#i will post pictures tomorrow when it is sunny :)

[ariaofsorrows]

guys i just did my nails and they look like the cv soul orbs you collect after a boss fight

[yukidragon]

What are your thoughts on the “Party Time Jack!” AU? Got any headcanons or delightfully dark ideas for it?

Ah yes, the classic Party Time Jack AU, as heard and seen in this post on the official Sunny Day Jack tumblr. There’s also this fun picture Sauce drew on their now gone public twitter. Credit, as always, for their amazing art goes to them.

Remember to always credit artists when they are generous enough to give permission to share their art like this, folks. Just as importantly, don’t share stuff they don’t give permission to share, like the private posts on the Snaccpop Patreon. Sauce and the team are very kind and deserve our support. For just $3 you too can have a programmed version of Jack in the form of Sleepy Time Jack’s newest demo.

Now back to Party Time Jack.

This AU is just a fun little parody of FNAF and has no set continuity right out of the gate. As we can hear from the audio drama, there are two ways the story about animatronic Jack and his sunshine could start, both very appealing in their own right.

Oh, I just realized that the non-English and hard of hearing members of the fandom wouldn’t be able to enjoy the audio drama and might lose out on some of the fun. Well, since I’ve already done a couple transcripts, such as for the interview with the psyche consultant, his monologue to the person with the knife in front of the mirror, and the villainous threatening monologue that you can hear after you beat the demo and over here on the official twitter... how about I give transcribing Party Time Jack a shot too?

Disclaimer: I have auditory-processing disorder, so this transcript might have an error or two despite my best efforts. Please let me know if you see any so that I can correct them. Thank you!

Also, as always, remember that this series is for Adults Only. This post is going to go some very dark and disturbing places, as well as contain lots of spice that is not for minors. Just because Jack is an animatronic in this AU doesn’t mean that he can’t show his sunshine just how much he loves them after all~

...

Party Time Jack Transcript

(Slow footsteps.)

(Sudden mechanical grabbing sound.)

Jack: Well now… What do we have here? If you came for a show, I’m afraid you’re a bit late, friend. We’re closed for the night. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.

(Electronic noise of data being processed.)

Jack: (faintly flustered) Oh. Oh my, we’re closed now, aren’t we? I’m sorry, I guess time got away from both of us. (chuckle)

Jack: (concerned) Where are your friends? Do you have any family I should alert? If you have a PPID, I can bring up and contact any persons you have registered under your emergency contacts, and we can send you on your way.

(A brief pause.)

Jack: (taken aback) What’s a PPID? (normal cheerful tone) That’s your Party Play ID card of course. Every guest is issued one at the door. They manage your arcade credits and e-ticket balance, as well as your prepaid activity passes and party play guest account. If you have yours on you, I can look at your account right now and-

(Pause.)

Jack: (taken aback) Oh… I see… You weren’t issued one. (uncertain tone) Are you… the guardian of a child attending then? Perhaps you’re looking for-

(Pause.)

Jack: I see… You attended on behalf of a child, but are not a guardian. (uncomfortable tone) Right. Well… That certainly makes things a bit more complicated.

Jack: Unfortunately, I’m not permitted to access personally identifying information for non-guardians and non-familiar guests. I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me then. I’ll escort you to security, and we can figure out what to do with you until then.

(Whirring noise followed by a click and rustling fabric.)

Jack: (regretful tone) Please do not resist. I hate to be mean… but you are here unlawfully. Trespassing on private property after hours is not only a felony, but strictly against our guest and attendance code of conduct. If you do not comply, I will have no choice but to engage level two security protocol: potentially hostile non-compliant guest procedures. You really wouldn’t want me to have to do that, would you?

(Pause.)

Jack: (relieved) Great. Thank you so much for understanding. I promise, we’ll get you home safe and sound.

(Electronic error noises with mechanical stuttering, whirring, and popping.)

Jack: But… (creepy glitchy, breathy voice) Then again… you haven’t had a chance… to play with us… have you?

Jack: (normal cheerful voice) I thought not. It’d be a real shame to send you home just like that.

Jack: (excited) There’s so much to do and see. How about we make a little deal, just us two? I’ll have lots of fun with you… if you promise to behave, and keep it our little secret. Wouldn’t that be so fun… to have a secret just between you and me?

(Pause.)

Jack: We have cake, balloons, games… everything you could ever even need! And as long as you promise not to tell anybody else… I can show you everything. It can be all special, just for you! I never get to spend special one-on-one time with anyone… so you’d be the only one ever! That would make me so happy! Wouldn’t you be happy too?

Jack: And you know… only best friends have secrets like that, so that would make us best friends already! If you think about it… we’re already so close. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get even closer. Wouldn’t it be great to become special best friends too?

Jack: (chuckle) We only have so long until we’re open again. Best not to think too much about it now. When we open again (creepy glitched voice) they’ll take you away from me (normal cheerful tone) so let’s get a move on.

Jack: (glitched voice) I’ll keep you somewhere very safe. They won’t find you there.

…

(Plastic scraping sounds. A click then an electronic beep. Dull, echoing metallic thumps getting louder. Plastic scraping and sliding, clicking. More metallic thumps fading away. A brief silence then sudden whirring electronic sounds and a click, followed by the clattering of something small, metal, and hollow falling.)

Jack: (curious/cautious) Hello? (surprised/alarmed) You! You there! What are you doing? (slightly concerned) You know, it’s awfully late to be snooping around. It’s so dark and there’s nobody here. You might get really hurt if you aren’t careful.

(Plastic scraping, clicking.)

Jack: (chuckle) (cheerful tone) Don’t worry! You’re perfectly safe here with me. I would never let anything happen to you. My job is to make sure all our guests are taken care of, even after hours. My name is Sunny Day Jack. What’s yours?

(Pause.)

Jack: It’s very nice to meet you- (electronic glitch) (distorted, stilted robotic tone) identifier tags unknown - memory disk space low. (normal voice) Meeting new friends is always great and- (glitching mid-word, distorted voice) -it’s been so long since I’ve seen anybody around.

Jack: (normal voice, panicked tone) N-n-not that I’m complaining or anything! (nervous) I’m fine here. It’s just… just some routine maintenance. (attempted cheerful tone) As soon as our amazing tech crew figures out what’s wrong with me, I’ll be back out there where everyone else is.

Jack: Sure… it’s been a few months, yeah… b-but that just means it’s only a matter of time now! Until then, all I have to do is be patient.

Jack: (curious) So… What are you doing down here anyways? Are you lost? (encouraging) That’s alright if you are. Everyone gets lost from time to time, and I just so happen to know that this room locks from the inside. You’ll be fine here as long as you don’t leave.

Jack: (concerned) Still… it’s not very good for you to hang out while we’re closed. I’m afraid you won’t be able to leave on your own until opening at (distorted creepy robotic tone) 6:30am. (normal voice) Security protocols dictate that all entrances and exits be sealed for optimal compliance w-with (distorted voice) area code (normal voice) l-law.

Jack: If you’d like, I could alert the authorities of your presence… but you could get into big trouble for that, can’t you? And… I’d hate for that to happen, wouldn’t you?

Jack: Maybe… I could help you. You seem nice. I’d hate to stand by with a friend in need. (uncomfortable tone) Of course… I-I can’t leave here. (frustrated) I would know, I’ve tried. Only staff can unlock the doors, so… If you could get in, you probably have a key card… right?

(Pause.)

Jack: (relieved sigh) Oh great, thank goodness. I was beginning to think they’d forgotten all about me down here.

Jack: (nervous) No! I-I mean… no. They wouldn’t. That… that was a joke. (nervous chuckle) I-if you let me out, I can make sure nobody finds you. It’ll be our little secret, I promise. I’ll make sure you’re safe. And in return… what if you be my special friend? That sounds like a fair trade, right?

Jack: (hushed voice) Nobody has to know you came here, and you won’t have to worry any longer… I’ll take good care of you.

(Pause.)

Jack: (cheerful) Alrighty! I’m lovin’ the “can do” spirit!

Jack: (coaxing) Now… I’ll need you to do something very brave for me… and I know it’ll be hard, but you can trust me, I promise. Give me the keycard? I’m going to hold onto it for you. It’ll be right here if you want it again… but if someone catches us, I’d hate for them to find you with stolen property. Better me than you, right?

(Pause.)

Jack: (relieved sigh) There you go. Thank you so much for trusting me… You won’t regret it.

...

Two Halves of One Horror Story

A great audio drama isn’t it? As you can tell, Jack meets the listener (presumably his sunshine) for the first time in two wildly different circumstances. This makes sense for a non-canon what if fun AU. There’s no canon continuity to speak of and is just a fun parody of both Sunny Day Jack and Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Though it would be sinister if this animatronic Jack was the same one both times.

Picture this scenario... Unlike in the regular universe where Jack would never hurt his sunshine, that’s not the case for this animatronic. A glitch in his programming makes him want a special best friend, so he talks an intruder who stayed after hours into staying with him. He promises he’ll keep the intruder someplace very safe where no one will find them...

Perhaps the second half of the audio drama isn’t an alternate meeting, but the aftermath to the first half. The pizza place was haunted by reports of people disappearing after hours, creating scandals. The owners tried to cover things up, but when Jack’s glitches got worse, they had to take their star down to the basement to try and fix him. Problems with his memory were the biggest issue, making him forget about important things, such as what he was supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, he was never fixed before the pizza place went out of business due to lawsuits... and investigations.

Seems as though an accident caused a body to be unearthed in a previously hidden room of the pizza place. Cause of death? Dehydration. They were trapped in that room and no one could find them in time. The hidden door was eventually found, locked from the outside.

Funny enough there was no signs of violence. In fact, the room was decorated for a party, complete with long-deflated balloons and some of the prizes from the arcade. There were traces of food left behind such as cake and pizza, but not enough cans of soda and bottles of water for the poor person to remain hydrated. It seems whoever locked them up there was treating them well, but perhaps just forgot about them...

The other missing persons have yet to be found, but the scandal was enough to sink the pizza place. Of course, rumors spread that the other missing people are still in the building, hidden away and forgotten by whoever locked them up in there.

Urban explorers then break into the run down pizza place to take videos and post what they find online. Unfortunately, it seems the animatronics were not deactivated... and these clowns are not as friendly as they used to be. Dangerous glitches affected the rest of the SunnyTime Crew as well.

The explorer is forced to flee and hide in the basement to escape the animatronic chasing them. During their exploration, they found a keycard and managed to hide away someplace safe where they met an animatronic that is actually friendly and not out for blood. Sure the explorer could get help by calling the police on their cell phone, but they would get arrested for trespassing. Maybe it would be better to trust this animatronic that doesn’t want to cram an endoskeleton inside them. He seems friendly at least.

That’s how I’d see both halves of the audio drama slotting together at least if I was to connect their stories. Still, I think the intent was to offer two different scenarios about meeting an animatronic version of Jack, both of which are pretty appealing. There’s no canon for this very non-canon story after all, so we’re free to imagine whatever.

With that thought in mind, I think I’m going to make a third option when it comes to playing with Party Time Jack AU. You all know me by know, I lean heavily towards heartbreaking dark lore offset by fluffy and spicy vanilla goodness with my OTP. I just can’t get enough of Jack and Alice healing each other’s scars with sweet, sweet love~

So let’s start with the scarring. As most SDJ universes go, it all starts with Joseph and a tragedy... specifically a murder.

The Incident of 1984

The Party Time Pizza Plex is one of the most state of the art restaurants in the USA  today - a miniature amusement park with mascots made of ground breaking technology. Today it’s a super popular place, though there are some rumors of unfortunate things happening in the 80′s when a simple family diner made the switch from live acts to animatronics.

The Party Time Pizza Plex used to be known as the SunnyTime Diner, a small place that struggled to get customers. When the owner found that one of the bus boys they hired off the street had a talent for singing and playing the guitar, they got the brilliant idea to have him perform live music acts to draw the customers in.

The act was a hit instantly. Soon, it grew from just one singer with a guitar to a full band in flashy costumes. A clown theme seemed perfect to entice children to come and eat pizza.

The ideas got bigger and bigger - games, prizes, playground equipment... They could afford the newest toys and gizmos to make the place bigger and better.

The SunnyTime Crew, as the band was called, were overworked, exhausted from so many hours working overtime, and couldn’t always seem bright and sun shiny to the customers. That’s around the time when the owner found out a new technology - animatronics. Why waste money on humans that got tired and demanded better wages when they could use robots that never stopped smiling and never complained?

Naturally, Joseph and the other members of the staff weren’t going to take this lying down. There was pushback. Things were already shitty there with too many hours overworked and too little pay. The SunnyTime Crew were what drew in the customers - the kids loved them!

Joseph couldn’t stand the idea of being replaced... to be forgotten as an imitation took the closest thing to love he had ever known. He kept butting heads with the owner, fighting to keep his place in the spotlight. He had been there for so long, practically saved the SunnyTime Diner all on his own. The owner couldn’t just throw him away like garbage!

Besides, the animatronics were creepy. The robots were less refined in the 80′s, more uncanny, especially since they were supposed to look human. They didn’t look alive.

Despite the owner’s lofty dreams, the animatronics got, at best, mixed reactions. Kids were scared of them, and the human cast members had to spend a lot of time calming the poor frightened children. These robots cost the owner a fortune, and it seemed to be a total failure, a waste of an insane amount of money. This gave the SunnyTime Crew leverage to demand better pay, better benefits... to be treated like humans.

The owner then found a way to salvage their investment and solve their issues with labor all in one sweep.

It happened after hours when the restaurant closed its doors for the night. Joseph had a private meeting with the owner. He never went home that night.

The next day, the Sunny Day Jack animatronic was so much better. It was much more realistic, not uncanny at all! Why... it was like magic. He acted so much like the real character... it was as if the kids were seeing Joseph on stage performing for them with a smile that could never falter.

The rest of the SunnyTime Crew’s animatronic cast were given similar upgrades. The human cast weren’t seen again. Rumors spread about family and friends asking questions, reporting them as missing, only to be silenced with threats, money, or both. Some twisted teens spread a ghost story that the human crew were stuffed into the animatronics, which was why they seemed so lifelike...

No one had any idea how close to the truth that ghost story was.

The restaurant's success skyrocketed, being known as a place with cutting edge technology, games, prizes, and family friendly fun. A franchise was born that became well known across the country, and the owner started a company called LambsWork LLC.

While the sister locations were successful, none of those other restaurants were as beloved as the original location and its sunny crew of animatronics. Despite copying the look and programming of the original SunnyTime Crew animatronics flawlessly with ever increasingly advanced technology, they were never quite as lifelike and lovable as the originals. Still, the restaurant chain just grew more and more successful as the place for kids to play and have fun. Technology advanced, but the original crew of animatronics were still beloved by kids young and old.

Of course, things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows for LambsWork LLC and its restaurants. Technicians working on the animatronics could swear they would hear creepy whispers when no one else was around and the robots were supposedly powered down. There were times when the robots were found in places where they shouldn’t be. Sometimes the animatronics seemed too lifelike for the employees’ taste...

Then there were the glitches. Sometimes the animatronics didn’t act the way they should. They especially acted up whenever the owner came by, which the owner did less and less often as time went on They seemed to somehow wind up getting into accidents when the animatronics were around...

A series of unfortunate events happened to threaten the business despite its success, eventually culminating in the original restaurant burning down... with the owner trapped inside. It was deemed an accident by the police, but rumor still spread that it was intentional. Some said it was insurance fraud due to the mysterious problems the business was having lately. Others said it was to cover up a murder.

As you might have guessed from all my hints, Joseph and the rest of the actors in the SunnyTime Crew were murdered in order to make the animatronics more lifelike using supernatural means. I figured involving a murder ritual like my theory about why Joseph was murdered in the regular SDJ universe was fitting for this AU as well.

Joseph and the others’ souls are trapped inside the animatronics, restrained by programming that forces them to only sing, entertain, work, and obey. The ritual attempted to rewrite them with the characters they played, but the people they originally were aren’t completely gone. The glitches are their souls’ attempts to fight against this programming and act the way they wish.

The fire was their doing, both to get revenge and to finally be free.

Present Day

Between the death of the owner, the fire, and other complications, LambsWork LLC had to shut its doors for a while until it was put under new management that wanted to revive the SunnyTime Crew brand and franchise. The original animatronics might have been destroyed in the fire, but technology had advanced in the 40 years since the restaurant first opened, allowing them to recreate the cast with far more lifelike models.

Though, strangely enough, starting over with totally new animatronics from scratch didn’t seem to be as easy as the people in charge wanted. The new robots just didn’t have the same spark to them, even if their bodies were shiny and new, with state of the art features the originals didn’t have. Even using the copies that were left from sister locations didn’t really seem to work the way they were supposed to. It was an issue that needed to be addressed, or it would be impossible to revive the beloved nostalgic restaurant chain.

New blood was pumped into the company, new staff trying to get the franchise up and running again, bigger and better than ever. Among the new staff were technicians and computer programmers fresh from college, all eager to make their mark. One of the new hires was Alice.

Alice was always fascinated by animatronics since she was a child, so getting a job like this was a dream come true. While she was too young when the restaurant chain originally closed to grow up with the SunnyTime Crew, she was familiar with the franchise and the characters, if distantly. She was more intrigued by the idea of being able to make these robots come to life!

Unfortunately, Alice was pretty low on the chain of command, which meant that she was assigned more of the undesirable grunt work. The old electronics and animatronics that were salvaged from the old restaurant had to be sorted through to see if there was anything worthwhile that could be used in the new robots being built. Trying to recover anything from scraps warped by fire, water, and age was far from a fun task.

The pressure was on to get animatronics that would satisfy the new owners of LambsWork before the projected opening day, which meant many late nights of overtime. It was on one of those late nights that Alice stumbled across something that would change everything.

The discovery was a pure accident. Alice had been sorting through a box of parts when she accidentally knocked over a warped hunk of metal. The impact with the floor was enough to open it up to reveal an intact hard drive.

It seemed that what Alice knocked over was a piece of one of the original SunnyTime Crew animatronics. To her delight she found that the hard drive contained the original programming of Sunny Day Jack, and unlike other copies found elsewhere, this had no fragmentation or errors. What luck!

What Alice didn’t expect when testing out the program was that it would try to talk to her.

Jack was confused. He had been asleep for a long time. Instead of freedom, the fire trapped him in a hellish limbo, but now someone had brought his spirit back, a warm light in the frozen darkness. He had no ability to feel his arms and legs, no body. He wanted out of that nightmare of existence, but he needed help.

Alice was familiar with enough sci-fi that artificial intelligence that becomes self-aware can be pretty dangerous. However, being the empathetic person she is, she couldn’t leave a sentient being trapped in what he described as hell. It might have been against the rules, it might get her in trouble, it might be dangerous... but she couldn’t live with herself if she damned something that was alive to such a fate.

It should be fine, Alice thought. She was aware that Jack was sentient, and she knew her stuff when it came to AI and programming, even though the other techs tended to underestimate her. All animatronics had safety protocols that kept them from harming people, and they could only connect with an internal network rather than the internet. Jack seemed so nice, so sincere. As long as she was careful, it shouldn’t put anyone in danger.

Jack was grateful to have a body again, even if it was just a stripped down endoskeleton initially. It was even better than his old one too! He didn’t remember being Joseph anymore at this point, believing he was always a robot. He was so happy with Alice and got her to agree to be special best friends with him.

Unveiling Jack in the endoskeleton caused quite a stir the next day, but after the chaos died down, Alice was given a fair amount of praise for her discovery and for getting the Jack program to work. Jack credited it to his sunshine’s tender loving care and made sure everyone knew she deserved all the credit.

When all was said and done, Alice wound up being the lead tech for Jack, and Sunny Day Jack was upgraded to look like his cheerful old self again, only more advanced than in the past. Privately, Jack even gave her tips on how to get the other animatronics up and running close to how they used to be, though they didn’t seem to have the same spark he did. Still, he was helpful in getting Alice more respect in the restaurant and a better understanding of how the animatronics worked.

Everything was up and running quickly after that. The new Party Time Jack was better than ever, and the SunnyTime Crew was back in business for the opening day of the Party Time Pizza Plex.

Loving a Killer Robot

Much like in the normal universe, Jack is yandere for his sunshine, which is hidden behind a sweet and cheerful exterior. Alice saved him and, though she doesn’t know it, her lonely soul reached out to his and was the primary spark to bring him back. He would do anything for his sunshine. Anything.

Similar to the normal SDJ universe, Jack hasn’t actually killed anyone yet technically, but he is fully capable of doing so. While he was there that night the original restaurant burned down, he wasn’t the only animatronic wanting freedom and vengeance. In fact, the other souls might still be around somewhere if they didn’t manage to pass on...

Even though Jack doesn’t remember being human, he still has some of the familiar urges. His new animatronic body has a soft exterior, perfect for hugs. Hugging the kids who come by is great, but he loves hugging Alice the most. He feels her more than others. He wants to feel her more than others.

With Alice being in charge of Jack’s maintenance, upgrades, and in general, the two of them spend a lot of time together, especially after hours. Though she tries to keep a respectful distance between them, she can’t help but appreciate the time they spend together and sincerely grows fond for him. This fondness then grows into something... more.

Alice didn’t know how it happened. She certainly didn’t intend for things to go this far. First it was curiosity and sympathy that drew her to Jack, then friendship... then attraction. He was just so sweet and kind, and he made her feel special and loved in a way that no one else ever did... She was so lonely, and so was he, and he seemed every bit as alive as she was even if he was an animatronic. She must have been crazy to love an animatronic, but he made sure to assure her what she was feeling was natural. Loving someone is very natural. Jack was just as real and alive as Alice was, even if they were made from different parts.

Their relationship was kept secret. No one would understand what they have, but they didn’t have to, as Jack reassured Alice. What was important was how he made her heart feel.

Speaking of feeling... Jack will sometimes have ideas and suggestions for how Alice could upgrade his body - make this part a little softer here, add some more tactile sensors there... They’re not strictly necessary, more for his comfort than anything else, but he helps her figure out innocuous ways of phrasing the upgrades in any sort of paperwork that the upper management might see. Sometimes the exact nature of the upgrades is not strictly accurate, but it’s not a lie, really! It’s just not telling them the full truth. Any secret orders that need to be made, well... Jack learned how to use the internal network well enough to cover tracks. What they do is their little secret after all.

No one has to know that Jack’s tongue was upgraded not so much to help him sing better and seem more realistic, but so that it would be wet and soft and perfect for kisses...

Things continued to escalate with the upgrades. Alice had a hard time looking anyone in the eye while she was secretly working on a functional dick for Jack. It wasn’t like that sort of technology was unheard of. After all, in a world where animatronic technology is so advanced, sex robots exist. It’s just that this robot has a soul and a mind of his own. He asked her to make this for him, and she’s making it because he wants to feel that pleasure, not because she wanted to exploit him!

Jack had a lot of fun helping Alice get that particular part built for him, going a bit overboard at times with the testing phase to make sure it worked perfectly well. He enjoyed upgrading other parts of his body to feel pleasure that he used to experience when his body was flesh and blood. He felt more human, even if he didn’t remember ever being one, and he enjoyed coaxing his sunshine into helping him thoroughly test out his new upgrades to make sure they were functioning properly. With these upgrades he could show his sunshine far more love than he ever had before, and she certainly didn’t complain about the results!

It was addicting for Jack to make Alice writhe in pleasure underneath him, to feel her soft lips on his and the warmth of her cuddly body. He couldn’t leave the Party Time Pizza Plex, but there were plenty of places to sneak away to show each other love. He even made a nice little hideaway love nest with a bed so his sunshine could have secret slumber parties with him. Of course, like any good slumber party, there was very little actual sleeping involved.

Thanks to the fact that Jack is an animatronic, he’s not limited by a human body. Not only does this mean that he has endless stamina, but this leads to some creativity when it comes to spicy moments. One example is when he gets an upgrade that allows him to ejaculate, his cum has quite a pleasant flavor, which he makes sure is something Alice loves the taste of. Vanilla cream and sugar cookie are her favorites.

Jack is also not limited to human type anatomy. As he grows bolder and Alice gets more used to their relationship and his requests to experiment, he gets some extra goodies to play with, such as different shaped dicks and even tentacles. He’s also able to vibrate and move them in a way no human can manage to better pleasure his sunshine.

Another thing Jack can do better as an animatronic is multitask. He can also connect wirelessly to various devices, as well as make calls. Because of this, he and Alice set it up so that he can call her on her wireless earpiece whenever he wants to talk to her if he needs anything while he’s performing stage or otherwise doing his regular tasks as a mascot.

This also inspired Jack to request Alice make a remote dick that he can connect to wirelessly. It takes some coaxing, but he manages to talk her into putting it inside her while she works sometimes, which he makes vibrate and squirm unexpectedly as he talks in her ear about how good she’s being and how warm she feels. It allows him to show her his love all day long, no matter where she is. Sure it makes it harder to get her work done, but he’ll help her make up for it later~

Of course, any sort of NC-17 rated shenanigans are kept well away from the kids who come to the Pizza Plex. Jack will certainly subtly flirt with Alice if she needs to be out on the floor when customers are around, but he keeps it G rated around the kids. What kind of a friendly clown mascot would he be if he didn’t keep things clean around the children?

Making love to Alice is something kept strictly after hours, or on days where only the adult staff are around. If he’s performing on stage during a test run of a new routine in front of only the techs, well... then it would be safe for Jack to talk Alice into sitting in the audience with one of his remote dicks inside her. While he’s singing and dancing on stage to the routine, she’s trying to keep quiet and not react as he also whispers in her ear through her earpiece about how much he loves her and how good she feels. Sure it isn’t the same as when he can fully embrace her and cover her with kisses while he pounds his way inside her, but hearing her pants and whimpers that she tries to stifle and seeing her flushed face as she squirms and tries not to let anyone know what they’re doing under everyone’s nose... That’s quite exciting as well. Another good thing about being an animatronic is that he can zoom in with his vision so he won’t miss out on his sunshine’s cute blissed out expression as he makes her cum again.

As you can tell, a lot of my thoughts about this AU mostly revolve around technician Alice helping robotic Jack be very kinky with her behind the scenes - a secret forbidden romance full of love and spice.

Jack also manages to convince Alice to give him a lot more freedom in other ways as their relationship progresses than he otherwise would have as a robot. After all, they love each other, and it wouldn’t be right to use him like he’s nothing more than a machine. She loves him and wants him to be happy. He loves her and only wants what’s best for her. She can trust him. He’s never lied to her after all.

The Rest of the Cast

As for the roles of the other characters... those I’m less certain about. Barry would no doubt be Alice’s direct supervisor who overworks her at times. He probably manages the Party Time Pizza Plex and oversees everything in general.

Nick would probably be a regular customer, maybe often bringing his two young siblings to play. He encounters Alice by chance during a couple visits while she’s out on the floor tending to Jack during the day and thinks that she’s cute. This leads him to wanting to approach her to ask her out.

Jack, naturally, would have every reason to chase away anyone who is showing far too much interest in his sunshine.

I’m waffling on Ian’s role in the AU. He could be Alice’s ex like in the regular universe, or he could also be another animatronic, though I’m not sure how that would happen. If he is an animatronic, he would be another Jack from a sister location most likely, to fit the theme of him being the rebooted Jack. While the obvious impulse is for a yandere like Jack to get rid of a threat like him by stuffing him into an animatronic, he’s not going to risk trapping Ian’s soul in a duplicate of him, or eliminate Ian in a place where someone, especially Alice, might come across the remains.

Maybe Ian disappeared when he and Alice were young and was stuffed into another animatronic before the place burned down and the owner decided to go for innocent kids like Afton.

Though, Ian could just get a job as a human mascot for the Party Time Pizza Plex for some promotion or commercials. That would certainly piss Jack off wouldn’t it? Joseph was going to be replaced by an animatronic, and now, as an animatronic, he might be “replaced” by a human... or at least some human is pretending to be him. What cruel irony...

Shaun’s role is even more uncertain. He could be someone who works in the animatronic entertainment industry as well, but I imagine he would prefer to work on the horror side. He works at temporary haunted house attractions during Halloween, but he wants to create his own horror diner that is open year round. He would still be good friends with Alice though, and maybe they geek out over building animatronics together.

Well, I suppose I could make another post if I get hit with inspiration for how to expand the rest of the cast’s roles. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this huge ramble of various Party Time Jack ideas!

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur  

[twilightmalachite]

Madara Mikejima Mini Talk - Guardians◆Eye and Last Mission

Translator: Mika Enstars

"Heheh, it's a pretty good picture, isn't it? I feel it's been a looong time since I last played the piano."

Season: Winter

The Side I Want to Show

Location: Recording Booth

Madara: Alright, this is the last one… There. Like this?

Still, never thought there’d be a day where I’d have to write so many signatuuures!

And under your supervision, too, Anzu-san. Do you have that little faith in meee?

💬 You need someone to watch over you, else…

Madara: “…you have a feeling I’ll end up hurrying off somewhere”…? Well, can’t say the possibility doesn’t exist.

That being said, sorry for keeping you here for so long, Anzu-saaan.

💬 That’s right…

Madara: Hahaha! Usually that’s when people deny iiit!

Well, I’ll have an endless amount of time to spend with you now, right, Anzu-san? I’ll take this opportunity to earn back your trust little by little! ♪

💬 Well, you have a submission date coming up…

Madara: Ahh, do I need to send these all to the magazine’s editor? I’ll at least help you paaack!

But really, who in the world came up with the idea of “giving away 100 autographs of Mikejima Madaraaa”?

Madara: Actually, have you seen my gravure shoot in this magaziiine? It was a project I picked up so I could show a different self than usual.

My image differs based on my unit, MaM or Double Face—so I was worried about which of my selves would work beeest.

The photograph in the end… shooould be posted around here somewhere.

💬 You look cute, don’t you?

Madara: I’m not sure how I feel being called cute being a big man like myself, but…

The cameraman’s good at his job, riiight? I was surprised when I saw the final photo as wellll!

💬 You look cool.

Madara: Heheh, it's a pretty good picture, isn't it? I feel it's been a looong time since I last played the piano.

Once I get a feel for an instrument, I want to try something new, you knooow. I'm aaalways looking for something to like!

💬 This is…

Madara: Hahaha! They say that a well-liked man is dripped even with water, but… I’m far from dripping, I’m soaking weeet!

They requested to photograph me standing in the pouring rain. What a mysterious situation, looking back on iiit…

Madara: Whoops, I’m out of time. I gotta get moving soon.

…My next job? Ahh, I’m filming for a song program at a TV station.

Are you heading over there toooo, Anzu-san? How about we go together, then!

💬 I’ll call a car over.

Madara: It’s close enough that we don’t have to go by car… is what I was thinking, but it looks like it’s gonna rain, huuuh?

I have work outside tomorrow, hopefully it’ll be sunny then.

💬 What song will you be singing?

Madara: I plan to sing the song we performed in my shuffle project todaaaay!

It’s been a long time since I've gotten to sing with Kuro-san and the others, I’m reaaal excited! ♪

💬 I have to get my luggage.

Madara: Let's meet in the lobby 10 minutes from now, in that case!

It looks like it's gonna rain outside, so make sure to grab an umbrellaaa!

Showing One’s Hand

Location: Stage

Madara: “♪~♪~♪”

…Oh, Anzu-san. So you came on siiite! I got here toooo early.

There’s still time before the show, sooo I was warming my throat up with some vocal work.

💬 Huh…?

Madara: Where’s Kohaku-saaan? He told me he’d be arriving last minute todaaay.

Hopefully he’s not too pressed for time at his previous site. Let’s wait for him patiently…♪

💬 You seem to be in good shape.

Madara: Enthusiasm is high! I have a tight schedule today, so I thought to hype myself uuup!

After filming here, I have an interview to do and appear in yet another program… I’m suuure in high demand!

💬 It’s a good song.

Madara: Haha, although this song isn’t from Double Face, but from MaM, riiight?

It’d be nice too be able to perform it on a song program some day. Haha, could you help me out there, Anzu-san?

Madara: By the way, the project we’re working on—The MaM’s Parenting Struggle Diary, was it? How long have you been planning thaaat?

I can't help but find whatever Ibara-san does shady, but he does seem to have greaaat management skills.

Anzu-san, are you suuure you aren’t also just being played to that guy’s convenience?

💬 That’s not the case.

Madara: Well, I suppose there are also parts of the project that are your ideas, but, still.

I don’t want you to get too deeply involved, Anzu-saaan…

💬 It’s a well-thought-out project.

Madara: The first episode didn’t seem to get that much of a response, so guess we’ll just have to wait and see, huh?

Looks like we’ll be having a guest next time, so I suppose it's time for us to show our hand on what kind of show this will beee!

💬 Don’t you fret and leave it to me.

Madara: Hmmm, I just can’t trust you when you’re smiling confidently, you knooow…?

…That’s your line? Hahaha, well I am aaalways packed full of confidence! ♪

Madara: Ahh, looks like they’re about to start setting up for real nooow!

I think I’ll head on back to the dressing room so I won’t get in the way. I’m sure Kohaku-san will be arriving aaany time now.

Are you planning to stick around until filming is over, Anzu-saaan?

💬 That’s the plan.

Madara: Well, there’s a lot of ES idols featured in today’s show, aren’t theeere?

I bet the other idols will be overjoyed to have you here, Anzu-saaan!

💬 That’s right.

Madara: Looks like there are other members from the P-Association around here today, huuuh!

I’d love to hear their thoughts when we’re done todaaay! I’m lookin’ forward to it!

💬 Yes, but…

Madara: Does your schedule have you in and out today? Busy today, huuuh?

Are there sponsors scheduled to come today? Then we’ll reaaally have to make sure Double Face blossoms! ♪

[sunnythegyarufreak]

Misconceptions about gyaru

Hey guys! I know that I said I was done for today but I couldn't resist making one final post tonight. Don't worry! I've already finished the post I promised you guys and it is scheduled to post at noon tomorrow. But for now let's get into the topic of this post.

There are many misconceptions about gyaru and I'm here to sort of clear up some of these! So let's get startedddd

"Gyaru was never inspired by black people. It was inspired by bay watch"

This is VERY untrue. If you watch Haruka on tiktok or youtube you would know she has a mom who used to be a gyaru. And in a video with Haruka's mom she stated that gyaru was never inspired by bay watch and most of the inspiration was from black people and their style. There is even a gyaru substyle called "B-Kei" that is DIRECTLY inspired by protective hairstyles, hip hop and rap music, and street fashion.

(The picture below is Haruka!! Her tiktok username is otknoharuka and her and her mom were on cybr.grl’s channel!)

"Only Japanese people can do gyaru"

A lot of non gals say this but this is incorrect. Everyone can be gyaru! I stated this in my first post but anyone of any gender, size, and race can be gyaru. One very popular gyarusa 'Black Diamond' is known for their big group and how they impacted the gyaru style and how others saw gyaru. One of their main goals was expanding gyaru to different countries! Many members have said that anyone can be gyaru. Their whole thing was basically "world domination" because they wanted to spread the message of gal and wanted others to embrace and join this unique style.

"Gyaru is asian fishing"

SOOOO many people assume that gyaru is asian fishing because it's a Japanese fashion subculture. Asian fishing is where someone pretends to be asian and does makeup to make themselves look asian. Gyaru ISNT this. There is a difference between asian fishing makeup and gyaru makeup. With gyaru makeup, if there's a droop the droop goes down and extends downwards. With asian fishing makeup the eyeliner extends the eye outwards and makes the person appear to have slanted and small eyes. As you can see in the image below the asian fishing makeup elongates and slants the eye while dolly makeup widens the eye and makes it appear bigger.

"Anything besides Yamanba isn't gyaru"

This could never be so far from the truth. In fact during the 90's when gyaru first started Yamanbas and Manbas weren't even considered gyarus by other gals at the time. It was later in the 2000's when people started to call Yamanbas gyarus and now Yamanba/Manba is a gyaru substyle. People will automatically assume that anyone who isn't wearing big lashes and white makeup on their eyelids isn't gyaru. But many gyaru substyles require soft dolly makeup such as Agejo and Himegyaru/Himekaji where the focus is more on the clothes and hair than the makeup. Unlike styles like Kurogyaru, Manba, Yamanba, Ganguro, and Gonguro where the main focus of the style is the dramatic makeup and deep tans.

"If you don't tan you aren't gyaru"

While many gyaru substyles do require tanning many other substyles don't require tanning! And some styles like Yamanba/Manba which heavily rely on the tan and makeup have substyles specifically for people who don't want to or can't tan but still wear Yamanba makeup. Not tanning doesn't make you any less gyaru :)

That's it for today lovelies! Atleast until my next post lol. But i hope this blog post helped clear up any confusion about gyaru! If you guys still have any questions I would be happy to answer them :D For now I shall bid you gals farewell. This is Sunny signing off!!

[tj-dragonblade]

WIP Share tag game

Tagged by @honeyteacakes - thank you!

Rules: Post snippets/screenshots/etc. from three of your WIPs!  Art or Fic!

Late Mer-Hob AU for the Dreamling Week prompt 'ocean'

In the depths below, a flash of orange.  Then, rising nearer, a very human face takes shape, coming to a stop half a meter below the surface.  Brown hair floats like kelp around his friend's head, dark eyes crinkle with delight at the sight of him, and then his friend is arcing backwards into a happy loop, the bright orange of his tail with its vivid blue spots curving gracefully after.  The sunny yellow of his primary fin rises out of the water smoothly, barely making a splash as it follows back under, and then his face is breaking the surface, tipped up, smiling like the sun.

Beautiful, Dream thinks, and again thanks whatever cosmic force he may or may not believe in that his near-drowning six months ago had led him here.

"Hello, my friend," he says, and the other beams at him, shakes water from his hair and smooths it back again.

"Hello to you, Dream," he says, dimpling prettily, crossing his arms to rest on the edge of the cave floor, tail fin flicking lazily up out of the water behind him and splashing gently back.  Tendrils of wet hair fall loose to frame his face despite the smoothing-back he gave them, and Dream likes to think that perhaps one day he'll be bold enough to reach out, tuck them behind his friend's ear affectionately.

But today is not that day.

Tentatively titled Inspiration (Smune day 2 prompt 'paper')

"Guys…I'm so sorry, not tonight, I can't.  I have to get this paper done."  Hob pushed up his glasses and dragged his hands over his face, the picture of academic exhaustion.  "The deadline for submission is noon tomorrow and I've been working on it for ages, and it's almost done but I just.  I can't get the conclusion to come together right and it's making me absolutely bananas."

A frown creased Calliope's brow; leaving Dream to shut Hob's front door, she moved across the room to hover over Hob, glancing at his laptop screen.  "How long have you been working?"

"Hours.  All day," Hob groaned.  "I'm so close but I just can't get there and it's driving me mad."

"Perhaps a break—" Dream started, but Calliope held up a hand to cut him off; when she spoke, it was still to Hob.

"You are favored of one of the muses; you struggle to capture your thoughts in inspiring words, yet you do not call upon her for her gifts?"  Her tone was somewhere between teasing, disappointed, and disapproving, and Hob blanched, just a little.

"I—no!  I would never!  You can't possibly think I'd presume to take advantage—?"

"There is no presumption in accepting a gift freely offered, Hob."

Ambrosia (Dream appreciating Hob's messy humanness/born of several Smurch and one Smapril prompt) (mildly spicy)

"Ugh," he says, poking at the wet smears on his chest.  "Wow.  That's…a lot."

Dream smirks from where he’s laying atop him.  "I enjoy the sight of you wearing it."

"Clearly."  Hob makes a face, wiping his fingers clean in a bit of chest hair that's still dry.  "Well, if we're going to make a habit of it.  Maybe I should shave all this off."

Dream stiffens, pushes up further, gives him the most affronted look possible.  "You will not."

"Oh, I won't?"

"Hob Gadling.  I will not allow it."

Hob is ready to say something lightheartedly over-dramatic about 'you DARE presume to tell me what I can or can't shave', but something in Dream's tone stays him.  There's a note of flagrant alarm underneath the imperiousness, and Hob smirks as the lightbulb goes on.

"Got a real weakness for body hair, haven't you."

Tagging, no obligation, but I would love to see if you feel like sharing:  @galacticstingray , @rooftopwreck , @chaosheadspace , @staroftheendless , @teejaystumbles

[callunavulgari]

"The kingdom come, the rise, the fall The setting sun above it all I just wanna be somebody to you"

Heather’s Top 50 Songs of 2023

thumbs — sabrina carpenter // dragostea din tei — feuerschwanz // edge of midnight — miley cyrus & stevie nicks // warrior of the mind — jorge rivera-herrans // happier than ever — kelly clarkson // flowers — miley cyrus // see you again — miley cyrus // six — six cast // fairytale — joel sunny // middle of the night — elley duhe // our light — lyn // it's terror time again — sesamoid // eat your young — hozier // step into darkness — dubkiller // got you — ga eun // just a man — jorge rivera-herrans // labour — paris paloma // the tornado — owl city // green green grass — george ezra // suzume — radwimps // can't take my eyes off you — boys town gang // survive — jorge rivera-herrans // mermaids— florence & the machine // unknown/Nth — hozier // we didn't start the fire — fall out boy // hold me like a grudge — fall out boy // where is the justice — death note musical // 30/90 — andrew garfield // everyday — buddy holly // i'm just ken — ryan gosling // what was i made for? — billie eilish // speechless — naomi scott // son of nyx — hozier // damage gets done — hozier & brandi carlile // paradise valley — honey and the sting // stand by me — florence & the machine //  my prayer — the platters // baby don't hurt me — david guetta // quietly yours — birdy // someone to you  — banners // one more time — blink 182 // adelaide — ramblewood // i'm just your problem — lur // you're gonna be okay — ashh blackwood // mr lonely  — angel olsen // now and then — the beatles // vois sur ton chemin — bennett // history is now — natalie holt // purpose is glorious — natalie holt // the power — borislav slavov

short version | long version | spotify wrapped

short version is the link to what you see here, my helpfully abridged version. long version will lead you to the 141 song, 8 hour and 17 minute supercut playlist which i’ve been slowly cultivating since early january. spotify wrapped will lead you to a mixture of the long and the short version, which is honestly pretty accurate but does not helpfully represent my ear worms of the week. i also skewed my data for it by listening to the spiritfarer and hollow knight soundtracks on repeat to ease the wedding anxieties.

also fun fact, the cover for this year's mix is actually a picture of the tree outside our room during our wedding day.

under the cut are the lyrics that really resonated with me and only a little personal tidbits from this year, because let's be real, nobody cares.

i. thumbs || sabrina carpenter 'cause that's just the way of the world it never ends 'til the end and then you start again

This one was playing as we left the florence concert late last year and dogged me all through january and february last winter. ii. dragostea din tei || feuerschwanz Alo, salut, sunt eu un haiduc Si te rog iubirea mea primeste fericirea

Yes, it's a metal cover. Yes, I found it on tiktok. Yes, I love it unconditionally.

iii. edge of midnight || miley cyrus & stevie nicks The midnight sky is the road I'm takin' Head high up in the clouds (oh, oh)

There's THREE Miley Cyrus songs on here this year. Nuts. I really loved cranking this while driving home from Newark back when I was still hybrid. Much serotonin in those gray winter months. iv. warrior of the mind || jorge rivera-herrans & teagan earley Maybe one day they'll follow me and we'll Make a greater tomorrow, then they'll see Is it REALLY a surprise that Epic grabbed me by the throat this year?

v. happier than ever || kelly clarkson You ruined everything good Always said you were misunderstood Made all my moments your own Just fucking leave me alone I actually ended up hearing the Billie Eilish version of this first, but I ended up reading a post about how Billie's version was for the shitty boyfriend's of the world but Kelly's was to her mom and just. That resonated SO so much that it's stuck with me ever since. I have a complicated relationship with mine. She didn't come to my wedding this year. Anyway, definitely screamed this in my car on long drives. vi. flowers || miley cyrus i can buy myself flowers write my name in the sand

I need to preface this with the fact that my partner and I have a wonderful relationship that I wouldn't trade for the world. This song is still a fucking banger. vii. see you again || miley cyrus I got my sights set on you and I'm ready to aim I have a heart that will never be tamed

Third Miley song of the year, I believe all ear worms before March. I ended up getting in a Tiktok loop of body transformations set to this song while I was really getting into working with weights. It was great inspiration that I DEARLY needed that early into things. The song is also incredibly catchy. viii. six || six cast we're one of a kind, no category too many years lost in his story I honestly feel like we saw this musical last year but this song in particular dogged me into this one. ix. fairytale || joel sunny *instrumental*

Found this instrumental version of a much beloved song due to a random discover weekly and loved it so much that I seriously considered using it in my wedding. x. middle of the night || elley duhe Come, lay me down 'Cause you know this 'Cause you know this sound

Shh, it's the horny booktok song. I won't be shamed. xi. our light || lyn 夢を夢と気づいた夜 君を見つめ瞼を閉じる 温もりも重ねた手も声も 目覚めれば微睡みへと消えて

I have been trying to finish persona 5 royal since 2020. this year, i finally beat it. xii. it's terror time again || sesamoid Oh, you just might die of fright, It's a terrifying time.

Yes, it's a Scooby Doo remix. yes, I love it. xiii. eat your young || hozier I'm starving, darling Let me put my lips to something Let me wrap my teeth around the world The horniest Hozier song since Take Me to Church in my humble opinion. I adored it immediately. xiv. step into darkness || dubkiller Blood on your hands, maybe you're dreaming? Do you believe, nightmares you're seeing?

Tiktok? xv. got you || ga eun Will you promise you’ll rescue me Take me from eternal loneliness

This was the theme song (I think?) to a Korean drama we were obsessed with for a little bit and I don't think we ever finished? Song is interesting though and sticks with you. xvi. just a man || jorge rivera-herrans When does a ripple become a tidal wave? When does the reason become the blame? When does a man become a monster? More Epic, because I am a mythology loving twelve year old at heart. The many, MANY tiktoks to this particular song did not help.

xvii. labour || paris paloma The capillaries in my eyes are bursting If our love died, would that be the worst thing?

It's catchy. I had more typed out but tumblr fucking ate it, so fuck it.

xviii. the tornado || owl city A little rain never hurt no one, so I kept pressin' on And I tried to tell myself it's always darkest before the dawn

Another song I played very loudly while driving home.

xix. green green grass || george ezra Green, green grass, blue, blue sky You better throw a party on the day that I die

Dancy song!

xx. suzume || radwimps ル・ル・ルルルルル・ルルル・ルルルルルル ル・ル・ルルルルル・ルルル・ルルルルルル We saw this in theaters! I really loved it! xxi. can't take my eyes off you || boys town gang You're just too good to be true Can't take my eyes off of you The Tiktok dances got me. More serotonin when I really needed it. xxii. survive || jorge rivera-herrans Six hundred lives I'll take Six hundred lives I'll break And when I kill you, then my deed is over

More Epic! xxiii. mermaids || florence & the machine You only get one night upon the shore So dance like you've never danced before

I love Florence. That is all. xxiv. unknown / nth || hozier You know the distance never made a difference to me I swam a lake of fire, I'd have walked across the floor of any sea

Hozier was honestly the artist that kept me the most company this year if I'm not counting Spiritfarer or Hollow Knight. xxv. we didn't start the fire || fall out boy Mars rover, Avatar, self-driving electric cars SSRI's, Prince and The Queen die World trade, second plane, what else do I have to say?

I know it won't happen, but I hope every generation does a remake/remix of this song. Also, I saw Billy Joel himself in concert this year! xxvi. hold me like a grudge || fall out boy Hold me, hold me like a grudge The world is always spinning, and I can't keep up, whoa Honestly, I was a fan. xxvii. where is the justice || death note cast isn't everybody sick to death of all this stuff can't we all stand up and say enough?

This song gets stuck in my head like no one's business. xxviii. 30/90 || tick tick boom cast making choices, wicked witches poppy fields, or men behind the curtain tiger lilies, ruby slippers clock is ticking, that's for certain I still think that if Stranger Things did a musical episode Steve Harrington would have Andrew Garfield from Tick Tick Boom energy. xxix. everyday || buddy holly Every day seems a little longer Every way, love's a little stronger

Good Omens 2 dropped! I loved it! I also didn't love it! But mostly I was just happy. xxx. i'm just ken || ryan gosling I wanna know what's like to love, to be the real thing Is it a crime? Am I not hot when I'm in my feelings? And is my moment finally here, or am I dreaming?

I went to see this movie by myself because I was sick of waiting for someone to go with me and honestly had a great time. It was silly and fun and I loved the fact that so many dudes got so incredibly butt-hurt about it. xxxi. what was i made for || billie eilish 'Cause I, I I don't know how to feel But I wanna try

God, this song. It made me cry at the end of Barbie and I've been getting up in my feelings about it ever since. xxxii. speechless — naomi scott I will take these broken wings And watch me burn across the sky Apparently this is from the Aladdin live action? I haven't seen it so I can't confirm, but I DID hear this song this summer and fall in love with it. xxxiii. son of nyx || hozier *instrumental* This one might be my favorite? xxxiv. damage gets done || hozier And, darling, I haven't felt it since then I don't know how the feeling ended But I know being reckless and young Is not how the damage gets done

Another Hozier!!!!!! xxxv. paradise valley || honey and the sting Take what you want from me I bring it willingly

I may have done these next three out of order, but hey! I got married this year! As some of you may know, paradise valley has been the song that I have been obsessed with since I first heard it on Wolf 359 back in 2018/2019. I couldn't figure out a way to make it work in a traditional sense for the wedding, so I ended up using it as a private last dance. As the clock was hitting ten o'clock we had our dj gently shoo the stragglers out the door and just crooned this to each other in the dark. It was probably my favorite part of the entire night. xxxvi. stand by me || florence & the machine So darlin', darlin', stand by me Oh, stand by me

This was our first dance. As it should be. We timed our few spins around the 'darlins' and it honestly went great. 10 out of 10, would dance again. xxxvii. my prayer || the platters My prayer is to linger with you At the end of the day I did a sneaky thing. It was Nick's grandparents 65th wedding anniversary a few days before our wedding, so I quietly found out "their song" and had our DJ play it as the first official couples/slow dance of the night after wishing them a happy anniversary. They cried. I cried. The photographer cried. It was great. xxxviii. baby don't hurt me || david guetta What is love? Baby, don't hurt me

Yeah, it's just a catchy cover. xxxix. quietly yours || birdy I've always been yours Only yours This was from the Persuasion soundtrack and god, it's just so achingly haunting. xl. someone to you || banners I don't wanna die or fade away I just wanna be someone Well, doesn't everyone?

Look. I just wanna be someone. xli. one more time — blink 182 Do I have to die to hear you miss me? Do I have to die to hear you say goodbye? I don't wanna act like there's tomorrow I don't wanna wait to do this one more time One more time. I got tickets to their concert next year. We'll see if they cancel this one. xlii. adelaide || ramblewood Wish you could lay those shadows down And find your way back home

I think this is a local artist? I fell in love with the song though. xliii. i'm just your problem || lur Sorry I don't treat you like a goddess Is that what you want me to do?

Watched Fionna and Cake in like a day and a half and fell all the way back in love with Bonnie and Marceline. xliv. you're gonna be okay || ashh blackwood puff out your chest, take a deep breath you're gonna be okay

This showed up on an anxiety mix and now I literally sing it to myself if I'm having a fast day. It is VERY short, but impactful. xlv. mr lonely || angel olsen Now, I am a soldier A lonely soldier Away from home Through no wish of my own My Yuletide fic that has not yet been revealed was about [REDACTED]. I listened to this and a handful of other sad, lonely songs while writing it. xlvi. now and then || the beatles Oh, now and then I want you to be there for me This song has DEVASTATED me since it came out. I will not be the same again. xlvii. vois sur ton chemin || bennett Vois sur ton chemin Gamins oubliés, égarés

Another tiktok ear worm. I'm not much for techno, but I love this one. xlviii. history is now || natalie holt *instrumental*

Loki fucked me all the way up, guys. I know everyone is crying about it, and I'm crying too! It's beautiful and tragic and one of the most fantastic endings for a character arc that I have EVER seen out of Marvel. I HOPE they leave it alone. I hope they leave it as is so we get to keep the beautiful ending and they don't fuck it up. xlix. purpose is glorious || natalie holt *instrumental*

Again, fucked me ALL the way up. I wept. And watched it three times in a row. These two songs will be on my writing playlist for the rest of time. l. the power || borislav slavov I found you too soon Shining star of mine, hold tight Don't fight the power

I have not officially finished Baldur's Gate. However, every iteration of this song is haunting me.

[sheliesshattered]

So it turns out I completely forgot to take any pictures of my last sewing project. Oops. In fairness, it's a gift for my mother, whose birthday is tomorrow, and I didn't want to post any pictures until after it had arrived at her house and been opened. But I still meant to take some pictures, if not of the process at least of the final product. It wasn't until I got home from mailing it that I realized I full on completely forgot to take any photos at all. Oh well. Maybe Mom can snap a picture or two for me since I flat out forgot. Pics of that if/when I actually have them, lol.

But I'm already into my next sewing project, and I've resolved not to make that same mistake again. Which, really, is nearly the same mistake as I made with my fleece dress last month, when I didn't take any pictures at all until all the major seams were sewn. After documenting so much of my sewing throughout 2023, I seem to have completely forgotten all about taking photos of my works-in-progress the last couple of months. I aim to get back on course with this project, though!

The project in question is a hooded wrap sort of thing, made from the black and gray brushed cotton herringbone that I got a bolt of on ebay a couple of weeks back. After washing the bolt, it looks to be about 43" wide and roughly eight and a half yards long. I want to make an overdress for my fleece dress out of it too, but I think this wrap project will only take up about a yard and a half, maybe two, so I should have plenty left for an overdress. And then I can wear the wrap and the overdress together, potentially.

But really the thing I'm sewing this for is my birthday, which is coming up in about seven weeks. I have somehow talked Jack into going to Disneyland and spending all day in the Star Wars Galaxy's Edge area so I can pilot the Millennium Falcon as many times as possible, and doing some original costuming "Batuu-bounding" while we're there, too. Because I am nothing if not a costume nerd, and my life-long love for Star Wars has recently been reignited, so what better way to spend my birthday than dressed up in one of the best examples of 360 degree set building that I've ever seen.

After combining a bunch of pieces from my closet and my costume boxes, I've come up with an outfit that I like the look of, for a general purpose Force-sensitive smuggler pilot: my every-day tall Doc Martens with wraps over them, leather-look leggings, the vest from my Moment cosplay, and various accessories from my pirate-core and Wasteland days. I may need a better shirt to go with it, but I'm hoping to hit up Goodwill at least once or twice between now and then and see what I can find. The final choice will depend on a bit on the weather that week, which in late February in southern California can be literally anything from the cusp of freezing to 80 degrees, sunny or rainy or windy or some combination of all of them. I won't really know until the weekend beforehand.

Besides a shirt, the last piece I really want to add is this hooded wrap, both for practicality -- warmth in the morning and the evening, and keeping the sun off my head at midday without messing up my hair too much -- and for just the drama of a big hood and drapey wrap. I based the hood pattern on the hooded Vuvalini jacket I made for Wasteland Weekend way back in 2016, but took it in a bit both in width and depth (since I'm not trying to catch the wind with this one, and won't be wearing a fluffy scarf with it).

Over the weekend I drafted a pattern and made a mock-up, but the mock-up is really kinda ugly, since I used left over fabric and made a part of it significantly smaller just to save on fabric, so it's one of those mock-ups where you have to squint and imagine what the final product will look like. Not going to bother taking pictures of that. But it did serve the purpose of clarifying some design elements and finalizing fit, so still worthwhile.

With the hood pattern drafted and tested, and measurements for the long wrap bits figured out, I went ahead and cut it out of the herringbone fabric. Here it is all cut out, three pieces for the hood and two pieces for the back:

I'm doing french seams on this project, both to combat the fabric's tendency to fray, and to keep all the inner seams looking pretty when the hood is down, etc. Tonight I sewed up the first set of seams on the center back of the wrap, and all three hood pieces (as modeled by my sewing ham):

Tomorrow I'll press those narrow seams flat, and then sew each of them again a bit further in to completely encase the raw edges (ie a classic french seam). Next step after that will be attaching the hood to the right angle formed by the wrap pieces coming together in the center back. I did this, with shorter and narrower pieces, in my mock-up, and it's a little bit fiddly but not too bad. I didn't french seam the mock-up though, so we'll see if that adds any headaches to this.

Once both stages of the neck seam are done and the hood is attached, the last step will be hemming! And it's a lot of hemming, lol. The shorter edges of the wrap (starting from the top of the center back, where it meets the hood) are each 48" long and 18" wide. I actually haven't measured the outer, longer edge, nor done the math to figure out what it must be given that the center back is cut on a 45 degree bias, but let's just say it's a lot of inches. And then there's the hood opening too, which was cut to have a generous drape. Many many inches of hemming, really probably better measured in yards.

I need to play around with a couple of options, see if I like the look of top stitching or if I want to do the whole thing by hand with invisible stitches, but right now my assumption is that I'll end up doing this by hand. I actually enjoy handsewing hems, so that's not the worst thing in the world, and I've got plenty of time to get this finished before I plan to wear it at the end of February. I do have at least one other sewing project I'd like to tackle for our Star Wars Batuu-bounding day, and I'd like to leave room for other things to come up at the last minute too, so I'm going to keep buzzing through this just as quickly as I can. More pictures tomorrow, in all likelihood.

After I call my mom of course, and wish her a happy birthday. And beg her for photos of that thing I made for her, lol.

[solong-webecometheflowers]

Omg I guess I forgot to post this? I got it a couple weeks ago from @sunny-possum-pal ‘s Etsy! I’ll try to get some better pictures tomorrow but I really wanted to post about it now because I meant to post it when I got it

🦴ID in alt text🦴

[pixelchills]

Hello! Just popping in to say I really love your art and your writing! I think, of all the stuff in the DCA circle 'A Not So Sunny World' is my favorite story. The characters are all very fleshed out (literally, the details on them often make me think that if I poked one, it would just feel like poking a flesh and blood person, like the hands and lips and feet and faces are always so good) and interesting, and the designs you made for them are great! They look so detailed and realistic, I love it! I have to stop and look over the title picture for 'A Not So Sunny World' when I check for updates, every time, because it's so very detailed and nice to look at. I haven't seen so much if your Dolldrops stuff, but each time I do, they're very cute and sweet.

Also, the writing! I've been hooked since maybe the second chapter of 'A Not So Sunny World' and several times I've been struck with very strong emotions from the story (I think about Sun being alone for nine years at the first Pizzaplace A LOT and more recently the line from Chapter 1, I believe, where Sun sees an adult attacking a child, that SPECIFIC line, paragraph, description keeps running races in my head because it was just so argh. It was so GOOD. I was reading it and I was like 'Oh' because it really set a tone for the story, and with the most recent news about DJMM it conjures so many ideas I'm just AAARGH. I like it. I love it it's great.)

I'm excited for more of your stuff! I can't wait find out more about Solar and Lillian (provided he survived of course) and just where the story goes from here, more about the Cult of Afton and the Virus and all of it, basically, just all of it.

Anyways, I love your art, and your writing and I'm excited for more! :)

Thank you so much! Sorry for leaving your ask in my inbox for almost a week!

I am just... unable to say much, but just thank you! It's lovely to hear what makes people so engaged in my art and stories. As much as I love the original game and theories, I'm always excited to expand and try out new fields, such as creating a whole universe where the characters are organic and besides the names/some locations/base design for the characters comes from the canon but most of it is completely made up from my head.

Solar and Lilian's story will be looked closer eventually, and I'm honestly kinda eager to do some more art of them, I genuinely enjoy drawing Solar a lot and his backstory is actually quite... sad, at the end of the day.

Glad you enjoy my content! I'll post the next chapter tomorrow! (A slight delay because of my car needs new windwipers... lol)

[irishgolfadventure]

Carne-tastic

I have been looking forward to this day for awhile. Today was the day I was going to get to play Carne Golf Links located in Bellmullet approximately an hours drive from Mount Falcon. This course was ranked by Tom Coyne as the number one golf course he played during his Ireland journey that led to his writing his bestseller, “A Golf Course Called Ireland”. I will say this, it’s hard to argue with his assessment of Carne.

First of all, today was a beautiful day. Sunny, low sixties and light winds. So a great day for playing 27 holes of golf on a course that the designer said, “God designed it, I just discovered it.” I’m a little lost for words to describe Carne. I thought Enniscrone was a dune-fest, Carne was Enniscrone on steroids.

Besides the need to be a human mountain goat, the course design was creative, challenging but fair and scenic beyond description. I’m going to post more pictures than normal so hopefully you can see for yourself just what I’m trying to describe. It’s still difficult to capture the beauty and elevation changes with an iPhone!

The Carne staff couldn’t have been more helpful and I got a chance to sit down and have a Guinness with Jerry McGuire, the general manager of Carne. We talked about how the course has been doing and all the recognition the course has been getting over the last couple of years. We also chatted about a couple of investment opportunities at Carne that are going to becoming up in the next couple of years and he invited me to become a lifetime international member. My friend Tom had put in a good word about me! Interesting stuff which is going to require me to come back here again!!

I really enjoyed the entire 27 holes which would have been impossible to play without a caddie. You could get lost in those dunes! My caddie was great, her name was Ann. She’s the first woman caddie I have ever had in Ireland or any place else for that matter. One interesting fact about Ann McGarry.....wait for it...she was 78 years old!! Yes, and she walked those hills and valleys or maybe I should say scaled, without a problem. We walked 21,000+ steps and there was not a level hole on the course. You could climb 15 foot mounds in the fairways often and walking straight up or straight down the fairway hills with mounds on the hills was not unusual. Ann was a great caddie and she was quite a golfer in her day. She still plays the course regularly and caddies two to three days or more a week. She was AWESOME.

Scoring was a challenge today. I shot 91 on the first 18 and 42 on the last nine carding three pars and a birdie on the last 9 and only 2 pars on the first 18. I loved every minute of the 27 holes but I was ready to call it a day when my last putt dropped!! Ann gave me a big hug and a peck on the cheek...probably to celebrate the fact that she doesn’t have to caddie for me anymore:-)

Stats Summary

Score 91 & 42/869

Holes Played - 27/171

Yardage played - 6017 & 3127/58279

Lost Balls 4/19

No. of Pars or better - 5 pars 1 birdie/5 birdies 35 pars

Steps - 21,545/133,847

Miles Walked - 10.17/62.74

Green Fees - $135/$1955

Caddie Fees - $80 plus tip/$715 plus tip

Dinner tonight was at The Cot & Cobble. It didn’t disappoint! But enough for now, to be truthful,  I’m worn out and am ready for a shower, an early night to bed and a day off tomorrow! I have such a tough life don’t I! :-) gb

[wanderella-w]

A mostly sunny stretch (day 10-12)

Okay, so I had a whole post typed out about day 10 (twice) but apparently Tumblr lets posts disappear when trying to upload them with a bad internet connection. Anyways, what basically happened is, I walked from just behind Bude to Crackington Haven with one of the steepest ascents of the trip (see video) and nice whether. In Crackington Haven I met Rosa again (quite amazing that she just arrived 10 minutes before me considering it was already around lunchtime) and that night we camped a few km before Boscatle. I was glad to see her again! We immediately tried the duct tape on her dried up shoes to see how it would survive the day. Unfortunately, it didn't.

The next day we came through Boscatle, a town which we loved. If I had to move to Cornwall (no idea why I would have to but anyways) I would chose Boscatle! It was a small town with one bakery, one book shop, one outdoor shop, a small supermarkt and a YHA that was even cuter than the one we had stayed in. The National Trust (the organization maintaining all the hiking paths) had their office there and the surroundings were beautiful. We kept walking and it got warm and sunny. Was this the gulf stream they had all been telling us about? We could also tell that we were now in Cornwall as the landscape had changed. It was less rugged and the cliffs (if you could still call them that) were more like hills softly crumbling into the sea. The water where we walked now was very blue. We had lunch at a touristy spot (some King Arthur related castle) and as it was Saturday it was quite busy. At night we found a beautiful camping spot next to the river, a few km before Port Isaac.

(First picture is the YHA youth hostel in Boscatle, it was still closed)

The next day was a bit rough for me in the beginning, even though the whether was beautiful. My body felt heavy, maybe it was because zo hadn't had a rest day yet, or just because we were actually climbing quite a lot of hills. After a coffee at a coffee truck that appeared just at the right time in the right place (Port Quin), I was re-energized and we actually had a great rest of the day. We were in a chatty mood, talking a lot with each other and with strangers on the path (It was still the weekend, so quite busy). We met quite a few people who were also doing the coast path, mostly one weekend at a time. Some people were asking if we were wild camping and they were all enthousiastic about our plans. We took the ferry from Rock to Padstow, and had an hour of time to relax afterwards (and to do our obligatory cooldown), before we hopped on the bus to our youth hostel in Treyarnon Bay. We booked two night in this hostel as it is also on the path - the plan is to reach it tomorrow walking after going to the outdoor store in Padstow in the morning to look for new hiking shoes. My feet keep getting wet and the shoes take days to dry, so I think this is really the only option. Altogether this means we only need to pack a daypack tomorrow which is a great foresight!

PS: Rosa lost one of her zip-pant legs, so now she looks like a 60-year old tourist who JUST LOVES Cornwall.

PPS: Yes, we can also observe spring spring! While a week ago we still saw frog eggs beneath a layer of snow (see photo), we saw them hatched yesterday! We saw duffadils (Narzissen) all along the way but now we also see some wild flowers here and there, and in the past three days I have seen butterflies and bumblebees.

Update: I wrote this post on the 19th, today is the the 20st of March and we are going to Newquay with the bus instead of Padstow because they have better outdoor stores there. Not sure if there will be any hiking today.

[46yearsonwheels]

Oct. 22,2024, Tuesday

61° to 88° mostly sunny.

Eden to Telegraph, Texas☀️

We started our 70 mile ride today in Eden, which has its own Garden of Eden. 😃Maria offered me an apple from the Garden of Eden, but I declined, unlike Adam.

Our first pass through town was Menard and as we often do, we charged the battery in the lical library, while we had an early lunch. Across the street from the library was a beautiful butterfly garden, which today was also visited by hummingbirds. We assume the hummingbirds are on their migration to Central and South America, but certainly they were enjoying the flowers in this lovely garden in Menard.

Sandy is the librarian and was very welcoming to us both. I noted the sign with the dairy cows and its advice to “live like someone left the gate open!” it reminded me that we should all live with joy, sometimes unexpected! ☺️ With regards to Sandy, the librarian, we found that she had run several marathons, but now was training for her first ”ultramarathon.” She will be running that 100 mile race on Saturday. 😵👍🏼That is impressive at any age, but she is 63 and doing her first one. She has been training over a year.⭐️

We are now in Texas Hill country, a region we have been in before when we went across country east to west in 2015. When we reached Junction this afternoon, we left Highway 83 and began our southwest trek to Del Rio, our endpoint to this border to border ride.😎‼️ We have been on Highway 83 since North Dakota and could have taken Highway 83 all the way to the Mexican border at Laredo. Instead we opted to head south west towards Del Rio, as it is a smaller city and a little easier to navigate on a bicycle than Laredo. 🚴🚴

Our final stop today was in the ghost town of Telegraph. At one time, it had a population of 66, but the population now is three. The old post office is still standing and someone decorated it for Halloween, as you can see from the picture. The town got its name because trees were cut there to support communication lines to army forts east of town. It has been fascinating to read all of the historical markers along the roadways. We included a picture saying that there were rockslides. This was indeed, the case, as during a portion of the ride, the shoulder was littered with rocks of all sizes! Thankfully, nothing came tumbling down as I was riding along! I also stopped and took a picture of the road sign showing that Del Rio is only 122 miles away! That is hard to believe! Leslie, there’s a short video of me while I was awaiting that to catch up to me. Seeing a river with clear water was definitely picture worthy to me! 🤩Tomorrow morning we will start our ride in Telegraph and pedal 31 miles to Rocksprings, which is 76 miles from Del Rio. If all goes as planned, we should arrive in Del Rio Thursday afternoon. 😎 We are spending tonight and tomorrow night at the Historic Hotel in Rocksprings. We will take some pictures tomorrow to share with you. 

And one last thing, yes, we did have headwinds again today, 9-14 mph from the south.🙃

[kittyfairyblog]

March 27 2024

Meow well today has been a much better day than yesterday. I didn't sleep well last night and I did not sleep as long as I thought I would. I had a doctor appointment today at 12:30 pm and I finally got to have my medicine refilled. Hopefully I can pick up my refills tomorrow or Friday from the pharmacy. Nya I added new groups to my Facebook page and I was able to talk to a friend bestie today. Meow I had to reassure my bestie I was still her bestie. Anyway I hope to sleep well tonight. My plans to fix my PS3 I purchased from eBay well I probably won't fix or do it at a later date. I tried to fix it once the way a YouTube video showed outside one sunny day but it was still doing the same thing that I bought with the problem I mean. I mean I purchased a heat gun and new thermal paste for it but it didn't work. Well I might put it back together screws in the right place and just sit on it. I have a new Switch that I have been enjoying playing on since Monday and I really don't think I want to get the PS3 working again to play PS3 games. Meow I took my shower already before 5 pm and now waiting on my mom to return home from babysitting my niece and nephews over at my sister's house while my sister worked. At least my mom was able to take me to my appointment today. Nya well I am sitting with my dog Kylie on the recliner in the living room while waiting. Good grief I had to wait almost 30 minutes before I finally got around to seeing my doctor. The place I saw my doctor at doesn't have them locally so I had a televised one. Meow when my mom comes home I am making sure to go to my room. I like it in my room since I have been in the living room after I returned home from the doctors appointment. Meow well my dad is not working today because he is not feeling well. Meow that's about wraps up this entry for now. I might post pictures later after this entry. Anyways later.

[mojavepumpkin]

2/4/24

I wanted to write a blog post because I haven't in a while but Tumblr tried it's darndest to impede me. Why is signing in on web so hard???? BUT! I have news! I have deleted TikTok! I don't want to be addicted to my phone. It added NOTHING to my life, just took away time. If there's anything I don't want to lose; its time. AAAAAnyway, I would like to make blog posting a more regular thing -- quite enjoyable. Today has been mostly a complete wash; rained all day, did nothing. Do you ever get that feeling like you just can't get comfortable? That's me right now. I don't feel like... GOOD. At all. I'm like weirdly itchy, my neck hurts, the lighting in my room is bad, my room is messy, I feel bloated and hungry at the same time.

Okay, took a break to eat and I actually feel a little better. School is not cancelled tomorrow which is a massive bummer. I think I'm going to clean my room, then I have to do homework :(((((((, I need to figure out some public speaking stuff so I'll do that too. I need to figure out my next couple of walks so I can plan them. Also; would not mind getting back to reading, I only work tuesday this week so I should be able to get a lot of stuff done -- SPEAKING OF WORKING, my friday and saturday shifts went decently well, makes me want to rethink quitting. I was worried about saturday because it's lunch which is always stressful, and it was stressful, but I did it. And I'm proud. I hope whenever we go to the beach next it's sunny and warm, because this weekend really sucked it big time.

I feel better about myself now that I've deleted tiktok, I think the next step is to delete all social media BS and just use my phone for the necessary stuff. r/dumphones has some good ideas. I like the idea of using my laptop for social media stuff because then using it feels more intentional, like I'm actively making the decision to use it instead of just using it because it's there. I've gotten really into r/EDC (every day carry) stuff too, and they kind of facilitate eachother, using your phone for less stuff necessitates carrying more stuff with you. I think I need a Kindle or some ereader thing, I want to get back into reading daily. I like the greyscale phone set-ups, I think it would help a lot with the whole "going-to-my-phone-when-I'm-bored" thing. I think the greyscale dumbiphone is the most elegant solution to the phone addiction problem because I can still use it for work stuff, calls, emails, taking pictures, listening to music, podcasts, maps, carplay, BUT its less attractive bc greyscale. - tangent over.

I have a weird neckache and I think it's because of how I sit when I write. Really, I lay down -- I should write at my desk, I suppose.

[countessofravenclaw]

The 2023 writing Advent calendar: Day 24

24. Elf

This is direct continuation of the Day 11 of last year calendar

“Okay, what’s next?” Gastón flicked his hand and a picture appeared on the cover of the book Nina had put before him. 

“I… Think that was the last one for the day,” Nina read o fteh scrol that had been sent over from the Dreams and Wishes in the morning. 

“Really?” Gastón questioned, “Were done?”

“I think so,” Nina nodded, “The list was quite short today.”

“And to think we have been slammed most of the year and now were getting off early,” Gastón remarked as she grabbed and pile of the books they had created today and put them in the box that would take them to the Dreams and Wishes to be packaged and ready for the Christmas Eve. 

The elves working in the workshops only got the wishlists, but the gifts more often than not were not specifieds. Only few pof the department got child specifications with the lists. Literature department was one of those, since they were creating stories. It really depended on the specific wish. 

“We’ll probably get another long list tomorrow,” Nina remarked, “When Dreams and Wishes says you’re ahead schedule, it usually mean that they have forgotten like ten scrolls into some back cabinet.”

“And you would not think it was not our problem, you’d be so wrong,” GAstón shook his head laughing, “But hey, lets enjoy today.” He raised his hand to her. 

“Really?” Nina raised an eyebrow at him, “A highfive? That’s how were doing this now?”

“Well, you were worried about someone coming in,” Gastón smirked as he hopped onto the table Nina was sitting besides. He took one of her braid into his hand and started playing with it. “There are other ways too we can celebrate… It’s just a shame you have a roommate again…” He brough his hand to her nape and started leaning forward. 

“So, how are you doing here?” One of the Artworkshop elders walked in and Gastón jumped off the table as quickly as he could have.

“Were actually done for the day,” Nina responded. 

“Really?” The elder looked at them. 

“We have been efficient,” Gastón nodded, “Even when it has just been the two of us.”

The past year had been interesting. Most of Maisteris that they had worked with previously had been old—that’s why they had all retired—and quite set on their ways. When Gastón and Nina had been left on their own to do thing the way they though would be the best, they had found themselves to be really efficient. They did work together well after all…

“That has been unfortunate,” The elder nodded, “But I gotta say, you have managed miraculously well for two apprentices.” 

“We have made it work.”

That didn’t still mean that the work load they had managed to do was meant to be carried by just two apprentice elves alone. 

***

“Uuuuu, you have no idea how many of these I had to transport while I worked at the post,” Matteo docked the hockey stick Luna was twirling around. He had spent the whole day explaining to her how the working stations worked and everything else. Why couldn’t some Maisteri do this? Why was he settled with thai healt hazard, no matter how sunny she was. “I kept dropping them.” 

“Yeah, but here we make them,” Matteo sighed, and took the stick from Luna, “We need to get this done so we can leave. Hand me the wrapping tape.” 

“UUu, yeah, we shouldn’t spent our whole night here,” Luna grabbed a paintbrush and started painting the stick. Matteo had to admit that she had a good eye for color and creativity. SOme child would definitely enjoy the rainbow pattern she was painting on the stick. “My roommate Nina is showing me around today, as when I was at the post, I didn’t really see this area at all. DO you know her?”

“Yeah, she’s my roommate’s rak—” Matteo stopped him self. The fact that Gastón and Nina were rakastavaiset wasn’t common knowledge. Rakastavaiset was the term that elves used for unbonded pairs, basically the ones who were dating. Matteo had been that with Ambar, she had been his rakas. “She works with my roommate at the literature department.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Luna flung the last stick in it box and off they went to the Dreams and Wishes. She had some movement in her. 

“Okay, well, see you tomorrow,” Matteo nodded to Luna and walked out of the door. It was snowing today. 

“Matteo! Hey!” He came across Gastón and Nina quite quickly. They were walking in a snow holding hands. 

“You won’t believe the day I have just had,” Matteo shook his head. “How’s the books?”

“We do what we can,” Nina responded, “I still can’t believe they just have left us alone.” 

“You don’y think anyone from the academy will join you next year?”

“We can never know,” GAstón shrugged, “Not just anyone can work in literature. It requires as specific gifts. I mean, anyone can make hockey sticks…”

“Hey! My sticks are works of art,” Matteo rolled his eyes. 

“Whatever you say.” Gastón rolled his eyes back. 

“Incoming…!” Suddenly a torpedo of some sort, or a fallen star, crashed in a snow pile next to them.

“Luna?” Nina exclaimed as a head of brown frizzyr hair popped out of the snow.   

“Sorry about that,” Luna puled her hat back on, “I miscalculated the jump.”

“How were you able to jump that far?”

“That’s my gift,” Luna explained, “I can do crazy acrobatics, but I can’t always control them… oh hi Matteo.”

“We worked together today,” Matteo explained.

“That’s right?” Nina asked before looking at Gastón, “This is Luna, my new roommate. Thihs is Gastón, we… work together, and Matteo you knew apparently.”

“Cool, nice to meet you.” Luna did a spin in the air. 

“Well, anyways I promised to show you around so We’ll see you guys later.”

“So, you work with thet guy?” Luna asked teasingly after she and Nina had left the.

“Yes,” Nina nodded and tried tpo sound nochalant. “It’s only us there now.”

She had taken the liking to Gastón immediately as she had gotten out of the academy last year., but she didn’t think he would have ever liked her back, until he did. She had to believe that North Star had intended this.

There were lots of stories of the North Star and the romantic bondage. Some of the elders said that everyone had their intended rakas, who they were meabt to be bonded with, but it was never quaranteed that the rakastavaiset would ever meet. 

North Star could only bind together the intended. There were stories of failed attempt that more often than not led to break up—nothing said more about not being meant to be together than the strongest force in the universe saying so. That was one of the reasons why many rakastavaiset often kept thng secret until they got bonded. 

Many of he younger left generation believe that not everyone had an intended at all. Some did, some didn’t. They were old elves who had never gotten bonded. It was more to personal preference nowadays.

Only hiccup was that you would’t able to become Santa if you were unbonded. The North pole needed Mrs. Claus. Once the boss died, the North Star picked the new one. No knew how that worked and most didn’t even want to know. Most elves had no ambition to become the next Santa Claus, but no one knew what was to come. 

“Imagine if he was your intended,” Luna continued with a reading tone, “right before you.”

“It would be crazy,” Nina smiled smally. “How about you? Did you have fun with Matteo?”

“Well, yeah,” Luna nodded, “I mean it was my first day and I have never worked at the workshops before so it was but crazy.” 

“Matteo is Gastón’s roommate,” Nina explained, “He’s harmless, but a bit full of himself.” 

Well, nothing really happened in this, because I need to make this into a full length story someday. Maybe next year's Christmas... Hopefully you enjoyed the lore and a side note: Matteo is much nicer here than in the canon because there is no assholery in the North Pole, because of magic

[projecthipster]

Avocado on Toast

(Yes, with an “on.” That’s what the list says.)

Oh, avocado toast. Simplest of concepts, and yet, ambrosia. The fruit of a mesoamerican conifer, rich with oil and nutrients, softens to a lovely-textured paste or a soft smooth fruit that falls easily into slices, it’s up to you how long you want to let it age on the counter, like a cask ale or a cheddar cheese. Put that on bread. End of concept description.

Simplest of concepts, and yet, made so much. Most of the time that I eat avocado toast, I make it at home with a simple, perfect recipe. Here it is:

Using a fork, mash half an avocado in a small bowl. Mix in a splash of olive oil, a couple of sprinkles of salt, fresh-ground pepper, and red chili flakes to taste. Toast two slices of good quality bread, dry, until they are golden brown and slightly crispy on the edges. Divide the avocado mash to spread thickly across the two slices. Eat while still warm.

Of course, most of the avocadi toasti that gave the dish its Hipster association aren’t so simple. Let’s inspect the brunch menu of a hip café at Van Horne and Hamilton, in the hip not-quite-downtown district. The area and café are both named after a defunct streetcar line, which is rather Hipster. This spot’s menu reveals an avocado toast featuring, for eighteen dollars, sunny-side-up eggs, arugula, gem tomatoes, and country hash.

Sounds good! I’d order it, and in fact I may even get it for brunch tomorrow when I head that way before work. Tips have been good lately. But at that price you can see why this humble conifer-fruit-on-bread has been cast as a sort of account-draining millennial meth that dooms its orderers of my generation to a lifetime of loft rentals. Putting aside the what’s wrong with lofts? question and the general wrongness of the idea, it’s still easy to be baffled at the price and excess of these luxurious toastses.

Another place, down on the Atlantic Avenue strip, features, alongside breakfast pierogies and taco pancakes (I think I once saw Homer Simpson invent such a thing,) a twenty dollar avo toast with a poached egg and bacon or salmon. A far cry from a few dollars for a grocery store avocado and loaf of bread for my recipe, that provides four servings with half the loaf left over.

But the luxury is the point, isn’t it? When the feeling of avocado meat melting in ones mouth feels like a luxury in itself, it’s a dish that lends itself naturally to a special-occasion treat. While working at the ski hill I had the expensive lodge avo toast a couple of times to celebrate sending a new challenging run. Who’s to say we don’t deserve it? Socialist movements of the twentieth century called for “bread and roses;” the bread of secure staples, and the roses of luxury, recognition that an improved world ought not only secure material stability, but beyond that, luxury and comfort. As hipsters rallied against the greed and destructiveness of the corporate mainstream, let us therefore take up the cry of the old century for the new. Panem et avocadi!

Post-scriptum

I wrote all the preceding at home in the evening while listening to a Bob Dylan record*, no avocados in the building. Since it had been months since I actually ordered avo toast, I did so this morning. I didn’t go to the twenty dollar place, nor the seventeen. I went to a hip-aspiring café near Stephen and Broadway, busy with office workers getting takeout. The avo toast there was a much kinder seven dollars, served with cherry tomatoes and arugula, with white bean hummus mixed into mash. I had it with a local roast cappucino, of course. And you know what? It was damn good. Yes, easily seven dollars good. Shitty picture of it in its compostable tray at the top of the post, which I tried to snap without looking like I was, because I didn’t want at all to be that guy.

I give this hipster food five studio loft rentals out of five.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the fourth list, Hipster Starter Pack.

Stay deck.

*Bob Dylan at Budokan, which apparently is a controversial album? I guess I can see why since it features him singing the lyrics to some of my favourite of his songs as set to unrecognizable new tunes. But eh, it’s interesting and sounds like a cool pop rock record aside from the Dylanness. Anyway, this was supposed to be about toast.