#in case anyone wants to change background art on steam

[iokheira0541]

Hehehe I'm so ready.

[little-red-toyota]

Final good bye to the fandom

TW//Trauma, triggers, nsfw, sexual themes, rape, domestic abuse e.g.

This is gonna be a long ass post…

It has taken me a while to get emotionally strong enough to do this, as I will have to think back at some traumatic events from my past to address some of these things. That's why I waited until I got home from vacation with my family, as it will seriously affect my mood and mental health, and I want to be near my doctor and therapist, just in case.

And also, I know that the majority of those reading this will invalidate me and tell me I am making things up to clear my name. So, I literally have to torment myself to write a blog post people will just brush off as bogus anyway. But I will do it now that I am in safe surroundings. Then it will be off my chest, and I can finally move on. If people will continue stirring up the past, it will be their problem, not mine.

I think I should write one last blog post where I address everything. I have left the TTTE-fandom, but I will write that one as my final goodbye to the fandom. I just have to find out everything I've been accused of so I can properly address them all in order. I might leave out details of my life that is too hard for me to open up about. I know most of you will just invalidate me anyway.

1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

2. My mafia-AU.

3. The Darin incident.

4. Being a pedophile. (Where do they get this from anyway??)

5. Running the NSFW-blog.

6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

Is there more?

Ah... yes! Faking my own suicide, of course!

7. "Faking" being suicidal.

8. Having the audacity to survive and go on living.

9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

Anything else that needs to be addressed? What else am I being accused of? Send me a dm and I will add it to the post.

 Okay, I will bump the Stepney fic down a bit as it is the most traumatic thing for me to address, I will save that one for last.

2 and 3. The dark au/mafia au where I gave some TTTE characters some rather dark and unpleasant character traits, and the whole incident with Darin and the pedo-Salty was addressed in this blog post written by my husband last year, so I am not opening that can of worms again: https://little-red-toyota.tumblr.com/post/623743183795470336/in-light-of-recent-events

Even the thing about Toby cheating on Henrietta is addressed there.

As for the au, I never fully explored it as I started losing interest in TTTE around the same time. I found other things to enjoy and TTTE faded into the background and the au was dropped before I even wrote any stories, apart from the one about Toby and Henrietta.

Some people claim, like this lovely individual, that most of the characters were rapists and pedos. No, not most. Only one of each. And I did not write more than one story about rape and suicide. Where does this person even get that from? Someone who told someone who had heard from someone who might have heard….?

Don't spread rumors unless you are sure that they are true.

Anyway, it's all addressed in that blog post in that link. I don't see how this mafia au is any worse than other dark post-apocalyptic or violent aus. It mostly was about the diesel mafia and their illegal businesses, not about sex, even if it did occur now and then. I find the substance abuse in it to be more problematic tbh…  

 4. Being a pedophile.

I don't even know how to defend myself against this one, as I don't even know why people think I am pedophile. They only throw the accusation out with no backing evidence, so I have no idea where it comes from or what it is that makes people think I am one.

Apart from one claim that I had faved "porn" alongside "strangers'" baby photos on DA. I addressed that earlier though. As DeviantArt doesn't sort what you click "like" on, it all ends up in the same folder unless you actively go through it and sort it into categories, which I don't bother most of the time. It also doesn't say WHEN it was added to your faves. So, I can have faved an artistic nude on Saturday, and then faved my friend's family photo on Thursday. It's not like I actively search for porn, get all steamed up and then look at pictures of children. WTF.

The few children I have faved are not from complete strangers, but long-term friends of mine. Yes, it is possible to have friends on the same website. I have actually met a lot of my RL friends through DeviantArt. I posted photos of my daughter when she was a baby, they would fave it and congratulate me. So, I did the same when they had a baby. As simple as that. Nothing weird or perverted about it. Due to people doxxing me last year however, I deleted the photos of me, my husband and my daughter from DeviantArt, so it's no longer there.

Porn isn't allowed on DeviantArt anyway. The nudes there are so-called artistic nudes, and for the most part I use them as pose-references when I draw as it is easier to draw a pose using a nude base and then dress them up once you got the pose right.

"The very naked" centaurs I have faved. Well, I like the mythological creature Centaur. And as far as I know… they do not wear clothes, so how are they NOT nude? Look it up, it's a horse body with a human torso instead of horse head. I don't see them as sexual, but what do I know? Maybe YOU do?

I have no sexual interest in children whatsoever.

 5. Running the NSFW-blog on Tumblr and Twitter.

Yes. I was one of six people modding that blog. ONE of six, so I refuse to take the full blame here.

MerciResolution has openly admitted to being the founder, and she recruited me and some others to modify as the confession load became too heavy for one person to handle alone.

The original blog on Tumblr worked as follows: People would anonymously send a confession to our askbox, we would add a picture (sometimes photoshopped) to the text and post it on the blog. Always tagged as NSFW and with proper trigger warnings if necessary! The blog itself was also marked as explicit, so it didn't appear in searches and such.

For us, this blog was nothing but a joke. We did it for shits and giggles. If anyone took it seriously and thought we got off to the stuff that was posted, we apologize for that, but to us it was just for laughs. And we DID laugh a lot, you guys should have seen the weird shit people sent us sometimes!

We had fun and we never thought anyone would take it seriously, so we never thought of writing "joke" in the description or anything. It never occurred to us that it could be anything but a joke.

We also made a Twitter account for it, also locked for minors. But it was quickly hacked, and someone changed the password so we could no longer access it. We made another account and forgot about the old one…

After a while, the original mods started losing interest and the blog (both on Tumblr and Twitter) became less active. That's when a person I had known for years, and wrongfully trusted, came forward and wanted to take over ownership. So, the ownership was handed over to Russalita/Charlie.

That turned out to be huge mistake!

Me and the other mods had more or less forgotten that the blogs existed, when suddenly someone started bashing me and getting up in my arms over it. I got seriously confused as I hadn't been active on it in almost a year. But as it turned out, Russalita had removed the mature filters and made the accounts open for all the see. Even minors.

And as people knew I was one of the mods, they fired their guns at me. I can see why though, so I'm not pointing any fingers here.

I tried contacting her by phone, asking her to lock the accounts again, but she gave me a less than polite response, hung up and then blocked my number…

So, I decided to try to shut the blogs down on my own, trying the old passwords. It worked on the Tumblr-account, and I managed to password protect it, for some reason it couldn't be fully deleted. But the Twitter account had gotten its password changed by Russalita. I was however able to get a new password by logging into the e-mail we had used to create it. I deleted the Twitter blog fully. It can't be re-activated even if we wanted to. It's gone.

But it turns out the old, hacked one is still up and now open for everyone. And this one poses a huge problem as we have no way of getting into it to delete it. Only thing we have been able to do so far is reporting it and hope it will be removed by Twitter. So I only have one thing to say about it: report it.

I am no longer running any NSFW TTTE blog anywhere, nor do I have interest in doing so. So, if you come across one, claiming to be me or any of the other mods, it is false.

 6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

People seem to believe I have drawn genitals on trains. I have never done such. Any art on the NSFW-blog with genitalia on the trains were sent in by confessors and was not drawn by me. Most of them seems to have been drawn by someone who goes by the name "The Lance".

I HAVE drawn things for the NSFW blog, but there were no genitalia in those drawings. I drew Frank of Arlesdale looking grossed out by (I don't know what the part is named in English, but it is connected to the brakes of the engine) that stick-like thing on his bufferbeam being wet from whatever the confessor did to him. I drew an over-exaggerated comical pic of a horrified Peter Sam getting his face licked by his driver, who had an enormous tongue. I also did a couple of manips. Mostly maniping engine faces on humans, like the one where Gordon's face is on a less than fit guy flailing his shirt around, and the Arlesdale smallies' faces on a movie poster from Magic Mike. One with Mr.Conductor in a giant bun while Pinchy is applying ketchup on him, for a confession about eating him, I think?  I've done some more, but I forgot what it was, I only know I loved making them comical rather than erotic, as I saw the blog as a joke overall.

I HAVE also drawn aheago faces on engines because it looks hilarious. Though I have only drawn them on my OCs and the NRS engines, not TTTE characters.

Point is I have never drawn genitalia on trains. Ever. And I likely never will. It's not THAT much fun drawing NSFW stuff.

I see from this screenshot that a certain MK-Instrumentalist claim that all my personal art is age-regression art and infantilism…

Whose art have you been looking at? Because it's definitely not mine. I have drawn a couple of baby/chibi diesels… But claiming that all of my 700 or so artworks are depicting infantilism and age-regression stuff? I suggest people go have a look for themselves. I haven't drawn that. That MK-guy has been desperately trying to cancel me for ages for reasons only himself know. I don't even know the guy, and he doesn't know me, yet he wants to see me beheaded. Go figure.

I was for a long time bothered by some age-regressor on Tumblr who just wouldn't leave me alone with their weird asks, who tried to force themselves on me and some other artists here. They claim age-regression isn't a fetish, but the shit they sent to my askbox certainly looked like a fetish to me.

I don't want anything to do with that stuff. It weirds me out.

And no. I have never drawn pedophilia or rape art either. This guy can't even make up his mind on which one to accuse me of.

 7 and 8. Faking suicide and having the audacity to survive and go on living.

As many know, after the intense shitstorm against me last summer, thanks to Darin, I attempted suicide. I didn't succeed as my husband came home early. I was gone for a few days but returned when a young boy reached out to me for help as he was being groomed and didn't know who else to turn to.

Recently I saw a screenshot where someone claimed me to have faked suicide, and that I just came back after a few days when everything had died down.

Wow.

I am truly sorry I survived.

I don't remember much from those days to be honest, but as the load became too heavy and the bullying too intense, piling up on 30 years of old trauma… I decided to end it. I must warn you guys who might get triggered now; there are detailed descriptions of a suicide attempt. Proceed with caution. People told me I was a bad mother among other things, having had those same thoughts myself (according to my husband, I am a good mom) and people just confirming them, I thought that my daughter would be better off growing up without me. I could have chosen a more effective suicide method, but I was afraid my daughter would be the first to find me, so I wanted it to be clean and look like I was just sleeping. That way it could be explained as natural causes.

So, I decided to overdose on pills. I downed all pills I could find in the house that had a warning triangle on it (strong pain meds etc.) and then went to my computer to delete my online existence, especially the personal data.

As a former paramedic, I should have known better. Because after half an hour, my body started reacting. But not the way I had hoped and wanted. I started retching and almost vomiting. That's when my husband came home from work and found me. He immediately saw the empty packages and knowing my past suicidal tendencies, he reacted instinctively. He put his fingers down my throat and had me puke everything up, then he called an ambulance and had me admitted to the hospital.

I don't remember anything from the days I spent there. But I have been told they emptied my stomach and gave me lots of fluids. I was then assigned a psychiatrist which I am still seeing today.

I was gone for those days because I was in hospital, not because I was pulling some kind of trick and pretending to have ended myself.

So… I am sorry I "faked" my suicide.

I'm sorry my husband saved me. I am sorry the medics and doctors succeeded in saving my life.

I am sorry I survived and proceeded to live on. If I ever make another attempt, I promise to do better.

Why are you guys so persistent in trying to push people to suicide anyway? Do you get a kick out of it? Why do people have to be pushed to that point before you care?

What did we tell our daughter? Simply that I got sick and had to go to the hospital. She took that well.

I've seen a lot of people wonder why I am still around. Why shouldn't I? Does my daughter deserve to lose her mother over some online crap she doesn't even know about? I owe her to live and watch her grow up, to help her with her homework and whatever else a parent needs to do. I also owe my husband to stay by his side, like I promised him the day we got married. Even if I do not wish to live.

I'm sorry I survived, guys. Really, I am.

 9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it. And 1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

 First… why would anyone make up trauma? It's not like it's a competition to have the worst life, is it?

Sadly, I don't have to make up anything. My life HAS been rocky up until the birth of my daughter. I have been through so much trauma I couldn't even fathom it myself before my therapist listed it all up to me. Until then, I had just been casually talking to her about it, like I would talk about the weather. I didn't cry or get in touch with my emotions even once while telling everything, because I was taught from an early age to never complain, to suck it up and go on. So, no matter what people did to me, I would just smile and go on, even if it killed me inside. I did not want to show any sign of weakness, because then they would attack me. A habit I developed through years of being bullied in school. Never show feelings, just pretend nothing could hurt you, then they would eventually grow tired of it and stop.

Except they never did. They kept going through all my years at school. To such an extent, my boyfriend didn't dare to show himself hanging out with me out of fear of being bullied himself… And as we grew older, he would start cheating on me too. And I kept smiling…

My next boyfriend was a bit older than me, and while that didn't bother me, as we were both well over legal age, it bothered him. We only lasted one year before he bailed out and ditched me out of the blue via an sms.

The next guy… was the one who scarred me for life. Both physically and mentally. A charmer at first of course, until I was trapped. He was unemployed, so he moved in with me, and I paid for everything from food to phone bills. All while he was dating several women behind my back, calling various pay-phone services and in general acted like a manwhore. As I worked as an electrician (also being subject to massive bullying and sexual harassment at work), he would be jealous of all my co-workers and if I ever came home late or worked overtime, he accused me of cheating and was extremely violent about it. He would also isolate me from my friends and family, making me think I couldn't get any other than him. If any of my male friends (almost all my friends are male…) came over, he would give me such hell afterwards, it was easier just to tell them it was a bad time to visit. And after a while, they stopped asking. This guy also demanded sex. Every single day. If I refused, he would punish me, mostly by flogging me with lampcords, belts or whatever else he had at hand. My back is a criss cross map of old, faded scars even now nearly 20 years later. I would have shown you a photo, but I am so self-concious about my body after all the bullying, I hardly even show my face in photos. Maybe one day… but I certainly need more therapy before being able to show naked skin to strangers, even if it's just my back. So I had non-consensual sex with him more often than consensual. It has taken me hours in therapy to even take the word in my mouth and call it by its proper name: rape. I was raped, almost every single day for little over a year, before I found the strength to break out of the relationship and finally throw him out of my house. It all ended when I found some revealing texts on his cellphone, which he was extremely protective of… Texts that revealed that he had engaged in a relationship with a 12 year old girl, and it had been going on for a while. Not only was he cheating on me, but he was a pedophile too. Needless to say, I didn't even let him pack his stuff before I fetched my shotgun and chased him out of the house. I don't know where I got the courage and strength from… but I was furious.

I thought I had gotten rid of him, but no. He started stalking me in public. Hiding behind shelves when I was shopping, his car following mine everywhere I went. I received weird letters in the mail with cut-out letters from newspapers, glued together. On top of all, his creepy, old uncle called me with some rather disgusting suggestions and tried to come on to me really hard. I had to change my phone number, and after coming home to my house and finding out someone had entered my home using a key, only to empty the drawer of my night table, I also had to change the locks of my doors as he had clearly copied the key.

He didn't stop until I got the police involved.

So, when I finally met the guy who would become my husband (or rather, we found out we were made for each other, we had known each other since we were 11 years old), I had major trust issues towards men especially and it took him endless patience and love to break me out of that shell.

But the trauma doesn't stop… or start there.

In the year 2000, on January 4th, I would experience something that made me unable to even look at a train for over 10 years. The Åsta accident (google it). I was a volunteer in the Norwegian Red Cross then, and a paramedic in training. Back then, you were allowed to start training the year you would turn 16. So, I was still 15 when I witnessed the most traumatic event of my life. The day started out calm, we were stocking up the ambulance after delivering a patient to the hospital when we got a call with the code "500", which means "catastrophe". Normally when we get that code it is a rehearsal… so we drove towards the coordinates with the thoughts that this was just an exercise, nothing real… we didn't prepare ourselves mentally… And we ended up in the closest thing to hell I have ever been… The sight of the burning trains, the smells, the sounds, the screaming… I still wake up by nightmares to this day. Though the moment that haunts me the most is when the screaming stopped… because we all knew why… I don't want to go into details, but 19 people died that day. But we also saved 67 people. I try to hold on to that thought. The age limit for starting paramedic training was raised after this, as I wasn't the only one who was too young for an accident of that scale. Today it is 18. A memorial stone has been placed on the site, but I still haven't been able to bring myself to visit it, even if we drive past the site every year on our way to visit family further north in the country. I needed hours of therapy to even be able to ride a train after this. To have gotten to the point where I now volunteer at a heritage railway and is in training to become a driver, is a HUGE step for me. My next goal is to visit the site of the accident.

On to next trauma… A previous employer, a rather large electric company in Norway, whom I worked for 8 years. The first five years were great, we were a close-knit bunch of electricians, and we had a great relationship with the bosses and higher-ups. Our labor union was strong.

It all started changing in 2009 when we got new leaders… and those decided to get rid of everyone who were a member of the union. One by one, they started harassing workers in various ways, trying to get them to quit. In Norway, they need a legal reason to fire you, it's not enough to not like someone. There has to be a good reason to fire someone e.g. theft, neglecting work… Since they didn't have any reasons to fire us, they started making our work lives gradually harder and harder until we would break and find another job. Sadly, one of my co-workers couldn't stand the pressure… He bid us all farewell as normal one Friday and hung himself the following day.. But as I was a girl in a male-dominated profession, I had been taught at an early stage to ignore anything that would hurt me emotionally, just arch my neck and plow through. I kept doing that, despite starting to feel more and more mental and physical pains… even my co-workers pointed out how I was being mistreated before I acknowledged it myself. I tried to tell my boss, but he reacted by treating me worse. So, I went to his boss… and that's when things went to hell. Instead of doing his job and listen, he started harassing me too. He deemed my over-weight a problem, and he started demanding I gave him detailed lists of what I ate and how much I worked out… Completely illegal of course, but by this point I was broken down to the point I thought I was useless and couldn't get another job… so I accepted. He started accusing me of lying about my exercise, so I started training at the gym in the basement at work instead. One day, while I was there, he locked the doors and turned the lights off. There were no windows, no cellphone reception and hardly anyone walking by in that part of the building… I sat there in the pitch dark for 3 hours before I was let back out. I still get badly triggered by narrow, dark rooms and rooms with no windows. To such an extent, I jumped out of a small window on the second floor of a gym when I was in boot camp. I was allowed to train downstairs in the bigger gym with windows on all walls after that incident…

The harassment at work went on for years until I finally snapped, ended up at the hospital and got into therapy for the first time. I don't want to go into depth about what more happened, I just can't… I can't bring myself to write it all. Luckily, I had gotten more education while working, so when I graduated, another company called and gave me an offer I just couldn't refuse. So, I quit my job and never looked back, even if the traumas I suffered there still haunts me to this day.

Sadly, even after switching jobs, now getting a safe job with sane leaders… I started to relax, and that's when all my past trauma came washing over me. And one day, on while driving to work, I had my first serious panic attack. It started as this feeling I used to have at the old company; getting sick to my stomach and having the sense of someone being out to get me… then it developed to breathing problems… and I had to pull the car over. I broke into tears, struggling to breathe, stumbling out of the car to read the logo on its side just to reassure my body and brain that I worked for a different company now and there was no reason for panic. I called my boss and let him know, because he also was a "refugee" from that other company, so he knew what me and several others had gone through. He managed to talk me down enough for me to come to the office to talk to him. That helped.

I got back into therapy. A better therapist this time. But sadly, it got apparent that I could no longer work as an electrician as there was too many triggers. I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, and social anxiety. I'm still working on these and get better slowly.

I have been in therapy for a long time now, and it was my therapist that suggested I wrote fics to cope and "write it out". I tried to make up my own characters for this, but never felt any connection. I was by this time in the TTTE fandom and had met people with similar trauma and pasts like myself, and I started roleplaying with some of them. Me and a girl from UK then agreed to try to rp/co-write a fic to cope with our trauma. We both found it easier to write about pre-established characters we had a connection to, even if it was an au that made it barely recognizable from the original source material. Only the names and some minor things were similar.

That fic was Stepney's Virginity Gets Lost.

Do we regret writing it? No. It helped us write out our traumas and helped us overcome some mental obstacles in out therapy process. Our therapists cheering us on, because we finally managed to break through the hard shell surrounding us. We both cried for the first time in years while writing it, some of it through roleplay, because some parts were extremely graphic and brutal and very mentally exhausting. We had to take long breaks between each writing session, so the fic wasn't written in just a weekend. But we got a lot of darkness out of our minds by writing all this. And we were definitely NOT aroused by it, like this pervert here claims.

It's when you dare to touch and feel the difficult and dark emotions, you can finally move along in the grieving process.

Should it have been posted online?

In retrospect, no. But at the time, we thought it might help other trauma victims, as we also found reading about other people's experiences and fictions touching painful subjects helpful to ourselves. So, we posted it, never expecting it to cause such a controversy 3 years later. In fact, we had more or less forgotten about it until it came back to bit us in the ass. Or rather, bite ME in the ass, as I am getting the full blame alone.

Also, despite what people claim, it was not posted openly for children to read. It was tagged properly and hidden behind mature content walls. If a minor chooses to break that wall, that's not the author's fault. It's the same as watching a movie with an age restriction way above your age, not the filmmaker's fault.

I think MerciResolution puts it nicely here:

"If your problem lies with you KNOWINGLY entering adult spaces when you’re a minor, ignoring all mature warnings that are literally SCREAMING at you “hey, this is what you’re getting into. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

That’s ENTIRELY on you. YOU are the fucking problem.

We’re marking mature things as best as we properly can. If you decide to ignore them, that’s your own damn fault. We’re not your fucking babysitters."

Also, I never posted the story on Wattpad, so if anyone has done that, it's not me. I posted the story on Fanfiction.net, DeviantArt and AO3, that's all. If it's posted anywhere else, it's not done by me.

I had honestly moved on from it when people pulled me back into it.

Other people who have done questionable shit in that fandom are easily forgiven because "they have moved on" or "changed". Yet, nobody believes I can move on or change…?

I had moved on; my interests had changed. But people won't let me, so here I am… Having to defend some crap I did years ago. A fic I no longer have any interest in.

I'm not even interested in TTTE anymore. I have moved on with my own book project now and I would like to focus on that.

So, deleting my TTTE content, whether it was the SFW or NSFW stuff, didn't cost me a penny. It actually felt like a relief. The only downside with it is that people now can't read it and make up their own opinion about it, but will solely believe in what others say, and those things are often seriously bent out of shape and blown out of proportions to such an extent it's barely recognizable.

If people claim that Arry and Bert rape Stepney in the fic, they have never seen it or read it. That's not what happens. That's just an assumption made by looking at the title and knowing there is a rape/torture scene in it. But I'm not gonna tell who the victim is or who performed it, because this is the only way I am able to tell who has actually read the fic or not, who is just trying to spread bullshit and who is actually telling the truth. The person in that screenshot, has no idea what he's talking about.

Does SVGL romanticize rape and abuse?

No, not in the least. It's described as the horrible, heinous acts it is and is in no way meant to be cute or romantic and definitely NOT something anyone should get off to. If anyone finds it sexy, that's their problem, not the authors'. If anything, SVGL might romanticize suicide, because one of the characters isn't able to cope with his trauma and chooses to end their life. Which is something I considered doing myself when I was in the darkest pit of depression. So, I apologize for maybe romanticizing suicide. The following chapters describe how friends and family handle the loss and grief.

It also describes a toxic relationship, where one of the parts struggles to get out of it. They eventually manage to break free, but it is not easy. This can easily be translated to my previously mentioned relationship, as it was my way of writing out my experience about how hard it is to break out of a relation when your partner has broken you down to the point where you no longer believe in yourself and your self-worth.

The last chapters start to gradually become brighter, as both our lives started getting better too. But we never really wrote the end because we both lost interest in writing TTTE content by that time and just left it hanging.

I'm not the only one who has written NSFW TTTE fanfics out there. But it seems like violence and murder is more acceptable than sexual things? I do wonder how brutally mutilating children's show characters are more tolerable than sexually abusing them. Neither should be okay.

Some content creators hide behind "it was a joke". I have been told that such topics that SVGL touches upon shouldn't be joked about… so I didn't do that, and yet it was wrong? So how should such topics be treated? Be hidden like it's a shame, like in the old days when rape victims were told to suck things up and keep it to themselves? When those subject to abuse didn't dare to speak up because people would judge them?

I think it is important to talk about these subjects and why they are so problematic. Victims shouldn't have to hide their trauma; they should be allowed to talk openly about it without fearing judgement.

Some of you claim that writing isn't a good way to cope… You're trying to dictate how trauma victims deal with their trauma, and that's a dangerous path to walk down. Nobody handles trauma the same way. You might have your thoughts on how you would react, but you'll never know until trauma hits you… and you might not react the way you had expected or planned. Trauma messes with your head and you won't be able to think clearly. It makes you do thinks you normally wouldn't have done and can make you act out of character. So, do not judge people without having been in the same situation yourself. Ever.

Someone wrote that I have "more problems that just a rape".

Read that again.

Just a rape.

This person does not know how damaging a rape can be. And if you made it this far in this post, you know I didn't only go through one, but several. Not just by my ex, but also being ambushed while I was walking home from a party, and later; a co-worker forcing himself onto me at a building site. I can't go into depth about them all, I just can't.

Just a rape…

"Just" the feeling of not being in control of your own body and your own decisions. "Just" being robbed off your dignity and self-worth. "Just" having someone intrude into your private zone, tear your clothes off and claim your body against your will. "Just" feeling how your life force leave you as you realize that fighting against it won't help you, and you silently give up and just lay down waiting for it all to be over. "Just" spending hours in the shower, scrubbing your skin until you bleed because you can't wash the filth away and you keep feeling dirty no matter how much you clean yourself. "Just" waking up at night, after having relived the scene again in a nightmare. "Just" looking over your shoulder wherever you walk because you heard something or thought you saw something or simply because someone is walking behind you. "Just" the fact that you'll never feel comfortable walking alone at night again or have someone walk behind you. "Just" never being able to relax because your body constantly think you're in grave danger. "Just" a rape…

That's such a neck-beard thing to say. Someone who clearly think of other people's bodies as property or things. Not taking into consideration that we are living, breathing individuals with feelings. And that having another person violate us isn't something we like or that we'll easily get over. We want to choose who we give ourselves to, nobody should be forced. We didn't ask to be raped. We didn't want it. We didn't like it.

Rape is trauma.

Yes, we should have chosen other characters for the story, but we did what we did, and it cannot be undone now. So, if the only thing I will be remembered for in the fandom is that ONE fic, instead of all my other content, that's what it will be. That's what people chose to. I'm moving on.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

*sigh*

This is something that could only happen in America, isn't it?

Some people don't bother educating themselves. The "nazi-letters" you guys are talking about is actually part of the Norwegian alphabet and has nothing to do with Nazism or white-supremacy to do at all. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters, the three extra is æ,ø,å or in capital letters: Æ,Ø,Å.

We can't help it if some morons over in the US abuse these letters as symbol of their twisted mindset.

Yes, my name contains one of those letters. It is my name… and I didn't choose it. It is a common Norwegian name.

As for me being a Nazi?

Those who knows me knows that I am as far from a Nazi as one can get. I despise Nazism with all my heart.

But the reason some people choose to believe so… was that some guy who has no hobbies or life went through every single fave I've made on DeviantArt since I joined the site in 2006, which is well over 20000 faves. And he found a few Nazi-characters from a web series I was following about ten years ago. I am very interested in history and especially WW2-history, so I found that particular web-series interesting and faved some artwork related to it. What this guy failed to notice is that I also faved the Allied characters… That's ALL there is to that story.

I has also faved a pic someone made of Joseph Goebbels (I think it was?) as a Pixar Car. That's not because I have any nazi-sympathies, but I simply found the concept of turning historical persons, both good and bad, into Cars as an interesting project. I would have faved any other historical Carsified person as well.

As for me being a Norwegian and have a natural pale complexion, that's not something I can help. That's nothing I choose. And it doesn't make me racist or Nazi. Period.

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

Again. Get educated.

This flag… is the actual flag of my country. The Kingdom of Norway.

There is nothing Nazi about it. It is not a symbol of white-supremacy. IT IS THE FLAG OF NORWAY.

During WW2 it was even illegal, so people would paint it everywhere in a protest against the Nazi-occpation and the SS. We even decorated our Christmas trees with it, and that is a tradition that has followed us into the modern day.

Again, if some idiots in the US choose to use it as a symbol for their disgusting logic, it is not Norway or the Norwegians' fault.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

I need people to elaborate here.

What exactly do you think I do to my daughter? What is the cause of your concern here?

The fact that I have made NSFW content? How is that harmful to her as long as I keep it away from her? You DO realize that even authors, pornstars and moviemakers have children and that they can be good parents, right?

Do you think I read pornographic content for her as bedtime stories? Or show her porn instead of kids TV? How sick are you guys, really…?

Some people even wanted CPS to take my child away from me… Have a look at these screenshots…

You want a happy, healthy, innocent child to be taken away from a stable, safe home with loving parents just because you don't like the content the mother made? You want her to be placed in foster care, where there is no guarantee that she will have a happy upbringing rather than have her stay with her parents who love her and care for her, for reasons she'll never understand and wasn't even aware of?

"Think of the children!" a lot of you say when it comes to my content. May I ask why this doesn't apply to my daughter?

Why do some of you go as far as to wishing her dead or wanting her to be removed from the home she feels safe and loved in? How is that thinking of the children?

As for the douchebag in that screenshot. You claim that if your mother did something like that you would want nothing to do with her… I have a question: Do you know EVERYTHING your mother do? Does she include you in each aspect of her life? Even her sexual life? No?

How do you know she doesn't do thing you don't approve of when you're not around? She could be a rabid pornmag reader for all you know. But stuff like that is something adults hide from their kids. So, you wouldn't know, unless you go snooping around in her business.

Everyone is entitled to privacy. What I and my husband do when our kid is not around is our business, not hers, and certainly not yours.

Porn and parenting are to be kept separate from each other. Period.

And we do.

There is absolutely no reason to be worried about my daughter. She is a happy, healthy child in a safe, stable home with family that loves her and cares for her. Not just me and my husband, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

If you want to remove her from that over a stupid fanfic behind a mature content wall, you're the deranged person, not me.

 This is all I have to say about all this and my time in the TTTE fandom. I have left by my own, free will. Yes, I am aware that many people don't want me there. That's fine. I don't want to be there.

I am a bit disappointed in those people who just blindly unfollowed me and unfriended me without any questions asked, just followed the leader. Big users tend to dictate who and what is worth following in that fandom. They will even protect real predators, but I'm not going to open that can of worms now. I'm done with the fandom.

Some of those people, I have been talking to regularly, even supported when they faced hardships in the fandom themselves. But when I got in trouble, they ditched me without a word…

If anything, this whole ordeal showed me who to trust and not, and who were true to their word when it came to how deep our friendship was. True friends at least give you the chance to explain before they drop you. I hold no ill feelings to those who did, at least they asked me before judging.

And those who still stayed with me, are the ones who truly know me and who I really am.

Some of the worst libels posted about me might be reported to the police, but I haven't made up my mind yet. I am not mentally strong at the moment, so I don't know if I have the strength to legally follow it all up. I will ask the cops at work for advice on the matter.

All I ask for now is some peace.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to follow me. You don't have to like my content. Feel free to invalidate me, I know a lot of you will.

But please, stop bullying me and my family.

Please stop sending me horrid messages and death threats.

Please stop doxxing me and calling me.

Please leave my family alone. If you don't care about me, at least care about them.

Please just ignore me. I have already left the fandom, there is no reason to keep hunting me.

I just want to move on and go on with my life and the content I am currently working on. After years in therapy, my life has gotten better, and I want to move on.

Please let me.

[tibbinswrites]

Suptober Day 25 - Tattoos

“I want a tattoo,” Cas said one morning, completely out of the blue and while Dean was still dangerously in his first sips of his first coffee.

“You’ve got tattoos.” Dean bit back grumpily, though Cas knew better than to take his ire seriously before ten am.

“Yes. I want another one.”

“Okay...” Dean drew out the word like he was waiting for Cas’ point.

“Can I?”

Dean snorted and placed his mug down on the table, “I’m not your mother, Cas. You’re a grown ass practically immortal being. If you want a tattoo you don’t need my permission.”

“I know, but… would you help me? I don’t want to end up disappointed and I don’t know how to tell if a parlour is a good one or not.”

Dean squinted at him through the steam from his coffee, considering.

“Sure,” he said. Go grab my laptop, we can have a look around.”

Xxx

Dean was almost done with his mug and a lot more cheerful when Cas returned a few minutes later, he took the laptop and flipped it open, searching for nearby tattoo parlours and going onto their various websites.

“I don’t suppose sanitation really matters to you,” Dean said, flipping through some pictures of a studio before dismissing it. “Seeing as you can’t get infected and all, but it says a lot about how much a place cares about the art it makes. If you can stumble in there at three am and demand Bob Ross’ face on your ass then you’re not in the right place.”

“Why would anyone-?”

“People.” Dean answered with a shrug. “Those are the kind of places we went to get these,” he gestured at his chest, “but these are practical, they just had to be copied from a drawing we supplied, if you want an actual design, you need to find an actual artist, not just someone with a tattoo gun who can draw hearts and fancy swirls and a passable wolf.”

Cas wrinkled his nose at the thought. He did want a proper design, something beautiful, something meaningful, something his. But the task seemed monumental for him let alone a stranger.

“Here are the ones that look decent.” Dean said a few minutes later, showing Cas a set of six tabs. “What do you want to get anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Cas said, feeling touched that Dean was walking him through this but overwhelmed as he clicked on the first tab and a slew on images popped up. “How am I supposed to choose?”

Surprisingly, instead of mocking him, Dean smiled and shuffled his chair closer so he could see the screen too.

“Look through the artist portfolios,” he directed, pointing to the option at the top of the screen. “Most will have links to their own websites with more of their work. You’re not looking for the perfect design, just the perfect style. Some are better at portraits, others at more geometric stuff, some do different things with colour. You can narrow it down by crossing out the ones you don’t like.”

Cas nodded solemnly and turned his attention back to the screen. The first artist had lots of strong black lines and straight edges. The second a lot of portraits, neither of which really appealed to him.

He seemed to search for hours. Dean was refilling his coffee when Cas found what he was looking for.

“This one.” Cas said, looking up to see Dean jump at his voice. “I want her.” He tried to keep his tone neutral but from the slight crinkle at the edge of Dean’s eyes he hadn’t been able to hide the excitement in his voice.

“Alright, let’s take a look.” Dean said, leaving his mug at the machine and coming over to look at the screen over Cas’ shoulder. “Nice,” he agreed.

Castiel felt a warm buzzing in his stomach, he was glad that Dean liked it too. The image on the screen was a rose, not what Cas was looking for really, delicately done, with a fine outline, but it was the colours that were magical; midnight blue and deep, rich purples blended in the petals, with a shimmer that looked almost metallic, smudging across the lines slightly, not enough to ruin the image but just enough to be imperfect, to feel right.

Castiel booked a consultation for the following week.

Xxx

Cas sat in the waiting room of the tattoo parlour, tapping his foot nervously while Dean sat next to him. Dean had insisted on coming with him and Castiel hadn’t thought to object, the last time he’d gotten a tattoo he’d been alone, and although the pain was minimal compared to some of the torments he’d endured as an angel, experiencing it as human pain was different and he had wished for company, even if Dean only would have mocked him and compared him to an infant.

“What if it turns out bad?” He asked quietly, “I still have no idea what I want, what if I can’t think of anything? What if she doesn’t have the right colours, or-”

“Cas,” Dean interrupted patiently, “it’s just a consultation, no needle is getting near your skin without your say so. If she draws you something and you don’t like it, she’ll change it for you. If she doesn’t have the colours she’ll order them in and we can go back when she’s got ’em. If you don’t have any ideas we can talk it out. It’s gonna be fine”

Cas was grateful for the reassurance, but he was still nervous nonetheless. He just didn’t want to be disappointed. This felt important and he didn’t want to mess it up by choosing the wrong thing. The artist, Giva Chaudhary, was exceptionally talented, but none of the images in her portfolio had really spoken to him. He was worried that they would get there and she would be unable to produce the thing he wanted on his skin forever and he would either have to go home with nothing, or settle for something that was less than perfect.

“Mr Novak?”

Miss Chaudhary was a small woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties, her black hair was bound in a long plait and she had a smile that seemed almost too large for her face.

“Yes.” Castiel said, standing to shake her hand. “Miss Chaudhary, you work is beautiful.”

“Well thank you, but don’t bother with the ‘miss’, Giva is fine.”

“Cas,” Cas offered, and then, because Dean was leaning to shake her hand too. “This is Dean, a friend.”

“Moral support?” Giva asked, her dark eyes twinkling, “Understandable, a first tattoo can be a scary business.”

“It’s not his first,” Dean said immediately, “but this one’s important, he wants it to be right.”

Giva nodded and gestured them to sit, she did as well, laying a sketchbook and some pencils on the table in between them.

“So, Cas, do you know what you’d like?”

Cas felt himself flushing and stammered out an apology which Giva waved away, “Not a problem, that’s what these talks are for, yes? If we don’t figure it out today you can always come back another time. So what drew you to my work in particular?”

So Cas told her, he answered her questions and looked through her books. She made some further sketches as he talked, of nothing in particular, nothing important, and so her sketches, while lovely, were nothing like what he was looking for. Dean was quiet throughout, Cas kept glancing at him to gauge his reaction to each piece but he remained stubbornly neutral. This only added to his confusion, how was he supposed to decide if he didn’t know if Dean would like it or not?

“I wonder if I might ask your friend to go and get us some sandwiches from across the street.” Giva said after thirty minutes of light conversation and not much progress.

Dean was reluctant, but agreed when Cas nodded to him and left with a significant ‘call me if you need me’ look.

The second the door closed, Giva let out a long sigh. “Perhaps you can speak more easily now,” she said. “I notice you very much want his approval.”

“I trust his judgement,” Cas said, carefully.

“I don’t doubt his judgement, only that in this case, his opinion matters less than yours. He will approve the most if you’re happy.” Giva said with a kind smile, as though she saw this kind of thing all the time.

“You care for him deeply,” she said

“I-” there was no sense in denying it. “Yes. Dean and I… we’ve been through a lot.”

“Tell me,” Giva said, sitting back in her chair, sketchbook at the ready.

Cas cleared his throat.

“Err… Well… I suppose you could say I come from a very strict background,” he began, picking his words carefully. “When I first met Dean, more than a decade ago now, I pulled him from a dark place; it was a duty for me at the time, to keep an eye on him, look out for him and his brother, to try and keep them on the righteous path. Dean… Dean disliked being led.” He felt a small smile tugging at his lips. “I found myself admiring that, helping him more that I was supposed to and as I grew closer to Dean, I began to see my family for what they truly were. They tried to get me back, keep be under their control but I fought for my freedom because Dean showed me how.”

“Freedom is an important thing.” Giva said encouragingly as she sketched, “Worth fighting for. But it can be difficult if family disagrees with your choices.”

“I made many mistakes that I can never redeem.” Cas said, “A lot of bad decisions that got people hurt. Dean forgave me even when he had every right not to, while my family betrayed me, cast me out, hunted me.”

“A fall from grace, sounds like.” Giva muttered, Cas looked up sharply but the petite woman wasn’t even looking at him, she was focused on her sketch.

“That would be… incredibly accurate.”

“So why the tattoo now?” Giva asked, her pencil stilling for a moment, “This is your first important one, but you waited ten years?”

Cas tilted his head, formulating his answer before speaking, looking down at his own hands, “For years after I met Dean, my body didn’t feel like my own. Like it was someone else’s and I was just stealing his life. It has taken me a long time to… settle into my own skin, as it were. These clothes are his but they fit me now and so have become mine. My other tattoos are copies, but this will be the first thing about my body that isn’t inherited.”

Giva nodded again and asked nothing more, continuing to sketch in silence, she tore three separate pages from her notebook when she was done and laid them out one by one.

Cas didn’t even look at the third sketch, the second one was perfect.

Xxx

“So I drive all this way and I have to drive all the way back again in four days but you’re not gonna tell me what you’re getting?”

“I don’t want you to see it before it’s done.” Cas said, holding Giva’s sketch tightly to his chest. Before Dean had come back in with sandwiches, they had discussed minor tweaks and colours and Giva had given him the sketch to look over in case he wanted to change anything else before his appointment, she assured him that even the day of, if there was anything that he wasn’t certain of it could be changed to his liking as long as he told her before she got her needles out. In fact, all Dean knew about the piece was that it was going to be large and on his back, and that they would probably need more than one appointment to get it all done.

“If it’s Bob Ross’ face, I’m disowning you.” Dean griped.

“You don’t own me,” Cas pointed out. “So disowning me would be pointless.” And then, “and it’s nobody’s face.”

Xxx

It was worth the wait. That was all Dean could think a few weeks later when Cas dropped his shirt so that Dean could see the healed and completed piece. No wonder Giva had looked so pleased with herself after Cas’ last session, no wonder Cas had been beaming through red eyes.

Wings.

If Cas had asked his opinion he’d have said perhaps a little on the nose but he would have been eating those words.

They covered almost the entirety of Cas’ back with anatomically correct (he was assuming) detail but they were by no means static, the top half was full and thick with shimmering feathers, so dark they were almost black, but whatever ink Giva used caught the light, sending beautiful tones of blue, green, purple and magenta skittering across them. They swept down the curve of Cas’ spine where the feathers began to thin, hints of red and orange entered the mix, not enough to take away from the beauty of the above, just a subtle transition where some of the feathers were burning and curling into ash, then further down still those burnt and falling feathers twisted in the air, transforming into butterflies the same colour as the healthy feathers that weaved around the now bare bones of the wings.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “Cas, they’re incredible.”

“I can’t manifest my wings,” Cas said quietly, “but I want you to see them as I see them. They are perhaps the thing I miss most about my old life; the symbol of what I was, powerful and grand and sure. But I’m not bound by their rules anymore. And what I am has changed into something more compressed, more human but infinitely more free. That transformation is largely because of you, Dean, and I can’t thank you enough.”

Dean barely realised he had reached forward to touch one of the burning feathers until Cas shivered under his touch, his fingers followed the wings in their progression, along their changes, they followed Cas’ story and he was the one who should be thanking Cas for letting him be a part of it. Without thinking, he dropped his lips to Cas’ shoulder and pressed them there. Cas turned to meet him and their mouths fitted together like they were made to, like they had done this before a thousand times, like, perhaps, they should have.

@winchester-reload

If you liked this, please consider buying me a coffee.

[fridge-reviews]

Mini Games 5

The criteria for this is very simple, all of these games can be completed in three hours or under (without using exploits etc). The reason for this? Well I find that sometimes, often in fact, that people just don't have time to play a longer game. So I thought I'd show some of the shorter ones some love!

GNOG

Developer: KO_OP Publisher: Doublefine Productions Rrp: £7.19 (Steam) £7.99 (Epic) £8.08 (Humblebundle) Released: 17th July 2018

Puzzle games have always been something I've enjoyed, I just find it relaxing to sit down and try and work my way through a problem that has no consequences if I get it wrong. This game very much embraces that idea.

You work your way through several monster faces, clicking, twisting and pulling on whatever reacts until you discover what the actual puzzle is and how to solve it. Typically this doesn't take too long, for me it was typically about twenty minutes for each face. Its a very colourful and whimsical game with some great uplifting music that you get as a reward for completing a puzzle.

I do have one issue with it which is its clear to me that this game was designed with VR in mind and that being able to use a mouse was something added on later. This is evident from the way that the game reacts to mouse movement, for example turning a dial feels very imprecise because of a lack of feedback.

-----------

A Short Hike

Developer: Adamgryu Publisher: Adamgryu Rrp: £5.79 (Gog.com, Steam and Epic) Released: 30th July 2019

This game is perhaps one of the most relaxed games I've played in a long time. You have one sole goal, to get to the top of a mountain. You'll need to do a few quests first before you can do it but once you've got those covered the whole things takes about twenty minutes? Maybe a little less. The thing is there are plenty of other things you can do on the way that will net you some rewards. Like playing the hit new game beachstickball, or running in a race.

I really enjoyed my time with this game, something nice and relaxed with no loss condition whatsoever. I will admit that I changed the graphics settings to one that was not recommended because the default style was incredibly pixilated and I much prefer the polygonal look.

-----------

Framed Collection

Developer: Loveshack Enterainment Publisher: Fellow Traveller Rrp: £7.19 (Steam) £7.20 (Humblebundle) Released: 17th May 2018

The Framed Collection is the reason I check through my discovery queue on steam regularly. You never know what interesting game will pop up. In the case of this one it was the visuals that convinced me to get it, I've always had an attraction to the comic book art style (which is part of the reason I own a comic book store) and this game makes great use not only of the style but of the convention of the comic book 'frame'.

In this game you manipulate the comic book frames on screen in order to get your character through a series of challenges successfully. Sometimes this is as simple as rearranging them into a order so that your character isn't caught by the police and in others it can mean reorientating them so that the character takes different path entirely. There are even a few that involve you having to time when to swap frames out and reuse them.

This title is definitely worth looking into although I will admit it does seem a bit pricey given the length. That being said it seems to appear on sale pretty often.

-----------

Elegy for a Dead World

Developer: Dejobaan Games LLC, Popcannbal Publisher: Dejobaan Games Rrp: £10.99 (Steam) Released: 10th December 2014

This game is... well its a writing prompt game. I'm not sure how else to put it really, you get to wander the landscape of a world and depending on what kind of person you are document it, or write it a eulogy or even just write prose. It's such an interesting idea, and what makes it even more interesting is that what you write is shared with the world. It gets added to a archive of stories and creations, you can see how other people viewed what you witnessed and had a totally different perspective.

Another thing that makes this quite laudable is the fact that it has an... educational mode, of sorts. When you enter a world you get to pick whether you want a writing prompt, to fill in a blank, have a totally blank canvas to work with or do the grammar mode where you practise your grammar. I admit it I'm impressed on multiple levels. By the creativity of the team who made the game with their beautiful backgrounds and with what the community itself has created.

-----------

Pinstripe

Developer: Atmos Games Publisher: Armor Games Studios Rrp: £10.99 (Steam) £12.22 (Humblebundle) Released: 25 April 2017

I bought this game with the intention of giving it go after seeing Jim Sterling highlight it... that was two years ago, which should give anyone reading this just how long a backlog I have. However I have to say it was well worth the wait as I enjoyed my time with it immensely, enough to go back and run through the New Game plus mode.

The game put me in mind of old school Tim Burton films (specifically Beetlejuice) because even though it has a wonderfully whimsical and somewhat childlike aesthetic there is a dark undertone for those that care to scratch beyond the surface.

As puzzle platformers go this one is very good, the controls feel good and the puzzles aren't overly complex, though if you have trouble or just really want to get on with the story the developers have put a walkthrough on their website.

[theladylovingcrow]

Fuck the Movie, I Wanna Fuck You (Sanny)

Author (As known on Various sites): Lady Lover - Rockfic, luluthechoosingcrow- AO3, theladylovingcrow - Wattpad and Deviantart, @imacrowcawcaw - main Tumblr, @theladylovingcrow writing/art Tumblr, @insannywestan - Sanny shipping Tumblr, @sammy_bluebells - Instagram

Fandom: Greta Van Fleet

Pairing: Sam Kiszka/Danny Wagner (Sanny)

Length: about 2k

Warnings/Tags: smut (mutual masturbation, handjobs, cum eating, semi-public sex, making out), some attempted humor, Sanny!!!, movies, first time, first kiss, Kiszka Family in background

Summary: They were taking a break from touring, just chilling back in Frankenmuth. Danny had come over to his second home, and was snuggled up on the couch with his best friend, watching a movie. Everyone else was doing their thing - cooking, playing, talking on the phone - all perfectly normal for a nice, happy family. But FUCK Sam was feeling horny, naughty, and curious as to how Danny would react if he moved his hand just a bit higher....

Author's Notes:

Inspired by a meme on Tumblr that then made me think of Sam and Danny

> *one fish from the spongebob cartoon starts casually unbuttoning another's pants in a movie theater* sigh this movie boring

> Sam: *yawns*

> Danny: bored?

> Sam (shoving his hand down Danny's pants and keeping his eyes on the screen): nope

------------

Sam sighed and fidgited, wiggling his little butt against the couch cushions. He had had this idea for, like, twenty minutes, but it was risky - so risky that if any little thing went wrong he would, most likely, be in big trouble. He would get disbelieving, then incredulous, then disgusted, and finally furious looks.

'Sam, what the hell are you doing?! Please don't tell me that was what I thou- you're such a pervert. What the hell is wrong with you?'

And that was only the reactions he imagined he'd get from his family, along with teasing for eternity, once they calmed down. Danny, though - if he reacted badly, then Sam might literally climb onto the roof and refuse to come down, he'd be that embarrassed and ashamed. Except, actually, no, Danny could climb like a monkey. His backup plan was to hide in the woods and become the new Mothman, then.

Danny yawned next to him, putting his arm around Sam's shoulders in the classic move every boy wanted to try since the fifth grade. Inadvertadly, the motion actually made Sam's idea all the easier, which was so not helping him refrain from it.

It was perverted to want to do something like that to your best friend, especially when your family were all within a fifty foot radius of where you were sitting, wandering around and having a jolly good time, occasionally stopping to look in on the movie Danny and Sam were watching.

Ronnie smiled at them, probably thinking it was cute that her little brother was so close with his best friend that they cuddled when they watched a scary kids movie. If only she knew.

Sam clenched his jaw, the acrid burning shame of thinking these thoughts and having these ideas right around his family, having these ideas at all, encompassing his stomach. It was also mingling with another molten liquid - desire, slick and steaming - running down his thighs and wrapping around his fingers, guiding them.

He ran his hand up and down over his own thigh, closing his eyes and imagining that it was Danny's muscled quads he was feeling. The movie was boring as shit, he had only payed attention to the first ten minutes or so; Danny, though, he was captivating and alluring, sitting there next to Sam.

Danny didn't notice any of Sam's internal toil, still being completely invested in whatever cheesy PG thriller they had found on Netflix. He drummed his fingers lightly on Sam's shoulder - always playing to a rhythm, whether he was conscious of it or not. The blanket over their legs shifted a little when Danny uncrossed his feet and brought one knee up on the couch.

Sam mirrored him, seeing the oppurtunity. Fuck the consequences and fuck the likely stupidity of carrying out his plan, he wanted to try goddammit.

Danny didn't really take notice when Sam pushed their thighs together- they always sat close, and he had put his arm around him to cuddle.

Danny didn't care when Sam's hand came to rest on his knee - he just enjoyed the warmth it provided and continued watching the movie. Jake walked by with an harmful of records, heading to the music den with their father, and smirked at them.

When Sam slid his hand up from his knee cap to mid thigh, fingertips pushing into the softer areas of flesh on the insides, he registered it, but it wasn't like Sam never got ultra touchy-feely sometimes.

Sam bit his lip, trying to suppress his grin. He'd gotten this far, and Danny didn't even seem to care! Now, for the make or break -

Danny laughed at something - maybe an over exaggerated fight, Looney Tunes style - when Sam acted out phase two.

He sighed, long and dramatically, resting his head on Danny's shoulder while his hand lightly felt it's way to the bulge in Danny's jeans.

"Bored?" Danny asked, apparently not feeling it yet. Then he stiffened.

"Nope."

Sam kept his cool, head still on Danny's shoulder and eyes now attentively watching the screen. But, under the blankets, he was pushing his fingers into the fly of his best friend's jeans and massaging the head of his dick shit yessss.

He pulled back out and popped the button with only slight difficulty, wrapping his whole hand around Danny. Sam was sure to move slowly, and only his hand, lest anyone see his arm jerking, but he was actually doing it! Jerking Danny off - like he had long wanted to - on the couch while they were watching TV. And no one fucking knew!

What was curious was that Danny hadn't stopped him; he was holding his body, especially his hips, tense, and his breathing was noticeably controlled - but he let Sam do what he was doing.

"It's not a bad movie," Danny spoke, soft, though it still startled Sam. "Could be a bit faster paced, though."

Oh. Well, okay then.

"Yeah, I suppose it could. But, I think it's better this way, since you get to enjoy the buildup more - and the subtlties are nice."

"Mmm, you might be right. I'll have to pay more attention and see."

Sam squeezed and stroked, carefulling pumping Danny. There was no one else in the room at the moment, but he could hear Jake and his dad in the next room, and Ronnie talking to someone down the hall - they wouldn't want to get too carried away.

Danny made a little "Humphh" sound when Sam rubbed his thumb over his slit, spreading the precum around. He pressed his thigh harder against Sam's, whether to stop or encourage him, Sam wasn't sure. He stopped, just in case Danny had changed his mind.

"I'm getting kinda bored of this move, honestly. Wanna go do something else?"

Sam grinned, trying to appear happy but not too happy - he was pretty sure he failed at that, but Josh only gave him a slightly weird look in passing, used to his little brother's eccentricities that near matched his own.

"Yeah, me too. Why don't I show you that new album I got - I know you said it didn't seem like your style but I really think you'll like it."

"Okay," Danny nodded, standing up and keeping the blanket with him, haphazardly folded over his arm in front of his crotch. "I'll try it out. I have a feeling I'll really like it, actually, I'm more open to new experiences now than when you first suggested it."

Sam stood up, too, subtly removing his hand from Danny's front and wrapping his arm around his waist. He guided them over to the stairs and up to his room, turning to lock the door behind them as soon as they both entered.

Danny had dropped the blanket on the floor, and was standing there, staring at Sam, with his pants still hanging open and his hard cock jutting out.

Sam was fucking ecstatic- this was a way better reaction than he'd thought he'd get, but man did that plan pay off. He nearly sprinted over to his record player, picking up a new (ly purchased, but really old) album and putting it on. He didn't know who had heard their conversation, but he wanted to make it seem like they really were just listening to music.

And, the smooth Jazz also helped to sound out the quiet sounds of Sam's hand stroking Danny and their mouths meeting in a passionate French kiss.

Danny broke away, resting his forehead against Sam's and snorting. "Nice music choice, really sets the mood."

Sam shrugged, blushing a bit. "I wasnt necessarily going for this, I just grabbed a record from my stack of new ones."

In truth, he felt like it set a perfect mood, but he didn't wanna say that. This was all cool and fun - making out with his best friend and giving him a hand job, totally normal! - but to try and be romantic? Sam didn't know how far Danny wanted to take this, or if he was just curious about getting off with a guy for a change.

"I like it," Danny whispered, going back in for another kiss.

He tangled their tongues again, but it was slower - more exploratory now that they had gotten the frantic 'Oh my god come here I need to taste you' first kiss out of the way. Danny cupped one hand around the back of Sam's neck, holding him close while he took control of the kiss. Sam let him, of fucking course.

Danny's other hand, Sam realized, was following much the same journey his had earlier - from his thigh, up to tickle the insides, then to squeeze at Sam's own erection trapped in his skinny jeans.

He hadn't expected this - or, at least, had tried not to get his hopes up. Sam would have been satisfied with the one experience of getting Danny to cum, he really would have, but he desired a whole lot more.

Apparently, Danny was going to reciprocate and give that to him. Sam's jeans were undone and he was taken out - no underwear, of course - taken into the warm expanse of Danny's strong hands.

Sam moaned, luckily drowned put by a blast of saxophone from the record player, and bucked his hips against Danny. His best friend smiled against his mouth, stroking Sam in the same rhythm he was being worked.

Their cocks lined up, hands brushing eachother on each upstroke and sticky heads poking against each other's happy trails. Sam looked down at them, couldn't tear his eyes away; this was a bajillion times more interesting than whatever movie they had been watching.

It seemed like the next logical thing to do was to do this together, all the way, when they were so close. So, Sam opened his hand and grabbed his own cock, jerking him and Danny together.

His bestie groaned, biting at his shoulder. He grabbed them, too, making a tunnel out of their hands which they could fuck.

"Oh, oh my god," Sam panted, pumping his hips into their hands and feeling the friction of Danny's soft skin and hard calluses working all around him.

Danny moaned in agreement, moving faster. He moved his other hand from Sam's neck to the small of his back, holding his body while he shuddered and bucked against him.

Sam felt it - that rush of hot, sticky, stringy goo spurting forth from Danny, coating their tunnel and lubricating the almost-too-much friction they had going. He ground his hips in little circles, shoving his face into Danny's neck and breathing in his scent - and them he came, too.

Holy fucking shit. They just had sex! Sam was grinning so hard his face hurt, and, better yet, Danny was wearing the same expression.

They laughed against each other, filled with endorphins and exhaustion all at once. Sam removed his hand, too sensitive now, and Danny did the same.

He looked down, studying the semen that covered his palm and wrist. "That's hot. That was so fucking hot, man..."

Danny nodded, grabbing at Sam's hand and bringing it up to his mouth, tentatively licking it.

"This hotter?"

Sam sighed, watching Danny take another taste. "Maybe. I dunno, all of that was sexy as fuck. You're sexy, shit. I wasn't sure you wouldn't sock me for trying that."

Danny hummed, running his tongue up and down Sam's sticky wrist. "I was definitely startled, but it was weird: like, I knew what you were doing and I knew that should of freaked me out but it didn't. I was just super excited to be doing something so... dirty."

"Ooh, Daniel, such a bad boy," Sam teased.

Danny smiled and shook his head, leaning in to kiss Sam again. Sam moaned when he tasted himself - Danny - themselves, both of them - in his mouth. It wasn't the best thing he had ever tasted, sensory speaking, but the knowledge that he and Danny were sharing their cum in a kiss .. dead, he had died and gone to heaven.

"Fuck, okay can we have movie night like every night?" Danny asked, searching Sam's eyes for the answer to the real question.

"Yeah, every night. Anytime, all day, I don't care, just wanna do that again."

Danny grinned, kissing Sam's throat and running his hand down Sam's abdomen on the racetrack to round two.

----------

@satans-helper

@okietrish

@lazingonsunday

@bigthighsandstupidguys

@karrotkate

@oblvions

@lantern-inthenight

@mountainofthesunn

@ryetheruler

[lallemcnt]

go ahead and watch my heart burn (part five/final)

can be read on ao3

"It's impossible." said pride. "It's risky." said experience. "It's pointless." said reason. "Give it a try." whispered the heart.

What am I doing?

Lucas brushes down the front of his blue long-sleeved shirt with agitated hands. He doesn’t know what to wear, is he overdressed or underdressed? When he asked what he should wear all Eliott said was semi-casual, but Lucas didn’t have a clue what that meant. Could he still wear his trainers and jeans if he wore this shirt? It was ridiculous, really, how worked up he was getting but he doesn't want to embarrass Eliott. He wants to be the perfect supportive boyfriend this evening. Boyfriend. Just that simple word makes the butterflies in his stomach fluctuate.

Smoothing back his hair he wishes he owned gel or something to style it. He checks himself out once more in the mirror: blue shirt with the first two buttons undone — not as daring as Eliott, black slim-fitting jeans and black adidas he’s owned for years, but has become adept at keeping in good condition. This will have to do, he thinks. He snaps a photo and sends it to Yann for approval before slipping on his blue bomber, wrapping his scarf around his neck and entering the chilly October evening of Paris.

The lamps are lit, leaves dust the streets in piles of oranges and browns, signs that Autumn is in full bloom. Bicycles zoom past him, adults sit outside cafes, bundled up in thick jumpers and boots, and he’s breathing in that cool air and basking in the dusk of eight p.m. There is something about Autumn that sings of fresh starts, layering up against the brisk wind and bitter air, the tang of hot chocolate and burnt tongues, cold fingers, the excitement of the spooky season, gearing up for pumpkin carving and house parties full of wasted teens.

Burying his hands in his pockets his breaths puff out visibly before him, sinking into the air like steam off a hot drink, and he is thankful that he wore a scarf at least. Thankful that in and amongst his anxiety and paranoia about the evening, he had enough brain cells left to protect himself against the cold.

Today at 20:15

yann: hot stuff lulu

Lucas rolls his eyes before pocketing his phone and looking up at the building before him. It’s nothing overtly artistic, it blends in with the shops on either side of it. Weirdly, it reminds Lucas of Grimmauld Place in Harry Potter, throwing him back to times spent at Yann’s watching all seven films straight without breaks. That thought, at least, calms him somewhat. He stands in the shadows not daring to step into the light just yet. He takes several deep breaths in, reassuring himself that he will be fine, he’s here for Eliott and his love for him can eclipse his anxiety for the night. He can do this.

He ponders texting Eliott to tell him he’s arrived but stops because Eliott is probably talking to other people, engaging in conversations with kindred spirits who know art. Lucas doesn’t know shit about art. He can look at a photo, a painting or sculpture and appreciate its beauty or vulgarity and deduce his own interpretations, but that’s it. He decides that he will not speak to anyone about the exhibition because he will undoubtedly make a complete idiot of himself. So when he steps inside from the night into a brightly lit room, the contrast to the night outside dazzling him for a second, he unwraps his scarf and takes his jacket off, moving towards the table of mini bites. Eating he can do, and well, but interacting with people, let alone those from completely different stratospheres, is not his forte. He wishes he had invited Arthur along with him, someone he could be comfortably uncomfortable with until Eliott is less busy.

He accepts an offer of champagne from an inscrutable looking man in all black, tucking his coat and scarf in his elbow. He glances around noticing painted portraits and landscapes set against bleach-white walls, a wall has been erected in the middle of the space, and children race round it, trailing their coats behind them to shrieks of laughter which melt into the background of the music filtering in through small speakers. Lucas doesn’t recognise it, the music that is, but it fits the scene: artists and art and educated people knowing what they’re talking about. He can decipher a light piano melody and the strings of a guitar, it must be something indie he concludes.

Already he feels negative thoughts clouding his mind: Why are you even here? You don’t know shit. Everyone knows you’re a fraud. Everyone is looking at you and laughing. Normally these thought spirals last for a while, he will reassure himself, tell himself that he’s being irrational, that no one is looking at him, that they are more interested in the art. He will be fine for five minutes then the thoughts will attack again like a vicious viper, poisoning his thoughts and no antidote is strong enough to stave off the anxiety for long. But, this evening is not about him, and he is really trying to be more positive. He keeps Eliott in his mind and his breathless excitement over the phone when he called to confirm with Lucas, to ensure Lucas would definitely be there. Lucas bottles that voice and plays it on repeat, tucking it against his heart in the little nook Eliott has carved for himself there.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucas notices someone looking over at him and he debates engaging in inane conversation or turning away and pretending to be interested in the food. He goes with option two, picking up a vegan sausage roll and biting into it, but he’s miscalculated and his glass testers out of his hand and he’s imagining the fantastic shatter and the heads turning and the silence and his stomach is dropping, but the glass never meets the floor.

“Fuck-”

“Here you go.”

Lucas looks into deep brown eyes, framed by tortoise-shell glasses and light-brown hair. “Thank you.”

“I saw you struggling a bit there...you know there’s a cloakroom, right?”

“Um. Apparently not.”

Laughter and then, “Follow me. I’ll show you where it is.”

Lucas puts down his glasses, shoves the rest of the sausage roll and follows the retreating back of the girl who saved his ass tonight.

They end up in a room just off the main one, and Lucas notices it is a lot cooler out here, what is it about museums and no air conditioning? He swears he could sweat a foundation within the hour. The girl gestures to a row of coats and jackets hanging suspended from seemingly nothing until Lucas hangs his own one up with his scarf and feels a metal bar holding them in place.

“Thanks again. Seriously. Eternally grateful.”

She’s smiling, the girl, hands clasped behind her back. “So, who are you?”

Lucas’ eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Is there some guest list or something because no one was out the front-”

The girl is laughing now, hair falling forward into her face. “No, I didn’t mean that. Are you a fellow artist or?”

“Oh,” Lucas feels his cheeks grow warm. “Definitely not. You?”

“No, just here for the free booze and food, and my sister’s work is being shown so there’s also that.”

Lucas can’t help but smile. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“Wanna get some more bubbly?”

He learns her name is Ashley, that she studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris, that she is boisterous and is incredible at impressions. They begin by eating some of the nibbles followed by a glass of cheap bubbly that is decidedly not champagne. They drift around the room, beginning at the far wall on the right observing black-white portraits both painted and photographed; they read the labels affixed to the wall on the right-side of each art piece, noting the artists, the name of the piece and the description of what is being shown. They stand up straight, perfect postures, and move onto the next piece which rings familiar to Lucas, reminding him of impressionist paintings which he quite likes. See, while Lucas is not an expert, he knows Monet, because Manon has a rendition of his water lilies on her bedroom wall — this recognition lifts his confidence a bit. They stop at a sculpture, a body encased in a cage, almost serpent-like, limbs extended and curved in an oval shape — made from clay. Lucas drops his head on Ashley’s shoulder and they stare at this body for a while until she is called away by her sister, they hug and say goodbye. This is where Lucas is when he sees him.

The atmosphere instantly changes for Lucas; he feels less alone, less like an idiot, he feels the room brighten infinitesimally and wonders if that’s some affect of the exhibition, but soon knows, viscerally, that that’s just the affect Eliott has on him. He is a work of art all in himself; Lucas could stare at him all day.

Eliott is in a green turtle neck and black slacks, rolled and cuffed just above the ankles. Hair artfully messy, un-styled.

Lucas turns away as if that will stop Eliott from noticing him, as if Eliott wouldn’t recognise him in a crowd of short white boys with long brown hair.

“Hey!”

“Hi.” Lucas says shyly.

In an alternative reality he would run up and jump into Eliott’s arms, squeezing him to his chest, sigh into his warmth and kiss him right on the lips. Alas, this is not another universe, this is theirs all messy and twisted and perverse, but within this volume of space, on this planet being destroyed by human insolence, there is a pocket they have created for themselves, and when Lucas looks back at Eliott, he knows that they are both imagining themselves else where, without public scrutiny. There is also the case of the glass in his hand and, at this moment, Lucas doesn’t trust himself not to drop it.

Eliott meets him halfway and kisses Lucas on the lips, it’s short and sweet and Lucas would die for more, but he’s aware of where they are and isn’t the biggest fan of public displays of affection anyway. Eliott cups Lucas’ face and pulls him forward, encircling him in warmth and a musky scent. Lucas breathes him in before letting go reluctantly.

“How long have you been here?”

“Forty minutes or so, I think.”

Eliott looks at Lucas in disbelief. “You should have come and found me, you goose.” He brushes their noses together.

I don’t know anything about art; I don’t know why you would want me here. But he’s learning that some of his thoughts are ridiculous and it’s just his anxiety screwing him over so he tries to not think of that, and instead, absorb the absolute joy on Eliott’s face instead. He wants you here.

“You looked busy,” Lucas shrugs. “I didn’t want to interrupt the magic.”

Eliott is shaking his head, pulling Lucas in for another quick kiss. “You interrupt nothing, my love.”

Terms of endearment: Lucas has never been the biggest fan of them, finding them cringey but this- my love it awakens his soul, his spirit, it lights the desire in him to boiling point. Eliott in that turtle neck, calling him my love, is not helping Lucas’ need to rip his clothes off. But he holds himself together: cheeks turning rosy and biting his lip as Eliott turns him around and guides him to his own piece, Lucas can feel the nervous energy bouncing off of him.

Lucas is excited, mainly for Eliott, and how much he wants Lucas to see his work after weeks of it being kept secret. He wants to be properly introduced to this other side of Eliott whom he has only seen in brief glimpses of drawings as they materialise on Eliott’s wall or are folded carefully into the pocket of his own jacket. Though they have been dating, officially, for the past month, together for three, he doesn’t know the ambitious side of his boyfriend that well. He could tell you Eliott’s favourite author: Virginia Woolf, his favourite food: bacon and cheese omelette, how he likes his coffee: black, no milk or sugar, and that he is seemingly late to most things except when it comes to their one-on-one time. He could tell you that Eliott prefers paperbacks to hardbacks and folds back the cover whenever he’s reading and that it hurts Lucas’ soul just a bit whenever he sees that. However, Lucas could not tell you, just yet, what Eliott’s passion project has been for the past five months, one month before they met.

Built into one of the many white walls is a screen on which either side are a pair of black headphones. Lucas throws a quick glance at Eliott who is biting his thumb nervously before slipping the headphones on and standing directly in the middle, a few paces back from the screen.

It’s on loop; Lucas sees the credits first before it begins again. A new beginning, a fresh start. It’s a film. Lucas recognises the old railway track that circles the city walls of Paris where they once stood at the time of Napoleon III’s reign. He looks over at Eliott in surprise to see him smiling at Lucas. A few weeks back Eliott talked about going to La Petite Ceinture with Lucas and here it is, right there before him. There is a bridge engulfed in shadows and there is music, relatively loud: a soft beat, violins, maybe? The music is what catches Lucas’ attention the most, he has always had an ear for it, especially the classical, owed to his mother’s appreciation for it, leading to it become the sound Lucas would wake up to every morning before school. The beginnings of a new symphony trickling beneath his door at seven a.m.

If he knows anything about Eliott he can prophesise that there will be something romantic about this film. A shadow materialises from the right holding shining a torch beneath the bridge which appears at first, impenetrable, however, a shape emerges from the shadows; the dense black around it lightens slightly illuminating the shape into a figure. Lucas’ heart starts picking up its beat, hardly noticeable at all, as a story of fear and courage, of light and dark, is borne; he’s sure there is an even deeper meaning there, one he is missing, but as the two characters meet across the bridge of their differences, sharing in their similarities, Lucas can’t help but wonder if the juxtaposition of light and dark reflects the two people who are sharing their darkest fears and greatest dreams with each other, ones they were scared to admit to themselves. The music picks up in a crescendo as their lips touch and they cross the barrier into the other’s world and Lucas’ heart is in his throat at the utter tenderness which is very Eliott. He reaches out his hand behind him and feels long fingers slip into the gaps between his own, he squeezes their hands together and continues staring at the screen while the credits roll, revelling in the experience of this creation he has had the privilege to be privy to.

POLARIS written and directed by eliott demaury

Letting go of Eliott’s hand while he hangs up his headphones, Lucas is in awe of his boyfriend. Eliott often spoke about the pieces he worked on, but Lucas didn’t no it culminated into this. He turns to face him and is met with a nervous smile. Lucas steps right in front of him, reaches up to cup his face and shakes his head on a laugh.

“Who the hell are you?”

Eliott’s face pinches together and his eyebrows draw down in question.

“Amazing.” Lucas throws his arms around Eliott’s neck and affixes himself to his chest, tucking his head into the space where Eliott’s neck meets his shoulder.

“Did you like it?” Eliott whispers as he circles his arms around Lucas’ waist.

Jerking back, Lucas clutches Eliott’s biceps. “I have no words that would do it justice. How do I have the most beautiful boyfriend in the world?”

Eliott ducks his head in response, shy and self-conscious at Lucas’ praise, he glances at Lucas through his eyelashes and asks, “So, you liked it?”

Kissing his nose, Lucas pecks Eliott on the lips and whispers against them, “My heart is weeping tears. I loved it. Of course, I did.”

The smile he receives is beatific. Only then does he realise the extent of Eliott’s nerves and how Lucas is the one who got him all tied up, he hugs Eliott once more, tightly, in reassurance. “I loved it.”

When they finally part, Eliott checks his phone and asks Lucas, “When are we meeting the guys?”

“Around 9:30, I think. We don’t have to go, though.”

“No, I want to.”

“But what about this?” Lucas gestures to the screen — where Eliott’s film has begun to roll again —and the space around him. “This is your night.”

Eliott shoves his hands into the front pockets of his slacks and shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve been here since seven, it’s too much, even for me — all the attention.”

It is scary how much Lucas gets that, gets Eliott, how he must be drained from speaking to numerous people all evening about his work and theirs. Though, he does look happy, just tired and in need of some down time, which, Lucas thinks, is the exact opposite of the energy his friends exude.

Lucas nods his head, gesturing with his thumb to the cloakroom. “Yeah, we can go. I just need to get my jacket.”

-

“YES!” Yann is raising his controller in the air, grinning with satisfaction.

“Yann! What the fuck, man! Arthur, stop! Lucas, come on, back me here!” Basile is yelling, his eyes fixated on the TV screen, divided in two, his half decorated in big red letters: YOU LOSE.

Lucas is laughing along with Yann, Arthur and Eliott, because it was sabotage but also hilarious. He clutches at his sides as Baz gets increasingly more annoyed. He is criminally competitive, and with Arthur dancing in front of Baz’s side of the screen and messing up his hair in an attempt to distract him and make him lose to Yann, Basile’s temper is rising, his face reddening — a feat they execute every time they play video games.

Arthur is cackling and robbing Baz of his remote.

“You promised you wouldn’t do this again!”

“You gotta stop trusting us, man.” Yann responds, already choosing his team for his next match against Arthur.

Baz sighs and gets up to find another beer.

“I’m assuming you do this every time, huh?” Eliott is biting his lips, trying to keep his laughter in because he feels bad.

The other three all look at each other with shit-eating grins on their faces, but when they turn to meet Eliott’s gaze, their smiles turn sheepish. Then they are back to playing Fifa and British rap music blunts from Yann’s speaker, Arthur raps along to it and when Baz returns, already cooled down — his annoyance forgotten, he joins in and hops down next to Lucas on a beanbag. When Baz passes both Eliott and Lucas a beer each, Lucas rests his head on Baz’s shoulder in apology, looking up at him, and they exchange smiles. He knows they’re okay, that Baz is not mad.

After a few games, Eliott retreats into the kitchen and after fifteen minutes of no return, Lucas trails after, curious.

Lucas peaks into the kitchen then leans against the doorway, observing Eliott cutting a grapefruit into small chunks before dropping them into a jug full of ice. He stands before a window, the street lamps from outside shining through the glass and lightening Eliott’s hair to a golden-brown.

“What are you doing?”

Eliott looks up briefly and returns to his task of cutting fruit. “Making sangria.”

“Mmm,” Lucas licks his lips. “Can I help?”

“Um, yeah. Pour in the wine?”

“That I can do.”

Lucas hears rather than sees Eliott saunter in his direction. Placing an elbow on the kitchen counter he leans against it with his body and...proceeds to knock over the open bottle of champagne. It appears to happen in slow motion: Eliott reaching out to steady the bottle, his reflexes failing him, Lucas reaches out at the same time and they both become funnels for the wine as it slips throw their hands and slides down their arms like they’re in a fucking Carrie film, soaking Lucas’ shirt. He gasps at the shock of cold, staring down at his shirt for a second.

When he eventually looks up at Eliott, his back is turned and his shoulders are shaking as he clears up the spillage with a sponge, as much as he, ineffectively, as it continues to drip on the ground from his own wine-drenched arms.

Lucas throws his head back and groans, causing Eliott to sputter out a laugh which turns into loud gasps of air and occasional breaks of laughter. Lucas looks down at his blue shirt again, which sticks to his chest, and begins laughing too. Shoulders shaking in communion with Eliott’s, he bumps his him against Eliott’s hip, almost slipping in the wine on the floor and is caught by the biceps in a firm grip. Their laughter silenced until they lock eyes and Eliott’s rolled his lips inwards, his eyes entirely unapologetic and mischievous as he slides his hands down Lucas’ sides, joining them at the small of his back, but Lucas is still caught up in the vision of Eliott trying to clean the surface while he was soaked in wine, making his attempts futile, and he knows that look in Eliott’s eyes, that he was about to kiss him, but he can’t help it. Lucas’ head falls forward against Eliott’s chest and his ribs ache as he begins laughing again. Helpless against it.

After a few tries, Lucas manages to gasp out — between laughs — that they need to clean themselves up. He directs Eliott to Yann’s bathroom and washes down his arms for him in what must be freezing cold water because Eliott is yelling in protest while Lucas refuses to adjust the temperature because this is his payback to Eliott for ruining his shirt. He can be petty like it. He’s laughing all the way through it and Eliott’s eyes narrow down at him in suspicion.

Once Eliott is all cleaned up, he returns to try and salvage what’s left of his sangria ingredients, meanwhile, Lucas slips into one of Yann’s t-shirts, bundling his own shirt up into a ball and dumping it by his shoes at the door. When he returns to the scene of the crime, Eliott looks over at him and smirks, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, he gives Lucas a once over.

Of course Lucas knows why he’s getting that look; Yann’s t-shirt reaches to below his bum, but he chooses to ignore Eliott’s look and raises his chin slightly.

“Yes?” He asks, as he reaches for the bottle with the remaining red wine in it and downs the liquid in seconds.

“Nothing.” Eliott responds, but he is inching closer to Lucas, slowly and steadily.

They are both a bit tipsy curtesy of the three beers and then the bottle of cider they shared (disgusting in Lucas’ opinion). At least, Lucas is. He only felt it hit him when he stood in the doorway in Yann’s shirt and Eliott’s gaze fell upon him, slightly teasing and incredibly enticing. He can’t quite look him in the eye, feeling a bit nervous, so he plants his eyes on Eliott’s chest. This does not help remotely because now Lucas’ is thinking about Eliott’s tattoo there and his smooth chest and he is really starting to believe that Eliott is some otherworldly creature who has been sent to Earth to rob Lucas of his sensibilities.

He stands there, and brushes Lucas’ lips slowly with his thumb, saying: “They’re all rosy now.”

Raising his own fingers to his lips, Lucas brushes them too, only to have this hand snatched away by Eliott who brings them to his own lips and kisses each finger individually, like they each deserve his undivided attention.

“You can’t do that here.” Lucas almost gasps out.

“Hm?” Eliott asks, holding Lucas’ hand now, grey-green eyes searching Lucas’, as if Lucas’ voice hadn’t completely given him away.

“I definitely have a semi.”

Eliott bites his lip in amusement, raising Lucas’ fingers to his mouth once more, but Lucas rips his hand out of Eliott’s grasp and takes a couple steps back which Eliott seems thoroughly enthralled by as he counters Lucas’ steps until Lucas is flush against the kitchen counter and Eliott is lifting him onto the marble surface, planting his hands on either side of Lucas as he leans forward and captures his lips in a blazing kiss that defuses any nervousness in Lucas’ brain about his friends walking in, because he really couldn’t give less of a fuck right now.

In between the first kiss and the next, Lucas whispers fuck and before he can emit an embarrassingly loud groan, Eliott is sweeping him into another fiery kiss that lights him up from the inside out, incandescent. Lucas swears that in the vacuum of space there is no star that shines quite like Eliott, that can evoke such happiness or hope in another person.

Lucas is being tugged forward until he is chest to chest to Eliott while his own hands are making a mess of his boyfriend’s hair, and trailing down his neck and cupping his jaw to deepen the kiss.

“Lucas! Lulu!”

“Get your ass in here! It’s time to PLAY!”

“Luuuuuucas!”

“I’m coming to find you!” Baz.

That comment makes them jerk apart. Resting their foreheads on each other’s shoulders, waiting for their breaths to slow down, return to some semblance of normal before they rejoin le gang. God knows Lucas will not hear the end of this but he is flush with desire and with love. Sliding down to the floor, he intertwines his fingers with Eliott’s, resting his head on Eliott’s shoulder for a second before they go back to the living room and have to face the music.

-

He is feeling nervous because this is a big deal but he doesn’t want it to be a big thing; it is a step forward in what he hopes is the right direction. A step forward into trying to take care of himself and being a better person for himself and everyone he loves. He wants to explore the world more, be less afraid of the everyday things that do not warrant his constant fear and anguish, he doesn’t want to be second guessing himself or the kindness people show him. He doesn’t want to be thinking that people are pretending to like him, that pity motives them to hang out with him. He wishes to be free of these burdens, and he knows, he knows that it won’t all be magically fixed with a sprinkle of fairy dust, he knows he has this for life, but when he thinks back on the days where he would cancel plans to stay at home or lie in bed and read comics, the days where he was exhausted beyond comprehension and become lax with personal hygiene, when he thinks back on those dark days, he knows he would do anything to reduce their frequency.

So, when he brings it up to Eliott, he’s trying to be casual about it, just drop it into the conversation like it’s no big deal. He doesn’t look at Eliott, pretends to be scanning for a book Eliott has been begging him to read almost since the time they met to add to the illusion of nonchalance he has going.

“I’m gonna be going to therapy, but since I’m doing it for free, I’m on the waitlist so I probably won’t have my first appointment till the end of March.” Lucas is chill. He is cool. To emphasise this, he flops down on Eliott’s sofa, one of his favourite places — all soft, like a cocoon that molds to his body, familiar with his shape after hours and hours spent lounging in its warmth.

“Lucas?”

Lucas remains where he’s lying down, book held above his head, pretending to read and his arms are already beginning to ache, but he’s going for casual remember.

“Yeah?”

“Lucas.”

The boy in question can’t decipher the tone of his boyfriend’s voice. He can feel the butterflies beginning their familiar swirl deep in his belly, so he thinks of that quote Eliott recently stuck up above his bed: “I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on pavement.”

“Uh huh?”

The book is snatched from his hands, revealing a wide-eyed Eliott. He dumps the book beside Lucas’ head and stares down at him in askance.

“Therapy? When did this happen?” Why didn’t you tell me, he doesn’t say. Eliott is in shock, Lucas concludes. Well, maybe not shock but he looks almost disbelieving and confused, maybe, as to why Lucas didn’t tell him his plan. But the thing with Lucas is, he likes to get things done without telling people because he doesn’t want to disappoint them in case he reneges. The look on Eliott’s face tells him it was worth it.

“Yesterday.”

“And you waited until now,” Eliott checks his phone before staring Lucas down once more. “Three in the afternoon to tell me this?” He is smiling, proud. Lucas feels it in his bones.

He is proud of himself too. Eliott’s expression softens, as though he can read Lucas’ mind. He leans down and kisses Lucas’ forehead, then, as though that is not enough contact, not enough to show his pride, he circles himself around Lucas, lying down on his chest, elbow resting on the sofa by Lucas’ head. They are eye to eye now, cerulean eyes meeting misty grey ones: a mosaic of the ocean seas, calm and settled. The weight of Eliott’s body against him as he looks at Lucas with admiration, grounds Lucas in the moment, he feels it like a new beginning, a fresh start: beginning his journey of learning that his feelings and needs are important as much as everyone else’s in the world.

Lucas shrugs in response. “I didn’t want to disappoint you, because if I had told you and I didn’t go through with it I wouldn’t have been able to handle breaking a promise. Especially to you.”

“Lucas-”

“I know you’re going to say that I could never disappoint you, but that’s not true, and I would have been disappointed in myself, and it would’ve all been made even worse, because I’d have your disappointment on top of my own guilt. But I did it, I’ve done it. And…yeah.”

Eliott’s face went through a myriad of emotions while Lucas was walking, but, now, he brushes Lucas hair in tender strokes, kisses his forehead once more, trailing his nose down to Lucas’ and hovering there. On the precipice of something.

“Can I take you there?”

“To therapy?” Lucas inquires.

“Yeah.”

March is four months away. That will be eight months with Eliott. Lucas mulls over his question, even closes his eyes and hums for a second.

“I guess so.” He concedes, lifting his head up a fraction of an inch, just so he can brush his lips against Eliott’s. Their noses slide passed each other, like two puzzle pieces finally fitted together, like when the sun and moon finally cross paths, and the probability of an eclipse increases exponentially, blotting out the star-speckled night and snow-white January mornings, the blazing heat of a summer’s afternoon and the tear-stained watercolour sky of early spring as it creeps towards dusk.

“I don’t remember where but I think I read somewhere that taking things a day at a time can really help, for people like me, who deal with anxious and constant worries about the future; trying to think in the now, focusing on what you have to do on that day and that day only, which isn’t always possible, but it really stuck with me. I’m trying to be more positive, and take things as they come, to stop trying to control everything by taking the day as it is and focusing on it instead of what’s to come later. Like focusing on what I’m doing now, in that hour, you know?”

Eliott nods in understanding, eyes bare on Lucas’, giving him his full undivided attention, wanting him to know that he is listening, that what he is saying is being heard.

“Taking things minute by minute?”

Lucas nods his head, licking his lips as a small tear slips from his eye. “Exactly.”

“Well that sounds like a plan. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, with Lucas Lallemant. Sounds like my kind of thing.”

Eliott’s lips tick up at the side in a small smile as he brushes away Lucas’ tear, kissing the patch of wet skin. He sits up, pulling Lucas up with him, cupping his face as he feels arms circle his own waist. Tight. Eliott’s eyes-crinkle as he rests his forehead against Lucas’ in something akin to prayer.

Minute by minute.

[algaesway]

第2章

Chapter 2. Spite: Part I. 

The very moment Wei Wuxian opened his eyes, someone kicked him.

Like a sudden thunderclap, a voice close to his ear roared: ‘Stop playing dead!’ 

The kick, which had been directed squarely at his chest, nearly made him cough up blood. As the back of his head hit the ground, he gazed up, mind still covered in a haze. He thought: ‘This guy has some gall, daring to kick me, the Yiling Laozu.’ 

Wei Wuxian didn’t even know how many years it had been since the last time he’d heard a living person speak, let alone such a resounding voice cursing him. While his head was still spinning and his vision was blurred, this young fellow’s duck-like croak reverbated in his ears like tinnitus: ‘Have a think - whose land is it you’re living on? Whose rice is it you’re eating? Whose money are you spending? It goes without saying that the answer to all these questions is “mine”!’. 

Immediately after that, Wei Wuxian heard sounds of frantic rummaging from all directions, as if someone was digging through chests and drawers. Judging by the clangour, it seemed that things were being thrown around and smashed on the floor. It had taken a while, but Wei Wuxian’s eyes were finally starting to clear up. A dingy ceiling emerged in his line of vision, followed by a pallid face with drooping eyebrows, standing above him and splashing spit on his face as he shouted: ‘How dare you tell on me! Did you really think that I’d be scared of your snitching? Did you really believe that there is anybody in this house who would take your side?’ 

A pair of burly men, apparently household servants, emerged on the young fellow’s side and said: ‘Young master, we’ve finished smashing everything to bits!’

The duck-throated youth asked: ‘How did you get it done so quickly?’

The household servants said: ‘Well, there weren’t that many things in this dirty hovel to start with’. 

Beaming with satisfaction, the duck-throated youth turned towards Wei Wuxian again. He jabbed at his nose forcefully, index finger seemingly itching to push it all the way up to his forehead, while shouting: ‘How come you were acting all uppity before, snitching on me, and now you’re cowering on the ground playing dead! Who is this act meant for? As if anyone would actually want your scrap metal and waste paper! Now that I’ve smashed it all up for you, feel free to try snitching on me to your heart’s content! You think you’re so amazing just because you spent a few years in a cultivation sect. Even though they drove you out just like a stray dog, didn’t they!’ 

Feeling barely half-alive, Wei Wuxian pondered: 

‘I’ve been dead for years. I’m really not pretending!’ 

‘Who is this guy?’ 

‘Where am I?’

‘How did I end up possessing someone else’s body?’ 

Having let out enough steam by kicking and smashing up the room, the duck-throated youth swaggered out with the two man-servants in tow, slamming the door and ordering in a shrill voice: ‘Keep a close eye on him! Do not let him come out, or he’ll just make a spectacle of himself again!’ 

On the other side of the door, the man-servants vowed to follow the order. Silence fell both inside and outside the room. Wei Wuxian tried to sit up, but his body refused to obey, so he lay back down again. There was nothing he could do but roll over on his side. Although his vision was still blurry, he took in the unfamiliar surroundings - and the complete mess that had been made of the room. 

A bronze mirror had been discarded on the floor beside him, close enough that he could easily reach out and grab it to take a look. A strange white face appeared in the mirror, with both cheeks covered in uneven and asymmetrical stripes of crimson. All that was missing was a long red tongue lolling out of his mouth, and he would have been the spitting image of a hanged ghost. 

Bewildered by the sight, Wei Wuxian threw the mirror away. He wiped at his face, only to find his hand covered in white powder. 

Fortunately, this body hadn’t been born with such an eccentric appearance; its previous owner had just had eccentric tastes. This was doubtlessly the body of a grown man, yet with rouge and powder thickly smeared all over its face. The worst part was that the make-up had been applied with appallingly poor technique. 

Being startled had had a revitalising effect. Wei Wuxian finally found the strength to sit up, and only then did he notice the curse array on the floor beneath him. The scarlet-coloured array was circular but uneven. It seemed that someone had drawn it with a shaky hand, using their own blood as paint. The pattern was still wet, and a meaty stench emanated from it. Twisted incantations had been frantically scribbled inside the array. Some of them had been wiped away by the body lying on top, but the remaining words and drawings were permeated by a demonic gloom. For however many years, people had been calling Wei Wuxian the sovereign of demons, the patriarch of demonic cultivation, and so on and so forth. Knowing such matters like the back of his hand, a quick glance was naturally enough for him to figure out that this was no good-natured array. 

So he hadn’t possessed anyone’s body, after all - rather, someone had offered their own body to him!

In its essence, a demonic consecration was a form of a curse, requiring the person casting it to mutilate themselves with a weapon. The blood flowing from the wounds that had been carved on the body would then be used to draw the array and write down the incantations. Once the array had been drawn, the caster would position themselves in its centre, thus turning their own flesh into a sacrifice for demonic spirits. For the price of returning their own soul to the earth, the caster could summon an unspeakably wicked demon or even an evil god to take over their body and fulfil their most desperate wish. 

The polar opposite of a demonic consecration was, naturally, a demonic possession. Both of them were widely reviled as forbidden arts, but the former had been far less popular in reality than the latter. After all, very few desires were strong enough to compel a person into sacrificing oneself completely. As a result, this curse had barely ever been put to practice, and over the last century, it had almost fallen to complete obscurity as a forgotten art. The ancient books recorded only three or four verified cases of demonic consecration over the millennia. Without exception, each of these people had been consumed by the same desire - revenge. The demonic spirits they summoned had perfectly satisfied this desire with ruthless bloodshed. 

Wei Wuxian felt deeply uneasy. 

How exactly had he ended up lumped together with ‘unspeakably wicked demons and evil gods’? 

Sure, he had a relatively poor reputation, and the way he’d died had been extraordinarily brutal. But he had no interest in either haunting or vengeance. He could bet that even if one searched all corners of both heaven and earth, they could never find a wandering soul as friendly and dutiful as he was! 

The thorny issue was that the whole act of demonic consecration was based on the primacy of its caster’s desire. No matter how unacceptable that desire may have been for Wei Wuxian.. Now that he had been inserted into the spell-caster’s body, a tacit contract must have already formed between them. He had no choice but to fulfil whatever had been asked of him. A failure to fulfil a contract like this would result in the curse rebounding on the possessor. His soul would be completely extinguished, unable to ever be reincarnated again.

Wei Wuxian loosened the sash on his robes and raised his arms to inspect them. As expected, both of his wrists were crisscrossed by nasty cuts from a sharp blade. Even though the wounds had already stopped bleeding, it was clear to Wei Wuxian that these were no ordinary injuries. The cuts on this body would not heal unless its original owner’s wish was completely satisfied. The longer it took to fulfil the task, the more its condition would deteriorate. If the time limit was exceeded, the soul that had been summoned to possess this body would be ripped apart along with it. 

Wei Wuxian reiterated this over and over again to make sure there was no mistake. In his heart, he repeated ten times: ‘This is absurd!’. Finally, he forced himself to stand up, leaning on the wall for support. 

The room was spacious but empty and squalid. The bedspreads and quilts looked like they hadn’t been changed for a very long time, and the air smelled musty. A bamboo basket full of rubbish had been kicked over in one corner, spilling out dirt and wastepaper. Wei Wuxian noticed traces of ink on the wads of paper and picked up one sheet to take a closer look. Sure enough, it was covered in dense writing. He rushed to collect all of the scattered pieces of paper. 

The previous owner of this body had clearly written these notes as a way to vent out his distress. Many of the passages were completely nonsensical or incoherent, and the distorted characters were steeped in anxiety. Wei Wuxian mustered up all his patience to read through page after page, and the more he read, the more uneasy he felt. 

Even if he had to make some wild guesses to patch it all together, he could roughly figure out what was going on. Most importantly, the original owner of this body was called Mo Xuanyu, and this place was the Mo family’s manor. 

Mo Xuanyu’s maternal grandfather had been one of the richest landlords in the area, but struggled to produce a successor. Even after diligently trying for years, he’d only had two daughters, whose names were not mentioned. His legal wife had given birth to the elder daughter, whose husband later married into the family. The second daughter’s mother, on the other hand, was actually one of the housemaids. Because of her illicit background, the Mo family had originally been intending to send the second daughter away through marriage. A chance encounter she had at sixteen upended these plans, however. At that time, the leader of an influential cultivation sect fell in love with her at first sight while passing through. As a result of their clandestine affair, the second daughter gave birth to a child - and that child was Mo Xuanyu. 

Although people at the Mo manor had initially viewed this affair with contempt, they also held a deep admiration for cultivators. In the eyes of common people, cultivation families enjoyed Heavens’ special blessings; they were noble and mysterious.  From time to time, the leader of the cultivation sect would also provide the Mo family with all kinds of favours. Eventually,  the wind started blowing in a completely different direction. Not only did the Mo family start considering this special treatment a source of glory, it also roused the envy of outsiders. 

A good thing never lasts forever. The sect leader was the type to always crave for freshly hunted meat, and it only took a couple of years for him to grow tired of the familiar taste. His visits grew more and more infrequent. After Mo Xuanyu turned four, he never visited again. 

In the years that followed, the tone of voices within the Mo manor changed once again. The old contempt and ridicule came back, this time intertwined with disdainful pity. While swallowing her bitter regret, the second Mo daughter remained convinced that the sect leader would never completely abandon a child of his own blood. Sure enough, when Mo Xuanyu was fourteen, the sect leader dispatched a large group of delegates to ceremoniously welcome him into their clan. 

At this, the second Mo daughter regained her pride. Even if she couldn’t accompany her son, her previous sullenness was swept away at once. Whenever she met somebody, she would loudly boast about her son, who was sure to become a great cultivator, achieve meteoric success in his career, and bring great honour to their ancestors. As a result, the wagging tongues at the Mo manor changed their tune for the third time. 

However, before Mo Xuanyu could establish himself as a fully-fledged cultivator and a successor to his father, he was kicked out. 

Not only that, but it was an extremely unsightly homecoming. Mo Xuanyu was a cut-sleeve, and he had been harassing his fellow disciples in audacious ways, causing a very public scandal. Moreover, it turned out that his innate talents were mediocre, and he could hardly make any great contribution as a cultivator. Because of all this, the clan had no reason to let him stay. 

To make matters even worse, these experiences had triggered something strange in Mo Xuanyu. After his return, he went completely off the rails. His moods fluctuated wildly, and he seemed perpetually terrified of something.

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows twitched as he read these words. 

As if being a cut-sleeve wasn’t bad enough, this fellow also had to be a lunatic. 

At least that explained why his face was covered in enough make-up to get him mistaken for a hanged ghost. It also explained why nobody had seemed to give two hoots about the large blood-drenched array on the floor. It could very well be that even if Mo Xuanyu had painted the whole shack in blood, from the floor tiles all the way up to the roof, the people around him would have considered this nothing out of the ordinary. Because everyone knew he was sick in the head! 

After Mo Xuanyu’s return to the family home, nobody had bothered to hold back on their scorn, and he was mocked relentlessly. This time, it seemed clear that he’d used up all of his chances to redeem his reputation. The humiliation proved to be a fatal blow for the second Mo daughter. She couldn’t purge the resentment that settled down deep in the pit of her stomach, and it eventually suffocated her to death. 

By that time, Mo Xuanyu’s maternal grandfather had already passed away. Mo Xuanyu’s aunt, Lady Mo, had taken on the role of the family head. Ever since they had been children, Lady Mo could barely stand her little sister, and she viewed her illegitimate child with even more disdain. She only had one child of her own, the fellow who had barged in and ransacked Mo Xuanyu’s room earlier. It turned out his name was Mo Ziyuan. When Mo Xuanyu had been invited to his father’s sect, Lady Mo had concluded that she could now claim a familial tie to the cultivation clan. Whenever envoys from the cultivation clan came to visit, she would implore them to invite Mo Ziyuan to study cultivation as well. Of course, her requests were rejected, or perhaps simply ignored. 

No kidding. This was not a situation comparable to haggling over the price of cabbage, let alone getting two for the price of one! 

Where did everyone in this family get their bottomless confidence from? They all seemed to harbour very misguided notions, firmly believing that Mo Ziyuan possessed immortal bones and an innate gift for cultivation. Moreover, they believed that if only Mo Ziyuan had been the one sent to study cultivation first, the clan would definitely have recognised his immense talents. There was simply no way he would have turned out to be a disappointment like his cousin. Although Mo Ziyuan had still been a young child when Mo Xuanyu left for the cultivation sect, he had been stuffed full of such utterly baseless notions about his own superiority. Even as he grew up, he remained absolutely convinced that they were true. Barely a day went by without him grabbing Mo Xuanyu to humiliate him and accuse him of blocking his path to cultivation. Yet at the same time, he couldn’t keep his hands off the items Mo Xuanyu had brought back from the cultivation sect: the talismans, the cinnabar elixirs, the ritual instruments.. Mo Ziyuan considered them his own rightful property. If he saw something he wanted to either take for himself or destroy, he didn’t think twice. Even though Mo Xuanyu suffered from bouts of madness, he was perfectly aware that he was being humiliated. He endured it day after day, but Mo Ziyuan’s behaviour only grew worse, and eventually his room had been almost completely emptied out. At the end of his rope, Mo Xuanyu had finally confronted his uncle and his aunt to stammer out his grievances. This had been the reason for Mo Ziyuan’s fury earlier that day. 

The handwriting was so small and dense that reading it had made Wei Wuxian’s eyeballs sore, and he wondered to himself: ‘Just how fucking dark was this person’s life?’. It was no wonder that Mo Xuanyu had resorted to demonic consecration to get his revenge. 

Just as the pain in Wei Wuxian’s eyes subsided, he felt a headache coming on. When using an array like this, the spell-caster was expected to incant their wish so that the summoned evil spirit - in this case, Wei Wuxian - could hear it in detail upon entering the body. It seemed that Mo Xuanyu had been secretly copying fragments of forbidden books without studying them completely, and this crucial step had been omitted. Even if Wei Wuxian could make an educated guess that his task was to exact revenge on the Mo family, how was he supposed to know exactly how this revenge was to be served? How far would he need to go? Was he expected to seize back all the possessions that had been stolen from him? To give every member of the Mo family a good battering? 

Or.. to completely exterminate them? 

Complete extermination was the most likely answer! After all, anyone who had connections to the cultivation world would likely evaluate Wei Wuxian using broadly similar words: an ungrateful wretch, a complete lunatic, the most fiendish monster among humans. Nobody would summon a soul like his to fulfil a light-hearted desire. 

Grudgingly, Wei Wuxian sighed: ‘You really picked the wrong person…..’

(translation notes here)

[zerochanges]

428 - Chunsoft’s Sound Novel Perfected

428: Shibuya Scramble is an unequivocal, truly Japanese game, and one that nobody ever thought would come out in English--and the doubters were sort of right. The title was a Japan exclusive for many years since its original Wii release in 2008 but after a decade of being out of reach for the English market this cryptically Japanese exclusive was somehow able to be cracked and come September of 2018 made the journey to North American and European markets on PC through Steam and both physically and digitally on the Sony PS4. Honestly I still can’t believe it and I own the darn game! The journey to getting this game out is surely an interesting one, as localization director David Kracker recounted on the Playstation blog that he had to fight hard to get the game pushed forward for a worldwide release outside of Japan, but ultimately was able to do so by showing that appeal for niche games such as these have been increasing steadily since its original Wii release. 

For many people 428: Shibuya Scramble will be their first experience with a Chunsoft sound novel--especially since the localized Kamaitachi no Yoru (Banshee’s Last Cry) is downright almost impossible to play now. Last blog post I discussed in detail what the heck a sound novel even is, and went through a brief history of the visual novel market in general covering where Chunsoft falls in and how much they contributed to the genre. So because of that I won’t go into too much heavy details on sound novels today, but the short and simple answer I gave in my previous entry is that a sound novel is two things. The first of which was a dated term that Chunsoft used regularly (mostly on the Super Famicom and Sega Saturn) and has since fallen out of use in favor of adopting visual novel. The second of which is the more complicated answer that sound novels are both the aforementioned term that was used by Chunsoft for their brand of visual novels and also a certain style of visual novels that would follow years later by other companies that were heavily inspired by the early works of Chunsoft often aping their presentation and narrative style, with 07Expansion’s Higurashi - When They Cry being one of the most popular examples. 

If all that sounds like a bit much, or is just all greek to you, don’t worry--all you have to really take away from my rambling is that the Chunsoft seal of quality with 428 really means something, especially to fans of visual novels. You see, 428: Shibuya Scramble is actually a spiritual successor of sorts to Chunsoft’s earlier Machi sound novel released in 1998 on the Sega Saturn and later Sony Playstation. Machi was a highly well regarded game for its time that was a big hit both critically and with gamers, but despite its constant praise still sold poorly. Over the years people started to discover the game through its solid word of mouth and old fans and new fans alike were always clamoring for a sequel. After many years of begging Chunsoft finally delivered just that, and this is where 428: Shibuya Scramble comes in. By no means a direct sequel (so don’t worry you definitely DO NOT need to play Machi to understand the story) 428 is set in the same city of Machi (aka both take place in the same fictional version of Shibuya), and super fans will be able to spot some references and cameos from Machi sneaking in. 

428: Shibuya Scramble is essentially a dream game to many hardcore fans in Japan that waited anxiously for a return to form from Chunsoft. When it came out the game even famously got a perfect score of 40 in the well known Famitsu gaming magazine--and this was back when you could still count perfect scores they gave out on your fingers, only 8 games prior made that list; nowadays the magazine is known for being far more forgiving with its reviews. So basically, what I am getting at is this is yet another game that was pretty huge back in Japan but sorely skipped over worldwide. 

You may be thinking to yourself then, that’s all well and good, but what about the game itself? Well let me get into that. 428: Shibuya Scramble is as its name implies, a game about Shibuya, while you do take control of characters in the game, at large the characters themselves all feel like a part of the city. Shibuya is a living, breathing entity in 428, and you really get to explore the entire city from multiple perspectives in this one long, crazy day. Shibuya’s story is your story. There are multiple characters you get to play as and each one has their own unique, individual story to tell, but each story is interwoven into the others and they begin to overlap in creative and fun ways. This is where a large part of the game play comes from; finding out how decisions you made with one character affects the fate of another character. 

Say for example if you are being chased in one character’s story and decide to run into a busy city street to escape your pursuers thus causing a traffic accident, in another story the character you are playing now is stuck in said traffic accident and cannot progress their story leading to a bad end. Everything you decide to do with one character not only affects that character’s fate but may even affect the entire city’s at large and change the outcome for every other character you play as too. Finding out how to best affect the story by jumping around the multiple characters and getting everything to play out just right is a lot of fun and no surprise was also a major feature in Machi prior. 

There are a bevy of characters to interact with in Shibuya but the multiple residents in this major Japanese metropolis you take direct control of are Shinya Kano, a rookie detective trying to make his way in the force and crack a kidnapping case, Achi Endo, an ex-gang leader with a heart of gold trying to make Shibuya a better place, Minoru Minorikawa, an investigative journalist on a mission to save a life, Kenji Osawa, a brooding genius that just wants to be left alone but is trapped inside a corporate scandal that goes beyond anyone’s imagination, and Tama, a poor soul trapped in a big furry cat mascot costume that just wants to be free from the hell that is a terrible part time job. Each character has their own unique flavor they bring to the table and their own individual plots range from comedic to serious, romantic to frightening, and everything else in-between. Kano’s scenario is a pretty straightforward crime drama, while Osawa’s plays like a physiological thriller where you don’t know who to trust, meanwhile Tama and Minorikawa’s scenarios will have you on the floor laughing at the insane hijinks they manage to get into somehow, and Achi is kicking ass beating up thugs and saving a lost girl. 

428 manages to combine all these different kinds of smaller stories into one large story seamlessly and it’s an incredible experience jumping between all these fun characters and seeing how they eventually interact with each other as the plot progresses. It’s hard for me to even pick a favorite character in the game as all of them are so well written, and so different from one each other. If I had to pick though, I would say Osawa is probably the protagonist I relate to the most and a lot of his big story moments left me teary eyed and really moved on a truly genuine personal level (I don’t think I’m a genius like him though). 

I can praise 428 to the high heavens, and really a large part of me writing about it today is to do just that, but there is an elephant in the room I probably should address at some point. Something truly horrendous, something that prevents the game from ever being a true masterpiece, something that scares everyone away, the horror of … real life actors! Yeah, as I am sure it’s obvious by this point 428 uses real life actors and was actually filmed on location in the city of Shibuya. A lot of people are put off by this and honestly that kind of bums me out that so many are so unwilling to even try different things. 

To go off on a bit of a tangent, my own personal opinion is that I freaking love the way 428 looks. I’m someone that quite enjoys campy FMV video games; stuff like Night Trap or any Tex Murphy adventure game is solidly right up my alley. I also enjoy unique mixtures of real life and animation, so I love rotoscoping a whole lot--I’m always ecstatic when I find a cool movie or animated series that is rotoscoped, and that’s a large draw to me for games that use it such as Hotel Dusk. So no, I really think 428 is a beautiful game visually that was made by real pros who had to use guerrilla film making in order to bring their vision to life because of laws that prevent filming on location in Shibuya. What the team was able to do here, while also hiding it from “the man” is incredible work! 

Contextly Chunsoft’s sound novels opted to not use the now established format that predominantly is how visual novel look. Originally with Otogirisō this was because visual novels were still in their infancy and the now ubiquitous presentation where sprites are shown in front of background art had not yet taken off. Nobody really knew what visual novels at the time should look like. Otogirisō is actually commonly attributed as one of the earliest examples where a visual novel had background art to begin with and wasn't just mostly text or sprites presented over a black void. Chunsoft kept their games pretty consistent visually from that point, and characters were often not seen on screen, usually just presented through the use of silhouette if needed. This really helped the “novel” aspect of their visual novels, since you had to imagine the characters’ appearances mostly through the narrative descriptions about them just like in literature. 

Over time this changed with the advent of CD hardware which meant the use of still image photography and Full-Motion-Video could really take off, and Machi ran with this new hardware looking much like how 428 does. You can say these games really have a more broad appeal to them too as they are not just “anime” games but games anyone can enjoy just like a good book. This while true in Japan does get a bit tricky for a localized title as a majority of the actors are Japanese which is off putting to a general public not used to watching Japanese cinema or TV dramas. For better or worse 428 is an unequivocal Japanese game, but I really implore anyone who is even the tiniest bit interested to try it out for themselves (especially since there is a free demo) and stay open minded about the game, because if you do, you will find one of the best written, and best localized games in a generation.

428: Shibuya Scramble's predecessor; Machi on the Sega Saturn

428 didn't get a very fair shot when it came out in the English market. The month of September was jam packed with both Triple-A titles such as Marvel’s Spider-man and niche titles that could not be missed such as Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. The release date really was setting the game up to go against some huge competitors and with its enigmatic overly Japanese sensibilities 428 lacked much of the charisma to fight them. I followed the localization process very closely and this was a game I dreamt I could play for many years, but even I had to pass up grabbing the game on its release date and waited about a month or so until I managed to pick up my own copy as I had poured all my attention into Dragon Quest XI at that time which as bad as I feel for 428 I still don’t regret. By the time I wrote my annual favorite games of the year list I had to exempt 428 from it even, only writing a brief honorable mention as I knew I would love it but hadn't actually gotten to play it yet. The end of the year was far too packed with excellent titles vying for my and everyone else’s attention and what a shame, as 428 is now easily neck-and-neck with my then favorite game of the year Dragon Quest XI.

The truth is it will be very unlikely we will ever see a game like 428: Shibuya Scramble come out in English again. This was a very unlikely localization to happen in the first place, and a very risky one, but it sadly was not a runaway success. Anyone interested in the history of visual novels, sound novels, or seeing one of Chunsoft’s greatest titles definitely shouldn't pass this game up though. And anyone willing, I really recommend 428: Shibuya Scramble hard. If you love good storytelling in gaming, there isn't any better than what’s here. The story in 428 is so heart felt, and uplifting that I found myself crying a lot during my playthrough. I laughed, I cried, I found tons of inspiration for my own writing, 428 truly is a game that changes you. I think those are far too rare nowadays. This is a game that should be in any niche gamer’s PS4 or Steam collection. 

[maukgame]

Final Reflection

Mauk has been a tremendous triumph for me as a budding game developer. As my first solo, completed project from start to finish I’ve learned an enormous amount from every step of the development process. With a fuller grasp of Unity’s coding, visuals, terrain editors, Max, and the Leap Motion I feel I’ve been challenged to develop skills rapidly and immediately put them to the test, and looking back on Mauk I can say with certainty that it’s been a success.

The process began as all processes do: with ambition. Mauk was a concept I’ve had in my head for a long time, and after the completion of my final project in a Max class with Tim Weaver using the Leap Motion last quarter, I realized I had the skillset to finally try to make it happen. Flight games have always been a passion of mine, and drawing inspiration from Glyder (iOS App), Glyder 2 (iOS App), and Aer: Memories of Old (Steam) I set out to create a game that realized the challenges of glider physics with a hands-free, intuitive control scheme.

The first step was mechanics. I had a vision in my head of the user ambulating their hand in a similar way to the way children stick their hands out car windows and “glide” it along with the wind. The Leap Motion truly was the only choice for the realization of this concept, and beyond that it was a sensor I had enough prior experience with that I knew I could navigate the calculations I needed. After a few dead ends of trying to get the Leap to work in Unity directly, I determined that the more elegant solution would be running the calculations in Max – a process I was familiar with – and feeding the data to Unity via OSC routing. Saying it here makes it sound so simple, but tailoring the movement coding with the conversation between Max and Unity and modifying Unity’s physics to accept my idea while still remaining largely realistic enough to pose a challenge to players was a matter of several weeks of constant iteration and work. But I knew that no matter what the game ended up looking like if I didn’t have mechanics, gameplay, I didn’t have a game.

It was after the mastery of the movement mechanics that I moved on to begin working on the actual terrain design and visuals. First, the geology/geography. Inspired by the Falkland Islands (a habitat of real-world albatross) I set about making stony, rugged islands with sharp cliffs and scrubby greenery. By midterm, the islands were in place – though not the assets. The next few weeks were dedicated to polishing, populating, and making the world of Mauk come to life. Here I faced a new challenge – I had never tried to create a unified aesthetic in a broad game world using so many sourced assets. Everything in Mauk originates from the Unity Asset Store, but being that it’s easy for anyone to post anything there, finding assets that would fit together relatively seamlessly while still attaining a level of variety was a visual challenge that I leapt into eagerly.

As the world of Mauk began to fill and liven, I simultaneously turned my attention to another task – the composition of a fitting soundtrack. Achieving an airy, meditative sound that would steep the player in the relaxed challenge of the game was something I actually struggled with more than I have with past soundtracks (see my website for further sound work). It wasn’t that I couldn’t envision what I wanted Mauk to sound like – I just had a hard time converting the atmosphere into sound. As I composed the soundtrack, I was actually learning and taking lessons in Logic Pro X with Chad Beall – a Colorado-based composer, performer, and freelance sound mixer. Thus, Mauk was able to teach me another lesson, a whole new software, in the form of going through the compositional process in Logic Pro X rather than the more familiar Ableton Live 10. I drew inspiration for the soundtrack from Nintendo games in particular as I’ve always admired their dedication to melodies and memorable themes, and took particular inspiration from a few tracks from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. After exploring the theory behind how these songs I so loved were composed, I was eventually able to discover and adopt strategies for how to attain my target sound.

The remaining time was thin, and I poured all that remained before the final presentation into polish, polish, polish. I finalized the intro and outro images, created a title screen, and wrote the scripts that navigated between them. I tested various sizes of colliders on the collectibles, tweaked speed variables, and smoothed the looping of the audio. Tiny details are absolutely what make a difference in the perceived quality level of a game, so I really tried my best to iron out as many of the tiny kinks I could, though I’ll admit I missed a few.

By the time the presentation arrived, Mauk was ready. Not perfect – but ready. And as my classmates dove into it eagerly, I’ll admit I felt something close to genuine giddiness. I think the biggest compliment I received was actually how much fun everyone seemed to be having playing it. When time for feedback came, people didn’t want to stop playing. As a game designer, that’s exactly what you want: fun. This was a real triumph for me, and honestly I look forward to the May presentation date and giving everyone the chance to spend even more time playing.

Reflecting back on the things I’d change or improve, there are two that stand out to me immediately. The first is that there was a graphical error I myself had not experienced that my classmates discovered on presentation day – objects in the game world puncture “through” my images, interrupting the intros and outros. In the future I can change this by moving the images to be closer to the camera lens, as well as disabling the script that allows rotation while the cutscene objects are in place. The second error has to do with the communication between Max and Unity. For whatever reason, Max seems to rather unpredictably decide when it will agreeably run in the background and when it has to be the top “floating” window in order to update from the Leap Motion. I thought the solution was a simple matter of unlocking the patch, but in recording documentation for this piece I realized this was not the case. I still don’t know precisely what leads it to determine when to stop refreshing, so for the May presentation I’ll hunt down the issue and ensure the window order is taken care of.

Mauk has been a true demonstration to me of just how much I’ve grown at DU. It’s employed skills from a wide variety of my interests and developed fields including visual art, sound design, game design, programming, and alternative controllers. I truly don’t think there’s a better project I could have selected for my pinnacle project in the EDP department, and despite the small issues I still have to fix I consider Mauk to be an overwhelming success and a crown jewel for my current portfolio. It pushed me to my limits in many ways, and I’m proud to say that I feel I not only stepped up to the challenge but grew beyond even my own expectations. I look forward to taking the lessons I learned with me forward into graduate studies and my professional life.

[writingonjorvik]

Can We Discuss the Old Games?

Mostly instigated by the most recent journals, I wanted to talk about the old CD-ROM games in how it’s relevant to SSO. Considering that there are some very strongly opinionated camps on this, I’m going to say out right that if you can’t come to this topic reasonably and respectfully, do expect to get blocked by this blog. This is a place for respectful discussion, not to be rude to people with varying opinions you don’t agree with. Cool?

Players need to stop harassing the devs about being pure loyalists to the old games.

There, it has been said. And it’s not like I disagree with the concept of the old games being in SSO, I’ve said before that memory style quests would be awesome. However, I’ve also pointed out that nostalgia applied exclusively in the decision making process is not good for anyone in any situation. And people are very touchy on this subject.

But it needs to be said, particularly as the devs are making their stance abundantly clear that they want to move away from the old games in parts and retcon the lore. I know it is hard to let go of old things, particularly things from your childhood, but let’s be absolute realists here.

To get all 12 of the original CD-ROM games, you’re looking at $200-$400 to get decent copies. And those options are dwindling quickly. Who do you think has that kind of money lying around to spend on fandom projects? Not most people, but certainly not SSO’s target demographic after buy the steep admission for SSO itself.

This argument would be significantly different is the old games were accessible somewhere digitally, but they aren’t. And to get the games on to Steam at this point would take almost all if not all of SSO’s devs away from making the game that is directly making them money. Further, we’re not even certain the devs have distribution rights for the old games, which would be separate from the copyright. Without approval from Penny Arcade, the option to remaster/remake the game could simply not be on the table, and even then, it would take away almost all of SSO’s current team to make it available for new players.

Since it would not be realistic, it makes total sense for the devs to push away from that inaccessible lore. It’s bad business. If the average player can’t understand the story in an already expensive game without spending more money or searching through YouTube for an old let’s play, most players aren’t going to stick around. The old CD-ROM games are not easy to access anymore. A lot of you may have a copy from when they were in production, but that is no longer the case. And it wouldn’t ever be again.

Letting go of the past is hard. If anyone knows that, I do for certain. But we have to.

I do think the devs should be more forward with this instead of so coy. This beating around the bush with the lore is driving dedicated fans nuts, what with sorting canon and fan theory and canon theory territory. And I’ve said it over and over that SSO needs to be more forward with their audience. But if they want to retcon their own story to be more accessible to new players, then they should do that. It is their business and their IP. While we can comment on how certain elements could be stronger, we don’t get to decide what the devs need to do with that story to make it more approachable.

And let’s go back and rip those childhood rose-tinted glasses off: The CD-ROM games are middling at best. Autumn Riders had a map that was atrociously bad to navigate just because of how big it was. All of Starshine Legacy and the Star Academy games shipped with game breaking bugs in them if you happened to have the floor not load for you. Spring and Summer Riders have quests that are impossible to complete. The controls for Alex’s Soul Strike are stiff and were never explained in game for new gamers. There are serious audio bugs in all of the games. All of the characters were arguably flat with very little character development, background, or personality. Alex and Lisa in particular had their personalities cross over quite a bit as they battled to be “the biggest tom boy!” I could go on.

While they were impressive for their time, the CD-ROM games have not aged well. Their stories were either convoluted by comics that were barely printed, non-existent, or barely connected (Who makes the jump from horse games to rhythm games?). That may be a hard thing to swallow since I know so many of you grew up with these games, but it needs to be said. While they don’t suck, SSO has come a lot further since. It may still be rough in places, but the CD-ROM games were much worse in a lot of aspects.

And if you want so badly to return to the lore of SSO days, then go play the old CD-ROM games. But SSO is not those games. It is its own IP. And while the devs may do a lot of things I struggle to understand, moving away from dated, inaccessible parts of their franchise is not one of them. I genuinely don’t understand why this is a point of contention for so many people. Would you genuinely rather have more quests that only you and long term fans can enjoy or more quests that everyone can enjoy to bring more people in to enjoy this game you love so much? As someone who sees SSO as a piece of art and a gateway into gaming for so many people, not to mention a stepping stone in the revolution on game design for more peaceful focused games, I would far rather see SSO become accessible to more people. I think that should include a prize drop, but changing the narrative to be more open to people is not something we should be complaining over. We should be asking for the specific changes and move on.

[xtruss]

Restrictions Leave US Travelers ‘High and Dry’

— Stacey Lastoe, CNN • Updated 27th June 2020

(CNN) — In downtown Buffalo, New York, crossing the border into Ontario, Canada, used to be as easy as driving one mile across the Peace Bridge over the Niagara River. But that's now a forbidden route.

In the coronavirus era, New York residents and out-of-state road trippers aren't allowed to cross the border for leisure travel.

US citizens have been shut out of their neighboring country to the north and a slew of nations around the world. The latest travel news affecting Americans: The European Union is considering blocking travelers from areas with severe Covid-19 outbreaks after it opens it borders on July 1.

Since the United States has more confirmed coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world, with numbers increasing in some states each day, US travelers are unlikely to be allowed in any time soon.

"The US's chances are close to zero," an EU diplomat told CNN. "With their infection rates ... not even they can believe in that possibility."

As long as the US-Canada border remains closed, visiting Niagara Falls in Ontario won't be possible for US citizens. (LARS HAGBERG/AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

Although potential travel bubbles are being discussed all over the world -- Fiji is the latest in talks to join one with Australia and New Zealand -- the United States has yet to form or join a bubble.

Where does this new world order leave US citizens with a penchant for travel?

Nostalgic for the pre-Covid days when a US passport promised access to much of the world? Anxious of how they'll be perceived -- and received -- by foreign countries when restrictions are eventually loosened?

The future of travel for Americans, and whether they'll be welcome again as tourists, is not clear; in many ways, it's a moot point for as long as travel to certain regions is prohibited.

Uninvited

As many Americans eschew air travel and instead take to the road, they won't be taking the road into Canada. Indeed, travel restrictions for US passport holders at this time far outnumbers the travel possibilities.

And for many people, that's just how it should be.

A trip through Canada is unlikely to be a summer vacation option for Americans while the Covid-19 outbreak in the US continues to swell. )Courtesy Via Rail Canada)

Colleen Friesen, who lives in a small resort town in British Columbia, hopes the US-Canadian border stays closed.

"The majority of Canadians are strongly against allowing Americans into the country due to the US's rampant infection rate. Although some states seem to be managing the pandemic, when we see news of Oklahoma allowing an indoor rally, we just shake our collective heads," Friesen tells CNN Travel via email.

Stacey McKenna, who is based in Colorado, isn't ready to think about international travel of any kind right now, though she stipulates that it's partially because the places on her radar "are extremely vulnerable economically and geographically," and she wouldn't be willing to risk exposing anyone.

"I think if I reach a place where I feel international (or even air) travel would be appropriate, then I'll start asking myself if I think I'd be welcome."

For New York-based travel writer Juliet Izon, who canceled a summer vacation in Italy months ago when there was still a glimmer of hope that things might resume, seeing where the United States is compared with other countries is disheartening and depressing.

Izon believes she'll take the trip to Italy one day but says, "I wouldn't be surprised if in certain countries if they don't allow Americans in for a while or a really strict quarantine for years to come," adding that the United States' handling of Covid-19 was likely to be "another black mark against us."

The other? The state of US politics.

Friesen, who says she appreciates her country's politicians taking a backseat to the scientific and medical community, is scared of the way the virus in the United States "has become politicized."

France is moving through stages of reopening, but US citizens are not yet on the list of countries who can visit. (BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images)

But one EU diplomat ,who spoke to CNN earlier in the week on condition of anonymity, calls the US-EU travel decision a very sensitive issue and insists "it is only ever about health."

"For sure, you can see not being on the list as something political, when one country is allowed in and another is not, but this is a misrepresentation of what we are doing. We are looking to open our borders, this is a positive step."

In spite of this statement and the EU diplomat's insistence that "we want people to come," the much-changed travel landscape has some people concerned.

"Rather than thinking about the near future of travel, I've been pondering how all of this will affect xenophobia more generally," says McKenna.

A Holistic Experience

Dennis Geronimus, New York University art history associate professor and chair, has historically combined business and leisure travel, often to Italy. He is not personally concerned about how he'll be received when he travels internationally again -- and he's someone who'll likely be able to travel on certain foreign soils well before other Americans.

This is in large part because of the nature of his travel. Geronimus is typically hosted by international colleagues and admits that it is "different than going on vacation somewhere not knowing anyone and then just diving into the culture and going to see the sites and seeing other foreigners at the sites as well."

At this time, American travelers can't go to Italy and cities such as Rome (above), at least not for pure leisure travel. (ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images)

There are steps Geronimus could take now to potentially be granted access forbidden to US leisure travelers, though he'd still be subject to the quarantine.

In any event, though he'd like to see the Raphael exhibition in Rome and collaborate with colleagues in Italy, he's not planning a trip to the region anytime soon.

It might be deemed essential, but Geronimus doesn't see it as essential enough. Instead, the professor would prefer to focus on the measures needed to resume on-site classes at NYU this fall.

Likewise, McKenna, whose background is in medical anthropology and public health, is thinking about other, bigger things: "I'll be honest. I haven't even gotten to the question of whether I think I would feel welcome as an American" since international travel is just not appropriate right now.

Says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, "We've been working with countries all across the world, including our friends in Europe and the EU proper to determine how it is we can best safely reopen international travel. It's important for the United States to get Europeans the capacity to travel back to the United States."

Safety First

It's not about Americans, per se, says New Zealander Elen Turner, though it's hard to ignore the restrictions impacting them along with the number of confirmed Covid deaths and cases.

"I think once the borders reopen properly, New Zealanders will be as welcoming of Americans as they will be with any other travelers," Turner says.

But Friesen, who is troubled by the United States' handling of the pandemic, says, "Given the push back on the pandemic protocols we've seen in the US, we just don't believe that Americans will do the right thing."

As stories of Americans refusing to wear masks -- not even on an airplane in at least one case -- and not practicing social distancing surface, Friesen's skepticism may be justifiable.

While New Zealand may form a travel bubble with Australia, it's unlikely Americans will be allowed in any time soon. (Courtesy Shutterstock)

However, for so many people CNN Travel spoke with, the health and safety of others -- and doing what's right -- is paramount.

Chicago-based photographer and writer Joshua Mellin says: "I think to travel internationally for leisure right now demonstrates a total lack of care, you deserve whatever stares you get."

Mellin adds: "I'm personally of the mind we're all global citizens, but there's still a reality you're not entitled access to a foreign country, you're granted entry."

When it comes to granting foreigners entry, Turner would be comfortable taking cues from the New Zealand government. Right now, returning New Zealand citizens must quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, and no one else is allowed in.

If, down the line, the quarantine was applied to all visitors to New Zealand, what then?

"So if that was to be extended to all arrivals then I think New Zealanders would be fine with that because generally, our government has handled the pandemic well and there's a high degree of trust in them," Turner says.

She adds, however, that she doesn't see this happening, does not envision a New Zealand opening itself up to foreigners until quarantine is no longer necessary.

The idea of a pre-holiday quarantine is the subject of scrutiny anyway.

Last month, when the concept was gaining steam, Alison Hickey, president of Kensington Tours, told CNN Travel "we would not recommend traveling to a destination that has implemented a 14-day self-quarantine requirement."

'We're Reopening'

While enforced quarantines will deter many a traveler, other regions with no quarantines in effect might entice them.

From Mexico and the Caribbean to Turkey, tourist spots around the world are opening back up and encouraging visitors to boot.

US travelers can fly to Mexico, but for many, the risks aren't worth it. Pictured: Parroquia de San Miguell Arcángel in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. (Shutterstock)

Whether hotel promotions or upgrades or relaxed policies on cancellation, the sweet chorus of "we are opening" could potentially jump start what has been a very dark period in the tourism sector.

But just because The Maldives, a luxury destination, is ready to welcome back all visitors with no restrictions (there are also no visa requirements or additional fees), how many US citizens are ready to go?

For many of the US travelers that CNN Travel spoke to for this story, being welcomed or feeling welcome in another country is beside the point.

The danger of exposure and of being exposed looms. And then there's the fear of being stuck somewhere far away.

Elizabeth Lavis, who is originally from upstate New York, found herself scrambling to get out of Vietnam in March amid the outbreak and sudden stringent travel restrictions. That ordeal and what's transpired with the coronavirus since have made Lavis reluctant to go far away from home for the foreseeable future.

California-based writer Melanie Haikan would like to go to Costa Rica at some point and is only eyeing places that are eager for visitors. (Nell Lewis)

California resident Melanie Haiken expresses a desire to help struggling economies as a tourist and is already thinking about her future travels, which include places not so close to home: "As to international travel, I would be ready to travel again in August, but would want to go places that are eager for visitors. I have my eye on Guatemala and Costa Rica, Turkey and Jordan, Scotland, Estonia, and a few other places that seem likely candidates based both on safety and how much their economies depend on tourism."

Turkey, it would seem, is a likely candidate. On June 19, Turkish Airlines relaunched two North American routes to Istanbul with two others (Miami and Los Angeles) following on June 22 and 24 respectively. By late July, three additional US hubs will be operating flights to Turkey.

Any EU travel ban could change things, but as of June 23, when CNN spoke to Connecticut-based Caryn B. Davis about her upcoming trip to the Azores in Portugal, the travel journalist said she is still planning on going, hopefully in the next six weeks.

Pompeo expressed the importance of the economy in travel between the US and the EU, saying "It's important for the United States to get Europeans the capacity to travel back to the United States. It's important, very important for the Europeans to fully reconnect with the American economy as well."

But until safety concerns can be adequately addressed, Mellin doesn't think anyone, US citizen or not, should be going anywhere.

"There's a responsibility of showing respect for other people and places as a traveler that starts at home and is inherently broken by visiting another country during a global pandemic."

But in fact, international travel may resume sooner rather than later in some currently off-limits places. "I'm confident in the coming weeks we'll figure that out as between not only the United States and the EU, but the United States and other parts of the world, too," Pompeo said.

As to what it'll be like?

"I think if anything, when we do travel, it's certainly my hope that we bring that sense of, I guess, empathy to wherever we're going ... ," Geronimus says.

— CNN's James Frater, Michael Conte and Luke McGee contributed reporting to this story.

[dipulb3]

Restrictions leave US travelers high and dry

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/restrictions-leave-us-travelers-high-and-dry/

Restrictions leave US travelers high and dry

(Appradab) — In downtown Buffalo, New York, crossing the border into Ontario, Canada, used to be as easy as driving one mile across the Peace Bridge over the Niagara River. But that’s now a forbidden route.

In the coronavirus era, New York residents and out-of-state road trippers aren’t allowed to cross the border for leisure travel.

Since the United States has more confirmed coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world, with numbers increasing in some states each day, US travelers are unlikely to be allowed in any time soon.

“The US’s chances are close to zero,” an EU diplomat told Appradab. “With their infection rates … not even they can believe in that possibility.”

As long as the US-Canada border remains closed, visiting Niagara Falls in Ontario won’t be possible for US citizens.

LARS HAGBERG/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

Where does this new world order leave US citizens with a penchant for travel?

Nostalgic for the pre-Covid days when a US passport promised access to much of the world? Anxious of how they’ll be perceived — and received — by foreign countries when restrictions are eventually loosened?

The future of travel for Americans, and whether they’ll be welcome again as tourists, is not clear; in many ways, it’s a moot point for as long as travel to certain regions is prohibited.

Uninvited

As many Americans eschew air travel and instead take to the road, they won’t be taking the road into Canada. Indeed, travel restrictions for US passport holders at this time far outnumbers the travel possibilities.

And for many people, that’s just how it should be.

A trip through Canada is unlikely to be a summer vacation option for Americans while the Covid-19 outbreak in the US continues to swell.

Courtesy Via Rail Canada

Colleen Friesen, who lives in a small resort town in British Columbia, hopes the US-Canadian border stays closed.

“The majority of Canadians are strongly against allowing Americans into the country due to the US’s rampant infection rate. Although some states seem to be managing the pandemic, when we see news of Oklahoma allowing an indoor rally, we just shake our collective heads,” Friesen tells Appradab Travel via email.

Stacey McKenna, who is based in Colorado, isn’t ready to think about international travel of any kind right now, though she stipulates that it’s partially because the places on her radar “are extremely vulnerable economically and geographically,” and she wouldn’t be willing to risk exposing anyone.

“I think if I reach a place where I feel international (or even air) travel would be appropriate, then I’ll start asking myself if I think I’d be welcome.”

For New York-based travel writer Juliet Izon, who canceled a summer vacation in Italy months ago when there was still a glimmer of hope that things might resume, seeing where the United States is compared with other countries is disheartening and depressing.

Izon believes she’ll take the trip to Italy one day but says, “I wouldn’t be surprised if in certain countries if they don’t allow Americans in for a while or a really strict quarantine for years to come,” adding that the United States’ handling of Covid-19 was likely to be “another black mark against us.”

The other? The state of US politics.

Friesen, who says she appreciates her country’s politicians taking a backseat to the scientific and medical community, is scared of the way the virus in the United States “has become politicized.”

France is moving through stages of reopening, but US citizens are not yet on the list of countries who can visit.

BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images

But one EU diplomat ,who spoke to Appradab earlier in the week on condition of anonymity, calls the US-EU travel decision a very sensitive issue and insists “it is only ever about health.”

“For sure, you can see not being on the list as something political, when one country is allowed in and another is not, but this is a misrepresentation of what we are doing. We are looking to open our borders, this is a positive step.”

In spite of this statement and the EU diplomat’s insistence that “we want people to come,” the much-changed travel landscape has some people concerned.

“Rather than thinking about the near future of travel, I’ve been pondering how all of this will affect xenophobia more generally,” says McKenna.

A holistic experience

Dennis Geronimus, New York University art history associate professor and chair, has historically combined business and leisure travel, often to Italy. He is not personally concerned about how he’ll be received when he travels internationally again — and he’s someone who’ll likely be able to travel on certain foreign soils well before other Americans.

This is in large part because of the nature of his travel. Geronimus is typically hosted by international colleagues and admits that it is “different than going on vacation somewhere not knowing anyone and then just diving into the culture and going to see the sites and seeing other foreigners at the sites as well.”

At this time, American travelers can’t go to Italy and cities such as Rome (above), at least not for pure leisure travel.

ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images

There are steps Geronimus could take now to potentially be granted access forbidden to US leisure travelers, though he’d still be subject to the quarantine.

In any event, though he’d like to see the Raphael exhibition in Rome and collaborate with colleagues in Italy, he’s not planning a trip to the region anytime soon.

It might be deemed essential, but Geronimus doesn’t see it as essential enough. Instead, the professor would prefer to focus on the measures needed to resume on-site classes at NYU this fall.

Likewise, McKenna, whose background is in medical anthropology and public health, is thinking about other, bigger things: “I’ll be honest. I haven’t even gotten to the question of whether I think I would feel welcome as an American” since international travel is just not appropriate right now.

Says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “We’ve been working with countries all across the world, including our friends in Europe and the EU proper to determine how it is we can best safely reopen international travel. It’s important for the United States to get Europeans the capacity to travel back to the United States.”

Safety first

It’s not about Americans, per se, says New Zealander Elen Turner, though it’s hard to ignore the restrictions impacting them along with the number of confirmed Covid deaths and cases.

“I think once the borders reopen properly, New Zealanders will be as welcoming of Americans as they will be with any other travelers,” Turner says.

But Friesen, who is troubled by the United States’ handling of the pandemic, says, “Given the push back on the pandemic protocols we’ve seen in the US, we just don’t believe that Americans will do the right thing.”

While New Zealand may form a travel bubble with Australia, it’s unlikely Americans will be allowed in any time soon.

Courtesy Shutterstock

However, for so many people Appradab Travel spoke with, the health and safety of others — and doing what’s right — is paramount.

Chicago-based photographer and writer Joshua Mellin says: “I think to travel internationally for leisure right now demonstrates a total lack of care, you deserve whatever stares you get.”

Mellin adds: “I’m personally of the mind we’re all global citizens, but there’s still a reality you’re not entitled access to a foreign country, you’re granted entry.”

When it comes to granting foreigners entry, Turner would be comfortable taking cues from the New Zealand government. Right now, returning New Zealand citizens must quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, and no one else is allowed in.

If, down the line, the quarantine was applied to all visitors to New Zealand, what then?

“So if that was to be extended to all arrivals then I think New Zealanders would be fine with that because generally, our government has handled the pandemic well and there’s a high degree of trust in them,” Turner says.

She adds, however, that she doesn’t see this happening, does not envision a New Zealand opening itself up to foreigners until quarantine is no longer necessary.

The idea of a pre-holiday quarantine is the subject of scrutiny anyway.

Last month, when the concept was gaining steam, Alison Hickey, president of Kensington Tours, told Appradab Travel “we would not recommend traveling to a destination that has implemented a 14-day self-quarantine requirement.”

‘We’re reopening’

While enforced quarantines will deter many a traveler, other regions with no quarantines in effect might entice them.

US travelers can fly to Mexico, but for many, the risks aren’t worth it. Pictured: Parroquia de San Miguell Arcángel in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.

Shutterstock

Whether hotel promotions or upgrades or relaxed policies on cancellation, the sweet chorus of “we are opening” could potentially jump start what has been a very dark period in the tourism sector.

But just because The Maldives, a luxury destination, is ready to welcome back all visitors with no restrictions (there are also no visa requirements or additional fees), how many US citizens are ready to go?

For many of the US travelers that Appradab Travel spoke to for this story, being welcomed or feeling welcome in another country is beside the point.

The danger of exposure and of being exposed looms. And then there’s the fear of being stuck somewhere far away.

Elizabeth Lavis, who is originally from upstate New York, found herself scrambling to get out of Vietnam in March amid the outbreak and sudden stringent travel restrictions. That ordeal and what’s transpired with the coronavirus since have made Lavis reluctant to go far away from home for the foreseeable future.

California-based writer Melanie Haikan would like to go to Costa Rica at some point and is only eyeing places that are eager for visitors.

Nell Lewis

California resident Melanie Haiken expresses a desire to help struggling economies as a tourist and is already thinking about her future travels, which include places not so close to home: “As to international travel, I would be ready to travel again in August, but would want to go places that are eager for visitors. I have my eye on Guatemala and Costa Rica, Turkey and Jordan, Scotland, Estonia, and a few other places that seem likely candidates based both on safety and how much their economies depend on tourism.”

Turkey, it would seem, is a likely candidate. On June 19, Turkish Airlines relaunched two North American routes to Istanbul with two others (Miami and Los Angeles) following on June 22 and 24 respectively. By late July, three additional US hubs will be operating flights to Turkey.

Any EU travel ban could change things, but as of June 23, when Appradab spoke to Connecticut-based Caryn B. Davis about her upcoming trip to the Azores in Portugal, the travel journalist said she is still planning on going, hopefully in the next six weeks.

Pompeo expressed the importance of the economy in travel between the US and the EU, saying “It’s important for the United States to get Europeans the capacity to travel back to the United States. It’s important, very important for the Europeans to fully reconnect with the American economy as well.”

But until safety concerns can be adequately addressed, Mellin doesn’t think anyone, US citizen or not, should be going anywhere.

“There’s a responsibility of showing respect for other people and places as a traveler that starts at home and is inherently broken by visiting another country during a global pandemic.”

But in fact, international travel may resume sooner rather than later in some currently off-limits places. “I’m confident in the coming weeks we’ll figure that out as between not only the United States and the EU, but the United States and other parts of the world, too,” Pompeo said.

As to what it’ll be like?

“I think if anything, when we do travel, it’s certainly my hope that we bring that sense of, I guess, empathy to wherever we’re going … ,” Geronimus says.

Appradab’s James Frater, Michael Conte and Luke McGee contributed reporting to this story.

[offgridthegame]

Off Grid Development blog 8.11.2017 - Changing Times!

The times-they-are-a-changin.’  New horizons, a shake up, big things happening - this has been a heck of a sprint!

Blocktober

Completely unaware of our social media surroundings, Rich managed to spend a good portion of this sprint during October whiteboxing and completely miss the whiteboxing trend on Twitter that was #Blocktober! Nothing nearly as fancy as the timelapsed art passes from the Naughtly Dog team on how they constructed key hero sequences in the latest Uncharted, but we do have a new building for the intro scene in the player’s apartment. If you haven’t seen this yet at a demo I won’t give away any spoilers, but this level is where your hacking journey begins!

Indies Unplayed

We were extremely fortunate to be asked along to Indies Unplayed at Secret Weapon Loading Bar in Stratford. It’s always great to show the game and get player feedback. Many thanks to Lauren Francis for having us along, it was a very cool little event and we had some really inspiring titles along side us. Below you can see a player learning the setup to our hero’s story in the intro cutscene we are currently making playable.

We got to play some fun new indie games and catch up with some old friends too, including old chum Tim Constant, who we last saw at Nottingham Gamecity in 2013!!!

Tim is working on a very cool dystopian job sim.  It’s a #PapersPlease-like game, where you play an immigrant bouncer in a post-Brexit apocalypse:

‘Settings’ it up

It’s been quite short and quick sprint, so there are no new amazing game features to talk about from Pontus. But as promised, our settings system has now evolved from a bunch of background systems and code into an actual menu. With some actual settings you can adjust!

The graphics will definitely need more work, but the plan is to fill in more options and then do a second pass on the artwork and layout to make sure everything works well with the content. For now, everything is functional at least.

Web work

Apart from that, things were polished up in the web side, with some imrpovements and additions to our wiki and to automate our newsletter. That’s going to make our life easier, and hopefully also help any players/modders to find the right Lua API and instructions for how to set things up in LevelKit in the future. I would say “go and check it out” but there’s not really much interesting things in the wiki yet, at least unless you are one of the lucky ones who have access to our builds and the LevelKit already. In which case, you of course should go and check it out to get you started testing how to create your own content for the game!

No funny bugs fixed by Pontus this sprint, and no interesting game design work either. But there definitely will be next time, he’s already spent the past few days with XMind open for plotting some pretty big changes for the game…

Mod testing

This sprint Josh, our modding and level design intern, challenged himself to build a level using the modding tools. The aim was to learn how to build a typical level with a focus on the Lua scripting side of things rather than art, and then take those learnings and see where he could fill in the gaps on the wiki that he found wanting.

We’ll let him tell you a bit more himself though:

“So I started out by blocking out the map that I wanted to create. Once I had the basic level that I was happy with I got stuck in with the Lua scripting with which I managed to learn a great deal upon completion of the level.

One of my favourite parts of creating the mod was the conversations, as it was super simple to create but also great fun generating branching dialogue between characters.            Following this, I began work on a guide to building a level mod which has been added to the wiki.This is something that I felt would be important for potential modders to have to help make the modding experience more accessible.

This also resulted in a few new pages being created to explain some sections not covered on the wiki yet, such as the ability to add characters to your level. This is a very exciting and interesting feature which will allow you to create many gameplay elements, from conversations to patrolling guards.

I also had the pleasure of testing the new ability to upload mods to the steam workshop using the Level-kit tools.

Shortly after that it was decided that we should create a mod level that people can download that would demonstrate some of the pre-made devices that any modder can essentially drag and drop into their own mod. It will also be playable which I will turn into an interactive tutorial of how these devices were made to help new modders create their own from scratch.”

Farewell Harry

Harry had his last sprint with us this month as he is moving to join the development team at Unity, but we made sure he had time to part with a gift for any of our followers who are devs interested in making their games moddable too.

In his time on the team, Harry's done great work pushing modding in Unity 3d, and so we’ve open sourced his work on the Lua framework that makes Off Grid moddable, enjoy!

https://github.com/Semaeopus/Unity-Lua

Out with the New in with the Old ;)

And with our youngest team member Harry heading to Unity we have gained the wonderful Steve Allen in his place. Steve comes with a bundle of  AAA and Indie experience, so much so that he qualifies for ‘industry veteran’ status, and we are pumped to have him aboard the good ship Semaeopus. I’ll stop rambling and let him introduce himself though:

Hello! I’m new here. I’ve joined the Off Grid team as a programmer, though will no doubt stick my nose in elsewhere. I’ve been programming games for, well, rather a long time, and am really excited to be part of the project. There’s lots of interesting stuff that still needs to be done and it’s already been a welcome change from the larger, corporate games I’ve been working on over the last few years. And who knows, next time I write one of these updates I might have done some work! - Steve

You’ll hear a lot more from Steve in the coming sprints, he’s already made good strides into impletmenting and extending new features in the Lua API for modders to play with, so watch this space!

Fixes and additions

Harry’s last couple of weeks were also a great opportunity for us to dig into some of the bugs in our backlog that haven’t been top priority, but would be welcome fixes with a little effort. We had a fantastic flurry of small fixes from the team, with Harry leading the charge.

Main game:

Messaging with CryptoChat

We setup a small notification to say that a character is typeing while you are waiting for them to respond to you in a conversation. It’s essentially a ‘Smedley is typing’ animation much like you’d see when using a messaging app like whatsapp or imessage.

We also and fixed the pause time between messages, which just needed a little finessing to feel more real.

And most importantly, we set up ‘B’ to skip single messages instead of all of the incoming messages from another character.

Include Mods in use, in save games

We now have save games recording what mods you have subsribed to so you can progress with your mods intact!

Saving NFC

NFC data is now being saved correctly.

Trailer video

We fixed a strange long wait at the end of our trailer that had been bugging us.

Player Phone

We fixed a bug to do with interactions when the player phone didn't appear when doing swipe interaction or scanning things.

Stuck Running

We had a somewhat funny but awkward bug in our animation state machine where the player can get stuck if you were crawling and spammed the run button while getting up - the player would get stuck runnning in circles!  That is now fixed ;)

Look around you

The player character’s look-at IK needed more restriction on target height so that you didnt look at interesting objects on the floors above or below you.

Invisible walls and soft bathroom sinks

Lots of missing colliders were fixed.

LevelKit:

UV Warning

We updated asset importer post processing script to warn about missing normals and UVs on new models. This means as you are modding and making new geometry, the LevelKit tool will tell you if it is missing anything that could cause a later error.

Mod Content structure

We re-structured level directories so that the content a modder makes is in a neater structure.

Non Steam works / DRM free mod exports

Added Export as Zip option to build tab so that you can upload your mod anywhere for anyone (with a copy of the game) to try it out.

That’s all folks

Lots of big things happening so we’ll look forward to catching you next time.

Pontus, Rich, Sarah, Steve & Josh

[kamranhaqueunit10]

Task 4 - Portfolio: Infographics

Another project I thought would be good to do would be infographics. I thought that this could showcase my skills in vector illustrations and also a bit of typography too. It could also help display my knowledge of colour themes. 

Chocolate Infographic

The first infographic is a task I did for World Chocolate Day and I had to create something that represents the history of chocolate. The infographic is based on how the Mayans created xocolatl (bitter water).

This was the sketch I drew. I tried to keep it simple and clear so anyone can tell what is going on as that’s what a good infographic should do.

After this, I started creating it in Adobe Illustrator and opened an A4 document and made the background a cream/light brown colour with a dark brown stroke as I thought these are suitable colours to use for an infographic about chocolate. I then created the title using the marque tool and shapes and made my own typeface out of it. From here I made my letters 3D by using Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel.

After this I used images of a cacao pod to trace over it with a pen tool to create an accurate illustration of it and used the smooth tool to make the outlines smooth and make sure it doesn’t look rough. I used the pen tool to create the lines inside and changed the stroke profile so it adds more depth to it and makes it look more professional. I used the ellipse marquee tool for the actual beans on the second image and kept duplicating it and rotating it to make it look more like the picture. Next I used the rectangle tool to create a base to show where the beans will be roasted. I used the same shapes for the beans and changed the colour to show it’s been roasted. I used the pen tool to draw the fire and duplicated it and changed the size to add the different colours to it. I added a line behind the illustrations so anyone can tell where it starts and where it ends. I made it the same colour as the stroke on the background so it stays consistent and I’m not using too many colours on it.

After this I illustrated the next row. For this I didn’t need to use any images as these are simpler shapes that I am more familiar illustrating. I used the same oval for the beans and used the pen tool to draw out the shell around it so it stays accurate and looks like it fits around the beans. I made the beans lighter than the shell to show the difference between the shell and the actual bean inside. Next, I used the same rectangle shape for the base, this time to show how the beans are crushed and used a circle to represent the object the Mayans used to crush the beans. I added a thin layer under the circle to show the area that’s been crushed and a red arrow to show the direction the beans are being crushed just to make sure it’s clear. Then I used the pen tool to draw out the paste and made it the same colour so it matches with the beans. The pen tool was also used for the cup and the ellipse tool for the inside of the cup and water. I used an image of chillies to create the illustration to show other ingredients used for xocolatl. For the cornmeal, I used simple shapes and text to show the pack of it. The brush tool was used for the arrows and plus signs.

The final two illustrations were mainly duplicates of shapes I’ve already used as it was only cups and arrows. I used the pen tool again to draw the handle around the cup and changed the colour to white to show the difference between the pot and the cup. I also used the pen tool again to show the liquid pouring into the cup. I used the brush tool and tapped on random areas in the cup to show the “frothy foam” at the top of the drink.

This is the final piece. I added text under each step to fill in negative space and to explain what’s actually going on in case it isn’t clear as I feel like the text would help describing what some of the illustrations even are. The things I think work well in my infographic are the illustrations and the consistency of everything on it. It all has an illustrative design to it with strokes which keeps it matching and nothing looks odd on it or like it’s not meant to be there. I also think most of the illustrations look good, especially the cacao pod and and the cups, as they are the most clear and it’s easy to tell what they are. I think the title also looks good and professional and the typeface I’ve created looks consistent in size and I made sure the 3D was always at the same angle. The things I think I could’ve done better are the lines I tried to make look like chocolate bars in the title. I should’ve added maybe another row or played around with the effects to make it more obvious that it’s supposed to be a chocolate bar, but I thought it might look inconsistent in comparison to the text. I also think the illustration of the beans being crushed could’ve been done better and I should’ve maybe tried making it look more 3D so it’s more obvious what’s happening in the illustration.

Tea Infographic

Next I decided to create an infographic of any recipe I want. I decided to use as little steps as possible and no words to show how good and clear I can make my illustrations. I chose to make an infographic on how to make tea. For the whole infographic, I drew my illustrations from scratch as I knew what these things would look like and they aren’t the hardest of shapes to draw.

For these illustrations, I used simple shapes and or the pen tool to create the more unique shapes I would need for some of the steps. For example, with the steam, the pouring milk, the sugar bag etc. I made the background colour try to fit within the theme of tea so I made it the same colour of the tea I used. I added an arrow behind all the steps so the reader would know where the start and end is an what direction to follow.

I think the overall look of the infographic looks good and consistent as it is all illustrations and nothing looks out of place or like it isn’t meant to be there. However, I do think some of my illustrations could’ve been done better, like the cup for example. The top should’ve been rounded better, the pointed edges look strange. But I do think other details look quite good. Like the pouring milk and the sugar being dropped into the tea.

Origami Infographic

The next infographic I made was a step-by-step tutorial on how to make an origami bird. 

Using Illustrator and images from a website tutorial (https://www.origamiway.com/easy-origami-bird.shtml), I created illustrations of a step-by-step tutorial of how to create an origami bird. I used the pen tool and drew the illustrations based on the images on the website from scratch. I made sure that I used two colours for the illustrations so that the reader will understand that it is different sides of one paper and it will prevent any confusion while the person is trying it themselves.

The next thing I did was line all the illustrations up with each other and add a green line behind it to show what order to follow the steps. I also added an additional arrow to make the directions I’ve given more clear for the reader. I changed the stroke profiles of the illustrations to give it a hand drawn effect and make it look like it was painted, like Japanese art.

From here, I added finishing touches onto the document and added text to describe what’s going on in the illustration, in case it’s hard to understand. I also changed the green line at the back to an arrow to make it even clearer that it’s showing what direction it is meant to go. I added a green tick to show it is the final step. I added keys at the top to show which side of the paper is which by colour coding them and put it into a box with the title.

Overall, I think that this infographic looks really good. The illustrations have come out well and I think that choosing to change the stroke profile was a good decision as it made it look a lot more unique and sort of gave it an appealing style. I think I could’ve imporved on some of the colours I chose, like for the arrow. I don’t think green goes with the other colours but it does stand out which is good as it the reader will notice it and won’t be going in the wrong order.

[animalloverdev]

Would you guys have any tips for aspiring indie visual novel developers working in very small teams like yours? Stuff that you didn't think would matter or things you didn't think would happen, but once they did, you thought 'oh man, I wish I had thought about this before/somebody had told me about this!' In case there aren't any: what do you guys think are the most difficult parts, and what are the best parts, of working in a small team?

I was originally going to go off in this one by saying that we’re definitely not successful enough to be giving out tips. But Animal Lover was well rated and we *did* actually release it. So screw it. I’ll pass this one to Maia for artist tips after I ramble on for a little bit.

Universal Tips:90% of the people who email you after you release a game on Steam are blowing smoke up your ass. Proceed with caution.

Making video games is hard. Even games with minimal gameplay like these. You’re not taking the easy route by doing a visual novel, you’re just taking a route that a small team can actually manage to make.

Small Team Tips:If you’re not paying them (whether at all or for a non-livable wage), be patient with them. This means planning out how long it will take, getting a rough estimate of how long the project SHOULD take, and then multiplying it by four.

Wear multiple hats. This is non-negotiable. There’s no room in game development for ‘idea guys’. Prepare to code, prepare to do SOME visual development, some sound design, some UI design, some writing, some whatever. If you have just barely enough money to make an indie visual novel instead of a full-fledged AAA release, then you don’t have enough money to make everyone else make your dreams come true.

Writing Tips:Write a book first.

No, seriously, write a book first. Maybe write a few.

Writing a visual novel was like writing a book, which I’ve done, but then when the book is done, you need to edit it, which is par for the course... but then with Animal Lover, no matter how done the script was, there was something to do, always. Like always. Always. If you’re not prepared to write a novel by itself, you’re certainly not prepared to write a novel that you have to code and potentially add branching paths for.

Visual novels are writing heavy, and even though writing standards are certainly not sky-high right now, you want to have good writing, because if you want to differentiate yourself from the pack even a little, you don’t want people saying “Yeah, the writing was okay” when 80% of your game is writing. This also means that visual-novel writing tips hew pretty close to regular writing tips. On that note:

Characters are key. I am a dude who loves a complex plot, but complex plots in mediums where you can’t rely on environmental storytelling and visual inference (it’s hard to implement in visual novels, though we tried with Kyle’s hair in the canon ending and with the different markings each character has based on their animals), complex plots mean lots of explanation. Which we didn’t even totally avoid in Animal Lover. Any more complex and it would have gotten boring.Thusly; focus on characters. Visual novel players (dating sim or otherwise) are there to interact with characters.

Learn to write in-code. It’ll save you time.

The only thing maybe more important than character in visual novels is pacing. In a dialogue-heavy medium, it is easy to forget how much time it’s been since the last big event happened. Keep an eye on where you’re spending the most time, what you’re interacting with at any given time and whether or not you enjoy reading it.

Comedy has value. Animal Lover is not the steamiest otome game out there, and steaminess is the general consensus for what games have the most value. Yet, somehow, people are drawn to Animal Lover. Comedy endears readers to characters, makes them remember their time spent fondly and actively engages readers. If you can make it funny, do make it funny. Animal Lover gets dark, but the moments spent laughing before that happened gave it value and made the dark stuff heavier.

Producer/Director Tips:Explore your engines. We did our game in Ren’Py, which worked and we managed, but we spent our time wondering if it would have been easier or more flexible in Game Maker or TyrannoBuilder. It’s not that we regret it, we just didn’t know.

Be as unique as you are. This is seriously only going to do good for your game. When I think that maybe Animal Lover isn’t selling as well as it ought to, I remember the other visual novels that have come out I haven’t even heard of because the art was standard or the writing was ‘meh’ and didn’t really capture anyone’s attention. As an indie, it’s just a good business move.

Dream big; settle for less. Not less as in lesser, but I had a few big studio songs and some really huge ideas to include in the game. Those big ideas led me to the small ones we found (like putting Bottom Over Top in the BIG SCENE or to having the multiple-faces thing for the characters) and they made the game better.

Maia’s Tips:

First off I disagree with Wil’s point about “writing a book first”. Plenty of people have made and posted vn’s on newgrounds and deviantart without having written an entire book before. Just understand that it takes more than just writing a story. A lot more.

Art wise, the biggest lesson I had to learn was that some of the super cool game stuff just wasn’t feasible for one artist. (I wanted a majority of the game to look more like first person illustrations with unique moving parts and body language. You can see why I didn’t do that).   The Second biggest lesson I learned was hire more artists. Or work with a buddy, I know people like to make these for fun. Video games require art in places you may not even have considered before. There’s characters and all they entail, including unique items (extra outfits, one-time items or expressions, backgrounds, every part of the UI and menus, any little details you want to add like the button changing color when you hover/click/idle etc. It goes on. 

Edits can really pile up, so it’s good to tackle a single aspect at a time. All the bases first then all the clothing, all the buttons on menu A, B then C. You get the point. It can waste time if you have to keep going back to fix or adjust something because a color didn’t match up, or you approached it differently than the 4 others you spent good time planning and executing (looking at you Miguel. Fuck your blinking I hate you.)

Art takes time and preparation. I used to work pretty quickly, but mostly that’s because I didn’t used to as much consideration into my drawings. But you also have to balance Quality and Speed so you can do good work while making deadlines.

Preparing for a game is incredibly important. Your first designs should not be your final designs. While it won’t always be the case, you need to keep in mind that the more you draw a character, the more small changes will occur causing your design to evolve and become inconsistent. Creating reference sheets and mock ups for each character, item/accessory, or icons is a very good way to keep tabs on consistency.

THe last thing I can think of for now is that it’s really *really* good to look up lega information, even if this isn’t a project you’re aiming to sell. I’ve found it extremely helpful to learn about contract creation, copyright information, business building etc etc. 

Oh, and you’re second question

Working in a team for me was pretty difficult and a lot of fun at the same time. I had a blast chiming in to tell my thoughts or ideas on whatever dialogue  we were discussing, or making design changes to something more interesting from the request of Travis or Wil. On the other hand, there’s a lot I wanted to do that I either had to defend or change at their behest. They also had to do this! And it was a big learning experience to have to compromise and discuss with these guys. It feels good to have gone through all this, because the game turned out really great, and I’ve never been prouder of something I’ve created.  It was tough at times, but the experience and growth I gained was genuinely worth it.

10/10 would do again.

[entergamingxp]

Disintegration review – a quirky but troubled sci-fi shooter • Eurogamer.net

Back at last year’s E3 – an event that now feels like a lifetime ago – I had a chat with V1 founder Marcus Lehto to pin down what Disintegration was all about. Due to the game’s dystopian sci-fi setting and Lehto’s background as the co-creator of Halo, I came away thinking Disintegration’s narrative had the potential to explore some fascinating topics, including post-humanism and the threats to our world today.

Disintegration review

Developer: V1 Interactive

Publisher: Private Division

Platform: Reviewed on PC

Availability: Out now on PC, Xbox One and PS4

In the end, Disintegration doesn’t ever delve too far into these ideas: but what I didn’t expect was a silly yet genuinely convincing shooter hidden beneath the surface.

Disintegration bills itself as a first-person shooter with real-time strategy elements, half campaign and half multiplayer, set in a future version of Earth ravaged by every bad thing under the sun. Climate change, pandemic, war – all things so alien to us here in 2020… The premise is that swathes of the Earth’s population have chosen to “integrate” in order to survive the harsh conditions: a process of transplanting someone’s brain into a robot body to preserve their consciousness. It was intended to be a temporary measure, but a nefarious group called the Rayonne decided integration was actually the future of humanity. The motives for which aren’t really established at the start of the campaign, unfortunately, but at least you can tell they’re bad guys from their glowing red eyes. As Romer Shoal – a celebrity who previously convinced people to integrate – you and your band of robot outlaws team up to take down the Rayonne using a combination of your Gravcycle (a weaponised hoverbike) and ground units, each of whom boast special abilities and can be commanded to attack specific enemies.

Here is Black Shuck, antagonist and Rayonne thug who menacingly thrusts a robot switch-blade at you when angered.

Disintegration’s story blurs into a jumble of missions, but the levels are such a romp that I didn’t really care about the narrative reasons for being there – I just knew I was having a good time. Each one introduces new challenges, with varying team compositions, Gravcycle weapons and enemy types which force you to reconsider and evolve your tactics. Thanks to the hybrid nature of the combat, you can opt to just shoot your way out of trouble, but the secret to success is managing battles through the RTS mechanics. It’s about knowing your enemies, and which ones to prioritise. I soon discovered aerial units and snipers could easily destroy my Gravcyle, which was also hard to heal and would instantly fail the mission if blown up. I started commanding my troops to prioritise those units first, and later learned how to manipulate the Gravcycle’s mobility to swoop behind cover. It’s easy to be overwhelmed during the chaos of these battles, and sometimes the best approach is to methodically pick off enemies while keeping your Gravcycle distant, rather than flying in guns blazing. As I learned to my peril.

The enemy AI is surprisingly responsive, with enemies ducking and rolling behind cover when shot. The player’s own units, however, can sometimes be a little slow to react when directed to certain areas. Yes, that is an enemy there, you can shoot them.

Some of the main tools in your arsenal are unit abilities, and these are deeply satisfying when used to good effect: landing a mortar barrage on a bunched-up group of enemies results in a satisfying crunch of robot bodies, while a time-slowing dome creates a shimmering Matrix moment amidst the disorder. Adding to the chaos is the destructibility of the surroundings, which shatter and explode across the screen. It’s not just about cool explosions, however, as destroying enemy cover will make it far easier for your team to get a clean shot.

In classic video game form, someone’s left dozens of hazardous exploding oil barrels around the place. Who keeps doing this?

The level design in Disintegration’s campaign forces significant changes in gameplay style more broadly, some areas requiring the player to ferret enemies out of hollow brutalist buildings, others providing life-saving refuge in the midst of a heavy aerial battles. One tense rescue mission requires precision flying and sneaking around in tight spaces – without backup from your team – armed only with sticky grenades. Another sees you shepherd your team between protective domes, or risk being stunned by an EMP pulse mid-battle. And there’s just something rather lovely about the use of scale and perspective in these levels. One of the earliest sees you fight amongst ruined wooden houses and a graveyard, like directing toy soldiers between doll houses. Later in the mission, you skim over vast golden plains to explore the wreckage of a vast, burnt-out spaceship which dwarfs you and your crew. There’s storytelling within the levels that feels enjoyably dramatic in a Call-of-Duty way, with my personal favourite mission seeing the outlaws ascend grassy hills to fight a climactic battle atop a dam. Despite the world feeling desolate and barren, I kept wanting to explore and admire the gorgeous North American landscapes.

It’s hardly a narrative masterpiece, but Disintegration’s campaign is about putting a new spin on the classic sci-fi shooter… and letting rip on waves upon waves of robots. The mechanics alone are novel enough to keep you entertained, and once the ability to multi-task the FPS and RTS elements clicks, there’s plenty of room to keep refining your techniques. Once I’d finished the campaign, I went back to replay levels on a higher difficulty with my new-found knowledge, and found myself thinking more carefully about timing my special abilities, and how to smoothly manoeuvre the Gravcycle through levels. In short, it not only entertained me for the nine hour campaign, but kept me coming back.

The multiplayer is, unfortunately, where all this good work comes unstuck. I played a brief two-hour session before Disintegration’s release, but I wanted to test the multiplayer in public matches before writing this review. After three days of trying, I have been unable to connect to a match on PC. Judging by comments left on Steam and Twitter, I’m not alone in experiencing this, although I cannot say whether the problem lies with a technical issue or a simple lack of players.

It’s a shame, because I felt I’d only just scraped the surface of Disintegration’s multiplayer experience. It’s a team-based shooter, kind of like Overwatch if everyone played Pharah. You can pick between nine different Gravcycle crews, all with different perks, strengths and specialities, in three different game modes: Zone Control (capturing zones), Collection (basically team deathmatch with tags), and Retrieval (attack/defence). The modes themselves are fairly standard stuff, but the complexity comes from the ground units, team composition, and maneuvering your Gravcycle. In the first few matches, I initially focused my attention on enemy Gravcycles – which you would, seeing as they’re the enemy player. Yet that’s only half the story, as the ground units are often essential in completing each mode’s objectives. In Collection, for instance, points can be gained from killing enemy ground units rather than just other Gravcycles, and it makes more sense to target these as they’re much easier to kill – and there are simply more of them. In Retrieval, only your ground units can carry the core to the drop-off point.

To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings

I tried flitting between a few different crews to get a feel for them, and went with the obvious tactic of choosing faster crews for attack, and tankier Gravcycles for defence, but I found some of the lighter crews would simply crumble into dust when put under any kind of pressure, and the increased maneuverability wasn’t enough to balance it out. I enjoyed experimenting with the different abilities for each crew, but in the end I found myself favouring high-damage crews like The Ronan to keep up with the carnage. Or maybe that’s just my playstyle – dumping a load of rockets on a fellow journalist’s Gravcycle is quite fun, what can I say?

There were moments in the demo session where I felt the team genuinely start to pull together: people were healing each other, moving as a group to target weaker Gravcycles, and setting up proper defences on zones using proximity mines. To Disintegration’s credit, the multiplayer did make me want to improve. The battles are frantic and not immediately readable to new players, and I imagine there’s a fairly high skill ceiling. This might be where the problem lies, as the multiplayer doesn’t instantly grab you, but becomes more interesting over time.

In the end, of course, I wasn’t able to spend more time with the multiplayer – and it’s disappointing, because Disintegration’s campaign gameplay is so compelling that I would happily recommend it to anyone who asked. Yet it’s hard to justify a £39.99 price tag when half of the game is, for many, currently unusable. I also fear Disintegration’s realistic art style and gritty sci-fi setting makes it appear run-of-the-mill, when its gameplay actually has quite a lot to offer. This might be a case of holding off until later (or perhaps until V1 makes the multiplayer free-to-play), but if you do decide to take the plunge on Disintegration, I can guarantee you one thing: somehow, inexplicably, you will never get tired of smashing robots.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/disintegration-review-a-quirky-but-troubled-sci-fi-shooter-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=disintegration-review-a-quirky-but-troubled-sci-fi-shooter-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net