached them yet. Which is ironic, considering.

(If prompted, Torr probably could have seen this coming – Torr, who spent years with his finger on Windhelm’s pulse, moving through the people and hearing endless talk about the government. It was going to happen sooner or later. And of course the Empire reeling from the assassination of its Emperor – the first since around the time of the Oblivion Crisis, which no-one is anxious to repeat, and the reminder of which put plenty of important people quite on edge – is enough of an opportunity to weigh heavily in sooner’s favour. If he’d thought about it with his blade set beneath the hairs of the old man’s beard, he would have known he was setting a war in motion. What Torr doesn’t know is if he would have cared.)

(Probably not. He still doesn’t, after all. Not enough to regret anything.)

Dead winter bleeds into spring; a little ice melts, and the sea begins to change. Torr’s shoulder aches when the weather is bad. There are clashes on the roads, outside cities, described in newspapers and word of mouth. Cyrodiil ships off heaps of soldiers to spill into Solitude’s ports. The house in Windhelm is overrun. But the nightshade kept in the temperate corner that Babette has transformed into a garden begins to bloom months early. The tides still come in and out.

The old Emperor is dead. Skyrim is tearing itself apart. Torr cleans his knife after use with a soap that smells like lavender and tries very hard to dredge up any guilt.

[hum--hallelujah]

the duality of my Dr. Benzedrine is that he's incredibly effective and ruthless at what he does (saving lives, need not concern himself with the consequences as long as the subject/victim/patient is still alive by the medical definition of the term) and he's terribly smart and has a great sense of humor, but he's also a rather confused, genuinely brain-damaged individual. like. he's scary when he's in his element, but when he's not, he sometimes can barely string a full sentence together, has panic attacks over loud noises, etc