#i want to kind of have a big reset and change all my graphics

[wrathbit]

and when i make my whole blog revolve around this, then what …

[mrsevans90]

Puppy Love

Captain Syverson x OFC Emma Miller Part 10

Summary: Austin Syverson has returned to Texas after retiring from the military and starts his own contracting business. Syverson is used to being alone and thinks he prefers it that way. While at work he stumbles upon an injured and abused puppy. When he meets the new veterinarian in town, Emma Miller, he is immediately smitten with her. It turns out Emma has some baggage of her own. Will they be able to make it work? Or is it just a case of fleeting puppy love?

Pairing: Henry Cavill as Captain Austin Syverson x OFC Emma Miller 

Warnings: smut (oral/m receiving), talks of period intercourse, detailed PTSD flashback, graphic death of character discussed, self-deprecating talk, language

MINORS DNI! Must be 18+

I do not authorize any copying/pasting, stealing of my work, or using my words as your own. 

This story is not beta’d. All mistakes are my own.

A/N: I am an imperfect person who makes mistakes. All that I ask is to please be kind and if you enjoy it then please comment and REPOST! I appreciate any love, comments, and reposts more than you could know. Thank you for reading! 

Author's Note: This is a heavy chapter--- Big time PTSD flashback so consider yourself warned! Also, I purposely chose to not use characters in the flashback from the movie Sand Castle. I just didn’t want to kill off anyone’s fave character, so we are going to pretend this flashback was another mission from another deployment right before Sy retired not related to the movie. It was just easier for my conscious to write it that way. 

Part 9

All night long I have nightmares about the war. I wake and try to reset myself like the therapist taught me with deep breathing, water, change of environment, etc.; but nothing is working. I maybe only get about 2 hours of sleep total and I’m exhausted. I still go on my run to try and exhaust myself even more so that maybe tonight I will pass out into a dreamless sleep. I try to fake enthusiasm for whatever Nana is rambling on about in her phone call to me on the way to work but I’m sure she can tell that I’m starting to spiral. Alex can tell that today is one of those days so he asks me if I’m good and when I grunt at him he keeps his distance. God, I’m an ass but I’m obviously not good and I just can’t talk to him about it. Nobody really understands except the boys that I was with when it happened and several of them are dead now. I’m supposed to be their leader and I feel like I should have my shit together. My nightmares continue to worsen throughout the week and I feel like I overcompensate by working harder or exerting myself in more difficult physical pursuits in hopes of tiring my body and my brain out. I forced myself to run four additional miles on Friday even though my leg quickly protested. I focused on pushing through the pain and ended up having to ice my leg after work.

Friday evening finally rolls around, and Emma shows up at the house as planned with a little overnight bag in tow and homemade banana pudding. I’m cooking us some chicken and veggies out back on the grill when she arrives and I feel like I calm a bit just being in her presence. She still looks absolutely adorable as she shows up wearing comfortable clothes-a tank top and soft shorts. I love that she’s feeling relaxed enough with me to just be her most authentic self. After we eat, I fill my belly up with her decadent dessert and I swear I see stars. She’s quite the chef; as if she needed any more of a direct line to my belly or my heart. Assuming she’s still on her period, I ask her if she’s feeling alright and she nods but doesn’t offer more. I suggest we get in bed and watch a movie and she gleefully agreed. We get all cozied up in bed and she chooses a rom-com to put on. Not my first choice, but I’ll do anything to make her smile like that. It’s nice having someone other than myself warm my bed. We fall asleep easily tangled in each other and I’m relieved that I have no nightmares. Maybe Emma is the cure to my nightmares? Or did I really succeed in tiring myself out enough that I slept too hard to dream. Either way, I’m not complaining.

Saturday morning. I wake up at my usual time and smile to myself at finally getting a decent night of sleep. I lay in bed watching my girl dream before I decide to get up and go for a run. If it’s the exercise that helped me sleep last night, I’m not going to miss the opportunity to do it again. I leave a little note on Emma’s nightstand and decide to only run two miles today so I don’t fuck up my leg more than I probably already have. When I get back home, Emma is still a mess of hair and sheets and I can tell that she never missed me. Her hair is halfway across her face, one of her breasts is almost spilling out of her twisted tank top, and the covers are tangled all in her legs which brings a smile to my face. For someone so effortlessly beautiful, she’s kind of a mess when she sleeps and I can’t help but find that to be one of the most endearing things ever. I attempt to take a quick shower and am surprised when ice cold hands wrap around my stomach as my eyes are closed under the spray of the water and I jump like a cat. 

“Damn woman! Your hands are ice cubes.” I say as she laughs uncontrollably.

“Sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She says as she hugs me from behind. 

“I woke up and heard the shower running so I figured you wouldn’t mind if I joined you.” 

“Always, join me Sugar. My favorite showers are the ones with you.” I tell her as I turn around to see her. She’s got her beautiful hair tied up in a bun on top of her head and I shift her so that the water runs down her body to warm her up. I spy her adjust the temperature higher and I can’t help myself.

“What is it with women taking showers equivalent to the heat of lava?” She smiles.

“We are colder than you are. Gotta warm up somehow.” She presses a sweet kiss to my lips before turning around and washing her body. I can’t help but stand there like a creep watching her but I’ll never turn down an opportunity to see her wet and soapy.

“I hope you don’t mind that I hijacked your shower.” She smiled sweetly.

“Darlin’, I was done anyway. Now I’m just here for the show.” I arch my eyebrow at her as she spies my obvious erection.

“Let me help you.” She seductively suggests.

“I can help us both.” I offer but she shakes her head.

“Still on my period.” She replies without making eye contact.

“So?”

“We can’t have sex when I’m on my period!” She looks completely shocked.

“Says who? You know, sex actually helps relieves cramps.”  

“But..I might get blood on your…”

“Dick? What’s your point?”

“Isn’t that gross?” 

“Sugar, I told ya, I’m a man. A little blood isn’t going to scare me off. Now if you’re not interested because you don’t feel well or you just don’t want too, I have no problem with that. But, if you’re not interested because you think I’m going to be grossed out or something, I promise I won’t be. You can have me anytime you want, Sweetness. There’s no pressure either way. If you’re uncomfortable with it, I won’t mention it again.”

“Maybe give me some time to come around to the idea of it. I’ve never really considered it as an option.”

“Sure thing, babygirl.”

“You are something else, Bear. You mean it when you said I can have you anytime I want?”

“Mmhmm.” I say as her fingertips trail down my abdomen and she wraps her hand around my throbbing cock.

“Can I taste you?”

“Always, but don’t feel like you have too. I’ll be alright if not.”

“I want too.” She says before pushing me towards the shower bench and taking me in her mouth. In no time at all, I’m coming down her throat after receiving one of the best blowjobs of my life. She has my legs trembling from the stimulation and I can’t help but caress her cheek and kiss her gently when I come back to reality.

“my EmKay.” I whisper as I kiss her tenderly.

“Your EmKay?” She asks. 

“Mmhmm.” 

“Funny, I don’t remember being asked to be yours.” She haughtily replies.

“Ya’ ain’t going to make this easy on me, are ya?” Shit, what am I doing. I should have thought this through. She shouldn't want to be with me. The unreal blowjob has me not thinking clearly.

“Now why would I do that?” She retorts with a smile. I palm her cheek so that she’s looking right at me.

“Will you be my woman?” I ask seriously. Fuck it. Why not?

“Only if you’re my man.” 

“Well, I’ve been told that I’m a bear, but I’ll be your man too.” I joke before pressing my lips against Emma’s in a feverish kiss.

As the water gets cold, we finally climb out and get dressed for the day. I decide to take Emma out for breakfast at the diner in town before we go in search of furniture for her guest bedroom. Her parents are arriving next weekend and it was adorable when she shyly asked me if I’d be willing to meet them. I assured her that I’d be happy too and to just let me know when.

We spend a few hours at the furniture store where Emma purchases a matching bedroom set before going to a mattress store and trying out all of the mattresses to determine which would be a good purchase for her guest bedroom. They are able to deliver it same day which is nice so we pick a time for it to arrive that afternoon. We then head to a department store so she can pick out curtains, bed linens, and other odds and ends that I’m told a room requires like lamps and decorations. Being a single man for the majority of my adulthood that was mostly away in the military, I didn’t realize how much work women put into buying all of this shit. Why does she need the guest bath towels to match the hand towel in the bathroom? Or all of the little knick-knack items she bought to go on the dresser? I’m even more confused when she was discussing bed trains? No bed skirts. I’ve slept on friends couches without even a blanket but she’s really rolling out the red carpet for her parents. It’s a bit concerning if they are expecting all of this from their daughter who has lived here for under two months. Maybe they don’t expect it and she’s just trying to show them that she’s a capable adult who plans on settling here. I watch as she spends a small fortune trying to get everything in order for their visit. It’s obvious that she values their opinions. What if they don’t like me? I’m certainly different from the preppy type of guy that they’re used to seeing her with. I’m kind of rough around the edges and although I think I’m pretty smart, I certainly don’t hold advanced degrees. I’m broken from my thoughts when Emma asks my opinion about curtains. It’s sweet that she wants my opinion but I’m a fish out of water when it comes to decorating.

We load up all of the stuff and head back to Emma’s house where I get started hanging curtains as we wait on the furniture and mattress delivery. Emma orders us pizza and we munch on pizza and beer for a while. I’m regretting all of my additional workouts after I finally get the bed put together and the mattress put on it. Emma tried to help but she’s so little I didn’t want her to hurt herself so I ended up just man-handling it myself. She had washed the new bedding and put everything together before we took a look at it and she dove across the top of the bed. Emma patted the space beside her and I laid down next to her on top of the comforter. 

“I’m fucking exhausted and I didn’t even lift the heavy stuff.” She exhaled.

“I didn’t realize it was so much work to put together a bedroom. You sure know what you’re doing though.”

“Thank you. I just pick what I like. I couldn’t have done it all without you though, so thank you, baby. I can’t wait to have them visit and see that I’ve got my shit together here. That I’m not some dumb kid who needs rescuing. I’m able to handle myself.” Ahh, so I was right about that. It’s about proving herself to her parents.

“I think they’ll be impressed, Sugar. I know I am.” I smile at her before yawning.

She kisses my lips before scratching my beard gently. 

“Can we go back to yours, shower and then go to sleep? I’m dead on my feet.” She asks as she stands up and fluffs the new pillows. Why are there like 5 pillows that will just get thrown on the floor? Seems wasteful.

“You still want to come back to mine with me?”

She nods. “I want to be with you and the pups. Since they are at yours, it wouldn’t make sense to get them and come back here. I always sleep really good with you…Unless you’re too tired for a sleep over.” She says sheepishly and I wrap my arms around her.

“Nothing could be better than having my girl in my bed with me.” I tell her because I’m beginning to believe it’s the truth. “Let’s go.” 

We turn out all of the lights and lock up before heading back to mine. Emma’s car is still parked out front from where she left it and it makes me happy that she wants to be here with me. There’s a summer storm approaching and the wind has picked up which has Emma’s hair twirling in the breeze. I pull the patio cushions inside when I let the dogs out to do their business. After a quick shower because we are both too tired to do anything but clean ourselves, we do our nighttime routines before climbing into bed. Emma snuggles next to me with her head on my chest and I’m confident that it’s going to be a good night as we drift off to sleep.

It’s hot, but more than just hot. It’s sweltering. I can feel the sweat rolling down my chest and my back. It’s the type of unbearable heat that has your clothes sticking to your skin the instant you walk out of the mess hall. Then you add your gear, and the added weight from your gear plus your sweat soaked clothes is a certain feeling that I’ll never forget. I smell the smoke of an explosion further in the distance. We have our orders and it’s my job to lead our special forces team in to execute our orders exactly like planned. The problem with that is that most things never go as planned. It would be easy for this to be a cookie cutter mission where we get in and out and go back to base and fuck around for the rest of the afternoon. No, this will require me thinking on my feet at every turn. It’s what I’m trained for, hell, I’m the best which is why I’m the captain. I’ve got seven men with me whose lives rely on me assessing our situation and giving correct orders. They are sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, and friends who have people waiting on them at home. Each order I give is weighted by the knowledge that I’m responsible for them. We’re crouched in different positions behind the old dilapidated building that the informant said our guy would be in. The sun is glaring across our faces but we’re in the best position we could be in for this mission. We’ve been after this specific hostile for months and never been this close to him before. We can hear men inside the building, yelling in Arabic and moving around so we must remain completely silent. If we can hear them, they could hear us. We are ghosts that can’t be seen or heard but must work as a team for this to go smoothly. If one person spots us, it will turn into a close-range gun fight that I can’t imagine we will all win. I inhale deeply and even though there is dust on every inch of myself and the ground, I try to focus my thoughts. 

As I am about to give orders to direct my guys to move on to the next step of our plan, I hear the tell-tale whistle of a bullet zipping through the air. I swivel to the left with my gun and look for the insurgent. I can’t see anyone but the bullet buries itself in the left shoulder of Waites across the way from me. We were fucking set up. I swing my gun back around and that’s when it happens, I hear the bullet and feel it explode into my lower left thigh at the same time blood spews from my friend, Goodwin’s head who had crouched beside me when I stood to look for the shooter. My leg gives out and I instantly drop down into the dirt to where I’m level with Goodwin’s face and it’s obvious, he was killed instantly. His eyes are still opened and he has a massive wound to the head. Anthony. Fuck. His girlfriend is expecting a baby girl in a few months. My leg is burning from the inside out but my adrenaline spike helps me ignore the pain and I grab my gun and instantly start shooting towards the rooftop where I believe the sniper might be. I hear Brown screaming before I realize he’s got Waites against the building and is yelling into the radio for help. I watch as insurgents start coming out of the building we were casing and I start taking them out. Lowell goes down. Setas is either hurt or attempting to provide aid to Lowell. I can’t tell but I never stop shooting. Ramirez is also trying to find the source of the ambush with his own gun. Bullets are flying, many from my own gun as I empty the clip into the only building the sniper could have been on, Browns pleas for backup, along with Waites heavy gurgling breaths fill my ears. I feel a hand on my arm and flinch.

            “Austin! Captain…Captain Syverson. Look at me.” Two hands on either side of my face help me focus in. “St..Stand down. You are safe, the threat has been eliminated. Your superiors have given orders to return to base for further instruction. Do you understand?” 

I blink against the water that’s dripping down my face. Emma?

“My men. The injured men in my unit. Where?”

“They are at base getting medical. Captain, I need you to confirm that you understand me.”

I blink and then nod slowly. “Roger that.” I mutter distractedly. I look around. I’m in the backyard of my house, leaning against the brick exterior in my underwear. I have my pistol tucked in the back of the waistband of my boxers and I’m wearing the boots I leave by the back door. In my hands I’m clutching my old hunting rifle that I keep on the top shelf of my closet. Shit. I’ve done it again. I’ve had a PTSD nightmare, but this is so much worse because Emma is here to witness it. I look over at her. She’s crouching on her knees in front of me wearing nothing but my water-soaked t-shirt and panties while she’s barefoot in the mud. Water is dripping from the ends of her hair from the rain that’s pouring down on us. She looks terrified and concerned. 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.” My throat aches either from unshed tears or maybe I was yelling earlier.

“Austin, baby, are you back?”

I nod. “Emma, I’m so sorry.” I mutter as tears mix with the rain that drips down my face. This is what I was afraid would happen if I got close to her. If I let her in. I would relax and then my past would quite literally present itself.

“Baby, don’t be. You’re okay, we’re okay.” She tells me as she reaches towards my face that’s now aimed at the ground.

“Aika?” 

“I left her inside. I know you said she could help but I wasn’t able to tell if your rifle was loaded and I didn’t want her startling you and there being an accident.” 

Jesus. She was afraid I’d shoot my own dog, because she’s right, I was nowhere near my right mind. Here we are over six months since my last flashback yet this was the most involved PTSD episode I’ve ever had. Thank fuck I keep my ammunition locked and separate from my guns for situations like this. 

She stands and reaches to help me up but I can’t let her help me stand. My leg feels as though it has been shot just yesterday but that could be a result of me crouching on my knees in freezing rain outside in the middle of the night, not just the psychological pain from my flashback. 

“Come on baby.” She takes the rifle from my hand and I don’t protest. I follow her silently back to the house. The air conditioning on our soaked skin has both of our bodies covered in goose bumps. Aika bounds to me whining and crying and I sit down in a chair from the table and run my hands through her thick fur. I bury my face into her back and focus on breathing. My palm clutches my leg that’s radiating phantom pain from where I got shot. Emma appears next to me with a towel but hesitates. 

“Can I help you clean up a bit?” She gestures with the towel.

I nod and she leans down and starts wiping the mud off of my legs. 

“Sugar, I…”

“Baby, nothing needs to be said. I’m okay, and you are going to be. Would you take a warm shower with me?” I look at her and want to just burst into tears. How is she so kind and understanding after what I just did? After what I could have done?

“Please?” She urges and I nod. I follow her to the master bathroom and watch as she turns the water on. Aika stays close and sits down behind me in the bathroom floor. I have no idea what time it is in the night or early morning or how long she’s been awake dealing with me. Emma pulls out two fresh towels for us and then whips the sodden shirt off of her torso before removing her panties. She looks at me and then slowly and gently eases my soaked boxer briefs down my legs before taking my hand and pulling for me to get in the shower. Once I step in, steam surrounds me and I take a deep breath. I’m exhausted, flashbacks always take the energy out of me and it’s not like I’ve been sleeping great this past week. Emma begins lathering a wash cloth with soap and gently starts cleaning me. I stand there perfectly still and let her do what she wants as I attempt to think of anything that I could say to make this situation better. I’m aching with embarrassment. Once she washes me, she quickly washes herself before turning around and caressing her hand on my cheek. She leans down and picks up my wrists that were laying limp by my sides and wraps them around her waist before putting her own around my neck. My eyes are aimed down focusing on the suds swirling around the shower drain.

“Baby, look at me.” She says with the sincerest and worried look on her face and that’s when my resolve breaks. I bury my face into her neck as the hot tears stream from my eyes. I can’t seem to stop them and I ache when I hear myself let out a sob that sounds so painful and broken even to my own ears. Emma tightens her arms around me and guides me back to the bench that we once used for a much different form of intimacy. Emma curls herself around me and holds me tightly while I fully break down. Once my breath starts to come easier, I carefully pull my head from her shoulder and try to clean my face up.

“Let’s dry off and lay down.” She says as she turns off the water and starts toweling me off. I gently take the towel from her, not wanting to be babied but not wanting to seem ungrateful. Once we dry off, Emma hands me some boxers and she tosses on a dry shirt and panties on before we sit on the bed. It’s silent and I feel like I have to say something.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you must be thinkin’ but I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I woke you, scared you and I’m sorry I’m so fucked up. I completely understand if this is the last time I see you.” I say quietly and she looks shocked.

“Austin, I’m not going anywhere. This is what relationships are about. Holding each other through the good and bad. I’m not scared and you’re not fucked up. You’re haunted and although I don’t know the details of it, I want to help you through it. Even if you don’t want my help, I’m not leaving you.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I should be better. I survived, Damnit! I shouldn’t have any problems. Goodwin, Lowell, Waites, they are the ones who died. I just got shot in my stupid fucking leg after leading them to their deaths!” I sob.

“You are allowed to have problems. Their deaths are hard on you but you are not responsible for it. I don’t know what happened, but I know it’s not your fault.”

“The informant set us up, we were ambushed. Goodwin, God. Goodwin got shot right in front of me. I watched the life drain from his eyes. He has a little girl that he’s never met. If I had questioned the mission from my superiors or done more digging on the informant, they would all be alive right now. I had to look at their family members at their funerals and I’ll never forget the grief from their loved ones. Goodwin’s pregnant girlfriend, Lowell’s widow, Waites’ mom. I still see them sobbing over their caskets in my mind. I didn’t deserve to live when they didn’t get too.” I finally say out loud. I take deep breaths attempting to calm my body from going into another spiral.

“Bear.” Emma reaches for me.

“It’s been years and I still get like this. Hell, it might be getting worse. I don’t think this is something I’ll just get over. I’m too fucked up, Emma. You deserve someone who doesn’t have these types of demons.” My eyes blink heavily.

“You are not fucked up. I deserve you because you treat me better than I’ve ever been treated before.” My eyes droop and I know it’s a result of the flashback. When I have them, my body goes through the trauma all over again so when the adrenaline finally stops coursing through my body, I basically crash.

“Love, you look exhausted. Can you try to sleep for me?” She asks and gently pushes for me to lay down. My head is resting between her breasts as she lays back on her back. We’ve never laid like this before but it’s comforting.

“I’m right here, I’m not leaving. Aika’s here and so is Mills.” She tells me while caressing my head but my eyes are already closed, too heavy to fight staying open longer. I wrap my arm around her waist and within moments, I’m deeply asleep soothed by the steady rhythm of Emma’s heartbeat as she caresses my scalp.

Part 11

Taglist: @shellyshellshell, @henryownsme, @caramariehurst, @beck07990, @mollymal, @kingliam2019, @syversonswife, @identity2212, @starfirewildheart, @hannah9921, @wa-ni, @kneelforloki, @cutedoxie, @enchantedbytomandhenry, @foxyjwls007, @geralts-yenn, @courtlynwriter, @corrie1013, @squeezyvalkyrie, @summersong69, @livisss, @mayloma, @uunotheangel, @warriormirkwood

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

What Kind of King is in my Blood?

Context: this piece was inspired by the song "In My Blood." sung by Joel Smallbone from Journey to Bethlehem (the movie). And contains the lyrics of the song.

Warning: content contains blood (mild) & implied physical abuse... the more graphic scenes to be underneath the keep reading section of the post... if you are uncomfortable with such things.

I've mentioned this before in a previous post & please check out the original video (have a listen: it's incredible). Or better yet, put it on while reading the comic. :D

I do suggest you read: Celestine is Merlin before this;

Young Arthur... was not a good person in the sightless and was very close to becoming a mini-Sir Uther. And I also would like to stress how evil Sir Uther is...(Uther is not Arthur's father, but the song just fits them so...)

Behind the arrogance and pride, his actions were a tie of wanting and seeking Uther's approval...

Other than that, please enjoy the content.

Background info: this takes place around the time Arthur starts to take a liking to Merlyn and even trust them (and before he found out Merlyn was Lady Celestine). Soon their game of cat & mouse blossomed into a friendship...

Celestine never put pressure on Arthur to change: in fact, she tried to save Nonsurat & Morgan, too... she'd put them in scenarios where she'd see them grow empathy. (Putting someone in another's shoes.)

She'd show them the damage the war was doing to the public... and the innocent.

Allowing them all the chance to do good but in the end...The only one who was receptive to it was Arthur. Which surprised her... she believed Arthur would be the last person who would be captivated by the lesson. (Since he was Uther's most loyal soldier... his right-hand man...)

When it was clear that the lessons were only effective for Arthur (and the only one who was willing to change), she started to tailor them for Arthur. Genuinely started by doing vigilante work with Merlyn and learning more about this "outside world he never knew about."

(Unbeknownst to these goobers these were pretty much the equivalent of dates.)

However, Arthur couldn't help but feel guilty that he was betraying his master (Uther). That all changed, however, after a certain mission...

Arthur & Company were tasked to clear a demon infestation of a cave. Which held serval rare artifacts that were stolen. Some of Nightmare's monsters had made it into a stronghold (a secret base), and Arthur was in charge of clearing it. Morgan tried to trap Arthur in the deeper, darkest part of the cave where the majority of the monsters were dwelling.

Thankfully, Celestine secretly tagged along with him!

It took them a week... to escape the cave ... everyone had started to assume that Arthur had died during the mission. He was about to report his return as soon as he arrived at the camp base until... he overheard a very upsetting conversation.

Sir Kay (Kit Cosmo): Sir Uther! Sir Arthur is still missing, we can't leave just yet...

Sir Uther: He's been missing for a week... we only have three days left on this planet, and we need to finish recovering the reset of the artifacts... our time & manpower is limited.

Kit Cosmo: It that's the case... I'd be more than willing to take a small team to recover him... heck, I'll even go there by myself if I have to...

Sir Uther: DID YOU NOT HEAR WHAT I SAID! I am not wasting manpower... are you questioning my judgment?

Kit Cosmo: NO SIR!* Nevourly but still firm* I just thought you'd press the issue more... he's our captain and, more importantly, your right-hand man-

Sir Uther: WHY do you think you have two other apprentices... he's replaceable...If he died out there then he's a failure that deserves to be left... DON'T NOT BOTHER LOOKING FOR HIM!

You're lucky I have more pressing issues to attend to or that right arm or yours would've been charred... This conversation is over! *leans into Kit menacingly* YOU'RE DISMISSED! *Kit lets out a big gulp and backs away out of the tent*

Little did they know Arthur & Celestine (Merlyn) were listening in on the conversation. With Celestine fuming... and with Arthur shaking...

Celestine (currently disguised as Merlyn): WHY THAT FAT HEADED TYRANT! Don't listen to him, you're- Arthur? *sees Arthurs gone* Arthur...

Arthur runs off to contemplate... his mind reeling from what he had just heard. He always knew that Uther saw him as nothing more than a tool. The title of the right hand was just merely a cover-up... a lie made by Sir Uther (that he was something to him). He always knew this, but he couldn't understand why this still hurt him so much.

Arthur, at his core... still just wanted to be praised and desperately wanted at least a shred of affection from Uther. Hearing this broke him instantly... and forced him to look inside himself. He may have always known it... but a part of him always wanted to believe in the lie... So he put this facade of pride and arrogance to ignore it.

Only realizing how much Uther took advantage of his desire for affection from him... allowing him (Uther) to mold him into what he wanted. The brilliant golden amor (that Uther gave him), was all part of the illusion... he was no hero... he was just a monster... just like his master... just like Uther...

This leads us to this scene...

-The key things I wanted to mention were those marks on Arthur's shoulders are burn marks...

-Those bubbles at the end represent Celestine's influence

-I featured a Kirby-sized baby Arthur with a little training armor... it's pretty much his inner child... Sweet little bean didn't deserve this

-I also updated Uther's shoes :3

At this point, Celestine already cares for Arthur so much, and he's already redeemed himself (in her eyes). But Arthur can't help but hate himself for his past actions now seeing the full picture...

He destroyed himself for a man... who would never care for him... Arthur couldn't help but feel ashamed. He felt so disgusted with himself... forgetting all the progress he'd made... Believing himself to be a worthless puppet...

And it broke her heart to see Arthur like this... that's why she reminds him of what she sees him as. And this is where Arthur finally breaks down his final wall and truly opens himself up. Celestine always saw Arthur as a more than worthy king and always saw the best in him... and that's why Arthur always saw her (in the future) as his queen...

"Did I put too much characterization to a background character we only saw for less than 5 minutes in the anime?" YES, I DID!

"Was it worth it?" YES IT WAS!

(In the KBASW) Sir Arthur is the one who approves and legitimizes the "Star Allies" because if someone like him could be changed for the better... why can't this rag-tag group. Sir Arthur (in a sense) is the first "redeemed villain"...

It just took one person to see the good in him... I really can't wait to explore their relationship (Celarthur) more... I have something special planned for them in February. And I do want to explore Kit Cosmo & Arthur's friendship: it's really fun~

(The Star Allies are going to be the equivalent of the Knights of the Round Table in KBASW, but I'll explore that later...)

Hope you all stick around to see how the story unfolds...

[unseededtoast]

Rectify | Bucky Barnes

Part 5/37 | Part Four, Part Six

Summary: I've lived every day for the past five years looking over my shoulder. I knew they'd come for me, it was inevitable. I was foolish to think I could outrun my past. It's followed me everywhere I go, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Never would I have anticipated that the shadows would lead me to the light.

Bucky Barnes x OC

Series Warnings: Discussion of human trafficking, alcohol consumption, graphic depictions of violence, sexual content, discussion of suicidal thoughts.

a/n: Hi everyone, thank you for checking this out, I appreciate any and all support! This series is also posted on Ao3 and Wattpad if you prefer those formats/platforms! This is a completed series, and it's going to take some time for me to transfer it to Tumblr, so please bear with me!

"It can be easy to let an idea turn into an obsession, how do you think the Winter Soldier came to be? My father was obsessed with the idea of bringing the Winter Soldier back. I watched my mentor die in front of me because of it."

I spend the rest of the day writing out some notes and ideas. I need to have some sort of game plan, I can't just wing this. Doing this also helps me brainstorm possible contingencies. The overall idea is that this will help keep my thoughts organized so I'm not handling this recklessly or on the fly. I only get one shot at this, I cannot risk messing it up.

 Not only does the programming need to be undone, but he's also going to need structure and support throughout the process. Undoing the programming is the most daunting part of it all. It was never designed to be undone, only intensified or reset. When I created this program I had never anticipated the need to reverse it. I tap the pen on the table as I brainstorm possible solutions, there has to be a way. The lab door opens, but I stay concentrated because I don't want to lose this train of thought. 

"Do you have any updates?" I look up and see Steve staring at me with hopeful eyes. I show him the paper and explain everything the best I can. Steve's eyebrows scrunch as I explain.

"So what you're saying is that Bucky is still in there?" His big takeaway was not the complications that stand in my way, but the fact that his best friend is still there. It's heartwarming to see he cares so much about someone who's only been taken advantage of for the past several decades. I place a hand on his shoulder,

"I am confident that he is. The programming only made him obedient to the handler and to suppress his free will. His memories were never erased." I tell him, laying my pen down on the table. Steve nods and taps his hand on the table.

"Well, I'm sure if there's anyone who can do it, they're in this lab right now." He looks between the three of us.

 I know Steve is slightly hovering around me because he wants his best friend back, but I can't help but wonder if he's just trying to keep an eye on me, if he's buying into Tony's idea that I might be a spy. I push the thought to the back of my mind and re-read what I have so far. There's no point in worrying about their opinions, I can't change those for them. But I can help Bucky, so that's what I focus on.

My plan is simple, kind of. It's based on building a foundation of trust. Without a bond made through trust, the entire process will be very difficult for him because he will lack a support system, and I have a feeling he isn't going to want to cooperate with me very well. It's hard telling how the resurfacing memories will affect him and I want to be sure I'm prepared to deal with anything and everything that may happen. 

I'm not entirely sure how this process is going to go, I've never seen the reversal of the programming and my plan is entirely ideal and hypothetical. In a perfect world the memories will resurface and he will be able to handle them without issue, but this world is far from perfect and I have to assume that this process will follow that pattern as well.

I sigh, putting the cap back on the pen and placing the papers inside the red leather-bound book. This book is older than I am and holds so much history, though the history is dark and left a long trail of blood. 

"What's in the book?" Bruce asks, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows as he approaches me. 

"This book is responsible for countless deaths and the corruption of the mind. It's the key to what most would consider brainwashing and it is wanted by every member of Hydra. It's dangerous." I say tapping the front of the book.

"Well that's comforting. Would you mind if I take a look at it? I'll see if there's anything useful for Tony's research." He asks.

 I'm apprehensive to hand this book over knowing that the contents in the wrong hands can lead to a lot of damage. I know we're a team now but I can't risk things, and I've only just met these people. On the other hand I don't want Tony to have another reason to despise my presence. Reluctantly, I hand him the book and decide I'll just stay in the lab until they're finished with it. Tony joins Bruce and the two open the book. Tony immediately rolls his eyes. 

"This is all in Russian." He states the obvious in an annoyed tone.

"I can translate it for you if you want." I offer. 

Bruce nods his head, accepting my help. I translate the pages for them, having most of the science memorized by now. I go through the pages and speak the Russian before reciting the same line in English. It's time consuming but if I have more brilliant minds on this case then it gives us the highest chance of being successful, if I end up needing their help for this project. I know Tony is just interested for his own research, but I'm looking at it as a step in the right direction for the team as a whole. 

"Wait, so what you're telling me is that memories can be resurfaced, right?" Tony interrupts and I nod in confirmation, surprised he's bothering to ask me a question.

"Yes, depending on how long they were suppressed it can take longer for them to resurface." I explain,

"So, in theory of course, could you implant false memories deep inside someone's mind and have it resurface like an authentic memory?" I take a moment to consider his question. I've never considering placing false memories in someone's mind, I think it would be quite difficult to do.

"In theory, maybe. It would be extremely difficult though. You would have to create the artificial memory and find a way to place it in the mind. I think if it can be achieved it would take a lot of time, money, and patience." I offer him my opinion. 

"Piggybacking, what if we could take a memory, a true one, and we were able to change the details of it?" Tony's hand rest on his chin.

"I think if you were to alter a true memory and embellish it with falsehood, nothing good could come out of it. Then the person wouldn't be able to distinguish reality from artificiality and that becomes a very difficult thing for anyone to handle. The same can be said for implanting artificial memories." I say, hoping my answer leads him away from pursuing this. He stays silent after my answer and I look over to Bruce, who looks as if he's deep in thought. 

"Tony what if you meshed that idea with your augmented reality project. You can take true memories and manipulate it through augmentation, then the person knows the memories aren't true, yet you can still experience the desired thing." Bruce says and the idea catches me off guard. His idea isn't awful. It would be interesting to see how they would accomplish that. Tony thinks for a moment before jumping up and out of the lab, leaving Bruce and I alone. 

"He's been trying to find a way to avoid therapy about a lot of things. He thinks creating new memories in place of the old is the answer. I told him it wasn't a good idea but once he gets something in his mind he can't let it go." I nod my head, understanding Tony's obsession. 

"It can be easy to let an idea turn into an obsession, how do you think the Winter Soldier came to be? My father was obsessed with the idea of bringing the Winter Soldier back. I watched my mentor die in front of me because of it." I say and stand from my seat, grabbing the book. I'm ready to call it a day and mull over my thoughts, maybe a bright idea will come to me. I walk through the halls and back to my room, feeling a slight headache forming at the base of my skull. 

I turn the corner to enter the hall where my room is, and am ready to collapse, the past two days have been entirely exhausting. Although, I'm eager to start my plan in the morning. I've seen him once, I know what to expect. I won't cry anymore, there will be a time for tears when this is all over. I open my door and place the book on the nightstand before getting into bed. 

"Adalyn, are you in there?" I blink my eyes open and look to the tiny clock on my bedside table. My eyes widen as I jump up,

"Yeah, I'm here just give me a moment." I say and panic. I run my fingers through my hair and decide to keep the uniform from yesterday on, there's no time to squeeze myself into a fresh one. I grab the book and open the door, seeing a well-put together Steve in the doorway. 

"Rough night?" He asks, looking me up and down. I grimace and push some hair behind my ear,

"Yeah, something like that." I say and close my door. We walk the familiar path downstairs as I describe to him my plan.

"Do you think it'll work?" He asks and I nod my head.

"I do, but it's not an overnight process, a lot of it has to be done naturally. I think you can play an integral part in it as well. Once I get a proper assessment it'll be easier to see where we're at." I say and he nods, opening the door to the hallway. Unlike yesterday, I'm more level-headed. Steve takes him off of sedation and just like yesterday, I give him ample time to wake up and become accustomed to his surroundings. While he's adjusting to his environment, I mentally hype myself up. I've been around him before, numerous times. I can do this.

I open the door and enter, seeing the Soldier right where he was yesterday. I approach the glass and see him stare at me. I offer him a warm smile, which goes unreturned. 

"I'm Adalyn, it's nice to see you again. I'm going to perform an evaluation on you today. It's completely painless and pressure free. You don't have to answer anything you're uncomfortable with." I muster up the courage and begin the process. 

In an odd way, this is like being reunited with an old friend. It's still surreal to me how we both ended up here at the same time, I never would have guessed that I would ever see him again let alone get the chance to undo everything I put in his mind. Many things about this scenario remind me of our time back in Russia, but this time things aren't as somber. However, just like back then, there's still a lot on the line. He glares at me and I proceed.

"Can you tell me what your name is?" I start off simple. He remains silent and uncooperative, which I can't say is surprising considering he likely remembers me from our Hydra days if he remembers anything at all. He's probably confused and scared because of the unfamiliar environment let alone possible memories that might be coming back to him. I lick my lips, trying to find a way to sweeten the deal for him and begin to establish our foundation of trust. 

"I know I said you didn't have to answer anything you're uncomfortable with, and that's true. I also want you to know that the more you can give me, the quicker you can be released. I know you don't want to be in there, I don't want you to be in there. I'm here to help you." In reality, I have no idea if I have the authority to be making this deal, but if it helps him cooperate, then I'll figure the rest out later.

He makes eye contact with me and I can tell he's weighing his options. I can also tell from his facial expressions that he is not currently the activated Soldier, he has life in his eyes. I've only seen the life in his eyes once before, and that was short lived.

"My name is Bucky." He says and I nod, happy with the small victory. 

"Bucky, it's nice to be working with you. Can you tell me what you remember? No detail is too small." I encourage him. He takes a deep breath,

"I remember you. I remember what you did to me, you were the one who put this stuff in my head." He glares harshly. I nod with a quiet sigh knowing this is to be expected.

"Bucky, I remember you too. I want you to know I left Hydra about five years ago. They found me and wanted me back. They didn't get me, and now I work for Shield. Please believe me when I tell you I am not with them anymore, and I am sorry for everything I've ever done to you." I offer him amends. I know this won't erase anything that happened, nor is it enough to even begin apologizing for everything that has happened, but it's a step towards our fresh start. This is something we are going to have to work through together. His eyes soften a touch as he processes what I've said to him. He tilts his head,

"Adalyn Averina." He says and my eyebrows raise a little in surprise, he remembers my full name. I smile,

"Yeah, that's my name." I confirm to him and he nods slightly, as if to confirm to himself he was right. 

"How long have I been here?" He asks me,

"About two weeks total, though I'm told you've been sedated for a majority of that time." I answer. He stays silent and I take the opportunity to encourage him to reveal anything else.

"Do you remember what happened before you came here?" I ask in curiosity. 

"I was on a highway, there was a fight." He keeps his answer short and simple, and I see that he looks confused, or almost like he's struggling to remember. 

"You're right. Do you know who you were fighting?" I ask, pushing my limits to see how much I can get. 

"He had a shield." He simply answers, not giving me a name. It's entirely possible he doesn't know he was fighting Steve. I decide he's given me enough answers, and it's my turn to offer him some. I don't want him to be overwhelmed with not being able to remember things he wants to and need to avert some of his attention.

"Is there anything you want to know from me?" I ask, offering him the same level of vulnerability he offered me. 

"Why did you leave?" He asks, meeting my eyes. I see hurt, sorrow, and curiosity in his gaze, which is a stark contrast from what I remember. I wasn't expecting that question, but I give him the truth.

"I left because Hydra is a corrupt, evil organization. It ruins people and rewards atrocities. I left because I couldn't stand hurting you anymore. I thought that if I left they wouldn't be able to get to you, but it's obvious now that I was wrong." He stays silent. 

"Your father was the one who led the program, right? He had short hair and wore glasses." He describes my father vaguely, yet accurately.

"Yes, he took over the program once Zola was gone and retained leadership for many years. I believe he is dead now, though." I say, hoping to offer him some comfort with my father's death. 

"How did you get out?" He questions after a moment of silence. I recall the day perfectly.

"It wasn't easy. I grabbed everything that I thought was important, said goodbye to my father and his friend, and then I ran. Eventually, I was brought to the United States by a trafficker, and the rest is history." I say, remembering the faces of the children I travelled with over to the United States. They were sold by their families to repay their debts, or voluntarily offered themselves up in hopes of a brighter futures; and I was willingly smuggled. One day maybe I'll tell him the full story but not right now, it's not the right time or place to delve into it.

"Who took over after I left?" I ask him, dreading the answer, if he has it. I have an uneasy feeling that I know who took over, and the thought still makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. 

"Dane Winthrop." He answers and I note that he can remember some things, mainly related to Hydra. He hasn't mentioned anything about his pre-Hydra life, and I think that if he stays un-sedated that they may begin to resurface in the near future; although I won't know until it actually happens.

"He was always a vile person." I say and Bucky meets my eyes. I can tell he's still wary but there's something else there I can't quite identify.

"That would be an understatement. After you left and he took over, they started reprogramming me every week, after every mission." He says, voice becoming softer and raspier at the end of the sentence. I realize now that by fleeing I unintentionally set him up for a nightmare.

"Bucky, I really am sorry for everything. I couldn't stand hurting you anymore, I didn't know they would reprogram you every week, I didn't even know they'd understand how to work with you." I say with the utmost sincerity. He remains quiet. 

I've assessed his condition, and I don't see any reason to believe he will randomly slip into being the Winter Soldier, his mind seems to be stable enough. I don't think he will act out unless he's provoked by something. I feel like I owe him something, anything that I can convince Shield to agree to, and come up with an offer I may not be able to fulfill and for some reason, the words just come out of my mouth before I can think about it.

"I think you're stable enough to be let out of here, you don't seem to be phasing between the Soldier and yourself. Let me talk to some people and I'll get back to you, okay?" I offer and he nods, 

"Thank you." I smile back at him and bow my head before I make my way out to the hallway with Steve. 

"What do you think?" He asks and I take a deep breath. I'm just relieved he hasn't scolded me for making that offer. But, I think Steve is on board for it, I don't think he wants to see his best friend tied up and miserable for much longer. Perhaps his alliance will be more helpful than I originally thought.

"I think he still has a long way to go. But things are better than I anticipated." I answer, knowing that my work is going to be cut out for me. However, I think that the memories and things he can recall right now are a great indicator that other memories are still in his mind.

Steve and I walk out of the room, and discuss a plan on how to get him out of that cage as quickly as possible. I don't like the fact he's been in that cage, it reminds me too much of the way he was kept at Hydra's base and it's likely he feels the same way. I never want him to be reminded of that place ever again, it's about time he starts getting the treatment he deserves and I will do everything in my power to make sure he's treated well and with respect.

[leenikgeelofromthemynock]

blease I want to know your x-men opinions

Oh that is a HUGE question dskjafhsdjkfh

Okay so first off I should say almost everything I know is from the Krakoa Era, from House of X/Powers of X up to roughly Sins of Sinister (I’m a lil behind rn), but I have read ALL of that period.

Idk how much I have in specific opinions off the top of my dome but I will say Krakoa was always kind of wack to me. Old friends Xavier and Erik just decide that this MUST be the solution based on Moira’s promises but as soon as she suggests that “hey maybe this plan I came up with based on VERY limited data might not be the best?” they kick her out of the club and wipe their only chance at a reset when everything (inevitably) goes bad!

Also like. Hey Krakoa isn’t infinitely big. Even Arrako isn’t all that big. Did you ever have a plan for when your country of immortal idiots with a commandment to Make Babies outgrew its resources? Or did they just know this plan would either collapse or lead to The Worlds Most Self-Righteous Genocidal Empire (Hi Sinister)?

All that being said. I’ve really loved all the different tones and approaches that the different series have taken to these books. Its the first time I’ve felt like a comic universe really clicked for me and I think its because there’s so many creators all working around a central pillar that is so compelling, and I’m going to be really sad when Krakoa finally falls apart in earnest. I don’t know what comes after this for the X-Men - this has changed the status quo so much that its hard for me to imagine a post-Krakoa storyline that is half as compelling. That being said, the books have suffered a little with the loss of their focused graphic design leadership - that was what really held the line together for me and its starting to feel much looser. I’m still incredibly excited to catch up and I already have my orders in for the FotHoX and RotPoX.

Anyway best Krakoa stories are:

anything by @kierongillen (listen. I’m a Phonogram fan, okay)

@charliejaneanders run on New Mutants (I had dinner with Charlie Jane once, it was great, she’s very cool) (the other New Mutants stuff is also good but I gotta rep my girl Escapade okay)

the Young Cable run by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto

Mauraders also by Duggan and 5 separate artists (hey Marvel? wtf)

X-Terminators by Leah Williams and Carlos Gómez

obv all the Exacalibur/Captain Britain stuff by Tini Howard, Marcus To, and Robert Quinn.

Oh and Fallen Angels isn't as bad as people think. It isn't good either but it's fine. It just seems extra bad bc its surrounded by some of the best superhero comics in a generation.

[felassan]

Jon Renish (Foundation Technical Director @ BioWare, working on DA4) recently did a Twitch stream where he played through some DAO. Although he works on DA, this is his first time playing through DAO. He’s playing through it looking at random details from a dev perspective as he’s currently working on DA4 and therefore wants to know more about the previous games.

On the stream he mentioned some tidbits on the development of DA4. There were also some insights and anecdotes about the development of DAO and similar. It’s a 3 hour stream so I collected them here in case that’s of use to anyone (for example not everyone can watch streams which don’t have subtitles/captions). The stream is a fun/interesting watch though, so if you’re curious or able to watch I recc doing so. 😊 The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Please note that there’s some paraphrasing on my part, this is not a transcript.  There are also some additions from another dev who featured on the stream to give some commentary. The stream also contains more snippets that at times I couldn’t make out (I tried my best!).

(There is a mention of Cullen’s VA in the text below.)

DA4

Jon said he can talk about things about DA4 that aren’t “consumer-facing”, but he can’t say anything about the game that would be consumer-facing but which isn’t already publicly available. There are several reasons for this. One, that’s not his job, there are people whose job this is and they let each other do their respective roles. Two, BW are a publicly-traded company, so if he said something that could affect that that would be insider trading. Three, they’re not done making DA4 yet, so if he said that they have added [x] to the game and people got all excited about that or pre-ordered on that basis, but [x] ended up being cut, people would be like ‘BioWare lied to us’, when it’s just that things changed during the course of development, as is often the case

He’s glad that fans are excited for the game but notes that fan expectations are always double-edged. It can be really tough as some people started ‘playing’ the game in their heads as soon as they heard of it. That’s fine, he loves that, but he hopes that peoples’ expectations don’t turn into requirements. Clearly BW have alluded to certain characters, like Solas, being in the game, but some fans say things like “If [say] Morrigan isn’t in the game, then, rahhh!” Y’know, there’s a lot of talk about how certain characters have to be in the game, and yeah.

On characters which are quantum (i.e. characters which can die or which can have similar end-states as death in previous games): their being quantum makes it really hard for the devs to work with those characters in subsequent games. The devs naturally aren’t going to put as much effort into characters which could have died previously. A character can have had an amazing appearance throughout/role in a previous game, but if there is a risk of something happening to them and of them being removed [effectively] from the plot, it just doesn’t make sense to have them as a major character in a subsequent game. If a character can, say, sacrifice themselves in some glorious ending, the devs have to make sure that if they use them again, in worldstates where the character didn’t do that, the character is kind of ‘muted’, as the devs don’t want to disrespect the players who made a different choice

A comment in chat expressed a wish for Shale in DA4. Jon’s response is that he has no idea on that front

Bugs don’t come out of crunch, they come out of development in general. Crunch does impact on the quality of a game though. In recent years BW are always really trying to reduce crunch, they’re currently working really hard to bring it down. The best way of doing that is by controlling scope. As creatives it’s tough to balance wanting to make great stuff and be industry-leading with the desire to constantly do extra passes over things they’ve created like the audio, art etc. Their biggest enemy is time, other ways of reducing crunch or time spent in general include iterating tools to make often-repeated processes as time-efficient as possible

I think the following was an observation on the industry in general as opposed to a BW-specific/-exclusive comment: he thinks that as a result of this sort of thing [working to reduce crunch], a lot of games are going to have to be smaller and a lot more focused in scope i.e. the devs will have to focus on hitting the key selling points of that particular game/series as hard as they can, and cut down on branching out sideways/wide on a bunch of random other stuff

Jon doesn’t personally engage in character creators in games, but he knows that for some players that expression is worth a lot of time and focus. BW want to be industry-leading in this kind of stuff as it’s something which is interesting/key/integral to their games

In a way BW have made their own nest of problems what with every DA game being so different to the previous one. Still, he notes that each game has a staunch fanbase that says that their particular favorite game is the best one in the series

He doesn’t want people who think that DA4 isn’t what they want to buy it and be upset - there are so many other great games out there! BW are going to make the game they’re going to make - if some people like it, that’s great, and if some people don’t, that’s cool. Sometimes waiting until reviews are out and/or really seeing beforehand if a game is something that you want [has things/features in it that you want] prior to getting it - as opposed to jumping right in or pre-ordering - is a good idea. Fans don’t always know what they want, but they do know what they like - these are 2 different things

He hopes that whatever they ship for DA4, people go “I enjoyed this experience”, and that then, if there’s additional content for it down the road, people can decide, “do I want this further content?”

On hair: BW are using the new hair technology in the latest version of the Frostbite engine, so they’ll see what they can do! This was said in response to a comment about the hair in the latest FIFA games (as EA make FIFA)

A comment in chat asked about a flying mechanic (griffons). Jon’s response is that flying is such a heavy gameplay mechanic that you can’t put it in a game without everything in the game being built about it (see Anthem)

Relating to the above comment, in DA4 mounted combat would be cool but then they’d have to make the game ‘around’ mounted combat and make the mounted combat feature meaningful

On the underwater concept art: it should not be interpreted as a promise of gameplay. BW have amazing artists who sit down for a couple weeks while they’re in early production and just draw loads and loads of all kinds of stuff. Concept art is like a moodboard or Pinterest board. Elsewhere in the stream he advised, take all the concept art together like a mosaic and ask, ‘what is the overall theme[s] here?’, and to zoom out from individual details. [This stuff echoes PW’s word on concept art]

BW don’t generally write things or the choices as bleak as the choices in DAO were anymore. This is a conscious choice on their part, they want their game to be fun [note: this was said when the side quest in Orzammar where the Warden has the option of convincing a dwarven mother to abandon her young baby to die was being played through. It seems to refer to intensively grimdark choices/beats of this kind]

I think this was more of a general comment on games: SSDs (solid state drives) mean that players will see shorter elevator rides (Mass Effect - was this a reference to the remaster?) and fewer switchback corridors (those are actually loading zones). Generally, these are going to change mechanically the time it takes to do stuff in games

The devs have lots of features on their backlog that they’d like to offer players but each will ofc involve implementation and subsequent maintenance, and each one that is chosen to add is being chosen over something else. And sometimes, it’s hard for them to tell if [x] feature or [y] feature would be better to add to the game

They’re about to work on a giant feature (a pure tooling feature, something that isn’t consumer-facing) that is probably going to take ~2 staff years of effort [I think “staff effort” includes multiple staff working concurrently, so 2 years of staff effort doesn’t = 2 years of time chronologically] to get done in the next few months. They’re investing all this effort across the people working on it because they don’t want their artists and designers etc to have to deal with the problem that it’s going to solve anymore. I’m not sure what this feature is but elsewhere in the stream they referred to tooling and automation and gave the example of, the better your tooling is, the fewer times you have to manually set the camera for a human vs elf vs dwarf position, for dynamically-generated [cinematic?] content and for the first pass to be automated (if this is the case, less time is spent/wasted on redoing it and manually touching it up) [see last bullet point in this section]

He doesn’t know how big DA4 is going to be but said “let’s ballpark and say like most games it’ll be somewhere between 70 and 100 GB”

If we kept our Wardens as the PC throughout all 3 games, at the end they would be so powerful that it’d be a bit like “Let’s just do [thing], I’ve killed gods before, whatever”. He thinks it’s good that they have fresh characters each time in DA in order to reset that power level. Some people want more Commander Shepard in the next Mass Effect and he feels like, ‘what else could you possibly want / what else could that character possibly do after 3 games?’

When asked how much freedom he/they have now to focus on next gen, he said that there’s actually almost no difference on that front. The problems never change. They now have better renderers, better ray-tracing, better graphics cards etc, but they have always made DA games for high- and low-spec PCs, so it’s actually about gameplay systems. The freedom isn’t power-based and them getting access to more cores and more RAM generally isn’t going to change how the games are played. The games still have to be made for hard drives on PC. Dev creativity matters more than power here. The challenge of building a BW game is more about/from managing loads of different plotstates, loads of different art pieces, etc

On the title situation (two): names are the last thing they worry about because names have to go through legal before being approved. Every name, including character names, has to be checked in case it’s a famous person, or associated with something bad, or offensive in a different language due to localization etc

They don’t do face scans of people with big beards

There was also a bit about changes/developments to/in the cinematic design process and associated tooling [?] but I found it too hard to follow sorry >< This bit of commentary begins at timestamp ~ 1:52:45 and continues til ~ 2:00:05 [keep listening through the bit where they pause for a cutscene]

General BW

There’s currently ~350 staff in Edmonton, ~200 in Austin and more elsewhere

He notes that DA games sell pretty well, but relative to EA games in general, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to FIFA

DAI

5% of players of DAI never created a character [Q: does this refer to people who just used the default appearances/presets with no editing, or people who only played multiplayer?]

The mounts don’t actually go faster than running, this is an illusion

I think they said it has 55,000 lines of dialogue. [I’m pretty sure I remember devs elsewhere saying it has 80,000 lines of dialogue]

One of the companions had to have their name changed during development because of legal/translation reasons. It sounds like the original name sounded too close to something offensive

DA2

Back when DA2 was internally code-named “Nug Storm”: this was at the beginning when it was pitched to the team on a set of slides. The image on the slide for that pitch had devil horns, a metal hand and no flesh, it was just made out of fire and flames

DAO

The engine DAO is made on is the third engine that they tried for it during development. [David Gaider has gone into the DAO engine stuff some on Summerfall’s series of DAO playthrough streams]

The cracks on the cracked eluvian asset are modelled after the crack on the Tardis in Doctor Who from around that time, as at the time some devs had been talking about Doctor Who a lot. A dev actually added this factoid to DAO’s entry on TV Tropes but someone else (evidently not a DA dev) came by and deleted it saying that it was too much of a stretch x)

Before the game had its name there was an HTML script that randomly generated possible titles for consideration, it adds verbs and nouns together e.g. “Grim Dark”. One of the craziest possibilities that it once generated that the devs always remember is "Bone Wind”

One of the portraits that’s used for decoration around the world in-game (it’s of a bearded human man) is actually of a specific BW staff member

He played through Stone Prisoner, where Wilhelm’s son Matthias gives exposition in the cellar. Matthias is voiced by GE and this had been pointed out to Jon earlier on. Jon: “I don’t think that character’s voice acting was super strong there”

On the in-game area towards the end of Stone Prisoner: Outdoor areas in games are large and one of the things needed for them is streaming, so different chunks can be ‘streamed in’. There’s a tower [?], and technically the top of the tower was made an outdoor level so that sky stuff could be there, though it didn’t really need to be. The person that made it an outdoor level chose the very smallest chunk size for the terrain mesh, which determines how fine of a streaming they do. So when playing, every time you moved like 4 meters, the game would stream out 50-100 chunks behind you and the same in front of you (this is the bubble around the player of what actually exists). Because it was so small, it was constantly thrashing the CPU and disc to do all the loading. The devs were like “this isn’t going to work”, but they barely had any time. The solution: they made a new level that was outdoor and copied all the sunlight and other settings, but with the largest chunk size. They copy-pasted the entire level from one to the other. The problem with that many chunks then is that there was a giant expanse of flat terrain sticking out of the middle of the tower. They didn’t know if the story was going to involve shots of the outside of the tower for this sequence or not, so they took the terrain deformation tool and bundled all the terrain vertices at the bottom of the tower in a giant clump. So to this day there’s a mess of vertices and twisted terrain at the bottom of the final level that probably no-one has ever seen [not sure though if this anecdote is in reference to a place in that DLC or somewhere elsewhere in the game?]

There were also some tidbits on Anthem, however I didn’t note them down (sorry).

If you think I misheard or misunderstood anything from this stream please let me know and I will edit/fix it. :) 

(Thankyou to some of my friends who explained a tech detail from this to me.)

[source]  <-- current rewatch link

[junghosunshine]

Shut In

pairing: Kim Taehyung X reader

word count: 4k+

summary: Without a place to stay after you are kicked out of your dorm amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, you have no choice but to stay with Kim Taehyung (the son of one of your moms friends whom you have never met). You worry that it will be awkward but you are pleasantly surprised by the bond you end up forming with the overly welcoming man.

warnings: Smut, Fluff, overprotective, slightly dom!tae, mentions of covid19 and quarantine, age gap (5 years), unprotected sex (please use protection guys) 

notes: This was written to calm me down while being stuck in my house in no way am I trying to offend anyone. Please go easy on me i’m sensitive :)

_______________________________________________________________________

You should probably be thankful that you have somewhere to stay during quarantine but at this particular moment you were dreading the next few weeks.

“Mom, why can’t I just stay in a hotel?” You asked over the phone. You knew you were being irrational and that this was much better than paying a hundred dollars a night (even if you would feel much more comfortable). Ever since your classes had been canceled, you had been living in the dorms at your college but they had begun to kick students out. Going to school overseas seemed like such a fun idea, and it probably would have been, but because you were in another country during the corona virus outbreak, there was no way you could get home especially with the travel restrictions. You had called your mom sobbing, worried that you would be homeless through the pandemic in a country you barely knew. Luckily, within an hour your mom had reached out to one of her friends who had a son living in Seoul and you suddenly had a place to stay. “Mom, that is going to be so weird. I don’t know him and now I’m going to live with him. Alone. For who knows how long?!”

“Y/N, I’m not paying money for you to stay in a hotel when there is a perfectly good, free place for you to stay. This is the only option.”

You gave in knowing your arguments were useless against this woman. You just wanted to go home and see your family and to be honest you were scared at how big this whole thing had become.

“Okay. Stay safe mom. Love you.”

“I love you too sweetie. Be careful and make sure you thank Taehyung for giving up his space.”

After you hung up with your mom you felt a bit empty. This much change in only a few days was a lot to take in and processing it all was near impossible. ‘Its going to be okay’ you told yourself.Your had mom told you that Taehyung was 24 and she had seen him a few times when he had just been born but didn’t know much about him other than that he apparently worked as a graphic designer for a popular art company. She had gone to college with his mom and they had been very close until mom moved to the US after college. Regardless of your mom’s connection, it felt awkward to be moving into some complete stranger’s space.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Pulling up the email your mom had sent you, you found the address to Taehyung’s house and his phone number. Sighing, you forced yourself to send him a text to let him know you were coming to his place.

To: XXX-XXX-XXXX

iMessage: Hi, this is Y/N… my mom just sent me your address. I should be there in about an hour. Thanks for letting me stay with you.

You put your phone back in your pocket and gathered you bags. Struggling to stand upright you wobbled out of your dorm and made your way to the subway.

Thanks to the virus the subway was not crowded and you had a place to rest all of your stuff. Once you sat down your phone vibrated and you pulled it out to see a response from Taehyung.

iMessage: Y/N, it is my pleasure! My mom told me to treat you well since you are her best friend’s daughter. Ill see you soon!

He was sweet. You felt yourself relax a bit. Maybe it wouldn’t be as awkward as you had thought it would be. You certainly hoped you were right otherwise this was going to be the most uncomfortable period of time you have ever experienced.

Once you were off the subway you lugged your bags up to the street level. Looking around your confidence wavered a bit. You had only been living in Korea for the last few months for college and while you went out a lot but you rarely ventured outside of the college area. The fact that there was no one outside made it even harder because you couldn’t ask anyone for directions. Oh no, there was no way you were going to find his building. You typed the address into Maps and attempted to both hold all of your stuff and navigate.

You were having very little luck and you were afraid your phone was going to die if you continued like this. As you stopped to calm yourself down, your phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Y/N?”

“Oh hi, is this Taehyung?”

“Yeah, Im just calling to make sure you’re okay. You said you’d be here in an hour two hours ago and my mom would kill me if anything happened to you.”

“Oh… Uh…” As much as you didn’t want to cry you couldn’t help yourself. It had been a long few days and the fact that you couldn’t even navigate was infuriating. “Im a little lost.” You managed to say through tears.

“Are there any restaurants or stores near you?” He asked. Looking around you found you were next to a pet store.

“There is pet store near me and I’m right across from a park.”

You heard shuffling from his end of the line. “Okay,” He said finally. “Wait there I’m coming to get you.”

——————————————————————————————————————————

Exhausted, you sank to the ground and rested your head on your knees. It was embarrassing that Taehyung had to go out of his way to find you before you had even met him. He probably thought you were incompetent. And it was even worse that there was an outbreak going on.

Only a few minutes had passed when a black Hyundai pulled up next to you. A guy got out and walked toward you.

“Y/N?” You looked up at him as he came to a stop above you. You nodded and embarrassed yourself by pouting a little. Something you did at home when you were sad or angry. You noticed immediately how striking he was with dark hair that fell into his eyes. He was distractingly handsome and as you stood up, you noticed, very tall as well. Taehyung smiled warmly and reached for your bags. “Go sit in the car, i'll load these in the back.” You complied grateful that he didn’t seem upset with you. He loaded your bags into the trunk and returned to the drivers seat.

“Im Tae by the way.” You took his extended hand.

“I am so sorry for inconveniencing you like this especially now. I promise i’ll make it up to you. I’m not usually this helpless.” Taehyung chuckled. “No problem. I’m glad I had an excuse to go out one last time before the lockdown.” You blushed at his kindness and were relieved when he began to drive.

Taehyung’s apartment was very clean and well decorated. You could immediately tell he was into art as his walls were covered in it. It was an open concept and the living room was only separated from the kitchen by a large kitchen island. He led you across the flat to a door on the far side, opening it to a small bedroom. It looked as if it had never been used and it smelled very clean. There was a large window overlooking the city and you gasped at how pretty it was.

“I’m glad I finally have someone here to use the guest bedroom. It was getting kinda lonely here.” It was shocking how welcoming he was considering you were dumped on him at the last possible moment.

“Thank you so much.” You walked in and he helped place your bags on the bed before leaving you to unpack.

That night, He made you dinner. It was so odd since it had been months since you’d eaten like a normal human. College life was certainly not luxurious. He waited for you to take the first bite and hum with pleasure before he was satisfied enough to eat.

“So, you were attending college here.”  He said. You nodded. “Yeah I’m in my second year at Yonsei. Er- was.”

“This virus is kinda fucking things up isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Im kinda pissed off that I can’t even see my family during it.” Taehyung nodded. “Well I’m lucky that you are keeping me company right now.” You coughed and he watched amusedly as you tried to cover up your awkwardness by taking a sip of water.

“How old are you?” He asked you. “Nineteen.” You replied. He smiled a secret smile before taking another bite of his food.

“Thank you so much for dinner.” You said when you had both finished. He shrugged like it was nothing. “Im happy to do it.”

You tried to help him with dishes but he insisted that you get some rest after your long day.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Usually you woke up around seven the morning so that you could get started on the day but with nothing to do, it seemed a bit unnecessary. Still, your internal clock was hard to reset so despite your empty schedule, you were up. You assumed that Taehyung was probably asleep so you made your way into the kitchen and put on some hot water for tea. This was a ritual of yours. That you had been taught by your mother.

Unconsciously you began humming and you didn’t notice that Taehyung had exited his bedroom or that he was standing shirtless at the kitchen island smiling as he watched you work. You looked cute with your little shorts and oversized t-shirt he was going to have a hard time not thinking about that all day. Turning, you let out a yelp when you saw him, spilling hot tea on your had and causing the mug to break on the ground.

Taehyung immediately rushed over to you and grabbed your wrist before you could pick up any of the pieces of ceramic. “Are you hurt?” The way he looked at you with so much concern made your cheeks flush.

“No, I’m fine, I just got a little surprised.” He chuckled and continued to hold your wrist “Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you, you looked like you were meditating.”

You tried to pick up the pieces again but he stoped you. “I’ll get it, let’s treat your burn first.” He led you to the bathroom and sat you. on the edge of the tub. Rummaging through the medicine cabinet he found some gauze. You cringed a bit. “Taehyung, it’s not that serious, it’s just a little red that’s all.” Taehyung shook his head. “Better to be safe than sorry. Give me your hand.” You were a bit too happy to have him hold your hand as he ran it under cold water. He was so careful and the way he touched you made you want him to never stop. He dried your hand before wrapping it with gauze, clearly pleased with his work. “There!” He smiled. “Good as new.”

“Thank you.” You laughed and the two of you locked eyes. With him looking at you, you suddenly became hyper aware of his bare chest. He wasn’t super buff but he was lean and toned. He looked very strong and it was hard to look away but you made yourself.

For the next few days, you continued to get up early and make tea, careful not to drop it again.

It was getting really fucking hard for Taehyung to not look at you. It seemed like the only thing you owned were little shorts and huge ass t-shirts. Every time he saw you he wanted to push you against a wall and destroy you. Taehyung had take showers very frequently because of you.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Quarantine was not the most fun and besides meal time, you and Taehyung had not interacted very much. He was very sweet and funny but you were too shy to ask him to hang out.

He must have been going stir crazy too because eventually there was a knock on your door.

“Come in.” You said. Taehyung slowly opened the door. He was wearing sweats and a dark blue sweatshirt. It was annoying that he looked good in even the lumpiest clothes.

“Hey, Im really fucking bored out here can you come watch a movie with me.”

“Sure.” You followed him out to the living room “What movie?” “Im not sure.” He said sitting down. “What do you like to watch?”

You shrugged, to be honest you. Weren’t really a movie person. You. Spent a lot of time listening to music and reading but movies weren’t something you did too often. Being away from your family was making you a bit nostalgic and you recalled movies you watched with them.

“When I was little I really liked Howls Moving Castle.” Taehyung raised an eyebrow at you. “Out of every movie you want to watch a cartoon?” He asked.

“What?!” You giggled. “Howl was like my dream guy when I was younger.” You looked at him as earnestly as you could. “Please can we watch it. I really want to now.” He sighed dramatically but didn’t object.

Once it started you were immediately spellbound. You had forgotten how beautiful Miyazaki movies were. At one point without thinking you said “Howl kind of reminds me of you.” Taehyung looked at you but you were too entranced to notice. His eyes roamed the curves of your face and made their way down your neck, to your shoulder which was bare as your huge shirt slipped off of it. He cleared his throat and returned to watching the movie. There was no way he would let himself think about you. That wasn’t fair to you at all.

Yo had forgotten how sad and intense Miyazaki movies got and you hated when there was conflict in stories. A couple of times you reached out for tae’s arm and he let you. He hated how much he liked the feeling that you needed him there. After your fourth time grabbing onto him, He took your hand and laced his fingers through yours. He watched you register this and look at him. Your eyes were so big and innocent. God, he wanted to ruin you. You smiled at him and continued to watch the rest of the movie. He stopped himself from doing anything stupid. He couldn’t help but be a little disappointed when the film was over and you released his hand. “Thanks for watching with me.” He said. You nodded “Thanks for letting me choose the movie, I forgot how much I loved it.”

There was a silence as he looked at you in the now dark living room. You let him allowing yourself to observe him as well.

“Y/N.” Taehyung’s gaze was filled with a sudden intensity. It scared you a little.

“Yes?” Taehyung pulled you into his arms and buried his head in your hair breathing you in. “I would be so goddamn lonely if you weren’t here.” He said his voice a bit muffled. You were taken aback by his sudden affection that it took you a moment to return it. You gently wrapped your arms around his neck. He smelled so good it was hard for you to think about letting go. Lucky for you Taehyung didn’t. He stayed like that for a long time, so long that you fell asleep and then he fell asleep.

The next morning you woke up still wrapped around each other. He was observing you when you opened your eyes and grinned when he noticed you had woken up.

“Good morning.” You felt a bit awkward that you had ended up in this situation.

“Morning.” You replied avoiding is stare. Taehyung only released you when he was worried you’d be able to feel him. When you finally untangled your limbs from his, he rushed to the shower.

——————————————————————————————————————————

You had started to notice the Tae had become very touchy with you. Not that you were complaining, you loved it. You were definitely starting to develop a crush on him and as much as you hated to admit it you were definitely flirting with him. If you were cooking he would find ways to pass behind you and touch your waist. At the dinner table he began to sit next to you and would knock his knee against yours. He’d even started to put his arm around you when you watched movies which had become a very frequent thing. Regardless of how much you enjoyed his touches you decided not to put too much weight behind it. Tae was like an older brother and in this short time you had been living together, he looked after you. You refused to get his affection confused with attraction.

“Hey, my mom just sent an old picture of her and your mom in college.” Tae called from the living room. You ran out to see jumping on the couch next to him and looking over his shoulder.  You immediately recognize your mom which made you miss her a lot. The woman next to her in the picture looked like she had just stepped off a runway, you could see where Tae had gotten his good looks.

“Wow, She’s beautiful you look so much like her.” You said. He leaned back into your lab and looked up at you grinning. “Y/N, are you calling me beautiful?” You choked on the air. “No! Um, er- you are beautiful, but- I wasn’t..” Tae turned towards you and poked your nose. “You’re so cute.” You felt yourself turn completely red.

“Im not cute.” You mumbled, punching him in the shoulder.

“You are ridiculously cute. It’s almost too much.” You found yourself pouting again and you crossed your arms. Reached up and pulled your face towards him. “See? Thats cute. If you keep doing that I’m not going to be able to stop myself from doing bad things to you.”

You found yourself at a loss for words. Tae rand is thumb over your bottom lip before laughing. Anger overwhelmed you. “You’re an asshole!” You shoved him away from you. He continued to laugh “Oh yeah? Am I?” He tickled your side and you shrieked jumping off the couch and running away from him. He chased you around the apartment and when he caught up to you he threw you over his shoulder. “Tae!” You giggled. He threw you onto the couch and plopped down next to you. “Don’t deny who you are.”

“Shut up.”

——————————————————————————————————————————

Tae picked the movie tonight. It was the notebook and apparently he was a huge fan of Rachel McAdams. You didn’t blame him, she was very pretty but you did feel weirdly jealous. You noticed he didn’t put his arm around you like he normally did which kinda disappointed you. You wondered if he was mad at you which made it hard for you relax. You sat with your arms wrapped around your legs. In your head you started to go through everything you had done during the day that could have upset him but you weren’t finding anything he had seemed happy all day which is why it was weird that he wasn’t acting like he usually did. You were about to start crying until you felt him touching your thigh. He looked like he didn’t know he was doing it as he continued to watch the movie.You couldn’t focus at all, his touches felt so good and you closed your eyes accidentally sighing with pleasure. You felt his hand travel closer to the line of your shorts until they ghosted over your core. Taken aback you looked at tae, worried that he was unaware of what he was doing but he was looking right at you now, his eyes full of something dark and wild. He pulled you closer to him and applied more pressure which made you moan more and you leaned your head against his chest. His other hand caressed your head. “You are so pretty.” He mumbled. “You have no idea how much I want to ruin you.” As he rubbed harder you could feel yourself building up to something you bit your lip and felt your hips roll against his hand. “Do you like that?” Taehyung asked

“Mhmn.” Was the most you could say. “Do you want to come?” You nodded but tae wasn’t satisfied. “I asked if you want to come.” He said.

“Yes! I want to come!” You shouted and almost instantly you felt yourself reach the edge. He continued to move his hand against you as you shook. “Oh my god.”You exhaled. Once you came down from your high you couldn’t bare to look at him and kept your head buried in his shirt. He kissed your hair and then your forehead, your eyes cheeks, nose, before making his way to your lips. It was soft and too brief you almost felt like it hadn’t happened. But he didn’t offer anything more. He got off the couch and walked to the bathroom. You heard him start the shower and you fell asleep before he opened the door again.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It had been three days since whatever happened between you two had happened. You weren’t sure what to call it just as much as you weren’t sure what it meant. You were so confused and too afraid to ask him. Tae seemed just as goofy as he always was which was a relief though he didn’t touch you as much. In fact you had tried to hug him earlier and you could swear you saw him flinch. This was infuriating! He was the one who has initiated the whole thing and now he wasn’t even going to acknowledge it. There was no way you were letting him get away with this. If he was going to make you mad then you were going to mess with him.

“Hey Y/N I’m bored come play cards with me.”

You were sitting in your room reading. You smiled to yourself as you ignored his request.

“Y/N?” Again no response. You. Could hear him walking to your room. He stood in the doorway looking at you.

“Y/N, did you hear me?” You put on your most innocent face before looking at him. “No, did you call me?” He scratched his head clearly confused before sighing. “No, never mind.” You stuck your tongue out at him when he walked away.

When he made dinner that night you told him you had already eaten. “When?” He asked. You shrugged, “I had some crackers earlier and I’m full.”  You could tell that he was getting frustrated. But he still didn’t ask you what was going on.

You didn’t watch a movie that night but you hadn’t in three days so it wasn’t that weird. When  He closed his bedroom door you waited an hour before leaving your room and slipping into his. He was definitely asleep when you got under the covers. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and you were pleased when he moved to wrap his arms around you groaning into you.

——————————————————————————————————————————

In the morning he was not in the room and the door was opened. You got up and found him at the island waiting for you. You liked the way he looked in the morning his har disheveled hid voice incredibly deep.

“Y/N.” He spoke. You shivered at the way he said it. He was angry and it was very hot.

“Tae.” You responded. He shook his head at you and you went on pretending to be oblivious.

“Can you make me pancakes?” You asked sweetly. “‘Im, hungry.” You opened one of the cabinets and got a glass for water. Before you could open the fridge Tae moved grabbed you and pushed you against the counter placing a hand on either side of you.

“Y/N, why are you doing this to me?” Although you were a bit shocked you forced yourself to continue the act. “Doing what Tae, I just asked for pancakes.” Then he actually growled, leaning his head onto your shoulder. You felt blood rush to your core you were so turned on. “Goddamn it, Y/N. I keep convincing myself that this is a bad idea but you keep doing things that make me want to teach you a lesson.”

“Then teach me.” You say. He lifted his head from your shoulder and looked into your eyes. The darkness had returned and his eyes seemed heavy as he looked down at your lips. Suddenly he was devouring you. This kiss was nothing like the ghost one from before. This one felt like he was trying to suck all of the life out of you. And it was working. Your knees went weak and you had to hold onto his shoulders to help yourself stay upright. He slipped his tongue into your mouth and you moaned into him. He tasted so good and just as you felt like he was giving himself to you he pulled away. You whined. “Y/N, tell me what you want.” You rolled your eyes and he gripped your face with his hands. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you.” He kissed you smiling against your mouth. “Where do you want me?”

“Everywhere.” You moved his hands to your breasts and he quickly lifted up your shirt to reveal your breasts.

“Holy fuck I can’t believe you slept next to me like this.” He moved his mouth down your neck before latching onto you nipple and sucking hard.

“Oh my god.” You ran your fingers though his hair. Tae slipped his fingers down to the waistline of your shorts and you let him pull them down along with your underwear. “Such a pretty little cunt.” He said before slapping it making you gasp. He turned you around and licked your folds your eyes rolling back. He began to suck on your clit and you lost it. “Fuck, oh my god! Yes!” Without warning tae pushed you to the ground and stood up you could see the bulge that had formed in his sweats. He placed your hand over it and rolled his head back while you massaged it. Then he pulled down his sweats to reveal a very large very erect cock. You swallowed and looked up at him. ‘Fuck, Y/N you have no idea how pure you look. I can’t wait to fucking ruin you.” Grabbing onto your hair he pushed his dick into your mouth. “Good girl.” He said gently. Tae watched as you tried not to choke on him. “You're doing so good.” He began to buck his hips into you and you gagged on him getting saliva all over his length. When you almost couldn’t take it he pulled out and picked you up placing you on the counter.

“Are you ready for me baby?” He asked and you nodded. He didn’t move. “I need an answer.”

“Yes, Please fuck me.” You beg. And then the pushed into you stretching you out so much you stoped breathing for a second. But as he pulled out you immediately wanted him back inside. Tae grabbed your neck. “I want you to look at me when I’m fucking you.” He pounded into you and when he thrusted at just the right angle your eyes started to water but you kept looking at him. “You feel so fucking good, Y/N. I’ve thought about this so much and you are even tighter than I expected.” The lack of oxygen was heightening your pleasure and you started to feel your orgasm coming on. “Im going to come!” You screamed. He pounded into you harder. “Not yet baby, Not until I say so.” You bit your lip in an effort to hold it back but your vision blurred and there was no stopping it. Tae kept thrusting as you rode it out and as you squeezed around him he reached his climax. He pulled out and his juices poured out of you. He wrapped his arms around you and hugged you for a long time. After some time he picked you up and carried you to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and pulled you inside. As the water ran he took your face in his hards and kissed you softly. He kissed your shoulders and your breasts. He knelt kissing your stomach, thighs, knees and feet. You grabbed his face and pulled him back up into your lips. He felt safe and secure. You let him wash your body and he let you wash his. Finally he stepped out of the shower and dried off before opening the bathroom door.

“Where are you going?” You asked him.

“To make you pancakes.”

[maskedjoker]

We are getting really close to the scene in lost fragment of snow that was genuinely confusing in the book, and it's the scene were everyone in the circus is killed. I think what we will probably get is a scene were mana finally ends up giving into despair after he is hit and then allen is fed to a lion.

I think that with more current info, i can say for sure that sleeve earl and mana are a hybird. This will likely cause a resurgence of sleeve earl into taking over the body and becoming whole. This only lasts for a short time however and when cross confronts him after the rest of the circus has died from the audience turning into akuma(which i suppose are implied to be constantly just around the earl and is probably one of the many reasons cross warned Allen to stay away) some exchange of words or damage causes a lots of control. This damage however also hurts mana(or potentially just being forced out off control) causing him to loose even more memories as seen when mana and Allen reunite the next day.

Now i think we can agree that sleeve earl exists as a third entity, especially since her recent art exhibit interview, as she talked about the suit being a super sophisticated golem. I think in this case as with tim and lero yhat "golem" refers to AI. Id argue with the weird phrasing like helix of life and all the biotech style that magic is more often than not just more advanced technology, and wherever the noahs came from likely was, hence why they say they only seem strong because we have become so weak. This is only further shown with innocences resemblance to machines like its gear like parts and percentage resonance.

The noah memories in general i think are some kind of AI that passes through generation lines, carrying significant portions of its past forward and then fusing with a similar person in their lineage. For example early on road would have been just road, then through some means either became an AI(or was given a piece of someone that counts as one under golem, its unclear). Regardless once connected to the noah memory, it acts like a save file and becomes more sophisticated with time. It carries each life and gives all those memories, feelings and drives to a new body. So new road would remember being road, her life and everything, but also the life they had been living up until the two combined. Over time the noah memory keeps getting larger and larger to the point new experiences are so small, relatively speaking, that it overrides much more than normal. Since they are fuzed as one being they likely cant be separated without mutually assured destruction, were the current entity will die and any remains will not be the origionals, if anything remains at all. An example of this is that tyki could not be made human by Allen I their fight i the arc, despite having a blade that should destroy only part of him. Admittedly tyki is a special case though, and more tyki backstory is needed.

Changes from body to body become more subtle, but the base, which likely has a distinct core function as seen by its response to certain tasks and ideas, remains a strong aspect. This creates an almost reincarnation like effect for them, needing to only find a new body to continue.

The suit is like this, but different. I don't know how the original earl split, but i do think that some aspect of him was placed on the suit. I would like to say its the original version of the noah memories of the earl and nea got like a brand new copy, but i actually have no idea what memories he has of being past earl so its mostly a guess. Regardless the noah actually all seem to transform in some way when they get mega pissed. Im looking at you skinn, jasdevi, and tyki/joyd. So the suit is likely that kind of thing, but way more distinct and capable of acting autonomously. Since they all have different forms it makes sense that his would also be unique. They all probably represent some inner desire related to their memory. Skinn is just rage so big angry man works fine. Jasdero and devit are bonds so they want most to be one. Tyki got all fucked up before he changed so i got nothing, but it had a heavy does of sadism, which I guess is pleasure? Taking into account that killing in horrible graphic ways is his guilty pleasure it kinda makes sense.

So because of that, this sentient AI is constantly trying to pair with half a fucking brain because nea and mana only share one brain cell. Some kind of resistance from mana or strain causes him to constantly fall ill or comatose. Now to be clear on naming, sleeve earl does not refer to themselves as adam in the mirror scene nor does he refer to mana as adam, and only uses "we" when talking to mana about being the earl. Oddly enough the earls self pronouns are we, using wagashi which is kind of like the japanese equivalent of the royal we used in europe for the entirety of the series. For the record, mana in the flashbacks uses male or single they pronouns, i don't remember if he uses boku or watashi, but he uses at least one if not both.

So from this it seems millennium earl is a title, used by whatever is paired with the suit. Adam is the original name of the noah, and is the preferred name of the current earl aside from the title.

This circumstance was likely caused by the rest of the noah, who are using the earl for something related by the pillar. His separation either by accident or by intent was likely by the hands of his family trying to keep control for their ends. This is why the current earl is called a broken puppet and has so many things around him related to acting and stage plays. He is playing a role, the red clown to allens white clown as stated in the ark arc. He even wears a mask. His memories and mind have been damaged though, therefore broken. However broken puppet for both allen and the earl could also refer to a puppet that doesnt work as a double meaning, implying they can no longer be controlled or puppeted.

It is also implied that he is still unaware of this betrayal, but it is likely nea does to some degree as it would explain why he became a traitor and killed his own family. To be clear, i dont think all of the noah know everything, and i dont think they dont actually care for the earl. It seems they still genuinely follow him to their death and see him as one of their own, especially in cases like road, tyki and wisely.

Now early i said that different generations of noah would cope woth reincarnating differently. Since the earl only died once before 7000 years ago, id say resetting to a new body with only 17 years would be just smashed flat by any algorithm with that much data. However manas feelings are still the newest, and so still have an impact even on the current earl.

Now we come to resurrecting mana. How? Why? Well i dont know. But my guess is whatever part was the memories of mana for the 20 or so years he lived, or at least his memories at death, are in allen. His curse and weird hallucinations of mana seem to suggest it. Alternatively that part of his soul may have passed on, or it fuzed with the noah memory making the origional mana part of the hive and much like tyki and his noah memories cannot be seperated. Not good regardless.

As two additional things, i want to mention that hoshino is a twin and has always been obsessed with it, so having twins in her book was inevitable. What is extra weird is hoshino was actually going to be a triplet, but either her or her sister absorbed it before birth. She has mentioned it in dgm interviews and i cant PROVE it translates to anything in the plot but its suspicious. She also still list mana, nea and the earl as distinct in every book up to date in extra novels and at the start of her books. Oh and her favorite hat for the earl right now? The one featured on the most recent chapter? Has two faces on the front that are visible, and one in the back thats hidden, and the most recent art has the back face as the only one visible, angrily staring allen down. Great art foreshadowing if im right. Its also usually sleeve earl, if not exclusively, that wear it.

The second thing is mana talking about love and drive in the most recent chapter just brings up the earl having the noah memory of love or devotion or something for me. Ive written about it before but it just seems to fit. This character is all about that from the ability to fuze loved ones together to the hearts he talks with and his drives being based on grand acts of devotion, being by their side etc. Mana also loved and adopted both and dog and a homeless child and keeps talking about how the world is so beautiful despite all the bad. The earl literally acts like the whole noah clans mom by his own words and cooks for them, and both of them go out of their way to be cartoony to break tension. The earl literally goes and buys a single red rose from a poor girl while tyki pontificate on how he doesnt act like a villain. He doesnt take an umbrella because he wants to feel the rain. He talks about how what he does is in human nature and requires a connection between two people. He is even designed with his ideal colors as red and purple with white, as well as being designed after flowers. I know this probably doesnt make sense, but its stuck in my head.

[fandom-necromancer]

1165. Part 4

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: violence, kidnapping, graphic description of android dismantling, mentions of physical and mental abuse)

[Part1]   [Part2]   [Part3]

The room was completely silent, and Gavin felt guilty just by disturbing the peace with his presence and the sound of his breath. He didn’t look at the android lying on the cushioned examination table. Nines’ lower half had been covered with a blanket and for the last software check-ups and self-healing protocols to do their work after the main repair, he had been left there to wake up. But the human was staring down on the floor. His head was ringing like a church bell and felt just as heavy and sluggish. He had suffered a mild concussion and had been advised by doctors to stay in bed for a while, but he just needed to make sure Nines was alright first. He had to apologise. Had to know why he was so afraid of him. Then he could rest. The vertigo, headache and overall sickness wasn’t as bad as his lingering guilt.

He didn’t realise it at first as Nines woke up. The sound of the blanket because of sudden movement startled him out of his thoughts. The android looked at him with big eyes, already in the process of getting away from him. Gavin immediately reacted, scooting backward with his office chair until it hit the wall. He quickly raised his hands and tried to be as gentle and non-threatening as possible. ‘It’s fine, it’s fine! You are safe! You are out! You are repaired, see? I won’t do anything to you.’

Nines looked at him surprised and vary. But he seemed to relax more with the distance between them and started tentatively touching the spots that had been damaged: His face, his thirium regulator and his entire front. It felt invasive to watch him, so Gavin gave the android his space. After some time, Gavin spoke up again, noticing how his voice caused Nines to freeze in his movements. ‘I made mistakes’, he said. Nines was silent, but he could feel the android’s gaze on him. ‘I made a lot of them.’ With every word Gavin wished for the silent peace to come back. For the break filled with anticipation and worry, but still ultimately frozen. ‘I hate androids. I don’t think I could ever start liking them. My brother is a huge self-entitled asshole and he invented them, so they were already off to a bad start. And then one of them killed my sister. The android was running from its owner, was panicked and took my sister, who was just on her way home that night, as a shield. The owner didn’t care, he shot anyways.’ He swallowed hard. What he was about to say had been lingering in his head as unpleasant intrusive thoughts. He knew they were right, but he had always avoided saying them out loud, making up some dumb excuse instead. But not now. Not when he owed the android the truth and more. ‘I know logically, androids have nothing to do with it. My brother is an asshole, that doesn’t mean the bots he created are too. The owner of that android was drunk, and the plastic couldn’t possibly foresee he would have shot her. But you know what? It’s easy. Hating the people steeling our jobs, hating the people everyone hates, following the wide mass. It’s phcking easy and I never was one to work hard when I didn’t need to. And if you do something long enough, regardless of reason, it becomes your second nature.’

He took a deep breath, the android in the room remaining silent simultaneously being unbearable and a blessing. What he was about to say was hard for him. ‘But it was wrong to treat you like shit because of it. I should have showed the level of professionalism to leave my views of the world out of work. And I… Phck’, he trailed off. Then he lifted his head to meet Nines’ eyes, who was completely unreadable besides the fact that he let him speak and was willing to listen. ‘Did you really think I was the one torturing you? Do you really think I could do that? Are you that afraid of me?’

Nines had watched the man curiously. He had to admit he had been afraid upon seeing Gavin again. His memories were a confusing mess of things that had happened long ago, intermingled with the recent torture and Gavin’s face sprinkled in for good measure. But the man had given him space. Had begun to talk – just talk – and it sounded like an attempt of an apology. Maybe this was what he had waited for so long. Maybe this was the chance at making peace with the Detective and getting into more friendly interactions. And if it wasn’t… He could still take Fowlers offer. Disappear from one day to the next and be send off somewhere else, where he would never have to see him again. If he really wanted to, he could destroy Gavin’s whole career, telling the Captain the man had held him at gunpoint several times. Maybe he was just as afraid of a friendship with someone who could end him as Nines was of letting a human into his life. But well, someone had to give, and he had a backup plan if things went south. So, he decided to tell him.

‘You don’t have to sit so far away, Gavin’, he began and watched the man hesitantly scoot closer. The way he pulled a grimace he likely hadn’t gotten away unscathed by the whole ordeal either. ‘I’m afraid of humans in general. I was a prototype model meant to replace Connor. During the revolution I was in the testing phase. I caught the deviancy virus, but it didn’t work on me as I was meant to withstand its effects. That didn’t… It didn’t work as intended. Instead of giving me the chance to be free and disobey, it took away the controlling part completely. It destroyed my mind palace, a simulated reality to talk with humans or other androids, hand in reports and receive new missions. It was rendered inaccessible. Unfortunately, that also meant I couldn’t be put to stasis by humans and no one realised the error. I didn’t have the experience to resist against treatment, too. So, whenever I failed, they would enter the order to send me to stasis. I would remain conscious because the order never reached me, but I would stay motionless and let them work regardless, because it was all I knew. When the virus spread and the damage reports would change to something equal to your pain sensations, I tried to bear through it. But ultimately, I snapped. I tried to resist, I tried to reason with them that I could still work with my damaged part just to avoid being repaired.’

He sighed, pulling the blanket closer. ‘They… They didn’t listen and I was afraid. The day they finally looked into my coding and realised I had caught my very own deviancy, they talked about resetting me completely or transferring me to a new body. I knew that would be the end of me. I was so afraid I… I snapped. I killed every last one of them. Just with my bare hands. I was so merciless Cyberlife decided to lock down the lab and let me wreak havoc there while they evacuated the floor and barricaded it so I could never escape. I was found in that lab after the revolution, caked in old blood amidst the decaying bodies of the men I killed. That’s why everyone is so afraid of me, although I am far more scared of everyone around me. Fowler was so kind to take the risk after getting to know me and he decided not to tell anyone of my past.’ He waited for Gavin’s judgement, but he stayed just as silent as he had before, allowing him to continue.

‘If you take that into account, Gavin, I’m afraid of every human out there. I learned to hide it, but I am. I think of every human to be capable of doing this to me, because I have no faces to pin my tormenters to. As far as I’m concerned it could have been anyone in that lab. And yes, that includes you, Gavin.’ ‘Then why did you join the police?’, the Detective asked. ‘I couldn’t imagine a worse job for someone who is paranoid of humans and is traumatised by violence.’ ‘One has to face his fears to overcome them, right?’, the android answered. ‘I wanted to at least give it a try. And I managed to stay for some time, haven’t I? I would be lying if I said I wasn’t completely terrified by you when you threatened me. But I also saw you being competent and trustworthy as soon as we worked together, and you forgot I was an android. That kept me going. I hoped you just needed time to adapt to my presence. I thought that if I was just determined enough, we could have become friends. Like my predecessor.’

‘I’m sorry it had to be being tortured together to manage that’, Gavin sighed. ‘To be honest I think about quitting’, Nines admitted. ‘I don’t know if I could live with the whole precinct knowing what I just told them. I don’t want them to be afraid of me.’ ‘Why? Did you tell them?’ ‘No, but…’ ‘Hey, I won’t tell them, who do you think I am?’ ‘You won’t?’ ‘Hell no. I know how difficult it is to tell someone something you want buried deep inside you. If this whole conversation stays between us, then that’s fine by me.’ ‘That… Thank you. That means a lot to me’, Nines admitted. ‘Yeah, yeah’, Gavin waved it off, embarrassed.

He sighed deeply, then held out his hand. ‘How about we give this another chance and I try to be less of an asshole to you, dipshit?’ Nines stared at the hand and his eyes darted from it to Gavin’s eyes and back as if trying to find out if he meant it. Then he reluctantly took it. ‘I think I would like that, sweetheart.’

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

So 5x18...

...Well hot d*mn.

Man when Supergirl fires on all cylinders...HOO BOY.

Case in point: *gestures to all of 5x18*

To be clear: I liked this one.

A WHOLE LOT.

Not that I disliked 5x17, necessarily. It’s just that 5x18 was more... Entertaining? ...I dunno. I dunno how to explain it.

...Okay yes I do and that explanation is: Someone remarked on Kara’s use of language and Kara overcompensated on the ‘NOooOOooOO I’m totally 100% normal!’ AND there was a musical quote AND it was WHILE TEAMING UP WITH ALEX TO FOLLOW A LEAD.

But I’m getting ahead of myself let’s backtrack...

TO THE TOWER! WITH ALEX! NIA! KARA! AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!

June Foray voice: WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY FOREVER?!?!?!

I know I’m not the first person to make that reference but it’s always fitting and, for real, recurring character status WHEN. (I mean. Obviously I would prefer series regular but that feels like a big ask considering that all future TV production is...uh. Ah. Erm....

...Up in the air. At the moment.)

And then we check in with the Luthors and Non Nocere isn’t working???

I am shocked! Shocked, I say!

And then we’ve got Obsidian doing something ill-advised which is basically the company’s MO at this point but KELLY AND WILLIAM ARE ON THE CASE REGARDLESS.

(So that’s kinda the one thing I’m sad about re: the Crisis reset; Andrea’s character development. But she’s sticking around for next season so I’m not too upset that she remains...kinda...one note for now.)

And THEN the library scene. 

It was so gooooood.

Then Leviathan and okay. Alright. Okay. Huge points in this episode’s favor: Rama Khan feels like a far more significant threat. And I feel like 80% of that is the fact that they just let him wear normal clothes. Thank you, show. Thank. You.

Also the rock effects were way better in this episode because they weren’t footing the bill for a giant crossover episode this time around

I am a little confused, though, by what has and has not happened with regards to Rama Khan on Earth Prime. Did the pre-Crisis stuff...happen? The dialogue...kinda made it hard to decide one way or the other. ‘He hasn’t been seen on this Earth for 100s of years’ but then also, ‘a chilly place you know quite well.’ So...he...did go to the Fortress. And fight Kara? But...all that stuff before Crisis...???

...Not gonna bother with that right now.

POINT IS...Leviathan is finally like...invested in killing Supergirl* and menacing in a very real way which both raises the stakes and makes it personal and that’s way more interesting than ‘nebulous evil organization that must be stopped.’

*I know they kinda sorta already did the whole, ‘let’s kill the Kryptonian!’ and invaded the Fortress but I don’t know what to tell ya, it was just lackluster.

J’ONN AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN

I am firmly in camp: I don’t care if they’re never green again I love seeing them in the super suits with their human faces IT’S GREAT.

Love that Nia’s snoring interrupts the moment.

Also love the deck of Rama Khan playing cards, that must’ve been a fun project for the graphic designers.

Then we’ve got William and Kara at CatCo and it’s baked goods! A hilarious line delivery by Staz! A ridiculous fabrication involving a shy, violent cat!

...Now I want Alex to actually own a shy, violent cat!

“Cats love me, for some reason.” “Of course they do.”

Side note: Love Kara’s blazer.

And then it’s ALIEEEEEENS TO THE RESCUE!

WHAT A TEAM UP, FOLKS.

We love to see it.

The interrogation scene is good n’ tense and ramps up to a very impressive showdown in the DEO (but BEFORE the sparks really start flying we get that rad shot of Kara leaping through the window and doing the superhero landing and it’s just

Perfection.)

Also perfect? Lex playing a game of transmatter pickle with the prisoners.

Then we jump back to the DEO where things are not going well!

Like, really really bad! 

But J’onn and M’gann save the day! If not the building!

RIP DEO. 2016-2020

Obituary: The DEO headquarters is survived by its elder sibling, the DEO desert base.

Look none of the favs work there anymore save for Kara and Brainy and they’re both gonna be better off working freelance for J’onn but I do expect Brainy to at least pick up some additional cash by working as a Lyft driver next season.

Me, watching the characters struggle to make it in the gig economy: I feel so seen.

The final portion of the episode is just ALL ACTING and I must say...good stuff.

Like. This cast, man. They take the plot points I’ve been ‘meh’ about all season and they turn in some stellar performances and suddenly I’m like STANDING OVATION, CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES.

Also, reason #342 I love Jon Cryer’s Lex: that scene with Lena.

Terrifying.

Full disclosure: I went in to this episode fully prepared to be really annoyed with whatever was going to happen with Lena and I still don’t...love the trajectory of this season, being so tied up in her personal drama but. 

But.

Katie McGrath’s performance...went an awful long way here. In making this...not as bad as it could have been.

Like tearfully admitting she was hurt? And that hurt was the basis of all the nonsense she pulled? Finally owning up to the fact that this was never truly about the greater good but that it was all rooted in some personal issues and OUTRIGHT STATING SHE WAS BEHAVING LIKE A VILLAIN????

I am. Extremely impressed.

EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE THOUGH: Kara remaining distant both physically and emotionally throughout that scene! Not in like, a cold uncaring way, but in a, ‘I have emotions and I have a right to feel them and set boundaries in regards to my trusting you right now given all that has transpired’ kind of way.

GOOD. YES. GOOD.

(Lex’s outburst has that kind of same Nice Guy undertone--albeit more pronounced and rage-y--as Lena’s in the Fortress. Like, ‘I supported you and you still rejected my plot to take over the world’ and ‘I was kind to you and you still messed up my mind control’ which...I dunno I might just be digging in too deep here in order to further justify the character turn but I think Cryer’s performance regardless is a really sobering wake up call for Lena, different than Lex stuff we’ve seen before. It’s close and intense and uncomfortable in a way that really sells the motivation.)

“You’re a monster...but that doesn’t mean I have to be one too.”

Wow. Might be...the first time I’ve liked Lena all season.

...whispers: might be the first time I’ve liked her ever at all

For real: credit where it’s due, that was an excellent line read.

*insert applause here*

CUT TO ADORABLE J’ONN AND M’GANN MOMENT 

D’aaaawwwwwwwwww

But, look, it’s a little undermined by the fact that they both gotta try and embrace in those bulky super suits, I’m sorry, it’s true

...Maybe it’s more endearing that way?

HEY remember how I foolishly assumed that the now-unemployed Alex would simply continue to work with J’onn in an investigative capacity and, ya know, NOT jump straight back into costumed badassery? 

HA. HAHA HAHAAAA.

Those leaked set photos make sense now.

OH NO, WILLIAM!

Real glad Staz confirmed he’s returning. Otherwise I would not be able to DEAL WITH THE STRESS.

I already talked a little bit about the loft scene but some additional points! Beautiful lighting. Wonderful score. Excellent performances all around.

A truly great end to a truly great episode.

Like, it makes me retroactively sad, that we’re only getting 5x19, as opposed to 5x19 and 5x20 because I wish that the crew/writers/actors had a little more space to let all of this good work they’ve done settle and breathe. 

(But also, it was good that they stopped production, from a safety standpoint, so. Can’t be too upset.)

And, regardless of how the next episode goes down (b/c I’m gonna be real, SG always does really great set-ups for their season finales and then kinda...rushes to the finish line and that can only be further exacerbated in this particular case) I’m just really impressed with this effort here.  

...but also LET’S TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOME WILD GUESSES. Specifically, what is Alex’s vigilante name gonna be??? 

...

Alright I generally try to avoid addressing specific fandom complaints in these things b/c I generally try to avoid the fandom itself but of course some stuff has already leaked through all of my blocks/muting so:

‘Lena didn’t apologize!’ The words ‘I’m sorry’ were not said, sure, but 1.) season’s not over and 2.) for Lena, admitting she was wrong is huge. HUUUUUUUGE. It’s solid character growth and I really wish various subsets of fandom would recognize that it’s not fun, when fans hold on to negative stuff from characters’ past and refuse to acknowledge that the characters have changed.

‘Brainy should have seen this coming!’ This one is kind of more down to personal preference I guess but I feel like they’ve established that Brainy’s got a bit of a blindspot due to his feelings about his friends, so I don’t take this as a knock against his intelligence so much as him being stretched fairly thin because he’s playing all sides, and worried about the people he loves. YMMV, though. 

All the ‘fix-it’ stuff re: the last scene, by making Kara immediately forgive Lena. Lose me with that nonsense, bleh. 

[beauzos]

Webkinz Games Ranked

Because I have nothing better to do and I’d never played all the Webkinz games before now.  Includes Tournament games and board games, but is mainly about the arcade.

Wheel of Wow/Deluxe and Wishing Well will not be ranked, but other Dailies will.

Also include Academy games.  I did not have Plumpy’s Hairdresser when I made this, but I do now upon this edit.

So in general the arcade games are sorted alphabetically, with random exceptions. I’m just going down the list as-is in the arcade.

Grand Grotto - one of the match three-esque games, though you mainly just click stuff.  A little tough, but I wasn’t trying very hard.  The graphics aren’t that thrilling but aren’t bad.  Tries to do something interesting things, but I don’t really love a lot of the Webkinz takes on match three games. 5/10.

Goody Gumdrops - an infinite running style game where you collect gumdrops to progress.  This game is not fun.  Feels like the flow of Kinzcash you get is also less compared to a lot of other games.  Not much going on after the first minute or so. 4/10.  EDIT: I was actually really mean to this game and I don’t know why.  I really like it now.  It’s fun, not too intensive.  Inoffensive and cute.  You actually do make decent KC from it.  7/10.

Polar Plunge - this was one of my favorite games when I was a kid.  You sled down a hill.  It’s simple.  I have never fucking completed a track of this game in my life.  Don’t like the new version, but the art style isn’t offensive.  I find the older art style for the games more charming, though.  It’s fun.  8/10.

Cash Cow - another game I probably played a lot, though I prefer 2.  Another take on the match three.  This game also had its art style updated, but I just don’t like the lineless look of the update.  It’s soulless, and it makes the visuals more busy and hard to follow for me.  All right game though.  7/10.

Smoothie Moves - this is basically just Zuma, which my dad loves playing.  I like this kind of game, too, though I suck at it.  Nice visuals, clean, fun gameplay.  8/10.

Wacky Zingoz - one of those games where you try to hit something as far as you can.  It’s so basic, it’s not really anything, and you can’t make much money on it-- like 10 Kinzcash is generous in terms of how much you make.  Not fun.  1/10.

Wacky Zingoz Extreme - the EXTREME version of Wacky Zingoz, except with more bats and more to do, but still not much.  An improvement.  3/10.

Ant Mania: Picnic 2 - the thrilling sequel to Picnic.  Not bad, I remember playing this one a lot.  You just try to collect food while avoiding spiders and fire ants.  It’s simple, but fun.  Not really my favorite though.  5/10.

Atlantiles - I don’t know how to describe this game.  You match tiles together, but it’s not like a match three.  Never played this game till now, but I love it.  Excellent game, really fun, a little challenging but not too hard.  10/10.

Bananza - a really basic, older game.  You collect bananas and avoid obstacles.  Not the most visually interesting or engaging game.  3/10.

Booger Gets an A - I get the impression this very basic addition game is for the youngest fans of Webkinz, but the games get difficult really fast simply because of the speed.  It caught me by surprise because I had no memory of that.  Not bad.  5/10.

Zingoz Bounce ‘N’ Burst - I remember really liking this game but it’s not very fun to play now.  You try to burst bouncing Zingoz and it’s not particularly interesting, but is challenging.  5/10.

Candy Bash - a brick breaker clone.  Not particularly fun-- it feels like your character is way too close to the bricks.  4/10.

Candy Bash 2: Viva Poncho - this one is about as equally unfun, but not the same game as the first.  You have more ability to move and control what’s going on, but you’re really slow.  You’re just sauntering back and forth to bust candy blocks falling, and it’s just kinda eh.  4/10.

Cash Cow 2 - I like this game.  I’ve played this game many times.  Another take on match three, but I enjoy it more than the original.  Solid game, good fun, I’m terrible at it.  7/10.

Color Storm - somehow wasn’t looking forward to this game but I had some fun with it.  Another kind of match three, but challenging and interesting.  A good take on the broad genre.  7/10.

Crafty Canaries - a match three.  Good fun to play, I played it to completion.  Not too much going on but it’s solid.  8/10.

Dashing Dolphin - the controls are slippery and awkward.  You’re trying to navigate through hoops and through nets, but it’s not fun to control or to play.  1/10.

Dogbeard’s Gold - expected something different from the title, but it’s fine.  The only control is clicking with good timing to shoot from one island to the next.  It’s all right.  Not much to write home about and not much Kinzcash to make up for it.  I liked the visuals.  4/10.

Eager Beaver’s Adventure Park - I don’t like spelling games.  This is a take on one, but I didn’t really enjoy it.  3/10.

Flutter Bugged - just running around and avoiding bees(?) using flowers.  Can get wild pretty fast, not bad.  5/10.

Get Eleven Solitaire - I fucking love Webkinz card games.  This is no exception.  The game is extremely simple and is pretty much the same every level, but I like it.  I like solitaire and I like the take on it to get to eleven.  It’s good, casual gameplay and nice visuals.  I bought a Deluxe membership to play this game.  10/10.

Go-Go Googles - I remember loving this one as a kid, might have even gotten the trophy for it.  Fun, but basic.  You jump to collect flowers and protect the tree from butterflies.  It’s fine, but the controls feel slightly janky, but not bad.  5/10.

Goober’s Atomic Adventure - basically an updated version of Goober’s Lab, except with pay-to-win and pay-to-play elements!  You can play without, but it’s clear they want you to pay.  I do not like this because of that.  0/10.

Goober’s Lab - the OG match three.  Fun, but it’s really slow, like painfully slow.  It is good fun, though.  7/10, would have been 8 without the slowness.

Griddling Gourmet - I wonder how many people have even unlocked this game?  After owning an account for 12 years and playing on and off, I unlocked this game this month.  You get it by completing all levels of the Cooking course, and it’s basically just an arcade version of that lesson.  It’s all right-- I feel like the academy version controls better, but I always loved the Cooking class.  9/10.

Hatch the Dragon - kinda reminds me of 2048?  You try to hatch the Dragon.  Fun, challenging, interesting, and I want to give it a go after the initial playthrough to see if I can do better.  8/10.

Skunk Sweeper: Hide ‘N’ Skunk -  a take on Minesweeper.  I don’t like Minesweeper or this.  1/10.

Home Before Dark - kinda like Meepit Juice Break on Neopets?  I actually do like games like where you’re shifting the position of pipes around to achieve something, but it’s nothing to write home about.  6/10.

Hoppy Little Rocketship - an infinite jumping kind of game.  I like those games, but this game is wildly laggy and that really ruins the experience.  2/10.

Hungry Hog - this game is ugly and not particularly fun.  A take on Pac-Man, I guess?  I liked this game a lot as a kid but it’s just kinda eh.  4/10.

Iceberg Escapades - not fun.  Controls don’t feel right.  Another bland clicking game.  1/10.

Jazz Monsters - this game confused me on account of the fact that the purple monster isn’t purple, but its color matches up perfectly with the keyboard, which is pink, but is actually like, supposed to be the Green Instrument or something.  Not fun.  1/10.

Jumbleberry Fields - it’s a daily, but you have some actual control over what’s going on so it’s included.  It’s Yahtzee except the dice are loaded, but I like it.  This game, like most of Webkinz, is buggy, and one time, I filled up my Jumbleberry Jar and tried to redeem my prize, but the game bugged out and it reset to zero with me receiving no prize.  I’m still mad.  Not really gonna rank it, but like, 7/10.

Jumbleberry Blast - a match three, but this one is really satisfying to play.  Not a whole lot to say about it, but I actually like this one!  8/10.

Leapin’ Llama - game allegedly lets you use the mouse but it doesn’t work.  A basic infinite running game.  Not fun.  Slow.  3/10.

Lily Padz - this game is fuck ugly, but controls good.  Really simple, but pretty fun.  The jumping feels good and the controls are actually tight!  Wow!  6/10.

Lily Padz 2: Tropical Downpourz - it’s like the first one except it’s not ugly and controls really bad.  Hard to gauge how far your jump goes and doesn’t feel right like the first one does.  Not good.  1/10.

Dex Dangerous(tm) and the Lunar Lugbotz!(tm) - the Webkinz challenges made me play this game 500 times and I’m sick of it.  It’s a basic Asteroids game.  It’s all right, but I don’t like it. 3/10.

Lunch Letters - a typing game.  Very Hard really means that mode is fucking hard, so I’m impressed.  I don’t love typing games, but it’s not bad.  5/10.

Ms. Cowaline’s Rollcall - a really fast-paced game where you try to keep track of whether you’ve seen the same Webkinz in a row.  Super fun, I suck at reaction games, but maybe a little too simple?  7/10.

Operation Gumball - I’m bad at this one, and don’t find the number puzzles super interesting, BUT it’s unique so I’ll give it points.  Not really for me but not bad.  6/10.

Pet Party Parade - another take on match three.  This idea of freeing a creature by clearing paths has been used a million times in these Webkinz match threes, like the Grotto one and Jumbleberry Blast. but isn’t as fun.  4/10.

Picnic - the original Picnic, just a take on the snake game.  Simple, but solid.  5/10.

Pinky’s Big Adventure - essentially a remake of Hungry Hog, but with a face lift and some slight changes to the gameplay.  Not bad.  Not my favorite, though, since I don’t really enjoy Pac-Man style games to begin with.  5/10.

Pizza Palace - delicious, finally some good fucking food.  Love this one.  In the vein of Cake Mania, a series I LOVE, you make pizzas.  It’s stressful, like working a food job in real life.  I love this game, but I’ve never completed it.  I wish they gave you more than one life for such a long and difficult game.  Can’t complain much, though.  10/10.

Plumpy’s Hairdresser - the arcade version of the Grooming class.  Fun.  Pretty much the same as always.  8/10.

Polarberry Jam - pretty much like Bananza except now it’s a polar bear?  It’s not fun.  Character is too slow and feels limiting.  1/10.

Pumpkin Patch Protector - fuck ugly, but I don’t know any other Webkinz games like it, so points for creativity?  It’s a click and shoot type of game.  Not much to write home about.  3/10.

Quizzy’s Word Challenge - I don’t like spelling games, but this is more fun than Eager Beaver’s.  Not bad.  It’s kind of like boggle, I guess?  5/10.

Skater Kat - hip and kewl.  The controls are okay but feel a little slow.  Not particularly fun or interesting.  You just skateboard and jump.  3/10.

Spree! - another daily, but you get to do stuff.  It’s a virtual board game.  I like it, and I like the idea of saving up money to spend one you get to the end.  8/10.

Stack ‘Em Up Solitaire - a basic take on Solitaire.  I wish the game looked just a little better- the green they used isn’t really nice to look at for long periods of times.  I like this one.  6/10.

Stardrops - another take on match three.  Looks pretty, kinda interesting, but not my favorite.  5/10.

Tile Towers - I love Mahjong, but the colors they use for the tiles make this game hard to play.  It’s hard to distinguish the tiles apart, so that’s not fun.  If you want to play a Mahjong clone on a pet site, just stick with Koujong on Neopets.  2/10.

Triple Strike Solitaire - Solitaire, except this time it’s in pyramids!!!  I actually prefer this to the other Solitaire, but it still is a little visually unpleasant, but not too bad.  I wish they would update this one!  8/10.

Banaza: Tropical Troubles - the thrilling sequel to the original.  Pretty much the same except you don’t progress in levels, it just keeps going till you lose.  A little more going on, but eh.  The platforming doesn’t feel good.  3/10.

Tulip Troubles 2 - where’s Tulip Troubles 1.  We want answers.  A quick reaction game.  Fun.  Not bad.  Kinda just gets stale after a while.  5/10.

Tunneling Twigsy - this is not fun.  Kind of like the Polar Bear one from Neopets but nowhere near as fun?  1/10.

Wacky’s Bullseye Batter - a batting game.  Basic, fun.  It’s okay.  5/10.

WackyER Zingoz - the THIRD version of Wacky Zingoz, and this one is actually pretty all right.  Way more going on visually, there’s levels, it’s chill.  6/10.

Waddell’s Icecap Adventure - we all hate ice physics, right?  Right.  Mixed the other Penguin game up with this.  The controls are bad and it’s not fun.  2/10.

Webkinz Rally - it’s all right?  A really basic racing game, but I wish there was more to it. 4/10.

Scrambled - love this one.  So simple, but challenging, but fun.  You make omelettes until you win.  Customers are mean to you like in real life.  10/10.

Where’s Wacky - basic memory matching game.  It’s okay. 3/10.

Whimsy Skies - idk how to describe and I don’t want to because it’s got the classic Control Slowness(tm) and isn’t fun.  One point added because I love Webkinz dragons, though.  2/10.

Zacky’s Quest - I want to actually complete this game some day but I have no patience for it.  It’s unique, interesting, kind of an actual game and isn’t a match three.  I like the adventure vibes. 6/10.

Zingoz Bounce - this game disappeared from my arcade.  It was the game of the day the other day and I know they get taken out of the arcade list for that day but when it switched over it didn’t come back and I didn’t have the chance to play it when it was game of the day.  Found it making this list though and it’s a boring clicking-to-support-the-ball game.  1/10.

Zingoz Pie - you throw pie.  You do not have fun. 2/10.

Zingoz Pop - another updated game visually and it just totally lose the charm the original version has-- which you can play in the Quick-Play Arena, at least.  It’s not much, though.  4/10.

Zingoz Zangoz - it’s not fun.  It’s a fruit bouncing game and I just don’t care for the visuals or the gameplay.  1/10.

TOURNAMENT GAMES

Webkinz Supermodelz - I’ll argue that this is the most popular tournament game.  I like it.  You pick out outfits and the judges arbitrarily judge you.  9/10.

Cash Cow Battles - the same as the original Cash Cow but you’re competing against someone else.  7/10.

Wacky Zingoz - no.  1/10.

Link’D - it’s Connect Four.  I like Connect Four.  5/10.

Checkers - I don’t like Checkers because I’m bad at it.  If I wanted to bad at that kind of game I’d play Chess JKSDBFSD.  Tried playing against the AI with Alyssa Fairy and she wiped the floor with me.  3/10.

Bogbeard’s Bathtub Battles - it’s Battleship but with cool power-ups.  Actually very fun.  9/10.

Rock Paper Scissors - what do you think.  5/10.

Chef Challenge - my favorite tourney game.  I LOVE making recipes in Webkinz so this is just a blast.  10/10.

Kinz Pinz Bowling - it’s virtual bowling, so not bad.  5/10.

Goober’s Atomicolicious - a take on Goober’s Lab but with a few more things-- trying to fill vials of color before your opponent does.  I already like Goober’s Lab, so.  This version is not slow, so that’s great.  8/10.

Duck Crossing - not a big fan?  I like that it’s a strategy game but it’s just okay.  6/10.

Zingoz Switcherooz - not a fan, really, but it’s simple and inoffensive.  I suck at strategy games.  4/10.

BOARD GAMES

Farming Frenzy - kinda fun, but really simple.  I remember liking this game a lot.  6/10.

Go Fish - wow.  it’s Go Fish.  5/10.

Jigsaw - love jigsaw games.  For some reason the ask/chat/rap functions pop up and make the game pretty much unplayable for me.  I’m so mad, because this was my favorite Webkinz board game.  WHY does this pop up when it’s a one player game.  1/10.  Would have been a 9/10 otherwise.

Pool - it’s Pool.  But it wouldn’t let me play, so idk.  I remember it being all right, though.  5/10.

Skunk Sweeper - it’s basically an original Minesweeper instead of what we get in the aracde version?  But I don’t like Minesweeper. 1/10.

Webkinz Air Hockey - it’s virtual air hockey.  It’s fun, though.  7/10.

Webkinz Coloring - it’s a virtual coloring book.  1/10.

[metalgearkong]

The Last of Us Part II - Review (PS4)

8/14/20 ***SPOILERS***

Developed by Naughty Dog, released June 19th, 2020

The Last of Us was a game I wasn’t originally a huge fan of when it came out in 2013. Despite it receiving astronomical praise by fans and critics, it took me a couple times completing the game before I fell in love with it. What truly made The Last of Us special was not necessarily its concept or gameplay, but its storytelling and characters. The depth of the interpersonal drama and raw emotion on screen was the true core of the game, with the stealth-action, zombies, and other aspects more like icing on the cake. The Last of Us ended up being one of my favorite games of all time strictly based on execution, even if the game as a whole still isn’t perfect. 

The Last of Us Part II was my most highly anticipated game of 2020, and it feels strange to be on the other side of it finally. This game has been polarizing for fans, and as it turns out, I feel conflicted on the game as well. I finished it a month or so ago, but only now getting my thoughts written out. While some aspects are daring, jaw dropping, and gorgeous, other aspects detract from what is an unexpected story not quite living up to its potential. I respect this game more than I love it, and while I do think critics have been too kind in review scores, the exceptionally low user reviews have been far more incorrect. This is a solid, epic, deep, beautiful, emotional campaign which will deliver its money’s worth, but many contentious points will dictate how much you enjoy this blockbuster of a video game.

One of the aspects I like the most about this game is how similar the gameplay is to the original. Many people I suppose would want more change or innovation in the 7 years since The Last of Us, but personally I’ve always been a fan of sequels that retain what I like about a series. If it changes too much, it becomes too detached from what I enjoyed or got used to. Changes Part II makes are subtle, but natural for the genre and world. The player can duck and go prone in waist-high grass to conceal themselves, a dodge button has also been added, and a huge addition to combat and stealth is the addition of attack dogs who patrol with their owners. Dogs can pick up your scent until you distract it, adding to a lot of tension anytime enemy K9s are around. And yes, I found it difficult to shoot the first couple of dogs I encountered as they yelp out in pain when they get hurt or die.

Part II picks up I believe 5 years after the original. Ellie and Joel live in Jackson, the town they town the become a part of at the end of The Last of Us, and seem to be thriving in a community with food, power, and systems in place for relative safety from the outside world. The story is told in a much more chopped up chronology which I found to be detrimental to the pacing. The first game had a straightforward narrative and it worked very well, and this game has to dice up its story to make it seem more complex, but just comes off as pretentious. For example, by the end of the prologue (about a hour and a half) you play as three different characters. This leads into the strange structure of this game’s story, aside from having the linearity chopped up at times. 

The most controversial moment of the game is the moment of Joel’s death and how it occurred. While this event was not unexpected for myself and others, the manner of which he died is what’s justifiably pissing people off. A brand new character is introduced named Abby (and one of the three characters we briefly play as shortly before) and without any background or indication of who she is, brutally tortures and executes Joel in front of Ellie’s eyes. It’s not difficult to see director Neil Druckmann cackling with satisfaction of his subversion of expectations. It’s simply toying with the emotions of fans, and he has to expect and stand by any criticism he’s gotten for how this scene went down. However, this moment does make more sense as the story unfolds, but its no less a heavy handed and manipulative move for the sake of auteur video game storytelling.

Ever since I witnessed the brutal death of one of my favorite video game characters of all time, my only though was “they better justify this.” It was never “this is horrible and irredeemable, and “Naughty Dog is off its rocker,” like many people seem to have reacted. It was gut wrenching, but I knew Naughty Dog has a pension for organic characters, and in the back of my mind I knew I had to give this game its fair shot, and see if and/or how Naughty Dog justified a scene liable to piss off virtually every single fan of the original game. This is a poor spot of the game, but the structure of the game itself is, for me, the biggest issue of Part II. In the end, I don’t mind Joel’s death as much seeing the context surrounding it, although it still should have been handled entirely differently. 

Neil Druckmann proudly pulls a Metal Gear Solid 2 move, and entirely switches protagonists for a huge portion of the game (about 45%). Abby turns out to be the main character once the halfway point of the game hits. Following Joel’s death is about 9-11 hours playing as Ellie on her revenge quest to find Abby and kill her. The motivation is justified, being in the room with Ellie as she watched her father figure die in agony in front of her. Ellie’s portion of the campaign makes sense, Abby’s makes less. The structure of the story comes to a high point mid way through, where Abby and Ellie finally meet to clash. After all this build up, and around the same time of the game where the first game had its conclusion, everything halts and resets. 

We are suddenly dropped into the Abby story, showing her side of things, and why she would want to kill Joel. I do think the story directly surrounding her motivation is well done, but the problem is, a large portion of Abby’s story has literally nothing to do with Joel or Ellie. We effectively see why Abby would want revenge on Joel, but then we have to tag along on a major side journey while Abby helps a trans kid and his sister escape the cult they grew up in. I get that it helps develop more empathy for Abby as a character, but Abby’s story should have been at least cut in half to keep the overall story more focused and flowing. Many times while deep into Abby’s story I honestly forgot what the point of what I was doing is, and was getting confused on which events had happened and which hadn’t. 

Abby herself is a good character, and after all has been said and done, she is the third best character in this series so far. It’s a shame though that so much of her story is a direct waste of time, despite more of an excuse for more of the same great gameplay and set-piece moments. Empathy and perspective are the two big themes of this game. The best thing I can say about Part II is it convinced me of something I thought was near inconvincible: it made me like and root for Abby after the scene of Joel’s death. However, while the theme of the game is “all of your enemies have their own backstory,” Par II doesn’t teach us anything new whatsoever. Abby’s father was the surgeon Joel killed upon saving Ellie from the Fireflies at the climax of Part I. But Joel (and Ellie) killed a lot of random enemies in the first game, most of them players won’t even remember specifically. 

The fact that we have an entire video game showing us the perspective of one single person who wants revenge on Joel is a story that doesn’t need to be told. Any NPC we killed in the first game had family or friends who would also want revenge on Joel as well. We don’t learn anything new. This whole series is just marauder against marauder. Joel has never been a good guy, and that’s never been a secret. Joel is shown as an anti-hero even before the conclusion of the first game. It’s partially what makes him such a cool character. We only rooted for Joel because we were seeing things from his perspective. If the first game was entirely about Abby and Joel was framed as the bad guy, the results would have been the same: Abby would be our point-of-view “hero” character, while Joel was clearly the villain. Part II is not the epiphany Neil Drukmann likely wanted his audience to experience.

As anyone can see, the graphics and performances of Part II are incredible. While the story and structure are nothing too special (because it ruins its great moments by long drawn out heavy handed moments), at least the game itself is engaging to play and is gorgeous to look at. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest myself, and the game mainly taking place in Seattle, I enjoyed being totally waterlogged throughout the entire experience. If the story isn’t depressing enough on its own, the weather will certainly get to you. The core characters themselves are portrayed extremely well via motion capture and voice acting as well. I’m wondering why Neil Druckmann didn’t just make a Netflix series beings he is clearly so focused on the character’s interpersonal relationships. This is especially true for Joel and Ellie once again. Side characters are well acted, but have less of an effect on the core story, which is a huge tragedy when so much effort was clearly put into bringing them to life.

There’s no doubt Naughty Dog accomplished their specific goal in making you as depressed as possible. To be honest, it reminded me of some of my favorite books about stories of conflicting emotions and ending on depressing notes. Even though Part II is far from perfect, it’s still a juggernaut of a single-player game with amazing graphics, acting, responsive gameplay. I like the ways it proved me wrong on stuff I thought was unchangeable, and for that, it has my deep respect. It may not be for everyone, not even fans of the first, but if you come at it with an honest open mind and let yourself drop your ego enough to take in this entire story, I think it’s a daring piece of media that might age very well in time.

7/10

[morshtalon]

Digital Devil Monogatari: Megami Tensei

Possibly part 1 of a series of posts on the whole series, maybe?

So, the first game in the popular MegaTen franchise is, wouldn't you know it, kind of weird. It was actually a video game sequel to a series of two novels starring a sort of villainous protagonist and the (government-mandated to exist ubiquitously through japanese media) high school exchange student as they become indirectly related to the summoning of ancient bad dudes Loki and Set through the magic of 80's computer programming, go into historic japanese landmarks to resurrect shinto goddesses, witness horrific, gruesome, sometimes sexual actions from the demons, go to space, fight using gods that turn into swords, and generally have a good time.

Naturally, considering the, um... Notorious source material, it's only logical that the videogame adaptation would, then, turn the sort of dark, villainous, intelligent programmer guy into a blank slate warrior with no personality, the girl into a standard RPG magic user, and drop them into a big dungeon crawl with almost no plot, nonsensical NPCs and a connection with the novels so tenuous they might as well have just taken some inspiration from it and opted to create a more original IP instead (I dunno, maybe put a "shin" in front of the title or something). Thus is born the antiquated experience that is Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei.

While Japanese gamers did at the time have the original version of Dragon Quest - with the sprites that always faced down and the lack of a save system - ushering in a new style of role-playing gameplay into the mainstream, I suppose the mindset of RPG development was still rooted in the design philosophies of the western games from throughout the decade that were distilled into DQ. Games that, like Megami Tensei, typically featured a simplistic first-person view and a party of six characters, following the rough guidelines of the most recent version of D&D, and had generally no plot development, consisting instead of a hardcore, punishing trek through a few 20x20 grid mazes full of traps and gimmicks.

Furthermore, this type of experience, from what I heard, was huge in Japan, so it's no wonder Atlus chose to capitalize on that market instead of streamlining it and risk losing fans of the genre that were looking for an experience similar to what they had witnessed from RPGs so far. Less cynically, it's also entirely possible the developers themselves were huge fans of the first person dungeon crawler and wanted to replicate their positive experiences in a passionate love letter to the genre. Also, for what it's worth, they did add uniqueness in party management and customization, as you surely already know, but we'll get to that later.

I guess we'll never know the true context behind the original MegaTen's creation, but the point is, this is a very old-school game. I don't think it's nearly as brutal as the ones that inspired it, but it is also definitely far from holding your hand. At no point in the game is it entirely obvious exactly where items you're supposed to collect are located, so you mostly have no choice but to comb the entire dungeon yourself until you stumble upon the stuff you need to progress. Furthermore, sometimes the very NPCs that tell you there's even something to look for at all are slightly out of your way, so there's always the mental pressure of maybe having left something behind and having to backtrack and go to all sorts of places trying to find it when you run into the next dead-end.

By itself, this isn't really a bad thing. As an exploration-based dungeon crawl, it's expected that the player will have some agency over what they're doing, and it's refreshing to see a game where you have so much ground to cover, but with hardly any setpiece to spice up the crawling in terms of context, the job of entertaining the player falls squarely upon the gameplay's shoulders.

To that end, the gameplay is definitely more boring than stimulating. This is where I have to admit, I beat the Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei remake version of it. I have played the original, though, and I am aware of the differences between versions. I have also played future games in the franchise with the same issues, so there's no evidence that the original is much different in this regard. Anyway, apart from an intense earlygame where you're at risk of death from a stray Zan spell cast by a gnome if you're unlucky, the rest of the game's fights are uneventful, once you level up enough and have an array of serviceable demons at your side. There's only ever one group of enemy demons per fight. There can be up to eight of them, but all eight are the same type of demon, and the graphics will only show the one until the entire group is dead. It's kind of like every fight is against only one demon but the demon can attack several times and has an erratic, huge HP pool. Furthermore, targeting is completely random for all moves, and you'd think this would add a fake layer of frustration, but the game gives you an auto-battle option. It simply makes the entire party use their regular attack for as many rounds as you want and prevents text from popping up on screen to slow down the monster-slaying, but for the most part, this is more than enough to get you through whatever part of the dungeon you find yourself in, with only the occasional, very rare exceptions of either:

-A demon that has a dangerous ability, therefore making it so that you want to kill them as quickly as possible;

-A boss;

-A battle that you got yourself into without noticing your HP is getting low, so you have to get yourself back to good conditions before proceeding.

It's definitely more of a preparations game than a reactions game. Preparation is fine, but there's never any need for you to deploy clever strategies. The game is ALL about having a good arsenal of choices up your sleeve and, when you do, you're good to go, and then you need to be either very callous or purposefully challenging yourself while playing in order to get into a situation that requires mental resourcefulness and wit. I will admit, I checked some of the mechanical differences between the original and remake versions, and it seems like they reduced the HP of enemies and bosses quite a bit, and generally went to great lengths to streamline the gameplay and make it more in tune with the next few games in the series (as far I could tell from the party itself, Kyuuyaku seems to have taken the inner workings from Megami Tensei II and applied it retroactively to the first game as well to make it more consistent, but I'm not 100% sure). Maybe this means that the original is more nerve-wracking and you need to level up much more, but I doubt it really becomes more strategy-based and oriented towards exploiting the mechanics, like the style future franchise titles would strive to achieve. As far as I can tell, the abilities remain the same, only the stats change, so it's likely more of a formula redesign than any major gameplay departure. If it is though, I apologize, and rectify my statements regarding battle mechanics boredom as far as the original version is concerned.

But hey, regardless of version, the whole demon system is pretty cool. I don't remember the characters doing it much in the books, I believe Nakajima only had Cerberus and that was it, so there's a nice, original expansion of the novels'... mechanics (?) on display here. I don't think the demon conversation, recruitment and fusion systems need any introduction, but I will say that up until Shin Megami Tensei II, the seventh overall game in the franchise, for some odd reason all demons were limited to three abilities/spells (later three spells and a few abilities), so they were not very versatile. Furthermore, magic and abilities generally sucked for the most part in early MegaTen, and in this game, outside of Hanmahan, group healing and the occasional kaja spell, all you really want is a good punching bag to take the heat off of Nakajima and Yumiko.

Also, maybe it's just in the remake, but there are quite a few demons that are exclusive to the player through demon fusion. This begins happening from pretty much the start of the game, making them sort of unique all the way through and making it sort of cool for the player to go around with these demons that you can't see anywhere else and who are usually more powerful than the enemy demons in the area. Still, however, the limited abilities and limited usefulness of said abilities make things a bit boring and makes the demons sort of interchangeable for the most part, especially considering you can't even see them in battle. But hey, in 1987 I'm sure the vast array of options alone would have been pretty impressive and, considering the plethora of real-life inspiration that was put into the demons' designs, it's kind of still impressive today, really.

Enemies do have a few tricks of their own up their sleeve, too, though, and they usually fall into the "early RPG unfairness" spectrum quite nicely, such as being able to cast death spells when the game's programming is such that you get a game over if the 2 (out of 6) human party members die, even if all your demons are still alive (naturally the final boss can use a pretty accurate version of this move), or the loathsome "smiles and laughs" attack that permanently drains an experience level from a human party member if it hits, making you have to work your way back up again without even the mercy of having the enemy that sucked your level give a massive hoard of EXP when defeated. Or the mercy of adjusting the experience table (if you're level 41 and get a level sucked from you, now you're level 40 but you still need enough experience for level 42 to get back to level 41). It's basically a reset button.

The original version also had some major frustration in the fact that there was, like DQ and so many others of its time, no save feature. You had to visit a guy near the start of the game to get a password or use a late game spell from the girl. There was also no auto-mapping feature (though the mapper/mappara spell did exist, in the old MegaTen-style 3x5 grid), so you just had to create maps yourself, I guess, which is kind of like wizardry and bard's tale and such, and kind of interesting. Though, for a game that isn't all that stimulating otherwise, it's good that in the remake you don't also have to go get a sheet of graph paper to keep track of where you've been. I'm torn on whether the original's extra doses of hardcore game design are better or worse than the remake's streamlining, but it seems to me like the hardcoreness, probably caused by memory limitations and such, served more like an arbitrary layer of confusion placed over a game that didn't really have a juicy core, while the remake's alleviation of it brought about the black spots a bit more into the limelight... It's hard to make up my mind.

The more standard things to talk about in a review are usually average-to-enjoyable here. The environment graphics are pretty good for their time in the original version, and the remake has some good stuff in the late-game, but has a tendency to make the ground a fake-looking gradient that feels artificial and standoffish. Demon designs are always a treat in MegaTen and I wouldn't say this game is an exception, but I think the original designs look kind of goofy for the most part, while the remake uses the scaled-down style of SMT II and SMT If... instead of the better-looking, more detailed style of SMT I, so that's somewhat disappointing. The music is alright, nothing special, but it starts with really cheery, upbeat tunes that go against the ambiance, especially in the remake where they added a dark-ish prologue with more fitting, atmospheric music. The sheer length of each individual section of the dungeon means the tracks will start to get repetitive at some point, and they have a repetitive nature on their own, but they're not bad. I like the bass in Valhalla Corridor. I also like the last two areas' music. Bien's track sucks, though.

Either way, it surely isn't a great game. Nor does it have to be one, honestly. It's a 1987, sort of experimental game that toyed around with the concept of a dungeon crawler in a very japanese setting coming from a very risqué source. It has its merits in creativity, sorely marred by technical limitations and overly emphasizing on its subpar dungeon crawling gameplay, extending it to the point where it overstays its welcome quite a bit. The devs were wise in keeping the plot connections to its immediate sequel small (and it is fascinating, how different it is from all others in the franchise) because Megami Tensei 1 doesn't stand the test of time.

But again, such a thing shouldn't be expected from a late eighties, obscure weird little game, and for what it's worth, like I said about Dragon Quest, it served as a base, though in my opinion a rockier one, with which to found gameplay mechanics that would be expanded upon and embellished in future titles. I'd give it a 4 out of 10, perhaps an honorary extra half-point if the original version's gameplay is a tad more stimulating, but really it's hard to even give games like this a score. They're a product of the times, and they appeal to sensibilities of the times. Gamer mentalities, even within the genre, have moved past it, but it stays here as a testament to the growth of the series. Going into it, you're likely very aware of its shortcomings already, and whether you'd like it or not is, I think, even more independent of whatever mess of words I'd be able to string together like this than usual.

[tatertotthethot]

PIZZA SUNDAYS~ JIMIN X READER!

Request (anon): Hi! Can I request a fluffy smut with tattooed Jimin, pleeease. I love your writings btw<3

— Dear anon, I hope you’re okay with “fluffy smut” becoming dominant and explicit smut cuz I’m a wild bitch by nature and everything has to be angsty and 1000x extra like me :)

Warnings: EX-GANGBANGER JIMIN FOR FLARE; dirty talk, possessive/dom themes, mentions of unwanted weight gain, lotsss if cursing and graphic oral.

(Also, PLEASE DONT COME FOR ME ABOUT THERE NOT BEING A “READ MORE” LINK, I SPENT LIKE AN HOUR TRYING DIFFERENT WAYS TO DO IT BUT IT DOESNT WORK ON A PHONE AT ALL AND I DONT OWN A LAPTOP, SORRY!!)

(Image below belongs to original editor. And requests are open!)

~*~*~*~*~

You knew prior to stepping on the scale in the bathroom that you weren’t going to like the results, being as your strict routine of nutritious meals and daily walks have recently transformed into consistent stress and persistent binge-eating as college finals had taken over your life.

And now that they were over, and you successfully passed everything to your satisfaction, you were now having to repair the damage it had on your mental and physical health. And much to your horror, you stepped up on the scales only to discover that you gained a whopping 15 pounds within the last few months.

This was a big fucking deal to you; Self-imagine was something that you’ve been steadily reconstructing with the new-found confidence and motivation that came with having someone as athletic and praise-worthy as Jimin at your side. But as of late, your time apart between his work schedule and your schooling has deprived the two of you from spending much time together, thus resulting in a lack of the compliments that you usually thrive on.

But... maybe you were mistaken? Maybe the real reason behind him not feeding you his admiration is because, well... look at you.

Your stomach dipped in dread as you quickly pulled you shirt off and turned to the mirror, where you then began scrutinizing every ounce of puginess that overlapped the hem line of your elastic gym-shorts. You ran your hands down your thickening sides and mushed all the fat together around your belly-button, kneading it as if it was raw dough. You then glanced up at your face, and your eyes practically shot out of their sockets as you began prodding at the puffiness in your cheeks and jawline, and pinching the loose skin and stretching it back until you looked around your neck. It was like you suddenly had on a fat suit and just now realized that it wasn’t coming off.

What the fuck is happening to me? You let out a shaky breath as you gave yourself another one-over, becoming more and more disgusted with the girl in the mirror. The only thing that snapped you out of your self-loathing trance was when you heard Jimin’s voice approaching the door, making you panic for cover.

“Hey, kitten? What kind of pizza do you want?—“ the door suddenly opened, revealing your picture-perfect boyfriend on the other side of it. Luckily, his eyes were focused on the phone in his hand. “They have a two-for-one deal at Pizza Hut, you get a free cheese pizza with the purchase of a large surpreme.”

“That’s Okay, I don’t want any,” You quickly dismissed, turning away from him as you hastily flipped your shirt back inside-out and pulled it over your head, cringing at the thought of him catching sight of the rolls beneath your bra.

You could hear the confusion in his voice as he looked up at you, “What, why? We always have pizza on Sundays, that’s why we get the automatic-texts from them for Sunday-deals.”

“I’m just not in the mood for pizza.. You can still order one for yourself, though. Maybe get me a salad?” you played off with a casual facade, but he quickly caught on to something not being right when he noticed you nervously undoing the already perfectly-placed bun that was sitting on top of your head, only to readjust it again. That was something you always do to advert your attention away from someone when you’re really hiding something. But then he spotted the scale on the floor beside your feet— which was normally pushed back in the corner of the bathroom— and pocketed his phone as he officially came to the conclusion that bullshit was definitely afoot.

With his natural interrogation coming into play, he crossed the art-covered masterpieces he has for arms over his black, T-shirt covered chest, and leaned against the door frame as he watched you, eyes now coated in suspicion and face now wiped clean of anything less than total seriousness.

“...so, let me get this straight; You want me to order you a salad, from Pizza Hut,” He flatly reiterated, voice full-on lacking any conviction as he gouged your reaction. “Since when have you ever traded a pizza up for a fucking salad, (Y/N)?”

“What are you trying to say?” You said with sudden defense, cutting a sharp look over at him. But once you took in the unamused, knowing look on face, you quickly diverted your eyes to the sink, where you then turned the faucet on and began splashing your face.

Another distraction.

“Cut the shit, jagiya. You just weighed yourself, didn’t you?”

With your eyes still closed from the access water, you pumped the exfoliation soap next to the sink into your palm and quickly rubbed your hands together before massaging it into your face.

“Yeah, So?”

“I’m guessing that has something to do with your sudden lack of interest in our traditional Sunday meal,” he rhetorically concluded, voice dripping with sarcasm as he straightened his stance and walked over to the scale. With his arms still crossed, he nosily peered down at the numbers still displayed across the screen, from where you forgot to reset it from the instant panic that took over your actions. His face flattened even more at the uneventful discovery. “Seriously, (Y/N), what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, Jimin. I just..” You sighed in frustration, turning the sink off and patting your face dry with a nearby hand towel, purposely using the few seconds of hiding to take control over the embarrassment taking over your features. You then lowered it and caught him standing directly behind you in the mirror with a stern look on his face, and sighed again as you quickly folded under the hopeless pressure. “I gained ten pounds.”

Your shoulders sagged in discomfort as you braced yourself for a reaction, but he just simply blinked at you unaffectedly, as if he was still awaiting to hear the problem.

You continued to stare at each other for a few more seconds, and when he finally realized that that was all you had to say, his eyebrows rose impatiently. “That’s it..?”

“What do you mean, that’s it? I’ve fallen off track, Jimin. Don’t act like you don’t see a difference,” you snapped, now mirroring his arm-crossed stature in a more vulnerable, sulking manner. “I thought it was the cold-water setting on the washing machine shrinking all my clothes, but no. Nothing fits the same anymore because I’m a beached-fucking-whale.”

“Shut up— the only reason your jeans have gotten tighter is because your ass is filling out even more, which is something I unapologetically take full responsibility in causing.”

“No, everything has gotten bigger— my gut, my face, everything. And I know I’m not pregnant because I just had my period, so it’s from me becoming a full-blown fatass in general.”

You sniffed at the burning sensation that came to your sinuses at the spike of anger, but you were more emotionally depressed than anything. You adverted your eyes again and stubbornly tightened your arms over your stomach, which quickly caused his edge to deteriorate a bit as he seen just how heavy this was weighing down on you. It was a shame, really; if only you could truly see yourself the way sees you— a unique blend of flawless beauty.

He exhaled a deep, audible sigh through his nose before lowering his arms around your lower waist, to which he then pulled you back against him and placed a series of endearing kisses along the side of your pouting cheeks.

“I told you this the day I first met you, and I’ll say it now until I’m blue in the fucking face— you are the prettiest damn thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on, (Y/N). Me being in love with you doesn’t effect that fact, nor does a little extra weight do anything to change it. And you wanna know why?” He began, gently turning you around by the hips before cradling the sides of your face, even though your eyes were still casted downward. “People like you don’t have to worry about shit like that, because there is no such thing as a bad look for someone so motherfucking pretty. It’s effortless, God-given gift. You doubting that is an insult.”

You let out a quiet laugh through your nose as you finally met his eyes, fully displaying the self-pity and gratitude in which you felt. “You’re so good to me.”

“Apparently not good enough if you’re still struggling with your self image,” He countered, then took you by surprise as he suddenly ducked down and snatched your gym shorts down to your ankles, then gripped your hips and hoisted you up on the counter without the slightest of warning.

“You see this?” He began, gripping your ass with purposeful aggression that caused you to giddily squeal out at the tenderness. “This is where all that pizza and candy bars go, and I fucking love that because it jiggles when you walk now; and that’s literally my biggest motivation to not say fuck it and go back to selling dope. Because if I get locked up again, that leaves this ass unprotected and up for grabs and I’m not fucking having that, sweety.”

Your head fell back as you openly howled out in laughter, loving his crude sense of humor.

“And these little stretch marks here,” he continued, snatching the hem of your panties down to mid thigh and revealing the neutral-colored stripes expanding along the fullness of your hips. “Holy fuck, they’re my second-biggest turn-on. I didn’t even know I had a kink for shit like this until I saw these badboys for the first time. And that’s why I’m always running my hands across them, because I like feeling the patterns of them. Especially when you’re riding me— oh my god, mm.”

The blush spread across your face like a wild-fire as he aggressively hummed in approval, and demonstrated the very action by greedily palming your hips and tracing his fingers along the thin lines.

“So I’ll say it again; there’s literally nothing ugly about you. The only flaw you really have is your self doubt, but I know you can’t help that and it’s fine. But I’m just telling you (Y/N), I fucking love everything about you. And I swear on everything, I mean it.”

You nodded in acceptance as you soaked in all his sincerity, unable to help the goofy grin gracing your lips as you then leaned your forehead against his chest and rubbed at his forearms, relinquishing in the feel of the veins protruding beneath his skin.

“I love you, Jimin.”

You felt his lips settle on the top of your head as he brought one hand up to rub the back of your neck, his heart racing at those precious words.

“I love you too, Jagiya.”

A dark thought then involuntarily crossed his mind as he noticed that you have yet to pull your panties back up, and it didn’t take long before that one hand still on your thigh crept between your legs and cupped your warm sex.

“I’m just gonna have to put more effort in making you feel good in your own skin.”

You gasped in a breath and gripped his wrist as his fingers teasingly swiped at your clit, him knowing that’s your go-to starter spot and not showing no sort of apprehension as he began full on palming your sensitive flesh, a possessive man by nature. The fingers that was just drawing soothing circles at the back of your neck soon entangled themselves into the back of your hair and pulled your head back, instantly wrenching the submissive out in you as you caught sight of his dominant glare.

“Now, tell me, jagiya: who does your pretty little ass belong to?”

You whimpered out at the intense arrousal that surfaced when he dipped his finger into your wet entrance and used the moisture to glide back up and tentavely roll your clit, making it instantly swell in response to the friction.

“You,” You spluttered out, trying not to squirm from the drastic spike in pleasure. “It belongs to you.”

Your bud continued to swell and twitch against the rough padding of his finger tip, not taking long at all to bring out your sex-crazed demons, and your doe-eyed and gaped-mouth awing soon got the best of him as well, and he lowered his head and lustfully sucked at your pouty lips, briefly warming you up before skillfully claiming your mouth with his tongue.

You didn’t hold back a single moan, you openly voiced your eager approval as he aggressively French-kissed you into oblivion, all the while vigorously massaging your puffy clit. And once he broke away, you barely had time to react before he snatched your panties clear off your legs, boy giving you any time to prepare yourself before he then grabbed you beneath the knees and yanked your ass to the edge of the counter. You tried to stay calm as he did all this, but when he dropped to his own knees and parted your legs so wide that not an inch of your pussy was hidden from his view, you almost cried out at the anticipation.

Because: Jimin may be an absolute God when it comes to fucking, but another thing he also knows how to do better than any other guy you’ve ever been with, is how to properly you out to the point of insanity.

And holy shit, it’s been a while. Something you didn’t realize how much you needed it up into this very moment.

“Don’t hold back on me, now— this is just pregame for what’s to come. As soon as you feel like cumming, do it. Because I need you still up and running for what’s to come after this,” he told told, his own eagerness coming to a tie with the amount of authority in his voice, and you obediently nodded as you gripped the edge of the counter, readying yourself.

“Yes sir.”

That was all it took; the wicked smile that appeared on his face widened as he stuck his tongue all the way out and flattened it over your vulnerable entrance, lapping you up from top to bottom like the greedy bastard he was, causing you to mewl out at the earth-shatter sensation of the silky wet surface lathering up needy flesh. He then craned your thighs all the way back until your shoulder blades hit the mirror and your knees were on both side of your chest, your pussy now practically presented to him on a platter as he then pressed his mouth past your lips and enclosed it around your prominent clit. He then caused every muscle in his vaginal region to clench and quake as he loudly began slurping at the tender area, passionately rolling his tongue and and coaxing it out with purposeful, yet very precise circles.

All the while, you were hitting notes higher than Miriah Carey at this point as words too shameful for acknowledgement poured from your hypnotized lips, your fingers latched into his jet-black hair as you praised him. Every stroke of his tongue was becoming more and more surreal as him sucking was causing the nerves in your clit to become more and more sensitive to his merciless infliction, and it only took about two minutes max before the tension building with your cored bursted under the pressure, causing an overwhelming, euphoric feeling to recochede out and practically electrify the path of his tongue as every nerve ending pulsed at the mind-numbing orgasm.

And oddly enough, once the high settled down and Jimin rose to his feet, you inhaled what was probably the freshest breath of air you’ve had in days, and every ounce of depression had diminished completely from your head. All you could do was stare st your smug-ass boyfriend in total awe as he slyly wiped at his lips and shot you a grin filthier than the Devil himself.

“My turn,” was all he said.

[t-baba]

10 Best White Label Branding Plugins for WordPress

What is White Label Branding?

Your local supermarket chain has its own supermarket brand products it offers to its customers. These supermarket brand products are cheaper compared to the same product sold under a fancy brand name. Does this mean that the supermarket manufactures its own products? 

Not at all. The products are manufactured by third parties contracted by the supermarket chain to produce products under the supermarket brand name. The supermarket chain gives an impression that it has manufactured the products. 

This is called white label branding. It is a worldwide phenomena. And it is not limited to supermarket chains. All industries and sectors practice it. 

Think of big electronic manufacturers and retailers of your favorite desktops, laptops, mobile phones and so on. They too put their brands, logos, and serial numbers on white label products. 

White label branding is not restricted to physical products. It is widely practiced in digital products too.  

In this article II will explain how white label branding works in WordPress then I will explore some white label branding plugins for WordPress that are available on Code Canyon. 

WordPress sites can have a cookie cutter appearance recognizable by many. The content management side especially. You can customize the appearance of the back-end to reflect your clients’ brands by using white label branding plugins.

How Does White Label Branding Work for WordPress? 

Here is how white label branding works for digital products: you buy white label digital products and services, put your brand name on them, and resell them as your own. 

But white label branding for WordPress works differently. 

How White Label Branding Works for WordPress Developers

As a developer you have many clients. This means you have to create their websites—to reflect their unique brands. Coding a new WordPress website from scratch every time you have a new project is costly both in time and money. 

Turnkey WordPress websites offer a simple solution. You can use the same website template—both front-end and back-end—for different clients. You only need to customize the website to reflect specific identity of each client.

This involves adding the brand name, logo, and specific graphics and content that identify and differentiate each clients. It means removing standard logo, graphics and information that comes with the WordPress and personalizing the website with clients’ content. 

Most of the time what customers see when they visit a website is the front-end. This is the public image that represents the company. 

But there is more to a website than the front-end. There is the back-end with the dashboard that customers don’t get to see. 

People who run the website use the back-end every day. They want to manage their own content, inventory, images and so on. They do this using the dashboard. Every time they log in to the back-end they want to see their brand reflected and not the cookie cutter WordPress logo and messages.

Using White Label Branding Can Help Your Reputation as a Developer

Imagine every time clients log into the back-end they are greeted by the same standard WordPress dashboard message and WordPress logo. They wonder why am I not greeted by my own brand name? My own logo? My own messaging? 

This is where using turnkey websites can reflect badly on you to your customers and ruin your reputation. If don’t do it right your clients will end up feeling you took them for their money and gave them a standard template you use with every client.

Full customization of both the front-end and the back-end of the WordPress website is important because it is a total reflection of the client’s business not only for their customers who only see the front-end but also for the business owners and employees who have to work with back-end tools. This kind of user experience and satisfaction reflects well on you as a developer. 

How White Label Branding is Done

White label branding can be done manually or by using plugins. 

The manual process involves making changes to your WordPress theme's PHP code by inserting snippets of code to perform the following tasks:

replacing WordPress logos with the client’s logo

replacing standard login images with client’s image

replacing the header

customizing the admin menu

replacing footer text like Powered by WordPress with your own wording 

If you have no coding knowledge or little coding experience then manually white labeling is overwhelming. Same applies to the experienced developer pressed for time. 

Of course, you don’t have to do all that manually. There are plugins you can use to do white labeling. 

What Do White Label Branding Plugins Do? 

They give you the ability to control and transform the appearance the back-end. 

They help you customize the back-end of your WordPress without coding. 

They come with extensive documentation that helps you do the customization by yourself. 

You can completely transform the look of the dashboard, customize the appearance of the admin menu, logo, header, the width of the logo, the footer logo, and the login form, as well as replace standard WordPress messages with customized messages that reflect clients’ brands. 

White Label Branding Plugins on CodeCanyon

On CodeCanyon you will find white label branding plugins that will help you customize your clients’ WordPress backend to reflect their brands. 

1. White Label Branding for Multisite

White Label Branding for Multisite lets you control the branding of the main site and all sub-sites in a network of websites powered by WordPress Multisite. 

It also allows you to:

give each sub-site the ability to do their own branding and customize their menus for the editor role 

customize the menus and logos on each sub-site in your WordPress Multisite Network

replace the WordPress logo from the log-in screen and dashboard with your own identity or even your client’s 

add custom dashboard meta box viewable only to editors or all users with your own welcome message or help

User bruceakinson says:

Amazing features, worked perfectly for what I needed it to do.

2. White Label Branding for WordPress (Single Site)

With the White Label Branding plugin you have the ultimate tool for customizing the WordPress admin and login screen.

It allows you to take full control over branding in the WordPress admin by:

customizing your login screen, menus and logos

changing the color scheme of the entire admin setion 

creating your own advanced login templates

creating new user roles and assign capabilities 

Not only that but, you can decide who has access to what features by hiding elements for other administrators. 

You can even create a fake administrator account! This is useful if you want to give your clients “admin” access, but still limit what they have access to. The real administrator will also be hidden from the users list. This way a client with the “fake” administrator account will never know that they don’t have full access to all features.

Usery kops says

The ultimate white label tool - fantastic.

3. White Label Login for WordPress

White Label Login makes it easy to customize the default WordPress login.  

It provides the following UI styles for login:

slide login

push login

modal login

In addition you can:

customize e-mails for registration and reset password

customize login and logout redirects by user role

insert dynamic login and logout links in the WordPress menu

insert dynamic buttons in your content with shortcodes

rewrite rules for wp-admin.php and wp-login.php

create social login support for logins using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin and Microsoft Live

Also included in its list of dynamic features is a visual CSS editor for customizing colors and fonts for each screen. The plugin supports 600+ Google Fonts.

User by naftas says:

Very flexible plugin. Gives very good possibilities for the website developer for fine tuning of all login features. 

4. WPAlter

WPAlter completely changes the style of the WordPress admin panel to your desired color theme.

Using this plugin in you can:

remove WordPress texts and logo

create custom login themes and add a custom logo for login and admin pages

hide, rename and re-arrange admin menu items.

hide admin menu items based on user roles

You can also white label emails.

WPAlter is tested for compatibility with popular plugins: Visual Composer, WP Super cache, WP Total cache, Contact form 7, WooCommerce.

User WPBlueLabel has this to say:

Great plugin. Allows tons of customisation that really enhances the WordPress Dashboard experience. Thanks a lot.

5. Material Admin

This multisite-compatible white label branding WordPress theme comes with:

100 elegant themes and gives you an option to create your own custom theme 

20+ custom dashboard widgets for site and visitor statistics

LTR and RTL modes so can be used for any language

In terms of white label branding of the WordPress back-end you can easily: 

rearrange menu and submenu items

change menu icons

enable or disable menu and submenu items

It also comes with a fully customizable login screen. 

User thesourcep says.

Works awesome straight out of the box. Great default layouts and options and support is second to none. Awesome job—thank you!

6. Legacy Admin

Legacy Admin is an advanced, feature-rich white label WordPress admin theme.

It comes with the following:

20 elegant themes fully customizable

fully customizable beautiful login screen theme

admin menu management 

Here is what Legacy Admin allows you to do in terms of white label branding:

customize admin top bar (all links and CSS Styles)

customize footer

customize login section 

customize admin look and feel to represent your branding needs

customize the admin menu

add a custom logo and favicon for the admin panel

It is translation-compatible with RTL and LTR modes that can be used to support any language. 

Finally, Legacy Admin is also multisite-compatible so it’s easy to install and ready to use on a multisite network.

Check out the demo and see why user Spac3Rat says:

Absolutely amazing. It transforms the WordPress admin drastically, making it pop. Love it.

7. Slate Pro

Say goodbye to the run-of-the-mill WordPress. With Slate Pro:

you can reimagine WordPress with a clean and simplified design 

change or remove all WordPress branding 

custom brand clients’ admins with custom colors and a custom login screen

Your clients don’t even have to know that you’re using WordPress! Also Slate Pro is multisite-compatible so you can control the look of all sub-sites.

User  ATingle says:

An A1 plugin, oozes class—very, very impressed. Major props to the designers.

8. WPShapere

WPShapere is a very popular back-end customization plugin on CodeCanyon. It’s a very light plugin, easy to install, and easy to customize. 

Here is what you can do with this powerful plugin: 

remove the WordPress logo from the admin bar

upload your own logo to login page and on admin bar

customize login page design

customize the admin theme with 16 in-built themes to kick start your project

remove the WordPress default dashboard widgets

add your own content widgets and RSS widgets

customize admin bar links

add your custom logo, text content or links on the footer

create user access restrictions 

User ChazzLayne says: 

The perfect back-end customization suite, it's the missing piece that WordPress should have given developers from the start!

9. Ultra Admin

Ultra Admin is a combination theme and white label branding plugin that helps you design a WordPress site for your clients with your own company branding. 

It comes with 30 built in theme templates. You can customize the admin menu, top bar, buttons, content boxes, typography, forms, text and background colors, logo and so on.  

White Label Branding features will help you transform the back-end by:

rearranging menu and submenu items

changing menu icons

controlling top bar links

customizing footer

setting plugin access permissions 

customing the login page 

User Eight7Teen says

This is by far the most full-featured WP admin white label plugin available. It is incredibly well built and the developer seems eager to solve any issues you may run into. Definitely recommend!

Bonus

Here's one more plugin that isn't specifically a white label branding plugin, but could be useful for any white label branding project. 

Menu By User Role 

Menu by User Role gives you complete control over the menus in your WordPress powered website. You have the ability to:

create public menu

create a menu for logged-in users

create a separate menu for each user role defined in your website

In addition you can create a custom navigation menu, which can be used instead of thw default menu. In order to use this feature it must be registered in the theme’s functions.php file.

You can easily add pages, posts, categories and custom links to the menu. And you can even create multi-level menus with just a few clicks and organize them by drag and drop.

This plugin can be used together with White Label Branding for WordPress.

User  deezeeweb says

Works really well - with every theme and user plugin I've used.

Conclusion

These are some white label branding plugins that caught my eye. You can find more plugins on CodeCanyon.  

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by Lorca Lokassa Sa via Envato Tuts+ Code https://ift.tt/2BWoyU8

[skeletorific]

Repercussions-Horrortale

Just in time for @disasterbisexual ‘s Horrortober, I present to you another gruesome commission from @frankpanioncube who has been so so patient with me.

Fair warning guys, this is going under a cut, not only because its a bit on the long side but because its one of the more graphic things I’ve ever written for this blog. Definitely a stretch for my writing muscles, though I’m happy with how it turned out!

If you’re interested in commissioning me, feel free to DM me!

Trigger Warning: Blood, gore, cannibalism, graphic depictions of violence, descriptions of a panic attack, descriptions of disassociation.  

It's a dark autumn night. The kind that makes his brother nervous but ultimately makes Axe feel...calm. Yeah, he can’t see what waits in the shadows. But then again, whatever waits in the shadows can’t see him either.

“WELL, I THINK THAT WENT BETTER TH-THAN LAST TIME.” Cr-....No, Papyrus said. He fucking hated that nickname. A cruel dig from Rus that the others had picked up over time. He couldn’t tell whether it bothered Paps or not, frankly, he was just so happy to feel included. That they had bothered to name him all.

“yeah. Sure Paps” He said, looking over his shoulder and backing out of the driveway. They had just finished up dinner at the Swaps. He was pretty sure Blue had only bothered to include them because Paps was on the groupchat where they all made plans. Regardless, his brother had been too excited and Axe wasn’t much for turning down free food lately.

“DO YOU TH-THINK THEY REALLY LIKED THE CASSEROLE?” Papyrus said. There was a half-empty dish in his lap. “THEY D-DIDN’T SEEM TO TOUCH IT MUCH.”

“....I’m sure they did bro.” He said quietly, pulling onto the highway. “You’re a good cook. Even Edge admitted it, remember?”

That seemed to perk him up a bit, but Axe could still tell it was bothering him. His fingers picked at the sleeve of his sweater, tugging the stitches in a way that would break them if he wasn’t more careful.

Still, least it got him off picking the cracks in his bones.

“....I EVEN MADE SURE IT WAS VEGETARIAN...”

It came out so softly that Axe wasn’t sure if he meant to say it out loud.

The shorter skeleton’s grip on the steering wheel tightened and he felt his teeth grind against each other.

He hated them so much.

He hated the way....the fucking way they looked at them. Especially the two who had decided they had the sole right to their proper names. But the Fell and Swapfell brothers had no leg to stand on either.

They judged them. They looked at them as the representation of how far any of them could fall. Like they were the worst things could get.

And yeah. Maybe to an extent they were right. But when were they gonna get their heads out of their asses and realize that it wasn’t like they’d had a choice?

As far as Axe was concerned none of them had really known how bad things could get Underground. The sob story about resets was more than familiar to him. After all, he’d been screwed over by the Anomaly but good. And when he heard stories about the Fell timeline all he could do was laugh. Because anything would have been preferable to the hunger. The gnawing feeling that became the center of their existence.

Had any of them ever had to watch as their brother came home with more and more injuries that he refused to explain? Watch him recoil from touch and cry out apologies in his sleep? Had any of them had to be betrayed by someone who was once a close friend? Had any of them had to make a choice for everyone?

Make that....that one horrible, vomitous, necessary choice that changed everything?

He still remembered the look on Papyrus’ face once he found out what he’d been putting the others up to. And he still remembered the way he cried after Axe finally fessed up that it wasn’t water sausages he’d been bringing home.

Maybe he’d been an idiot for thinking that....that the Surface would ever understand. He’d known, when Aliza finally freed them, that it would be tough. That many of them were far too shattered to ever reintegrate to peaceful society ever again. But....maybe he’d hoped there’d be compassion. For what they all went through.

They were the victims.

But as far as any humans were concerned, they should have laid down and died happily rather than harm one of them.

“A-ARE THOSE PEOPLE?”

“What?” he said, jerked out of his reverie. How long had they been driving? He was used to losing time, but it was always a guessing game how much.

“THERE! DOWN BY THE STOP SIGN!” Crooks pointed. “WHY AREN’T THEY IN THEIR C-CAR, IT'S LATE!”

Axe peered through the darkness, they were still a ways off. Sure enough, two humans. One was leaning against the car, while the other had his arm out toward the road. Thumb out.

“huh. Hitchhikers.”

“SHOULD WE H-HELP THEM?”

.......

He was...planning on doing this later. But on a night like tonight, when he was already furious, it felt like some kind of sign...before he let himself overthink it he pulled over.

Papyrus rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “A-ARE YOU ALRIGHT”

Both of them jumped. The woman screamed a little. And Axe knew then he’d chosen right.

Although to be fair, a skeleton popping out of a car while you’re hitchhiking on a lonely road did seem like a campfire story setup.

“U-uh....” The guy recovered faster, running a hand through his hair. “....ran out of gas. We don’t live in the area, and...well, I was gonna start walking. Try to find some gas.”

“There’s not a gas station on this stretch for a few miles.” Axe said shortly. “anythin you do find’ll be closed by the time you get there.”

The man looked slightly crestfallen. The girl was rubbing her arms, looking between them and her phone with no small amount of anxiety.

“D-DO YOU HAVE SOMEONE YOU CAN CALL?”

“No....”

“we’re roadtripping” The woman finally spoke. “This was supposed to be a drive-by town.”

There was a slight glint to Axe’s eyelight.

“....we’ll take you to the next station.”

The couple looked surprised. Papyrus did too, turning to face him.

“...I mean...are you sure?” The man said. “I mean, I can pay you for the trouble, but we don’t want to imp-”

“It’ll be fine.” Axe looked him dead in the eyes. “ ‘less you’re too scared to get in the car with a couple of monsters.”

“S-SANS!” Papyrus chastised. The couple looked immediately uncomfortable. Axe didn’t care. He didn’t break his stare, waiting to see what they’re response would be.

The man looked back at the woman, who seemed to gather her resolve before climbing into the backseat. He followed her.

“Thank you.” The woman said, nodding to Axe. He thought he caught thin notes of defiance in her tone. See? Not a bigot.

Sure.

“I-I’M PAPYRUS AND THIS IS M-MY BROTHER, SANS.”

“Uh...I’m Chase.” He said, buckling his seatbelt.

“Mae.”

“IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU!” He thrust his hand enthusiastically into the backseat.

They both recoiled. Axe saw it in the rearview mirror. Still, they shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you too,” Mae said.

He started the car back up and pulled onto the road.

“S-SO, WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” His brother was smiling wide. Despite the circumstances, he was always enthused to find new people. Especially ones that didn’t run away before he got a word in.

“A couple states over.” He said.

“ARE YOU D-DRIVING HOME, OR LEAVING IT?” “Leaving. Going down to the coast for a few days.”

“O-OH! DO YOU HAVE FAMILY DOWN THERE?”

“No....”

“We both don’t have much in the way of a family,” Mae said. “It's an anniversary thing”

“OH, I-I’M SORRY, I-”

“Its fine”

Axe sat quietly while they continued to chat. The two in the backseat were clearly a little uncomfortable but his brother had a way of putting people at ease. It was almost scary.

Not much family, huh?

.....

Did he want to tell Papyrus?

Indicate to him maybe what was about to happen?

Even he wasn’t sure

He never was anymore.

His brain and body seemed to communicate, but it was disjointed and reactive. One responding to the other.

Body moves. Brain catches up

Mind races. Body slows to wait for it to burn out.

Fingers pick at a hole. Brain eventually remembers it's getting too big and it hurts.

Hands covered in blood.

Mind wonders where it came from.

Remembers. Remembers. Remembers-

“ever been this close to Ebbot?” He abruptly cut in, startling them both.

“...no”

“So not a lot of monsters”

“One or two coworkers...online” Chase said weakly.

“M-MOST OF US DON’T STRAY FAR FROM THE MOUNTAIN.”

They were silent.

“That’s true bro,” Axe said. His tone deceptively light. “Ya know why that is?”

“Listen, buddy-”

“Because the other cities have made pretty damn clear they don’t want any dirty fuckin cannibals in their-”

“SANS! ENOUGH!”

“neither of us had anything to do with that!” Mae said. He could see anger flaring in her eyes.

“Where are you from.”

“...Duthan”

He laughed hoarsely. Bitterly. “Mean the one with the mayor that said he literally wouldn’t allow us within city limits?”

At this point Crooks had fallen silent. Just watching it like a trainwreck right before his eyes. Couldn’t look away but couldn’t stop it either.

“We didn’t vote for him-”

“Why’d you even pick us up if you hate humans so much.” Mae said, a nasty edge to her voice. And maybe Axe couldn’t blame her. Deep down he knew he was being a provoking ass. He just didn’t care. And every word they said in weak defense was only adding fuel to his fire. “All of us are just bigots by default, huh?”

“Nah. Most of you? Just lazy.” He turned off the main road onto a gravel one. Papyrus raised a brow but Axe gave him a meaningful look that silenced him. At this point the taller skeleton was starting to retreat inward, he could see it by the look in his eyes. He hated fighting, hated raised voices and the stress of conflicts he could do nothing to stop. The thought gave him a pang of guilt, but he’d made his bed.

Time to lie in it.

“Lazy?! I’ll have you know I vote in every election, and it certainly wasn’t for him-”

“Yeah, and what’d you do besides that, huh? Try to help out any of the local monsters? Protest? Do anything but pull a lever and make a social media post that 12 of your friends liked?”

“People are scared of you all!” She said. Chase looked freaked out but she was picking up a head of steam. “You ate people! And you haven’t given any of them enough time to get over that, its natural they’d be anxious! You should be gra-”....her voice died out.

Maybe he imagined it. He probably did. But there was a noise from the back of his mind.

Like thin ice that had just been cracked.

“......I....”

“-are we close to the gas station” chase cut across it, desperate for any other conversation topic. “This road seems....kind of abandoned.”

“We’re here.”

Axe pulled up in front of a log cabin. Windows darkened. The forest was....well, not still. Forest’s never were. They were teeming with life, even at night time. But they were a long ways away from everything that really mattered.

Part of what he loved about the place.

His head was starting to feel echoey. Like stimulation was coming in from a thousand miles away. Sounds didn’t quite translate until a moment after the fact. When he turned off the car his hand felt like it was pushing through water. Like skimming your fingers over a puddle.

He got out of the car.

“....this isn’t a gas station.” Mae said.

His tone wasn’t flat. It never was. Somehow no matter how on auto-pilot he got his voice was always soft. “Pumps are around the back. Attendant lives here.” He crooked a finger, beckoning them to follow.

They both looked mildly nervous.

“...hey. If I hurt ya I’m just fulfillin a stereotype right? Promise, if I wanted you dead you’d be on the side of the road.”

That thought didn’t seem to appease them. But they both got out. And started to follow Axe around the side of the house.

His last glimpse of the car was Papyrus still sitting inside. Staring out ahead. For once not fidgeting, just...still.

At that moment he knew his brother had figured out what would come next.

But he at least wouldn’t intervene. Or couldn’t.

Right now he didn’t care.

That underwater feeling continued. It took him a moment to realize Mae was speaking.

“Um....listen” Mae said, voice near a whisper. Nerves maybe. “I just said something I regret. I promise you, neither of us has anti-monster sentiments. We just....we deal with a lot of scared friends. We have sympathy for it, I guess.”

Silence.

“....how were you gonna finish that sentence hon.” He said. Tone even.

“What?”

“Was it gonna be grateful?”

Was he afraid? Cold sweat. Something clammy in his soul. Guilt maybe. Exhilaration maybe. It was a lot of things that he couldn’t discern. Just watch em pass.

The moon shone through the treetops, illuminating the backyard, which was covered in leaves, a worktable....and an ax. Not that they saw that yet.

“....wh-where’s the gas?”

“Grateful for your table scraps?” The glow of his red eye seemed intensified by the darkness that shrouded all of them. The two stiffened, and he knew they felt it. The weight of their words. Their darkest thoughts. Their sins. All coming down on their shoulders.

His hand took hold of the ax.

“Grateful for the fact that you let us keep breathing? Grateful for you all allowing us to exist?”

He walked closer. Both of them seemed frozen in place. They always were.

“None of you understand what we went through. What we’re still going through. We were forced into a corner, you understand? None of us wanted this, none of us-”

.....

“I don’t need to explain shit I guess.” He sighed.

The man fell first. The ax buried in his skull with a thick, wet crunch. Axe was overwhelmed by how familiar it still felt. How it still felt like business as usual. It had been three years since his last kill. And yet, when the blood spurted out like a faucet, he didn’t even flinch as the hot spray his face. His shirt. The meat’s eyes bulged like the pressure from the Axe was squeezing them out.

He half wondered if they would pop.

Mae watched him fall. And just...stopped. Stared. It took Axe a moment to wedge the blade out of his skull. A horrible squelching noise as it rearranged the grey matter a pit before finally pulling free, blood and meat dribbling off the blade. He was still twitching but Sans knew from long experience that was just the nervous system crashing. Blood continued to gush as the jugular continued to pour blood into a cranium that could no longer use it, matting his hair into clumps and soaking the ground into mud.

He kept an eye on her as he drank in the sight. Expecting her to run. Or attack him, try to fight him off.

She did neither.

She screamed. A raw animal scream that went straight to his skull, making his vision fuzz out. And at that moment the rage overtook him. He’d killed Chase in a mechanical fashion, but the noise got to him. Like it always did. Made the world suddenly feel like it was on vibrate, everything shaky and uncomfortable and so fucking irritating-

Hah

Hah

Heh

He came to over the body, so decimated he could barely make out individual features. Her face had almost...caved in on itself, a broken mush of teeth and torn flesh and just a hint of bone. Even some hair, bangs from her face that had been caught in the pulp. One of her eyes was caught on his ax, retina barely still attached to the face.

Blood gurgled from her wounds, forming a puddle. The breath had long since left her body, and now her body was just draining its life through every hole it could find.  He’d ripped open gashes in her chest and arm. The blood drenched him now, filling his senses every which way.

He could see her lungs, sprinkled with bits of a splintered bones. Careless. The meat was exposed to the elements.

Nevermindnevermindnevermind.

....huh.

For a moment it felt-

“Y-Y-Y-OU....PROMIS-...PROMISED-”

His heart sank like lead as he heard the gasping voice behind him.

He turned.

Papyrus. Clutching the wall for any feeble support. Breath coming in chokes. He was nearly doubled over with panics, gasping for air like he was about to drown. His eyelights sputtered out. He could hear the clacking noise of every bone in his body shaking.

“B-bro....bro, please, please breath...” He walked over to him, trying to put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him, but he drew back.

“P-P-PROMISED ME....DONE...IT....” Gasp gasp gasp. Every swallow of air was palpably agonizing and tears were forming in his sockets. “WE-WERE-DONE-!”

“Bro, please listen....” He came over to him, putting a hand on the back of his skull. He was bent over enough for that. Papyrus didn't pull back this time, desperate for anything to reassure him, to give him back the air his body was rejecting. He clutched Sans’ shoulders.

“Listen to me, ok? We’ll....we’ll deal with this. Nobody has to know.”

“WH-WHY....WH-WHY DID YOU...”

“....I had too. I can’t explain it, but....” He barely glanced at the corpses. “....had to take something back, you know? Maybe....maybe if they realized keeping us like this....maybe if they lose enough they’ll understand what its like to-....”

Papyrus was silent.

“I’m sorry you saw that. But we’ll deal with this, ok?” Even Sans used to be frightened by how steady his voice could be in these situations. Like he was just built for these kinds of dark acts. “Nobody needs to know. We can...hide it. Ok?”

Slowly his eyelights flickered back in.

“There we go...”

It took about half an hour of coaxing, but eventually, Papyrus was calmed enough to straighten up. His face was still so blank, in a way that made him nervous, but at least he didn’t sound like a drowning victim now.

“S-SO....WE’LL HAVE TO HIDE THESE...”

“I can...bury them. Out back. So deep even the wolves won’t dig it up.

Both of them looked at the bodies. The smell of blood was one familiar to both of them. Tantalizing, even now....

They swallowed hard. Sans felt himself shiver.

“S-SEEMS....SEEMS A SHAME TO....”

“I kept the grinder” Both their voices were very faint. Like they didn’t want even the other to hear them. “From back in the old days.”

“A-AFTER A-ALL....FEWER P-PIECES MEANS...THEY MIGHT FIND IT LESS E-EASILY....”

“....yeah.”

It was another long moment. The wind kicked up on the trees.

And under the moonlight, the skeletons dragged two bodies back across the yard...

A week later

Stretch was at the table, leaning back in his chair. No matter how much his brother scolded it was just kind of his default position.

“So, who’s bringing what?” He said, messing around his phone.

“UM...” blue said, looking up from his frying pan. “PAPYRUS IS BRINGING GNOCCHI, EDGE HAS SOME MERINGUE THING HE WANTS TO TRY, I THINK BLACK IS JUST BRINGING OVER SOME COCKTAIL SUPPLIES”

“damn, you’re going fancy for tonight”

“ITS THE TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY, OF COURSE WE ARE! OH, I THINK CROOKS IS BRINGING SOMETHING TOO.”

Stretch flinched a bit at the mention but tried to control it. “Uh....what’s he bringing.”

Blue scrolled through the groupchat. “OH, SPAGHETTI!”