#it has to be very high content or very long exposure but still

[radiocrypt-id]

The salt water killed this mans curls

what seven years of sobbing on a beach does to a man

[purple-plum-petals]

Hello!! I see your requests for Homicipher are open and I got giddy :D (starving for more content) May I request fluff drabble for Mr Silviar? Maybe his s/o teaching him how to say "I love you" in human language? Thank you!

⊱ Those Three Words ⊰ || Mr. Silvair X Reader

╭─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╮   Character(s): Mr. Silvair (Homicipher/文字化化) Reader Type: Human (Gender-Neutral Pronouns) Warning(s): Spoilers for Homicipher (specifically Route End: Mr. Silver Hair 1), Canon-typical Mentions of Violence (and Horror-Elements), Cultural Barriers (Mr. Silvair Doesn’t Fully Comprehend Certain Emotions). Anything spoken in the other world’s language will be bolded. Genre: Drabble, Fluff, Slight Angst, Pre-Established Romantic Relationship (It’s Complicated, honestly). Word Count: ~3,280 Request: “Hello!! I see your requests for Homicipher are open and I got giddy :D (starving for more content) May I request fluff drabble for Mr Silviar? Maybe his s/o teaching him how to say "I love you" in human language? Thank you!” Author’s Note: Mr. Silvair!!! He’s genuinely so pretty, y’all – it’s not fair. 😔 I find his overall character to be quite fascinating, and a part of me is really hoping the game gets a DLC or something to further expand on each of the character’s lore (and more moments with the MC, of course). Like game, what do you mean that some of the monsters may have been humans while others probably never were?? I desperately need more food… I headcanon that Mr. Silvair was either 1. never human, or 2. has been in the other world for a very long time, resulting in the loss of his memory as a human which could be why he’s so interested in researching them/maintaining the MC’s humanity. 🤔 But that’s just a theory – a game theory! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

→ If you enjoyed my work, please reblog it if you can! Exposure on Tumblr is based on reblogging content rather than liking it, so your support would be much appreciated!  ♡ ╰─━━━━━━━━━━━━─╯

Even after everything that had happened between you and this world’s resident human-enjoyer, you surprisingly still felt at ease with Mr. Silvair. That comfortability, though, made you think hard about your sanity. After all, it probably wasn’t normal to be comfortable around someone who enjoyed taking you apart and watching your body put itself back together over and over again. Yet, you did, and you didn’t mind your current arrangement as much as you probably would have in the past. 

Mr. Silvair’s home was destroyed in a fiery explosion (courtesy of himself), so you had offered to help him find a new one. You managed to locate a large room, one that he deemed satisfactory enough to call his base, and you had been staying with him indefinitely since then. As long as you had a comfy bed to lay in and someone else to keep you company, you were happy. 

Your other friends(?) frequently stopped by as well to say hello, the most common ones being Mr. Crawling and Mr. Chopped. While you were occasionally hit with a feeling of loneliness, it was hard to feel that way with so many friendly faces around. Well… maybe their faces weren’t that friendly, but they were kind and gentle with you, and that’s what truly mattered. 

You hear the sound of Mr. Silvair moving around in the room adjacent to the one you typically stayed in, and you wonder to yourself what his plans for today are. The tall, long-haired man spent most of his time engaged in research. You didn’t see him as frequently as one would expect despite the fact you two were practically roommates. All you could do was hope he wasn’t messing around with and subsequently angering any more terrifying, violent ghosts. You enjoyed your current home, and going out to look for another one wasn’t very high on your list of things to do. 

The Rubik’s Cube in your hand was still as scattered as ever, and it seemed like, no matter how long you spent trying to solve it, you were only able to successfully complete one side. Mr. Masque was kind enough to give it to you (he apparently had a whole stash of the things somewhere), and his gift was something you were immensely grateful for. Attempting to figure out the puzzle helped you pass the time wherever you were alone (and it most likely helped you keep your head on straight). 

You’re currently lying flat on your back atop the plush bed in the relatively empty living space, looking up at the gray concrete ceiling with a blank stare. Once you decide you’ve loafed around for long enough, you stand up slowly from the bed, placing the cube gently on the covers of the cot. You stretch your arms above your head, a strangled noise coming from your throat at the movement of your stiff muscles, and you begin to make your way to the other room where your… 

What even was Mr. Silvair to you? While yes, you were fond of him – hell, you’d go as far as to say you loved him – you knew he didn’t feel the same. You remember the moment he told you “I not understand like”, and that he didn’t want to save you from your condition, no… he found you entertaining to keep around, and that’s why he did what he did. 

It was complicated, you thought, trying to have a relationship with a being who didn’t grasp what the concept of love was. Deep down, though, you knew you wouldn’t change it for the world. He enjoyed your presence, and that was all you could ask for. 

You walk over to the metal door and knock, waiting for a response. After a moment, you hear Mr. Silvair’s voice echo, “Enter.”

The door opens with a slight creak as you twist the knob, peeking your head inside the somewhat grimy space. The room, still fairly new, didn’t have as much blood or gore as his old one did. There were fresh stains on the floor and wall, you noted, and you couldn’t help but wonder who or what they were from exactly. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, though, so you didn’t bother asking. 

You grin up at the taller man and give him a small wave, saying softly, “Hello. I not bother?”

He returns your smile, placing the scalpel in his hand on the stainless steel tray that held a variety of medical tools. It looked like he was in the process of cleaning the many, typically blood-stained, pieces of equipment. Mr. Silvair turns to face you and replies gently, “Hello. You not bother. Enter.”

Tilting his head to one side, his long, silver locks move when he does, cascading down his head and slipping off his shoulder at the movement. His smile drops slightly before he asks, “Feeling unwell? Injured? Need cure?”

“No, no cure.” You quickly say, not quite in the mood to be dissected or taken apart right now (honestly, though, you never really were, even if you did understand why it needed to be done). You pause by the door before finally shutting it behind you, the both of you now alone in the private and secluded space. 

Ugh – why was it so hard to say what was on your mind??

After taking a moment to build up your confidence, you tell Mr. Silvair while fidgeting with the rubber of the clear raincoat you wore, “I want see you. Communicate.”

He hums and smiles at your admission, walking over to you before placing a calloused hand on your face. Your eyes close on instinct, and your breathing shutters when he rubs his thumb across your cheek. A part of you wanted to be annoyed with him since he had to be aware of the effect he had on you, yet you didn’t want to run the risk of him removing his cool palm from your skin, so you kept your mouth shut. 

It had taken quite some time for Mr. Silvair to get to this point of physical affection with you (something he began doing more often after he saw how much you enjoyed getting head-pats from Mr. Crawling), so you didn’t want to ruin any progress you two had made in your complicated and unconventional relationship. 

“Okay,” Mr. Silvar starts, removing his hand from your face as he gestures to one of the two chairs in the room. He smiles down at you before saying, “Sit. We communicate.”

You do as you’re told without speaking another word, your hands folded in your lap after you sit down, watching Mr. Silvair take a seat on the chair across from you. You talk with him for quite some time, doing your best to update him on your current progress with the puzzle since that was pretty much the only thing you had going on in your life. While it wasn’t satisfying to speak in the other world’s language because it tended to miss most of the nuances of speech, it was the only way the two of you could communicate. 

Mr. Silvair seemed to pick up on your frustration, seeing you were growing annoyed at the lack of words in your arsenal – the term you were looking for wasn't coming to mind. In response, he tilts his head to the side and asks you, “You upset. Why?”

“Not right words.” You reply, brows furrowed when you look up at him, your gaze landing on the bloody bandages wrapped around his eyes. You turn your head to look down at the floor, the somewhat fresh pool of blood perfectly matching the color of the Rubik’s Cube. You point to the puddle and turn to ask Mr. Silvair, “What’s this called in your language? Can you tell me how to say this color?”

“Blood.” Mr. Silvair responds, not understanding what you wanted him to explain. 

“No, no.” You quickly reply, shaking your head. You continue to glance between him and the blood, enunciating your words even though he didn’t understand your language the same way you were able to understand his. You didn’t back down or give up, though, saying again, “The color – I want to know what color blood is.”

He pauses, one hand under his chin as he seemingly takes a moment to figure out what you are asking him. After a few beats, Mr. Silvair replies with a word you haven’t heard anyone speak before, “???”

You visibly brighten at the new word, and the expression on your face causes Mr. Silvair to let out a light chuckle before he crosses one of his legs over the other. You take a breath before telling him, “Okay. Thank you.” 

After another pause, you continue to speak, “So… One part object done, red part. Other parts hard – not finish.”

Mr. Silvair had been leaning forward in his chair, his elbow digging into his knee while his hand rested under his chin, holding his head up as he stared at you with an unwavering gaze. He always listened to you with rapt interest, and you would be lying if you said the constant attention didn’t make your heart stutter in your chest. However, he suddenly speaks, pointing to the pool of blood you had been gesturing toward moments before, “What you call that?”

“Huh?” You ask, pausing your story to look at him. Mr. Silvair doesn’t say anything else, though, giving you a moment to comprehend what he has asked you. You perk up when your brain finally registers what Mr. Silvair had said, replying to him happily, “Oh, that’s the color red. So, blood is typically red – blood red.” 

“R-ehd?” He echos, and the sound of his voice speaking a word that you were able to understand without having to flip through your mental dictionary had your breath hitching. It sounded so strange but so nice coming from his lips. 

“Yeah, red! Blood is red!” You say, sounding excited and oh-so happy. Mr. Silvair would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t find the look on your face and the tone of your voice endearing. Then, your expression shifts slightly as you lean forward in your chair, saying enthusiastically, “Oh my god – I just got an idea! Me teach you me language!”

“...You language?” Mr. Silvair asks after a moment, shifting in his seat slightly. 

“Yes! Me teach you!” You reply, gesturing to both him and you with your hands. Your mind remembers the way Mr. Silvair and Mr. Chopped helped you shortly after you first arrived, teaching you directions to walk, facial expressions, and more. They had helped you expand your knowledge of this world’s language, and they were probably responsible for your survival in so many of those early interactions. So, you smile at him as you say, “We same.”

He returns a smile, nodding his head and replying with a simple, “Okay.”

“Alright, so, let me think here…” You hum to yourself, leaning back in your chair and closing your eyes while you consider what you should start with. Body parts seemed to be the first thing that popped into your head, so that’s eventually what you decided to start with. Sitting up in the chair, you point toward your hand with the other, tapping a finger to your palm as you speak, “Okay, so, this is my hand – hand. Can you say hand?”

It was kind of cute, strangely enough, seeing Mr. Slivair take the time to repeat the word you spoke over and over in his mind, trying to match the movement of your mouth with his own. Your languages were quite different in sounds, syllables, and the like, so he was practicing what to say before actually speaking. After a few moments of contemplation, he replies, “...H-ah-nd.”

“Hey, that was pretty good! Not bad for your first try, Mr. Silvair, even if the pronunciation is a bit off.” You say with a wide smile, clapping your hands together as you applaud him on his efforts. He chuckles again, finding your way of teaching to be… sweet. 

Then, you speak again, once again grabbing his attention. You tap the pad of your finger under the skin of your eye, asking him, “Do you remember what this is called? I think I’ve told you before.”

Mr. Silvair is quicker in his response this time, having heard you ask him about his own eyes before as he smoothly says, “Eye.” 

“Yes! Good job!” You praise once more, giving him a thumbs up in response. Then, he stands up from his seat, walking over to you while his once-white lab coat flows behind him. You crane your head back to look up at him from where you were still sitting, a simple and stupid, “...Huh?” leaving your mouth. 

Mr. Silvair reaches a hand to your face, cupping your chin gently in his hand. You feel his thumb resting on your bottom lip, and he begins to move his finger back and forth along the slightly chapped flesh, tugging at it slightly. He tilts his head to the side, asking you seriously, “What this called?”

“Oh, uh…” You know your face is probably flushed beyond belief at this point if the heat cascading through your head is anything to go by, and your mind and heart are completely caught off-guard by his sudden touch and question. You avert your gaze to the side, swallowing harshly before you finally reply, “They’re my lips – they’re, umm… similar to mouth. Lips, mouth, same.”

“...Lips?” Mr. Silvair asks again for clarification, his voice having an almost husky tone to it that has a shiver travel down your spine. 

You nod in response, muttering a barely audible, “Yes…” 

Mr. Silvair hums at your response, a small smile gracing his lips. He leans down, face so close to yours, before he inquires with an almost teasing tone to his voice, “You want touch?”

“Y-Yes.” You answer at an almost embarrassingly fast speed. 

The man who you had grown so fond of chuckles at your enthusiasm before leaning forward, pressing his lips softly to yours while he holds your face between his palms. Kisses weren’t a common thing between the two of you, and they were really only something Mr. Silvair initiated when he felt like it. You could feel the intensity at which your heart was beasting due to his sudden affections, and there was a part of you that was worried it would burst out of your chest right then and there. 

Your eyes flutter shut and you tilt your head to the side, your hands coming up to rest atop his – his hands that were holding your cheeks so, so gently. It was almost sickening the way he was holding you like you could break at any moment. 

Then, almost as quickly as it began, the kiss ended before you even realized it did. Mr. Silvair’s forehead was now pressed against yours, and he doesn’t make any move to remove his hands from your face. Your lips were no longer touching, and yet he still lingered.  

Mr. Silvair didn’t play fair, you thought, yet you couldn’t help but wonder why he wanted to kiss you so suddenly, so randomly. You close your eyes and your brows furrow at the tightening in your throat, an aching sensation slowly spreading throughout your chest like a disease before you whisper, “...I love you.”

There’s a silence, a stretch of nothingness before Mr. Silvair suddenly asks you, his voice just as soft as yours had been, “Repeat?”

“...No,” Your response is nearly immediate, and you shake your head before repeating once more, “Nothing.”

“...I love you.” The sound of those three words leaving his lips nearly causes your mind to implode. It sounded so sweet, yet it also felt worse than any suffering you had experienced before. The searing and excruciating pain, the feeling of a blade digging itself into the flesh of your torso couldn’t compare to the deep-seated torment you felt right now.

Mr. Silvair hums, tilting his head to the side as his thumbs continue to caress your cheeks, “What mean?”

You knew there was no point, no reason to try and explain your feelings again, but you do. You still do, even though you know it’s pointless to try. You can’t bring yourself to look at him as you speak, finding the concrete floor more interesting, “Mean… mean me like you. Lot like.”

There’s a pause, a moment of contemplation before Mr. Silvair says, “...Not understand.”

“I know.” You reply, nodding your head once in response. 

“You know?” He asks you, sounding somewhat confused, a tone you very rarely heard from the man. Had he forgotten that moment that you couldn’t seem to forget, the memory that you continuously found replaying in your mind like a broken record? It wasn’t fair, you thought, that only you were forced to hold onto such a painful memory. 

“You communicate before.” You clarify, finally willing yourself to look at his face. Mr. Silvair’s expression was tight, his lips drawn into a flat line. 

You needed to get away, to just run from this moment in the hopes he would forget the whole exchange just as he apparently did the last one. You take your hands and grab his wrists, removing his palms from your face before you stand up from the chair. You refuse to look at him as you turn, heading to the door as you utter, “...I’m going to go for a walk, so I’ll be back later. Goodbye.”

Then, you feel something tug at the sleeve of your raincoat. It wasn’t strong, nothing that would actually stop you from moving, but your legs proceeded to hault at the small action. Mr. Silvair says, his tone not demanding in the slightest – if anything, it sounded like a plea as he speaks, “No exit.”

You take a deep breath and turn around to face him, asking in such a small voice that it even caught yourself off-guard, “...Why?”

“I want you here.” Mr. Silvair responds quickly, so quickly it seems to have taken both of you by surprise. The two of you stare at each other for a moment before he asks, finally releasing the material of your jacket from in between his fingers, “Stay… Will you stay?”

You once again find yourself wondering if Mr. Silvair was aware of the effect he had on you as a sigh leaves your mouth. You nod your head lightly and reply, “I will stay.”

“Good.” He says in response, a gentle smile on his face as he says for the second time, “I love you.”

You frown at him and shake your head, saying with a slight edge of frustration in your voice, “No speak. Not true.” 

“True… Believe true.” He says quickly, reaching out to once again place a hand against your cheek. You don’t move, don’t flinch away from his touch – you still relish the way he’s holding you like a fragile piece of glass. Mr. Silvair’s brows are furrowed ever so slightly as he mutters, “Confused.”

“You’re telling me… How do you think I feel?” You say with a huff, your hand holding into his as you find yourself nuzzling your nose into his palm. The painful feeling in your chest was still present, but it wasn’t nearly as excruciating as it had been now. You find it in yourself to smile, gazing up at him as you speak, “...but we’ll get through it together – we together. Right?”

“To-geh-ther…” He repeats, leaning down to press his forehead to yours once more as he says softly, “Yes.”

[b1asho]

Species number two: Rossetians!!

Here's some more info, because unfortunately I ran out of room to cram it in between the drawings:

Rossetians are a mid-sized species that evolved in an area roughly the size of Europe, and have less extreme regional differences than other species, usually only having some vatiation in skin pattern, color, and snout shape.

They aren’t exactly adapted to live in water, but there were enough water obstacles around that they developed some useful traits like nostrils in the top of their head and semi-webbed hooves.

Their skin is thick, dry and rough, closer to scales. This bars moisture from coming in and leaving. The only place they have hairlike structures is in/around the pouch/genitals for oil secretion and for neonates to pull on to drag themselves into the pouch after birth (meaning they see hair as private and even lewd).

they use their heat-sensitive nose pits and sensitive pronged tongue to navigate low visibility places like tunnels and dense vegetation, and also to locate food and other resources that are hidden in crevices.

Their tongue in particular replaces their sense of smell, and is able to detect minute chemical changes in the air. It’s pretty long, and slides back into a hole a bit in their mouth/throat when closed.

They also use their four wide set eyes to scan more open areas, and while they have good close and far vision, they cant see in the dark and have poor color vision.

Rossetians share our iron based blood, using a large molecule that is contained in cells. It retains oxygen for much longer and in higher quantities (closer to erythrocruorin in size and effectiveness.) it is a very dark red when not oxygenated and turns a much brighter red shade than human blood when exposed to oxygen.

It is very very stable, can operate at a wide range of temperatures, and helps them manage in oxygen scarce environments between the pockets of oxygen in their tunnels (however, they can’t tolerate low oxygen for long, and need warm temperatures and abundant oxygen function well).

The high quantities of oxygen their blood can carry helped fuel them when fleeing predators, but at other times the large size of the molecule means that it takes a lot of energy to pump it around fast, and it already brings a lot of oxygen per molecule, so normally they have a slow heartbeat and metabolism. It also has anti-inflammatory properties, all of these things potentially leading to their longer natural lifespans.

This iron based blood developed because their environment was very heavy in metals, particularly iron. There were also a lot of other toxins just hanging around in the air, water, and soil. They have a very strong liver and other specialized glands and processes to help them metabolize and expel metals that they take in, it they can tolerate a lot more metals in their body than a human could (they’re very hard to kill via poison, toxin exposure, or drugs) . they actually incorporated it into more of their body (namely their horns and teeth, and for coloration of skin). Like limpets, they have metal in their teeth, making them extremely hard and strong (used for scraping off algae, moss, and lichens from rocks and crushing nuts and tubers) this also partially accounts for the color of the teeth, though some still have white teeth due to less pigmentation. Their colors vary less due to sun exposure and more due to the content of elements around them.

Rossetians were originally prey animals, with their horn and extremely thick skin/fat layer being their main protection from predators. (through selection over the years, their horns have become a bit more ornamental, though they’re still plenty sharp). They developed sapience due to their overkill sensory prowess, letting them spend less time scanning and more time thinking. Eventually, this combined with their cooperative herd structure/domestication of food sources to advance their intelligence to modern day.

As herbivores, they eat predominantly plant matter, though some also consume dairy due to a similar “lactose tolerance” mutation as humans for the taste and nutrients. They eat small and frequent meals for steadier energy to make up for their slow metabolism.

They are endotherms, though mainly due to their thick fat and skin layer helping them to trap heat. Without this, they aren't nearly as good as humans at regulating their own temperature, though they can still shiver and pant to try and regulate (they cant sweat).

They have a total of 6 teeth, two in the front and four molars in the back.

Their food tends to be boiled or otherwise processed in some way to make it easier to get energy and nutrients faster with their otherwise slow metabolism (so they can stay on the go for busy city life)

They are viviparous and can reproduce any time of the year like humans, but they lack a true placenta. infants instead develop in a pouch of skin on the mother where they drink milk.

Their pouch opens like an American opossum, and their children will stay in and out of it for a while even a little after they’ve been weaned (eventually, they get too big.) They stay in there for the first year or so, and will then start exploring outside in their ‘toddler’ stage before eventually being able to walk on their own.

They have a centaur-esque body plan that allowed them to free up a front set of arms and support brain development while also being able to lower themselves to the height needed to navigate the volcanic tunnels they lived in and move quickly. The only important thing in their front "torso" region is a small cluster of nerves that helps handle some of their sensory information.

4 of their 6 limbs are for walking while the front 2 specialized for object manipulation, with the two digits on the sides slightly turned inwards and able to be used almost like thumbs. None of them are very good for gripping since climbing wasn’t part of their evolutionary history (though all of them are also slightly webbed, especially the back ones, since swimming was helpful to them in their environment)

Their soft lips and similarly shaped mouth make it very easy for them to replicate human language, though their tongue and teeth sometimes get in the way (and makes it harder for humans to speak their language, since some noises require the use of two or four prongs of the tongue at once).

They can see a color spectrum similar to horses or deer on earth, which is why their clothing is often dull or monochrome besides the stitched patterns. However, since it was useful for them to be able to see some color variation to tell if a plant was poisonous or not, they can see reds/greens a bit better than Prectikar, who have a similar colorblindess range.

While they can't see red, they still incorporate it into their clothing since to them it registers as a nice green to accent the blue and yellow. To us, it looks red.

They have very homogeneous cultural traits because for much of their history, they have valued unity and have been joined together under one Empire or another (most recently, the same guys who got to the Prectikar). However, similar to cultures across, say the British isle, they still have unique quirks from their regional heritage.

Males have a horn with a unicorn-like front spike and a considerably longer tail, while females lack the horn projection and also have a pouch. Unlike other species, they actually have similar sex and gender roles as human men and women, though a bit more pronounced than current humans due to their society’s particular emphasis on family units in politics and economics.

They also have stricter nudity and propriety standards year round, with traditional conservatives barely showing anything more than their face out in public.

They show marriage through pierced ears. They typically have one partner for life.

Most of their clothing is heavily layered with lots of dresses and cloaks to give them a feeling of security when in public, like a weighted blanket or something to cover their shape so they feel less exposed. Many also cover their sensitive ears when in crowded spaces.

Most of their brain is in their head, but they have 2 smaller clusters to help deal with other sensory information and leave more room for thinking in the main brain. The clusters are located between their front arms (protected by the larger vertebrae and collarbone/shoulder blade their arms connect to up there) and their pelvic girdle.

When interacting with other species, they are known to be very timid and insular among themselves. Unfortunately, xenophobia has a very literal meaning to them since most other species have traits that they instinctively find unsettling as former prey animals, like sharp teeth and claws (similar to what happens when you see a snake or spider, even if you know it won’t or can’t hurt you most people still feel fear). Without proper socialization for both parties, things can get awkward very fast.

[byemambo]

4Minutes EP. 2 - My Takeaways

After losing my mind over This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans, I proceeded to lose my mind over 4 Minutes. My takeaways are definitely not as in depth as my previous post for episode 1, but more of overarching themes/thoughts.

Establishing Character Shots

Kudos for such amazing shots establishing the dynamic and characterization of each key player within the current story. From the lighting/gaffing, to the framing, even down to applying video effects such as double exposure to emphasize each character's significance. Tonkla and Fasai's compositions dominate over the person they're peering down upon, Tonkla peering down at his victim through violent means, whereas Fasai peers down at Korn and asserting her dominance over him in their dynamic. Win walking into the crime scene and immediately met with utmost respect is visually established by a lower camera tilt and composition from the clear sky. Dome viewing the situation from behind a barricade was interesting to me, highlighting that although he has moral high ground in comparison to Title, he is still trapped and unable to compete against his classmate knowing he will be met with retaliation and intimidation.

Great and Tyme First (Proper) Interaction

This scene is one of my favorites from this episode, which I felt that many of Great and Tyme's shared scenes had a very "quiet mouse" atmosphere to them. In their separate lives, both seem to navigate themselves absentmindedly. We see this when Great occupies the back of the classroom in his own bubble, daydreaming in the comfort of his own home trying to make sense of his visions, or even going with Title despite not being given what he should expect on this outing and becoming a bystander in the situation with Dome's abduction. Tyme seems to keep to himself as he works in the hospital, and keeps himself and his patients at an arm's length, refraining from building any bonds or attachments with others. Even when doctors like Den or the nurses display moments of silly and wholesome fun despite being in a stressful environment, Tyme usually doesn't plays along with their antics. However, once he acknowledged Great's presence, he quickly seizes the opportunity and shows us a less familiar side to him that we only got to really see when he was with his grandmother in episode 1. When he laid eyes on Great, it seemed as though time stopped on its own as if they were the only ones in existence in that moment.

Devices: What's the Content?

When we first meet Dome witnessing the argument between Title and View outside the dorms, we are shown his phone recording the entire altercation, which is apparent that this is not the first time he's possibly recorded Title's crimes. It's also mentioned by Title during their confrontation at the university that Dome's been "testing his patience for awhile now," which I want to believe that their current dynamic is rooted in complete disdain for each other. Towards the end of the episode when we're shown the silhouette of a figure (I think it looks like Tyme) being handed a flash drive, I'm also alert and claiming both of these devices as valuable items for the story, especially because both are likely filled with damning evidence to all the crimes being committed so far through Title's acts of confinement, abduction and intentional homicide and the family company organized crime through online gambling. I can only predict that there will be numerous attempts to seize either of these items to prevent exposure, especially if the brother that's deceased could possibly be Dome himself as Title is clearly alive and well.

Honorable Mentions: Comedic Relief

There were so many funny moments throughout this episode that genuinely made me laugh out loud: this one stealing the cake for me. Before episode 2, we had only seem a glimmer of Tyme's silly personality from his interactions with Den, fully getting a better idea of this lighthearted side from his moment with his grandmother. Since both of these individuals are significant to him, it's only natural for someone of his temperament to create walls between himself and others. However, once Great's presence grabs Tyme's attention and begins his pining towards him, we are slowly starting to see his innate silly and lighthearted personality expose itself outside of his safe people. I just love the way him and the nurse have a push and pull moment, she clearly found it entertaining to see the serious and detached surgeon be so pushy and demanding. I hope as the series goes on, we'll continue to have such moments because I enjoy how the director keeps such moments dependent on micro expressions and short exchange of words, accompanying these moments through appropriate comedic music.

[sandwhitches]

hi, i am here for your writing event if i may request something. can i have spf 50 w/ sakusa and anything by adrianne lenker? thanks a lot, have a good day

a/n: i literally dashed to my laptop to write this i LOVE adrianne lenker AAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! thank u for ur request, enjoy! :3 (also!! i was unexpectedly busy this afternoon but i’m totally gonna get to the other requests soon, sorry yall!)

𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍�� | 𝐬. 𝐤𝐢𝐲𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐢

genre: fluff

content: gn. reader, established relationship, one reference to an injury requiring stitches (no graphic detail)

wc: 572

this is a part of my summer writing event!!! please feel free to send some requests my way :3

It’s never been odd for the two of you to sit in your carefully tenderly woven blanket of silence for hours on end. Sakusa, who is without a doubt the quietest person you’ve ever known, still manages to have a myriad of words behind his eyes.

With every lazy blink in your direction and delicate shift of his thumb against your hip, it feels as if everything he’s thinking is practically tangible, sitting on the palm of your hand. What is he saying now when he noses into the skin of your neck? 

As you pretend to doze off in his arms, you realize it’s always been this way, that there is never a moment in which you knew Sakusa without knowing him. Long gone are the days of high school in which too much class time was spent pretending not to see the other staring, hearts beating with the thrill of a new crush, wondering who will cross the line you’ve been toeing for months. 

You’ve learned, though, that it doesn’t take much to love Kiyoomi, he’s made himself all too easy to read for you. Perhaps this is the result of everything that led you to this moment, swallowed in his arms as the late afternoon sun begins to bleed into inky twilight.

After high school, it was the moments spent biking back and forth from each other’s dormitories too late in the night, that first December in your cramped apartment in which you two got ahead of yourself when sending out invitations for a holiday dinner, or the empathetic kisses placed on your forehead as the doctor stitched up your results of getting too crafty cutting a cucumber. 

Somewhere along that line, you’re sure lies the gradual formation of a moment in which words no longer needed to be present for a conversation. Touch substitutes for dozens of different amorous declarations that you both already know, the feeling of his slowing breath on your skin tells you that he doesn’t want to move for a very long time.

To you, the idea of spending the rest of your life with someone who knows you as thoroughly as Sakusa used to be daunting, the terrifyingly constant exposure to someone who is always watching. In spite of this, there’s nothing that brings you more comfort now than knowing that Kiyoomi will always know exactly what’s on your mind without the need to ask, and there’s nothing that brings him more comfort than giving you exactly what you need before you know you need it. 

There’s one thing Sakusa has learned about love: it is perfectly simple to do when it is spent on the right person. You, in his mind, are without a doubt always going to be the right person, the only person he doesn’t mind watching him in return. 

Sakusa knows that you haven’t actually been asleep, he can’t be fooled by the delicate display of your eyes so lightly shut. His face comes closer to yours, pressing a featherlight kiss on each of your eyelids, I know you’re awake, his kisses say. Just as he expected, your eyes flutter open, and he’s rendered speechless sometimes when it hits him that it is his arms you sleep in every night.

Maybe things like luck and fate are real, maybe they’re not, but just this once Kiyoomi wants to believe that this is how things were always going to be.

[kkcauseway]

Caring Hand

Summary: You're going on a trip with Joel, which means driving to the destination and it’s hours away… to make matters worse your morning sickness is at its worst. So Joel does his best to look after you. Content and warnings: TW: vomiting -morning sickness. So much fluff. Talks of pregnancy, protective!Joel, caring!Joel. No use of y/n, no outbreak. Word count: 1.8k

Caring husband Joel Miller x F!reader

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You and Joel are travelling to a lodge you have booked for the next week. Your first proper time away in months. Joel booked it as a surprise after your promotion, he’s so thoughtful and compassionate like that.

However, you’ve not been feeling good all morning, morning sickness is at its worst again, this pregnancy so far really hasn’t been kind to you. You’ve been throwing up throughout the day for the past week straight, and the temperature outside reaching record highs means there’s no helping you to feel even slightly better. The heat makes you sicker.

This trip has been planned for months, obviously not with pregnancy in mind. (Not that you’d change it for the world.) But even with you feeling so ill, hardly able to keep food down, you’re not about to let that ruin your trip. It’s very much needed, and you do think it will help to make you feel better. The air’s cleaner where you’re going. It will be nice to breathe in really fresh air, and there’s a lake, god you could just about strip naked and jump in there right this second. You’ve been on the road about an hour when you begin to feel really sick and hot, you’re feeling the heat a lot more than usual today. Having already stripped down as much as is possible there’s not much else you can do. Wearing the bare minimum before it would be classed as ‘indecent exposure’ or more to the point where Joel would get too excited by the sight that he would absolutely ‘need’ to have his way with you. Although he knows better than to joke with you right now.

Keeping your eyes closed and trying to keep your breathing calm is about all you can do to try to relax; Joel can tell you really don’t feel well though. He’s got to learn when you get bad because you aren’t always vocal about it, not wanting to worry him, although he begs you to ‘worry him’, so he can share the burden and try his best to make it better.

“You want some more water baby?” he asks sincerely.

“Please” you say wiping your forehead, not even thinking about the fact Joel’s driving and it means he’s reaching into the back to get it for you whilst he’s supposed to be watching the road.

With thanks you take the bottle from him. Taking a large, heavenly swig. The water isn’t warm yet thankfully, but you know it won’t be long till it is, so you savour every second of the ice-cold water as it makes its way down. That definitely helps. You opt to roll the bottle on either side of your neck before doing the same to your cheeks. It feels amazing and you can’t help the little satisfied moan that falls from your lips.

Joel smirks as he shakes his head at you. You lightly laugh back at him through the discomfort beginning to feel better then. Finding it easier to enjoy the trip, even finding the energy to sing along to certain songs.

But then it suddenly hits you again and you go quiet. As expected, the heat has turned the water almost hot, and it’s not at all satisfying to drink. But you grin and bear it to keep yourself hydrated, breathing through the sick feeling. Not allowing anything to put a dampener on the start of your trip.

☀️☀️☀️☀️

You need air, proper air not just the air-con blowing in your face and soon, you need out of the car to fully breathe. “Babe, can we stop at the next services please? I really need to get out for a bit.”

Joel looks to you briefly “Sure, we can, you really not feeling good still?”

“No, I’m not. This baby’s really playing me up” you sink into your seat, rubbing a palm over your stomach, hoping to alleviate the feeling.

“Okay baby” he sighs deeply, hating seeing you in this much discomfort without being able to do anything to help. “The next services aren’t too far out we can stop have something to eat too if you’re up for it?”

“Let’s see how we go” you let out a heavy breath. The thought of eating food physically repulsing you.

Joel has the aircon blasting in your face, and it’s by far the best thing ever, but it’s not enough. You try your best to focus on the cool air coming at you and for a short time it does the job, but then you hit traffic. And you go from speeding away to 10mph if you’re lucky.

“Fuck Joel, you need to pull over as soon as you can, I can’t wait till we get to the services. Fuck, I need to get out. Feel like I can’t breathe” you huff.

“Okay darlin’ I promise soon as I can I’ll pull over, so you can get some air okay. Promise baby, don’t panic okay?” Joel’s worried, it takes a lot for you to moan about feeling unwell.

“I feel so sick” you whimper sounding so small.

“I know baby m’sorry, hopefully won’t be long and you’ll start feelin’ better. I know y’hate feelin’ like this.”

“I do, I hate it so much” you utter sounding so deflated.

As the car begins slowly moving once more, you feel heat rise from your feet to your face and you’re overcome with this nasty unbearably hot feeling. And then before you can say or do anything you throw up all over yourself, a choke like cough following afterwards. It genuinely came from nowhere you didn’t feel it rise; it just came out. There was no way to prevent it from getting all over you and the car seat.

Joel looks over at you and uses his hand closest to you to hold your hair out of your face “you’re okay baby just breathe” his other hand quickly grabs a plastic bag from his car door storage.

As you breathe incredibly heavy you take the bag from him, “just in case” he whispers before he puts that hand back on the wheel. You’re so uncomfortable as vomit slowly seeps into your shorts and a smell of stomach acid fills the air.

“Fuck. I’m so sorry Joel, it just, just came out” you pant, eyes stinging, and heart racing.

He’s indicating now to a point on the road he can pull over in. “Honey don’t be sorry y’couldn’t help it” he’s still holding the hair out of your face, but you thankfully haven’t been sick since.

When he parks safely, he quickly jumps out of the car, goes into the boot to retrieve some tissues and wipes before he comes around to your side opening your car door.

“I’m so sorry you feel this shit baby” he utters beginning to clean away the sick from your lap, using the currently unsoiled bag he gave you to discard the tissues in.

As much as you feel like shit, you still can’t believe how much he’s helping you, especially considering you’ve just thrown up in his car, all over his seat. He didn’t even think about it before jumping into action, not showing any signs of repulsion.

When it’s okay for you to get out of the car, you slowly jump down using Joel’s hand to steady you. He quickly cleans the seat as you take a wipe and start to clean your hands and arms. Once finished Joel doesn’t even hesitate to get onto his knees to clean off your shorts and legs properly. He can see your breathing is still very uneven and you look on the verge of tears. “Shhh, you’re okay baby” he reassures softly as he uses delicate strokes with the wipe.

“I’m sorry I really didn’t mean it.” You try to hold the tears back, but to no avail.

“Hey, you don’t need to be sorry baby, s’okay” he reassures whilst continuing to clean your shorts.

“I’m so embarrassed. I'm so disgusting.”

He stands up then, finally done with cleaning your lower half and you’ve finished cleaning your top half. Joel looks into your eyes “baby you’re living through all of this so you can bring our baby into the world, trust me, watching you embrace all the shit this pregnancy is throwing at you. S’sexy regardless of what happens okay? Not disgusting”. You stay silent, hanging your head low in shame. “Hey” he grabs your chin gently, so you have no choice but to look up at him. “I mean it; would I ever say anything I didn’t mean?”

“No” you whisper before sniffling.

“No, I wouldn’t, so stop feeling embarrassed, I’ll always adore you no matter what”. He strokes your cheek, and you lean into his palm as he does so.

“I love you Joel, I really do” you say through your slowing whimpers.

“I love you too baby. How y’feelin’ now?”

“Sick again, which is just perfect.”

“Well, there’s no rush for us to get back onto the road Baby we can stay here as long as y’need us to.”

He puts his arm around you then, stroking at your back.

“You’re so good to me Miller, I do honestly love you so much.” You turn into his side placing an arm either side of his body before squeezing him to prove your affection. He continues his stroking whilst leaning so his lips rest on the top of your head speaking loud into your hair as he replies, “I love you so much too, and this lil baby of ours, even if they’re just a teeny tiny dot right now.” He kisses the top of your head, and you stay stood in that embrace for a little while.

☀️☀️☀️☀️

“Not to ruin the moment, but I’m definitely gonna be sick again.”

You bring a hand to your mouth, and you move away from him slightly then, but he runs after you to hold your hair back. Rubbing your back as you throw up once more.

“Fuck baby m’so sorry you feel like this” he says to you between your bouts of retching. “S’it you get it all out”.

Eventually you spit for one final time and stand up straight again then, Joel pulls out a tissue from his pocket and you wipe your mouth “ugh I hate this”, Joel looks at you sympathetically before passing you some gum, which you’re eternally grateful for. “I hate it so fucking much” you say between chews “but, it’s all worth it for her” you rest a hand on your still flat stomach.

“Her?” he questions.

“Just a feeling that’s all.”

He smiles at you then and you smile back. “My girls” he utters softly through a wide grin placing his palm above yours.

How does he manage to make you feel so good even in your worst moments?

With the sickness feeling finally completely gone (at least for today- you hope) you can get back on the road. A week away full of fun, food, sex, and sun. God you’ve been longing for this for months. Just you and Joel. Though it means even more now than it did before. You’re soaking up all the time you have left before you lives are forever changed.

Changed for the better…

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[brightlypainted]

I went completely bananas and wrote a full analysis of Joker Out and JO fandom stuff and situation... idk

Hi baby boos!

I’ve seen some confusion regarding JO’s latest announcements and social media activity (or lack thereof) so I've tried to analyze the current situation with a critical eye 🤓

I don't use Tumblr much so you're probably more familiar with my Twitter but I got suggested to post this here for easier reading (and... better audience in general 👀)

Long rant under the cut:

Before I begin I must point out that these are my opinions and theories. I have no idea how JO’s communication and management is being organized right now, I’m just making assumptions based on my perception as a fan 🤷‍♀️

(also I’m a communication graduate but my studies and current job cover this sector only tangentially so I may not know how some/most of this works…)

Let’s start with comparing last year’s situation to the current one: one year ago the boys were riding high on the wave of enthusiasm, having had a successful ESC (despite the ending placement) and having gained a lot of attention as fan favorite competitors ✨

A very high % of the growing fanbase, esp the international one, was coming directly or tangentially through ESC and how do you maintain that attention once the contest is over? you increase your social media presence and you start planning international concerts. which they did!

This constant exposure to content made the fandom flourish: we were all witnessing how easily people from everywhere could join and already feel at the very center of attention, both because JO’s communication was being very active and successful and also thanks to fanmade organizations like JokerOutSubs, group chats, old time Slovenian fans sharing juicy pre-ESC content, etc. I'll be grateful forever

We had a past year that could be divided into 2 halves in terms of communication: it all went extremely well until more or less the end of 2023 (last tour dates in Spain) and then started gradually becoming very odd and chaotic all through 2024 until last month’s complete draught

We know that they mostly tend to manage their online presence on their own, so ofc during breaks and during very busy times is harder for them to find good content to share. They had also been very clear about needing time off their phones all through the London era and the album recording in Hamburg, so that didn’t come as a surprise for fans 🤷‍♀️

But having very sensible, personal reasons to quit/decrease social media presence has unfortunately no meaning in communication, where the laws are very simple: once you stop sharing, you stop existing

I don’t want to criticize their choices, because they are entitled to their privacy and offline time. I’m just pointing out that this very long, hiccup-y period probably could have been avoided with better management and with the presence of a smm/pre-planned sm communication 🙃

It also unfortunately happened concurrently to the new ESC season, which was bound to “organically” erode part of the fandom anyway, and to an EU tour that, although successful, has still highlighted a lazy/bad management and yet again a communication that made little to no sense at times (es. the whole campaign that subtly asked people to go to more than one concert, which clearly made fans with less financial and logistical possibilities feel ‘lacking’ and ‘inferior’) 🙄

In their defense, the tour was to establish a fanbase more than gaining more fans and exposure, so pushing for getting more of a loyal than an occasional fanbase wasn’t completely wrong an idea… it just backfired

And it did because the greatest part of their international fanbase is made of very young people who aren’t financially independent and whose interests are bound to be fleeting and shifting ESPECIALLY when they aren’t constantly met with content production/consumption

Let’s also not forget that having completely shifted their attention to international waters at the expense of the Slovenian/regional fanbase has been very risky. We still can’t tell if the gamble was successful or not

It’s never a good idea to ignore/neglect your hardcore supporters, the very people that helped you raise to your current standards. it’s true they are the most loyal, but they are also very easily the ones that could feel more betrayed

I also think it’s very risky trying to shift the fans’ content consumption out of social media and into a (controlled, easier to manage, ofc) site like Openstage for two main reasons: as said before, complete disappearance from socials means communicational suicide and until now, the “dedicated content” directed toward fans on the site has been… too bland and generic (sorry)(they can learn how to improve that)

Openstage has other very interesting uses tho, firstly the early access to ticket sales and secondly the tracking of international fan presence, which was pretty clearly the main goal and reason why they opened the site in the first place... so it’s not ex ante a bad communication choice, just (until now) one that has yet to show its potential and usefulness

So what now? I think it’s time they make a few considerations and sensible choices to maintain what’s currently the status quo and in order to tackle festival season in the best way

They need to keep their international presence by opening their fanbase to a new kind of fans: festivals bring exposure to bands from a very specific type of fanbase, more interested in music than in contents. If they manage to capture the interest of Sziget people, for example, they could gather a new type of international fanbase less interested in the “social media” content consumption and more in the “I wanna see these guys play again, somewhere else, maybe a show of their own” way

(which, to be completely fair, could be the best choice to cure their current crazy/shifting/confusing fanbase state, giving them more peace of mind, more privacy and a more “normal” rock band experience than the one they had in the past year… that we can all agree has been pretty bad at times)

I personally think this summer season must go in the quantity direction (gaining more new fans) and at the same time in the quality direction (less shows, bigger stages) and this is why some of you are disappointed in seeing so little shows compared to last year or to the SYS tour... I get it

Many of us, me included, won’t be seeing JO live for the whole summer season, and I’m aware that is disappointing, but I hope this analysis has helped you put things into perspective and consider maybe one of the possible reasons why this next phase for Joker Out is being organized this way

I’m still hoping they’ll find a good compromise with their social media communication, because right now I really feel that being the main issue with the gradual but constant drop in traction (please boys hire a smm. i adore jan’s sad edits and the unhinged video and stories like the next person but serious work has to be done too)

Ending the rant on a note of hope: I wish to see you all enjoy the summer and the content to come and I hope for the boys to have a successful, fun season full of new experiences, new music, new people, fresh ideas for the future. I’m honestly very excited for what’s to come! 🌻

[sgiandubh]

Whisky, gin and beer

It was always going to be about beer, too - not only whisky and gin. And it was probably designed to be a simultaneous project, that might have been postponed for various reasons: funny how all those intelligent people across the street forget everything about COVID, when it does not fit their agendas. And by COVID, I do not mean only the prolonged lockdowns, but first and foremost the worldwide logistics crisis, with compromised supply chains and overall a huge blow on the transports' sector.

In fact, looking at those trademark websites, it becomes evident that first (now abandoned) trademark application for beer was filed in at the same time as the one for whisky, on December 28, 2018:

Separate categories, as per US regulations, need separate filings, of course. And beer is a brilliant, simple idea, with high quality local ingredients (it's really barley, water, hops and yeast) relatively easy to source. Well, spare perhaps for the hops, but that is not really a problem, anymore:

(Source: the James Hutton Institute's booklet Hops in Scotland, 2018 - well, then. The institute is based in Dundee, by the way, so I think they know exactly what they are talking about, especially after a four year long feasibility study with encouraging results: https://www.hutton.ac.uk/news/scottish-hops-viable-commercial-crop-hutton-research-finds)

As I always make a point of reminding anyone, this page does not deal in fantasy and empty, meaningless scouring of social media accounts. And cackle to your heart's content, Mordor, but S seems to have a genuine, informed interest in the industry, as shown above.

This is a different business plan and a different marketing model, based on affordable production costs and yield/volume (as compared to successive, 'limited batches' of tequila or whisky, where the accent is placed on the excellence of the product and know-how, as reflected in the final price tag). You can bottle that beer or you can sell it on tap, partnering with local bars and pubs first, then progressively extending that network. And I bet the farm it is going to be a premium, artisanal beer first, with options open for a more democratic product, once brand awareness is properly built: beer is versatile, like that.

Whisky and gin were expensive, carefully curated pet projects. Beer is a fun, easy and lucrative one, with a wider clientele and fast growing potential. And this is how that unknown, struggling Scottish actor who once was the face of Tennent's has a fair opportunity to strike it big. To be followed, which I might do. And this is also how his products could cover the entire price range, from luxury to affordable.

It is also always disheartening to see how all those bitter women congregating on certain Tumblr pages feel the need to dismiss anything he does. As I always said and I always will, many of them have no idea about the very basics of business and trade, no exposure to that world and, to be honest, no particular intellectual acuity. Plus I bet the farm many of them lie about their own circumstances: it's easy to pretend, on the Internet and always sexier (and lame, of course) to introduce yourself as a corporate whatever than a secretary. But I wonder how would they feel, in the unlikely situation they would be running their own lemonade stand, if passers by started cackling and bitching about their trade, out of the blue.

So, all in all, we seem to be dealing with some careful preparation, portfolio diversification and yes, taking much needed strides away from McGrandma. To be continued, of course...

PS: FMN Gin, still crickets? Ahhh...

[a-whispering-echo]

UE - Killer (+ Lust)

TW: brainwashing, killing, implications of SH, slavery, child labour, implications of sex work, implication of underage sexual content, abuse

FIRE TYPE

"The Acolyte's Assassin" Tiefling Rouge Age: 19 Height; 5'7 Gender: Non Binary he/they

Was born into an institution of assassins.

Is fairly brainwashed

When he tells people his age, people think he's joking, because he comes across as older.

Has a brand on his back of the number 592 - his assassin number, its tried to be scratched off and Is covered in small scars. Mentioning it will case him to dissociate, which its quite jarring to his normally mischievous demeanour.

He makes little wooden toys for the kids. Both in the group, and when the do runs.

The Highway Woman's Curse

The face scales are genetic, it comes from a curse set on his great great great grandmother - called the "highway woman's curse", it makes them stand out from others, and as such they are more recognisable, and can be caught easily, killer learned to hid them pretty early on, it's something he still holds shame over, but is mostly over it. The others think it makes him look cool. It was cast on said ancestor for thievery, and they believed back then that people of the same bloodline were all of the same impulses, so they cursed the whole generation to be recognised easier, so they could know who did it. Unfortunately, many people used this against them, claiming they were robbed by one with the curse, when they were because they made easy scapegoats.

Killer was born into an institution, and, as his name implies, killed people he was ordered to. Everyone in this institution had different roles, and were named accordingly. They all had to report to the one family who owned them.

He spent most of his younger life here, with limited exposure to people outside.

He was quite popular in the group, mostly due to his high charisma, and his skill in his job. He's very sneaky, and could get kills without being noticed. While many people appreciated him, he wasn't really close to anyone but Lust, a fellow tiefling a few years older than him, who worked in the brothel owned by the same family. Lust liked preforming, but wished that he could do so in a less sexual manner, and Killer suggested music. So together they learned how to play several instruments, and while it was never really Killers thing, he kept at it to Lust happy.

Killer was the first person Lust came out to a trans, saying that while she didn't mind being male, she also definitely wanted to be perceived as female. Killer in response said he didn't really feel male, and the both started to present how they wanted to more, Killer growing his hair out, and stealing dresses and skirts for Lust when he went on trips.

But Killer desperately wanted to leave, to explore the world out there that he hadn't explored, and so, despite the fact he believed he would be killed for it, he leaves.

He snuck out at night when everyone is asleep, so that if he did die due to the curse over them, no one he cared about would see him die. When he didn't, he ran like the wind, leaving his past life (and friends) behind them.

The owners cover up Killer leaving, saying that he had died on a mission. Lust was heartbroken, but felt that something was off. Killer hadn't told her that they had a mission that night, strange, as they told each other everything.

Killer spends a few months just trying to understand how the world works, when he is unexpectedly stopped by some guard while trying to enter a city. They recognised their scales, and the multitude of knives on his person didn't help matters. They were about to lock him away and send him back to the institution, when he was saved by another tiefling, strikingly similar in appearance, who claimed that they were her brother to steer the guards off course.

The tiefling introduced themself as Buttercup, and stated that in return for her help, she wanted Killer to work for her. She first told him to kill a long term enemy of hers, and, should he succeed, she would employ him and cover the costs of anything he should need. Killer immediately accepts, trusting her completely.

It turns out, Buttercup worked as some kind of of assassin boss, she got requests for people's murders and sent those she had manipulated to do the dirty work.

Killer believed this to be such a lucky thing, he was good at killing people! She wouldn't get rid of him for his failures, and he didn't have to go back to his institution!

One day, Buttercup gives him a necklace, a large white circle pendent with a circle in the middle of no colour, stating that wearing it would make him stronger, and that she wanted to give it to him, as they were her best worker. When Killer puts it on, the part of the necklace with no colour turns a vivid red colour, swirling around in the white. The necklace had immediately bonded to his life force, sucking any magic he had straight into the pendent. And when he tried to take off the necklace, he found he couldn't, not without breaking it, which Buttercup said would kill him, so its stuck now. This did make his stronger technically, as he's now semi-immortal, you cant kill him without breaking the necklace, and if you don't know this, he's mostly safe. However, having his life force just sitting in front of him does make him much easier to kill if you know his weakness.

Buttercup did this so she could threaten his life every time he "misbehaved."

She then starts hurting him physically, now believing that she can get away with it; that he's too scared to run. Whipping his back for anything she can twist into being a mistake.

One day, Killer is ordered to kill a man known as "Horror," a half-orc from a neighbouring district, who was said to be blamed for the famine in the region, When Killer get there, and meets the guy, he realises he just cant kill him, he's way to much of a sweetheart, and ends up telling Horror that he was meant to kill him and didn't. Horror lets him know that he doesn't hold it against him, and that they were being manipulated into doing horrible thing. Killer starts to realise that what he's doing is not a good thing and stays with Horror for as long as he can, before being called back to Buttercup. He's tells Horror to meet him in a nearby tavern in 3 months, planning to grab his stuff and run away from Buttercups home.

When he gets there, he kills Buttercup, swearing this to be his last murder, grabs anything of value, tells the others working there what had happened and runs again.

When Killer come to the tavern at the agreed time, hes dismayed to find Horror very scarred, thin and clutching his sister in his arms. Horror explains what happened to them, and that they were exiled, and suffered to find anywhere where they would serve an orc. Killer feels immensely guilty, and promises to never leave him along again.

In this tavern, they notice a small elf in the corner, covered in a large purple cloak, and staring at them intensely. When they ask what hes looking at, he hesitates before stating that he's looking at Killer necklace, that he recognises the magic, and that he's sorry for what happened. Killer, taken aback, asks for the elves name. The elf freezes, his eyes darting back and forth, before breathing heavily, "Dust" he introduces himself as.

The three of them work as a team for a few months, before encountering a Dragonborn pillaging a village. When they stop to find out what's going on, they find themselves pickpocketed of their valuables. Enraged, they get into a huge fight, with the trio winning. They capture him end up working with him for around 7 months.

This is the point where a bunch of characters start meeting, so i'm not gonna put all this here - but i think you can see where its going, yes?

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Bogeyman

CR 10

Neutral Evil Medium Fey

Bestiary 3, pg. 42 (pic taken from Adventure Path: Extinction Curse: Legacy of the Lost God, pg. 79)

For years, FOR! YEARS! I’ve wanted to do an article on the Bogeyman. This monster has a very special spot in my heart, because around 10 years ago when I was just getting into tabletop stuff, I found a copy of Bestiary 3 on a game store shelf and flicked it open. After flicking past Behemoths and Asura, the most striking image to hit my eyes was what appeared to be a clown in a jaunty tophat and an absolutely menacing set of chompers. While by no means my favorite creature in Bestiary 3, my earliest memory of Pathfinder content was seeing that garish purple-and-red beast masquerading as a human, and as such the Bogeyman held a special place in my heart.

Which made it absolutely heartbreaking when my every attempt at extracting its picture from the PDF for use on this blog ended up looking HIDEOUS in a way my brain couldn’t reconcile with. As such, my first-ish exposure to Pathfinder languished... up until recently, with the release of 2nd Edition and a whole host of updated art for a WHOLE bunch of critters! While this Bogeyman isn’t my favorite--I’ll always love the bright purple bastard from 3--it certainly still portrays the mood of the Bogeyman in a way I enjoy. There’s plenty of Fey who cause fear for their own amusement, more than a few who eat it in some fashion, but Bogeymen are fear. They’re terror incarnate, they’re living nightmares, they’re the villain of a thousand stories and they know it, they revel in it, they wear it on their sleeves!

Bogeyman delight in finding singular victims and haunting them for days or even weeks, silently lurking under beds, within closets, in attics, or in basements, occasionally using Ghost Sound to create eerie noises, Darkness to cut the lights, or even Invisibility to quietly stalk their victims from their very own shadows until the haunted soul is on the verge of a breakdown. They’re artisans of terror, delicately crafting every moment of their target’s life of fear, plaguing them with Nightmares by night and by day whispering horrid thoughts into the victim’s ears from an invisible vantage point, making them lash out against friends and family to assure they’re entirely isolated when the malevolent Fey finally decides to end their lives. 

Like many creeping terrors, Bogeymen prefer to keep out of combat unless they’re sure they can win, remaining in the background otherwise. Unlike many creeping terrors, this should by no means make you think they’ll fold easily. They have high saves for their CR, DR 15/cold iron, and 21 SR, but their most infuriating defense is their ability to go invisible at will. Bogeymen are as maddeningly patient in combat as they are when seasoning their victims, flitting in and out of sight with Invisibility and exploiting their titanic +35 to Stealth checks to slither among combatants and find out where they’re weakest, physically and emotionally. Even an invisible Bogeyman can make use of its +28 to Intimidation checks to shake up anyone who can hear it speak as it waits for an opening, something it’s very keen on doing because as you may expect, Bogeymen are all about fear!

They live for fear, gaining Fast Healing 5 if someone within 30ft of them is suffering from any level of it. 30ft is, coincidentally, the range of their Deepest Fear aura, and illusion that shapes itself into the worst fears of anyone who views it. Failing a DC 25 Will save means you’re shaken as long as you’re in the aura, but succeeding the save renders one immune to it for 24 hours... but that just won’t do, will it? We can’t have someone NOT be afraid, so if someone succeeds and maintains a brave face, the Bogeyman disappears once more to Intimidate them, either through the skill check or with their claws. Their 1d8+1 damage claws aren’t really all that scary, but the burst of +6d6 from their Sneak Attack will probably make both the character AND the player jump. Both claws crit on a 19 or 20, and being critically hit by their claws causes Striking Fear to mount up. Failing another DC 25 Will save while already suffering from a fear effect compounds the fear, moving shaken to frightened, frightened to panicked, and panicked to paralyzed with fear (and thus vulnerable to being torn to shreds by Sneak Attack). While relying on crits is... well, unreliable at best, someone being hit even once while already shaken removes that person from the fight for several rounds, as frightened creatures must flee unless cornered, potentially giving the Fey deadly amounts of breathing room so it can recover and slip away... or savage a different, more vulnerable target.

Or just instantly kill someone who’s proven they’re a threat to it. For whatever demonic reason, Paizo decided to give them 3 castings of Quickened Phantasmal Killer each day! The moment it pops out of invisibility to Sneak Attack someone, it may be able to just take out someone else nearby with a glance! If your party doesn’t have any protection from fear, an encounter with a Bogeyman may go from tough to unwinnable in a single round.

If you can weather their initial Sneak Attack and have a way to counter their invisibility (like a sack of flour), things get much simpler. Adding onto that, anything that’s not afraid of them, either because it passed its save against the aura or was unaffected by it in the first place (in case you needed another reason to put Unbreakable Heart in your spell list), takes an enormous bite out of its offense and its defense and can potentially leave it floundering. Even with that weakness, Bogeymen still have access to Hold Person at 3/day to use against creatures they cannot terrify and Suggestion at will to manipulate them so they’re not ENTIRELY helpless against Paladins; keep that in mind if you’re going fey-hunting!

As a closing note, it’s a little funny to me that Bogeymen don’t actually have Darkvision, so their at-will Darkness--which would otherwise be an excellent tool to get in more Sneak Attacks--is just as much and impediment to them as it is to everyone else. It’s also extremely ironic that they’re not immune to fear effects, so any telepathic creature that succeeds against their Phantasmal Killer can turn it back around against them, potentially killing them with their own ability!

You can read more about them here.

[seth-whumps]

Whumperless Whump Event Day 6

Heatstroke - whumpee Morrigan - 1086 words

CW: Suicide mission (for humans. Morrigan is a robot)

--

Their systems are top of the line technology. Their body is functionally the best possible piece of mechanical engineering it can be. They have bones stronger than a human’s, hearing as good as a cat’s, eyesight as sharp as an eagle’s and detailed as an artist’s. They are built to be factual and logical, to attack and defend, and to overcome and endure any obstacle in their way.

Morrigan is a machine built to endure.

The Cages have learned this. The heroes “above the peasants”, as JJ calls them, have taken advantage of this fact.

This is why Morrigan is alone on a case. Because only they can endure it. Only they can.

In front of them is a doorway made out of heat-resistant steel. It bears a handle similar to something on a submarine or large metal ship–a lock that requires turning to push open, a release of pressure to contain what’s inside. They’re not programmed to feel apprehension, but they’ve long since disregarded that after JJ explained how emotions work.

Morrigan carefully pulls back the skin on their hand. The metal below is strong and silicon based. The synthetic skin will melt upon contact.

They place their metal palm on the door handle and push, hard.

It begins.

They don’t have as much time as the Cages would predict. Silicon is resistant to high heats only to prevent warping of the skeleton, but the rest of them is a patchwork of materials very easily disabled after high or extended exposure. So when the door opens, they run.

The heat chamber is simple, its contents protected within the safe in the center, its defense an overwhelming wave of painfully hot air that scorches the moment they enter, but they are built to endure and they are not one to deny purpose in exchange for weakness, so to the safe they go.

Morrigan presses their metal palm into the safe, feels its inner workings, and pushes a slight magnetic force into their fingertips. It takes time to manipulate a lock this complex. It takes precious time they do not have. They have a job to do. 

Finally, with a heavy clunk, the safe opens. They snatch the box within, turn back to the door, and slam into it just as it closes, its automatic lock shut down.

Oh, irony.

They touch their ear. A habit built for a cover they do not need, because right now they need to leave. “Cavalry, I am trapped.”

“Immediate recall or rescue infiltration? Journey is outside the building. Are you functional?”

“Functional. The door is shut. I need someone to turn the handle again, it’s pressurized.” For good reason. 

“Journey is approaching your location. Don’t die, Morrigan.”

Cavalry’s voice disconnects. They don’t feel abandoned. She’s busy. There are multiple teams under her jurisdiction and she has many duties to perform within them–and she’s also still right there in their ear for assistance the moment it goes more wrong than it already has. 

They’re rambling. It’s warm.

A heat chamber consists of multiple layers of highly resistant metal and airlocks surrounding one fully pressurized room, where every atom of oxygen and air is moved swiftly to create constant motion, constant heat. Temperatures rise over time. They are built to withstand. Silicon is resistant up to two hundred degrees.

The chamber acts like an air fryer. Even after the door opened, it’s rising to its intended five hundred degrees.

They will not last long.

Morrigan pulls back all of the synthetic skin on their body to prevent extra enclosed heat. Their cooling systems are already in overdrive. Every breath feels like fire. 

“Morrigan, I’m at your location,” Journey says. “Which door?”

“Left. Submarine door.” Their voice has a whine to it now, a high pitched squeal to protest the fans in overdrive and the whistling of any air transmitted as it grows hotter and hotter against their metal casings. “Hurry.”

The airlock door clunks. Morrigan has just enough time to put their skin back on before collapsing into JJ’s arms.

“Jesus, oh my god–” 

They hit the ground and curl up instinctively. “Too long in the oven,” they say by way of example, hoping it explains the boiling feeling inside. 

“Yeah, you sure fucking feel like it. Can you walk? I can’t carry you, you’re like a thousand degrees.” Journey kneels in front of them. “Hey. Where’s your mind at?”

The now cold air is almost too much to handle. They pull themselves to their feet, struggling to keep upright. Everything is warm and cold and it’s… horrible. They would have a better explanation if it weren’t for how horrible everything was.

It doesn’t matter. They have a job to do. They have to complete it.

On unsteady legs, they push forward. “Not done yet,” they whisper, and their voice has a whistle to it, higher pitched, pressurized, a warning. They breathe. “Out first. Then…”

Journey pushes them out of the airlock. “Go. You’re cooling down, lean on me, look like you’re drunk.”

The act is not hard. Journey isn’t a half-bad actor either. He guides them through the halls, up an elevator, out the door, to the mission base like it’s nothing, all half supporting Morrigan, who cannot really tell what’s happening. It’s not a great experience, to be led through several minutes and be unable to differentiate each one.

“Sit,” Journey orders. “Take off your skin, or something, you’re still boiling–”

“‘S scary,” they try to say, but something in their larynx has jumbled itself under the heat. JJ’s eyes are stern and unfaltering.

They once again retract their skin, keeping their gaze on the ground. It’s so hard to think through the whistling in their mind, the flashes of cold, the changes. It’s wrong. 

“You’ll be okay,” JJ whispers. He kneels again. “It’ll take time, but there’s nothing else I can do except be here. Yeah?”

Morrigan nods through the fog. Clasps their metal exposed hands together. Their eyes flutter shut, systems giving way to pull power into the fans and cooling. It will take time. The errors beneath their eyelids are relaxing. They are built to endure. They withstood it. They completed the mission. That is all that matters.

Before stasis takes over, they hear JJ’s voice grow venomously angry. There must be someone else in the room. Morrigan doesn’t mind. They’re safe to rest. But the conversation just barely catches their remaining hearing as they rest–

“None of you are never, ever, sending them into hell alone like that again.”

--

morrigan i am so sorry i promise i love you. i will continue to hurt you. i still love you. also protective JJ finally starts to show his face!!

[rstarsims3]

Get to know you - Sims Style

Thank your for tagging me, @daniel-fortesque & @bast-sims

What’s your favorite Sims death?

None (hate it when it happens); the most frequent one in my gameplays is the old age one.

Alpha CC or Maxis Match?   A mix between the two, it depends how well the CC matches the game's art style.

Do you cheat your sims weight? Not really; what I cheat is how muscular my female sims are as I play a lot the Acrobat career in TS3 Showtime and my girls bulk up too fast and too much.

Do you move objects? Ever since I learned about this particular (and very useful) cheat, yes.

Favorite Mod? Most of the Nraas mods, all of @thesweetsimmer111 fabulous baby/toddler mods and also small ones to correct some stuff in the game (like No Mascot Camera Zoom, No Autonomous Gaming, Autonomous Wash Hands After Toilet Use, Zoom-In CaS Camera, etc)

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? World Adventures.

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing?   aLIVE  

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? A lot of them, for different reasons.

Selena Noble - a ballerina (now an acrobat) with no moral compass. But I think she's cute so she's my muse for the balletcore collection.

Lin Young - my fearless adventurer.

Riley Preston - my talented artist.

Hope London - my dedicated gardener.

These three: Mel Hada, Ren Akiba & Jace White (aka Yasu Sato). They are the MCs from "Uncertainty".

I don't have pics of them right now, but I also have to mention: Sasha Azarov, Daichi & Rei Sato, Ayanna Sato, Sebastian DeLuca.

Have you made a simself? The first sim I ever made was a simself. It did not go well.

Which is your favorite EA hair color? None; since it's TS3 I mix them according to my characters.

Favorite EA hair? Not really using the EA hairs usually, but I'd choose the Playful Updo from Late Night.

Favorite life stage? I play a lot the YA & A life stages, but also enjoy all the other ones.

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?  I'm in for everything the game has to offer: gameplay, building, CAW, CC creation.

Are you a CC creator? Yup.

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I wouldn't say a squad, but I do have people here that I admire and like to interact with.

Do you have any sims merch? Nope.

Do you have a  YouTube for sims? Yes (as I'm an ex-machinima creator), but these days I'm only using it when I have animations to share.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? In every possible way. I put a lot more thought into my builds (and worlds), my sims no longer look like aliens (I used to make them have these big anime eyes) and my gameplays are more wish-based than ever.

Who’s your favorite CC creator? So many of them since I'm a big CC hoarder. As Daniel said, everyone who brings something to this game is a champion and deserves accolades.

But to mention only a few, I'd say @simtanico for their high quality items, @enable--llamas for the awesome furniture, ArtVitalex & Onyxium over at TSR who both still create furniture for TS3, Bill-Sims also at TSR, @sim-songs here on Tumblr for their conversions, @technicallyswagpizza for their amazing plants (and tutorials that taught me a lot), @yorithesims and @bmit04 for poses; @maryjanesims3 & @agnelid for hair default replacements, and so many more. Sorry, I can't remember everyone right now.

How long have you had Simblr? Since January 2019.

How do you edit your pictures? For more aesthetic pics I use Reshade and PS (although I don't remember ever posting these types of pics), but I usually just slightly adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation and exposure in PS as I love the TS3's default art style (I'm just spicing it up a little).

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite? Kinda all of the expansion packs?! Mainly Seasons, World Adventures, Late Night, Island Paradise, Generations. Also love all the functional store content and worlds.

Tagging:  @technicallyswagpizza @chojrak-making-things @agnelid @murfeelee @simtanico @puffkins2000 @yorithesims @enable–llamas @solori @pudding-parade @faerielandsims @jazzysimlife @tiaamorosa @lordressdragoonbear @thesweetsimmer111 @bmit04 @maryjanesims3 @nornities

Feel free to ignore if not interested or have done this before! 😁😘

[its-ticsticstics]

hi there :] i'm not sure if you're still active, but if you are, i had a couple questions about some things? i'm sorry in advance if any of my questions are insensitive or if i seem uneducated, i just don't know where to look for answers and despite my academic experience i'm awful at navigating scientific research articles lmao, so i figured i'd go straight to someone who has experience with these kinds of things yknow?

anyway, what is tourettic ocd? i discovered the term today and went down a little research rabbithole and it seems to align with a lot of the experiences i have that i just figured were symptoms of classic ocd (i'm not diagnosed with ocd, but it has been something i have been wanting to talk to my therapist about, but there's only so much you can cover in an hour every other week lol). is it a subtype of tourettes or a subtype of ocd or just its own thing? is it something purely neurological? i've seen a couple people say tourettic ocd is just tourettes, but that was on reddit so i don't completely trust that lmao. i was just really curious about it because the feelings and experiences described in what i read really resonated with me and aligns a lot with how i've felt while doing my rituals and compulsions since i first started developing what i believe are ocd symptoms years ago.

ALSO this is completely unrelated but can coprolalia develop from exposure to content containing explicit language? i ask this because my little brother has tourettes and even though he's 13 my mother shields him from a lot of explicit stuff and she will get upset and me and my other siblings if we accidentally expose him to stuff with cursing even if it's because he's eavesdropping or reading our phones over our shoulders. is this something she even needs to be concerned about? i ask this because she shelters him a lot because he's mid to high support needs and i'm concerned for his social development as someone who is neurodivergent and low support needs and still struggled with social things. i don't want him to suffer like i did, as dramatic as that sounds.

sorry for the long ask, and i'm sorry if i'm not very clear with my wording or questions, and if you answer thank you so much :)

Hey there!

So, Tourettic OCD isn't actually in the DSM-5 or the IDC-11 but there's research being done to identify TOCD as its own separate etiology from both just Tourettes and just OCD.

The symptoms recognized at the moment as TOCD include an earlier age of onset than seen in children who only have OCD, but a later age of onset of tics compared to children with pure Tourettes syndrome. In TOCD the tics are often prompted by a need to repeat actions or vocalizations until they feel 'just right' or have been done a set number of times. Typically those with TOCD have compulsions and rituals surrounding symmetry, repetition, and touching and tapping rather than compulsive handwashing and obsessive thoughts that more commonly characterize classical OCD.

Most interesting, there's a cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) pathway connection in both OCD and Tourettes and the research implicates this pathway contributing to TOCD.

Since the research is ongoing, this is a complex topic but here's the most recent research on the subject if you'd like to read more yourself (x)

As for coprolalia, less than 10% of those with Tourettes have this particular type of tic and exposure to swearing definitely does not 'cause' someone with tourettes to develop coprolalia tics. Of course, those who already have coprolalia can be triggered by hearing swearing, but otherwise, there shouldn't be a need to worry :)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I am kinda surprised that people overlook Sebek and somewhat Silver despite a lot of content that we have gotten for the two through the story, events and card stories. Maybe I am reading more into the characters then most would but idk i find them very interesting. I would love to know your opinion if you have one about them being overlooked? /gen

I've sporadically talked about this topic in a number of posts, so I'll reiterate those thoughts and try to expand on them here.

It's not exactly a secret that some characters are more popular than others, it's just how it works. Part of the reason why some characters are more beloved than others is simply because of exposure. It's mostly the dorm leaders that appear in marketing and in merch releases, so the dorm leaders as a group are popular. Another part of it is the hype; Malleus, despite not showing up for large chunks of the main story, is still extremely popular due to how his reveal has been steadily built up in the story and alluded to via other characters.

Silver and Sebek get neither of those boons; being non-dorm leaders, they feature in far fewer marketing materials, and being members of the final dorm in the game, there was scarce content of them for the first 2 years of TWST JP. It was only around the 3rd year and/or the beginnings of episode 7 that they started getting a sufficient amount of new content. The power of the main story is tantamount here: most players will read the main story because that is what is the most well-known and accessible content in the game. Far fewer players will play events (which are limited time and require tedious gameplay) or seek out vignettes (which, again, are limited or may not have a translation out yet). Think about the roles they have in the main story as well: we see Malleus and Lilia play small but significant parts, often giving advice or providing useful exposition. All Sebek and Silver do in the main story (at least up until episode 7) is wander around looking for Malleus. It doesn't give either of them a chance to shine, and as a result they just come off as boring and/or one-note bodyguards. It's only players that were already curious about Sebek and Silver who will actively seek their stuff out and see the full extent of their characters (this is the "reading more into the characters" that the Anon is unintentionally referencing), not the players who just follow along in the main story. This is likely why Sebek and Silver are often overlooked. If you don't go out of your way to look for content that features them, you're left with only a surface-level understanding of who they are. The disinterest only further compounds due to how long it took for episode 7 to come out. It creates a general preconceived notion of, "Silver is the sleepy prince-like one, and Sebek is the loud, rude Malleus fan boy, and that's it" and an unwillingness to delve beyond that. You don't get to see their highs and their lows, their cute sides and their petty sides, which all come out in the bonus content--content which not everyone will have seen or will have the ability to see, unlike that of the main story.

It's easy to ignore Silver and Sebek when you have a metric butt ton of other characters already introduced before them and given far more screen time than they have. But in reality, there's a lot more to the duo than what meets the eye. (This is true of every TWST character if one makes the effort to learn more about them!) Silver and Sebek just ended up with the short end of the stick when it comes to timing and roles in the main story 💦

[oldxenomorph]

unmask, night

pairing: nyx/the reaper emperor warnings: gore, sexual content (tentacles, voyeurism, nyx being a soft dom, nyx feeding the emperor gore). 18+ summary: successor to devourment / for @bodysnatch3r

“It will be a very long night for you, Extinction.”

--

Another cycle has come to pass.

(The doors in the Dark Tower are closed. The Oceanview Motel has locked the door with the crimson eye and the door with the upright black triangle.)

Nyx watches as the Emperor closes the distance between her and the wretched man. This room deep within the Ziggurat, ankle-high redness, thick and partially liquid, partially coagulated. A veil separates the goddess from the rest of the room as she lounges on a klinai, its frame made from the black metal of the Old Machines. The thrum of the building amplifies in her space, the sound of the Emperor’s hunger, her stomach opening up to readily welcome the thing that was grown just for her.

The room is humid. The mixture of the dark, heavy air and the Emperor’s presence creates an oppressive atmosphere, it makes the room airless. Extinction towers over the wretched thing, her red eyes and red scars searing through the haze, nuclear fusion burning hydrogen, stars rotting, aging, bloating; she vivisects him, she has already begun to eat him from the inside out, the red light slides inside him. Tentacles emerge from the gore, creating curtains of viscera and sheets of dark red; his variations of drowned flesh and parts pulsate in time with the building’s thrum, weeping fluid into the great pool of red. Nyx’s starlight eyes, the gold color of main sequence stars, pierce through the vapor of innards and parts from countless cycles.

Wet and red coated tentacles curl around the man’s middle, dragging him towards her, gravity trapping him in her presence. Eager to break him open, to slide into his chest cavity, deep into the soft, cramped space between his organs. Inevitable and inescapable.

The Emperor opens her mouth, her black teeth wet with annihilation.

“She eats him because he my gift to her.” The Crawling Chaos says, his voicing coming from the darkness behind the goddess. He leans down, his sharp smile hear her ear. He does not wear one of his many forms, he comes to her in the shape given to him by his parent. “That does not mean you simply have to sit here and watch, O Night.”

Bones crack, the man’s ribcage broken open by the Emperor’s tentacles. Steam rises from the wounds she creates, his insides made hot by their internal heat, organs neatly cradled in the primordial warmth of tissue and fat and muscle. The black tar that leaks and drips from her mouth eats away at him like acid before her teeth sink into the tender meat of his neck. The thing laughs, sick with madness and hatred; wretched and red teeth hissing and refracting from the exposure to the Ziggurat. (The building hates him, it keeps him trapped in here, in this dark, wet, suffocating room.)

The Emperor’s fingers form a fist in his hair, holding him still, pulling him to wherever she needs him so she can eat him the way she wants. The red within him bursts when she sinks her teeth into new areas, when her tentacles push deeper into his writhing guts. She pulls him closer as his ruined voice chants UNMASK, UNMASK, UNMASK as his hands grip her arms, as his nails chip and shatter against her biomechanical exterior.

The man turns his half-eaten face towards the veiled section of the room, looking directly at the pinpoints of starlight. His brown and grey hair dipping into the blood as Extinction pulls him apart. (He taunts the Night, goads her, smiles impossibly wide with soaked red teeth and wild eyes.) Tar grows inside her mouth to match the hunger in her stomach, it oozes, it coats everything within her, prepares her for more. Tentacles wrap around him, holding him tightly as she leans over him, her hands and long talons reaching into his solar plexus, deep into his gut, fingers tightening around his liver, his intestines. She forces him to look at her.

“I wear no mask,” the Emperor says, her voice crushingly deep, cold and all-consuming. The thing’s insides hiss when they make contact with the rings of her authority: the black metal of the Old Machines, the black jade from the Oldest House. (Even in its sickly state, it loves her, it love her. The Hiss metastasizes like a cancer in the Oldest House, and still the building calls out to the Emperor, it yearns to see her face again.) His innards writhe against her the ring of her matrimony, the ancient starless sky opening a hole in his brain.

The Emperor’s mouth fills itself with meat in perpetual motion, writhing and screaming horrors grown between the sections of fat and flesh, things that burst with red and bile when her teeth sink into them. She breaks him open again, her mouth eating its way through to his heart as his head and neck hang, held by tendons and ropes of veins and nerves tangled in his spine.

Watching through the veil, Nyx thinks of all the people and things she would like to see the Emperor break open and eat, and eat, and eat. Her own impatience grows within her, impatience and desire. Churning in dark space between her own organs is the thought of having Extinction all to herself, telling her who she should devour. She imagines the Emperor’s hands, wet and tacky with golden ichor, the flesh and atoms of lesser gods being obliterated in her mouth and stomach during Earth’s final hours.

In the dark of her heart, Nyx imagines the Emperor eating Chronos. When she looks at the thing the Crawling Chaos grew, her starlight eyes replace his image with that of the Titan’s. Perhaps that is her own rage, her own desire for revenge that has sat within her for millennia, a taste for violence that she has always pushed down within her. Nyx looks at the Emperor’s hands and imagines them crackling with violet dark energy as they apply newtons of force to the Titan’s face, caving it in; she envisions her wife’s hands breaking open the rest of his form and reaching into his body to pull out everything within him. She imagines Extinction eating Time, the immensity of her gravity crushing him as she eats and eats and eats.

The Night’s elegant face remains impassive, but her chest rises and falls as she breaths deeply.

Nyarlathotep hums. A sound like a smile within a smile, a laugh within a laugh, whispers within whispers.

“Feed her, O Night. He is here for you to break as well.” As he speaks, multiple sets of his many hands reach around the Night Incarnate. They touch the skulls on her necklace, they settle on the concave curves of her pauldrons, they trace the shape of the bat-like wings that hover near her, they smooth underneath ribbon of lilac silk that levitates around her, they cup around the cluster of stars near her crown. “I have grown such delights in his vessel, things only for the Precious Emperor to eat.”

Nyx watches the Emperor gorge herself on the man. Blood gushes from her mouth as her teeth sever veins and capillaries and arteries, it coats her lowers face, her hands, her tentacles. Blood soaks her neck and her chest, red and wet even in the darkness, drenched in that thick liquid that gives life, that she devours, that spurts every time her teeth sink into him, breaking into him, tearing him apart. Vantablack hair slips from her shoulders. The room grows hotter.

A tightness grows within the Night, desire coils deep within her, a heat in her core and in her gut; a tightness that is almost unbearable, she feels it spread. Nyx looks at the Emperor covered in blood, watches her eat this thing grown specifically for her, and thinks how much she wants to fuck her. The sight awakens the Night’s hunger for Extinction, her wife. Insatiable, unending.

One of Nyarlathotep’s hands reaches around the goddess, long fingers unfurling to gently hold her face by the chin as he leans closer to her. “You should unmask, O Night.” 

Unmask. Unmask. Unmask.

The impassive face Nyx always wears, the role of ancient mother and house overseer that she still plays; she has pushed down eons of cravings because she deemed them a distraction. Nyx watches the Emperor eat, her body and tentacles drenched in red and black, and she desires, she yearns, she lusts. To have the Emperor in her arms, to run her hands through her hair, to possess her completely. The Emperor will do anything for her, she belongs to her, only her.

Nyx rises from the klinai, the Crawling Chaos letting her go, and parts the veil. She is unbothered by the ankle-high blood, uncaring that the hem of her violet dress is now soaked with ancient, fermenting red.

Tentacles emerge from the darkness around her, midnight and full of stars. They wrap around the thing sliding over the Emperor’s oil black ones, taking his ruined body from her, and they tighten. A wave of Nyx’s hand and she summons another klinai, the Ziggurat allowing it to come into existence, metal and royal and violet. In the heavy haze from steam rising from fluid and gore, the Night Incarnate’s eyes of starlight meet the Emperor’s eyes of stellar death. Nyx can see the vibrations in her wife’s eyes, stars on the very brink of being crushed, being eaten; when she observes her pupils more closely, they are black holes and the red brightness around them are accretion disks. Even in the Emperor’s eyes, she devours.

As much Nyx would love to put her hands on her, to hold her face, to kiss her, to claim her, she withholds for now. There is more pleasure to be had feeding her wife, in having her submit herself to her. Tentacles hold the thing in place as the goddess takes out his right eye. Beautiful lavender nails and cold, pale, slender fingers easily sinking into his eye socket. Within a single motion, the Night pulls out the ocular organ, ripping the optic nerve that connects it to his brain.

With the eye in her hand, Nyx approaches the Emperor. A smile forms on her painted violet lips as she places her free hand on the entity’s chest and wordlessly commands her to sit on the klinai. The Emperor does so, without question, her own tentacles wrapping around the legs of the furniture as her great form sits. The thing’s fate is now in the Night’s hands, his annihilation now controlled by she who was the dark at the beginning of everything, she who will be the dark after the end of everything. Nyx slips her hand underneath the Emperor’s chin, holding her as she places the eye at the entity’s lips. “Eat for me, O Extinction.”

The Emperor obeys. Her mouth opens and wet, black tentacles emerge, seeking that which is in her wife’s hand; they seek his eye, they seek everything it contains. Nyx feeds her the way the way one feeds their lover an oyster. She watches with great interest the way the Emperor tentacles wrapping around the small organ, holding it in place, enveloping it with the total absence of light and sound as it is crushed by black teeth. The Emperor eats his eye the way she would eat a star.

Black leaks from the great entity’s mouth, the material mixes with the red, eating the red. Now that she is close to her, Nyx can see how the violet darkness of the earrings the Emperor wears pulsate in time with the viscera around her, darkness that pulses with the event horizon of the black hole in her chest, violet that pulses with an insatiable desire to have the goddess, to kiss her and worship her and obey her and fill her.

“What do you want to eat?” The goddess asks. One of Nyx’s tentacles traces the line of the Emperor’s jaw. She adores the way her wife leans into its touch, wet mouth slightly agape, breathing deeply. Another one of Nyx’s tentacles does the same to the other side of the Emperor’s jaw, until they hold her in place, snaking into her vantablack hair to cradle the base of her skull. A deep sound leaves the Emperor, more black material dripping past her lips; her eyes swarm with pleasure, vibrating, buzzing with noise from the feeling of being touched by the Night. Through her own growing lust, she responds, her voice filling the room.

“His heart. His brain. His liver.”

Three parts of his soul.

The Night hums. “You’ve done all the hard work for me.” Nyx’s tentacles wrap around the Emperor, they slip around her middle, they follow the biomechanical nature of her body, sliding up the valley of technology and darkness that is her sternum. They weave with her own tentacles and pull her arms back, holding them in place, keeping them captive. They slip between her legs, following down the strangeness of her hips and up her powerful thighs, they bring her to a low, dull ache. The Emperor does not resist, rather she readily accepts being held and touched and restrained by her wife’s tentacles, so long as she can eat; her mouth opens, letting out a deep-toned sound and drooling black tar, thick black liquid oozing with hunger and arousal. A smile graces the painted lips of the Night Incarnate as she took in the sight before her. “I get to enjoy watching you eat.”

Tentacles make short work of removing the thing’s liver and splitting it in two pieces, the right and the left. Nyx holds the smaller of the two halves. As the Night feeds the Emperor the liver-meat, black tentacles seek to curl around her slender fingers, desperately wanting to feel them amongst the wet blackness. A soft sound is extracted from the depths of the Emperor’s chest as Nyx pulls her fingers away just as they make contact.

“You may touch me after you have eaten everything,” Nyx says, playful and loving and devious all at once.

“Yes, my goddess,” the Emperor replies.

The Night pulls apart the organ again, fluid and blood gushing from its tissue, raw and fresh. Her hands are now drenched in red, beautiful and pale hands adorned with rings and jewelry now coated in the liquid that once pumped through his body, the material that gave him life. It, too, hisses and refracts and screams against her fingers, against her rings, against her nails. The man’s liver is a thing of hate, malignant, one third of his soul and ripened by the hand of the Crawling Chaos. She feeds the Emperor the offal and watches as it slips into her mouth, as the black tentacles wrap around it and squeeze it as black teeth and gravity pulverize it.

“Good,” she says in a pleased tone, rewarding the great entity with praise as she feeds her another piece, and another, and another. The Emperor obediently eats it all, with great enthusiasm, eager to ingest whatever her wife gives her.

The atmosphere of the room grows headier, heavier, more humid as the Emperor eats the last of the thing’s liver. Nyx’s tentacles continue to indulge themselves in the entity’s biomechanical body, as they maintain that low ache ache within her. Nyx can feel her own desire coil tightly in her gut as the Emperor’s mouth part to let out another sound and another gush of black exits her mouth, down her chin; the entity rocks her hips against her wife’s tentacles, desperate for friction.

“Do not spoil your appetite, my beautiful Emperor,” the goddess softly reprimands.

“Yes, my goddess,” the Emperor’s abyssal voice is deeper, heavier as she stills her hips. A low sound leaves her as Nyx’s tentacles touch her in a particular way, a reward.

It is a wondrous sight, the Great Lord of Extinction so pliant and ready to obey the Night Incarnate. The red in her eyes vibrate with desire, with love. It was just a short time ago that the Emperor was full of violence, brutally breaking the thing open, enjoying his pain and his madness because it pleased her, because that was his ultimate purpose: to feed her, to entertain her, the Crawling Chaos continues his unending existence in various forms because it all comes down to this in the end. Nyx’s eyes study the great entity and her state of being; she wonders if her wife planned this, to have his three-part soul fed to her, to bring her into this ritual because she once expressed that she wanted to watch.

Nyx is part of this now. The Emperor wants her to be part of this. Nyx wants to be part of this from now on.

(Nyarlathotep is pleased by this development.)

The brain is removed and spare tendrils of darkness emerge to help the goddess break apart the hemispheres and the other parts at its base. They separate each lobe of each side, while Nyx goddess gently holds the Emperor’s jaw as she feeds her the cerebellum. Underneath her fingertips, she can feel the structure underneath her wife’s skin move, opening to allow black tentacles to emerge and help Nyx bring it into her mouth, all while obeying her command to refrain from touching her. The Night continues to wear her smile as her hand leaves the Emperor’s face.

Lobe by lobe, Nyx feeds the Emperor the thing’s brain. The goddess watches the entity savor the annihilation of the second part of the thing’s soul, brain-flesh ripened by the Dark Tower.

“You’re doing so well, my beautiful Emperor.” Nyx’s ethereal voice, old as the universe, rewards her wife, her praise causes thick, viscous black tar to ooze from the entity’s mouth again. One set of her endless tentacles carefully remove the thing’s heart, the other set continues to touch the Emperor. They both slide into dark spaces, one sinks into an awaiting chest cavity to obtain that fist-sized red price, one sinks into Extinction, opening her up for the Night Incarnate, preparing her for what is to come after the ritual. Nyx controls the Emperor’s arousal, raising the dull ache of desire to a heated lust, intensified by the humidity of the room, sustained by anticipation. Deep within her, Nyx feels the same. There is a exhilaration to it all, of being in control, of feeding the Emperor, of watching her devour, of being the one who makes her ache, of being her obsession, her love.

(I know what you are, Eternal Night. You are just as greedy as she is, the thing laughs. Greedy, greedy, greedy. I know you let your mind wander, I know you think of her more than you think of your children. I know how you want her, how you dominant her, how you claim her. There is a sickness in his laugh, a madness, crimson and echoing across cycles and worlds. Show your Reaper Queen just how possessive you are. I am the ritual to lead you on. Unmask, Night.)

The Night Incarnate holds the thing’s heart in both her hands. It is smaller than her own heart, fitting neatly in her palms. Slowly beating, the last third of his soul. The heart remembers, it is a container. Once it is devoured by the Emperor, the ritual will end and the cycle will begin again. It is one of many ways Extinction maintains the universe, across and beyond space and time. Nyx looks down at the Emperor, her smile unmoving, her face keeping its serene expression even while her desire grows, tight and condensed and hot like the core of a star.

“You serve me, O Reaper Emperor. Tell me how you worship me.”

The Emperor answers without hesitation, her abyssal voice made deeper by her current state. “Everything I devour is for you, O Night. I eat whatever you want me to eat.” Her eyes are full of bliss, the joy of submission to the Night Incarnate, her wife. “I will annihilate whatever you want me to annihilate. I exist for your pleasure, I exist to bring you pleasure. I am yours, completely. You are mine, O Night. My Empress, my goddess.”

She says all the words Nyx loves to hear. Devotion, submission. Extinction gives herself to the Night Incarnate; her mouth is open and expecting, drooling, even as she adjusts her hips to allow Nyx’s tentacles to sink deeper into her. The violet smile the goddess wears grows a little wider, displaying her approval, her pride, her own joy in her work.

A soft hum leaves Nyx as she moves closer to the Emperor. “You are exquisite when you are like this, my love.” One of her hands reaches towards the entity, tracing the line of her jaw until her fingers hold her by the chin once again. “Open for me, Extinction. Eat for me.”

The Emperor opens her mouth and wet black tentacles emerge again, gripping and wrapping around the heart, bringing it to her. Her dark material floods the organ, turning it from life’s red to oil black, the gravity of her darkness already crushing it as it passes the event horizon. Her black teeth sink into the flesh, drinking the blood the floods her mouth, even if some of it spills onto her chest. Nyx guides her jaw, helps her devour the organ, commands her when to open her mouth wider and when to apply pressure, pulverize. The Emperor’s tentacles twist themselves around Nyx’s, the one that restrain her; they twist and tighten as the Emperor leans forward, closer to her wife, so she could easily consume the heart, leaning forward in hot, aching want. Starlight eyes watch her, fixating in the black tentacles from her mouth that pull the organ into her mouth, little by little as she eats and eats and eats.

And then the heart is no more.

Cold, beautiful hands made red by lovingly feeding her wife, cup the Emperor’s face. Nyx’s amethyst lips claim the entity’s pitch black ones in a deep and hungry kiss, a yearning to finally have her turn at devouring her after spending all this time watching her, feeding her, preparing her.

“Such a beautiful, perfect wife, and all for me,” Nyx says, enjoying the way the Emperor melts into her touch from the praise. She commands her tentacles to remove her dress and ornamentation, the Ziggurat doing away with the silks and jewelry to the same place she shares her clothes with the Emperor’s. Even her stephane is gone, allowing her midnight black hair to fall to its actual length. The goddess runs her hand through the Emperor’s beautiful, long, vantablack hair and pulls her closer, finally granting her permission to touch her, gently releasing her from her tentacles. “You’ve been very good. And you’ve eaten everything.”

The Emperor’s hands immediately filled themselves with the soft flesh of Nyx’s thighs as she worships her wife’s body. Black lips leave the black and red imprints of lipstick and blood on Nyx’s thighs, on her stomach. Slender fingers sink into the Emperor’s hair, cradling the back of her head, guiding her to where Nyx wants to feel her mouth; pulling her up so she could leave her markings all over her breasts, all over her neck. The Night’s tentacles coax out the entity’s arousal, lovingly continue to sustain its ache, their attention eliciting low sounds, black and scarred lips agape against’s the goddess’s skin as she feels herself throb. “My Nyx…..” Abyssal, teeth-rattling machine baritone. Nyx loves that sound more than anything, especially when its her name in her wife’s mouth, her name being caressed and stretched by the black tentacles in the mouth of Extinction.

Nyx gently pushes the Emperor down on the klinai as she crawls on top of her, straddling her. The entity aches between her legs, desperate, needy, lost in her own lust for the goddess, her own fullness from devouring the Crawling’s Chaos’s gift. Nyx’s tentacles continue to touch her, they go where her hands cannot. The goddess looks down at the Emperor, her hands moving up the biomechanical exterior of her wife’s chest, following every texture and ridge wet with blood and black tar. A soft sound escapes her as her wife’s hands fill themselves with her hips, moving at the same time and rate as her own hands, long and spidery fingers and sharp talons greedily running over her curves, indulging themselves in all her softness.

“It will be a very long night for you, Extinction,” the Eternal Night says, her ethereal voice heavy and sultry and punctuated by the sound she makes as she takes in all of the Emperor’s arousal.

(The ritual is complete. The corpse of the thing laughs as the variations of himself pull him down. The doors are open. A new cycle begins and the daylight does not come.)

[hexalianrebel-blackfeathers]

The Blackblood Files--Subject 023887

((REMINDER TO ALL STAFF: MAKE SURE TO CHECK THE END OF FILES FOR THE MOST RECENT NOTES.))

The Blizzard

Awareness: 1C (Appears to move instinctively toward crowded areas; makes no attempt to disguise itself beyond its form.)

Receptivity: 4B (Submits to testing easily; has an aversion to being touched, with very few exceptions. Seems to understand speech, but makes little to no effort to communicate with staff.)

Whereabouts: CONTAINED

Upon taking form, this Blackblood resembles a figure in a heavy hooded winter coat, along with layers including a thick scarf, hat, mittens, and heavy leather boots. [The scarf has a line of feathers made star shapes stitched along its center, resembling Hexalia’s Mark and implying that its neck is a weak spot it’s protecting; it is important to note that the host The Blizzard is controlling does not share a matching Mark, nor a Mark on their neck at all. Research is still being conducted to confirm or deny working theories.] It never makes an effort or shows desire to remove any of these accessories, and it grows agitated when it perceives any outside attempts to do so. The body underneath, if any, is impossible to see aside from occasionally glowing eyes.

The Blizzard exudes an aura of intense cold which it controls with apparently effortless skill. Even in artificial high-heat conditions, it is able to render its surroundings to near arctic conditions, as well as appearing comfortable despite temperature changes. As the epicenter of this aura, it keeps aggressors away by quite literally freezing them out. Observation and testing have shown that it is fully capable of manipulating the size and barometrics of its aura. This is to say, wherever it goes, The Blizzard is able to lower the temperature enough to cause localized snow flurries. There is debate among research groups on whether to classify this ability as true weather manipulation or simply a summon. [Addendum: Observation has shown that as trust is built with the Blizzard, it will allow certain others close enough to touch it. It seems particularly fond of being hugged. Reports made state that its touch is actually warm despite its cold aura being inches away.] 

Its method of hunting, if one can call it that, is…contrived, to say the least. Upon its initial rediscovery, we set it loose on a small city nearby. It seemed content to wander aimlessly, mostly avoiding interacting with others. But its aura was spreading the entire time, and within 72 hours, the entire city (and approximately 2 miles into surrounding areas) was blanketed by strange-colored clouds and covered in unseasonable snow. While most of said snow was normal water, researchers observed certain flurries that appeared in odd colors: a sort of mix of purple and green breezes within the fog of white. Observations and the few conversations with civilians has revealed that these flurries consist of some sort of ice magic--a crystalized potion, we believe--that blends into snow by resembling snowflakes. When these flakes come in contact with skin, the potion quickly melts and causes a ticklish sensation that only spreads based on how much exposure the victim has. We have observed instances of children and teenagers pushing each other into snowbanks and being rendered immobile with laughter as the snow melts into their coats. The Blizzard, apparently, does not necessarily need to be near victims when they’re laughing, so long as they remain within its aura. 

With painstaking effort, samples of snow were collected and specimens of these snowflakes were isolated. Researchers have nicknamed them “Feather Flakes” for ease of reference in files; they need to be kept at subzero temperatures when outside of the Blizzard’s aura to maintain crystalized structure, and, despite resembling snowflakes, each of them appear identical. From over 200 specimens inspected under magnification, only one shape has been identified: a sort of six-petaled flower, with each petal slightly resembling the feathers stitched into the Blizzard's scarf. [Addendum: Research and Development has managed to create a concentrated Feather Flake potion. DO NOT INGEST under any circumstance. Experiments are still being conducted at varying levels of dilution.] 

The Blizzard only begins to show active hostility after reaching a “starved” state. After two weeks of constant, isolated containment, the Blackblood showed signs of restlessness. When test prey was offered, it suddenly attacked by exhaling a focused blast of cold air apparently consisting mostly of its Feather Flakes. When its hunger was sated, its behavior became nervous, as if it were regretful of its actions. This was the first recorded instance of the Blizzard initiating physical contact; it hugged its prey close until its potion wore off and their laughter subsided. It is unknown if its embrace reduced the needed recovery time; further testing is planned. [Addendum: Due to recent discoveries, the Blizzard is no longer permitted to have close physical contact with certain staff members. Those newly assigned are advised not to indulge its requests for attention.] [Addendum 2: If she whispers, you are to ignore her pleas.]

NOTICE TO ALL ASSIGNED STAFF: Be advised that this file is slated to be locked and archived indefinitely. Please turn in any personally-kept notes and report final observations on this Blackblood before its relocation.

Final Conditions:

Awareness: 4A (Reportedly capable of speech. Openly expresses emotion and seeks fulfilment aside from hunting.) 

Receptivity: 3A (Still submits to commands and testing, but openly shows fear of certain staff members. Reports show failed attempts to conspire with its original handlers. Likely developing distrust and potentially attempting to deceive newer staff. Relocation is advised to be expedited.)

==========

Amalgamate #7: The Whiteout

Components: The Blizzard // The Tagger

Awareness: 3B (Performs strategic hunting tactics without being instructed. Occasionally ignores commands in favor of instinct. Learns quickly.)

Receptivity: 3C (Standoffish with certain members of staff. Acknowledges commands of those that have built trust with it. Rarely hostile to staff. No current reports of active rebellion)

Status: Complacent // Restless // Healthy

This Amalgamate was created and implanted in The Tagger’s host in an attempt to mitigate his rebellious behavior with The Blizzard’s compliance. It was awoken from stasis with no detectable complications and sent for testing immediately. Receptivity and Recall testing showed satisfactory results. The Whiteout performed several levels of tasks on command and returned to its handlers when called, even while outside without restraints. Because of the Tagger’s Trueblood bond with its host, the Amalgamate’s form builds around his body instead of fully overshadowing him upon transformation. The Blizzard’s heavy coat has been replaced with a sort of trench coat tied tightly at the waist with The Blizzard’s scarf. The Tagger’s original hazmat-type suit can be seen underneath, and its mask, now bearing a large Feather Flake design, appears to have been fused with The Blizzard’s original hat. The Whiteout’s hands and feet are covered by thick gloves and boots respectively, both wrapped tightly at the cuffs of its sleeves and pant legs to seal out the cold.

The Whiteout’s magical abilities consist of both the Blizzard’s aura and the Tagger’s summoning capabilities, with the former having gained an exponential boost in range and power. After proper preparations, the Amalgamate was deployed into Settlement S-F-TS-4 (See: Crater). It seemed to actively avoid interactions with locals, only rarely approaching undercover staff members before avoiding them as well. Said staff members reported sightings of the Amalgamate spray painting symbols in secluded parts of the city, mostly along its borders; its paint appears white, purple, or green, but fades to visibly nothing after a few hours, as if it were snow melting to water. Supplied photos and recreations don’t match any of the Tagger’s original repertoire, but certain symbols incorporate the Blizzard’s Feather Flakes into their patterns. Researchers are assigned in groups of two to monitor the areas these symbols are placed in twice a day. As of Observation Day 4 , the Whiteout has not attempted direct attacks, and while temperatures throughout the city have been quickly declining, no active phenomena has occurred. 

Recent reports and observations have captured the Whiteout’s most basic hunting method. It tends to lure or follow prey to secluded areas at night, cornering them before using its spray cans to blast a colorful haze into their face. This gas attack is nearly identical to that of the Tagger, but the resulting reaction is much stronger, rendering victims hoarse with laughter from even small doses. [Addendum: The Whiteout was called into the local base for testing, and, through sample collection, it was confirmed that this gas is an aerosolized version of the substance Feather Flakes are made of. Based on staff testing, this version, despite being somewhat diluted, causes near full-body reactions by simply being inhaled.] The Amalgamate has been seen both abandoning its prey after subduing them and occasionally staying beside them, as if to console them before it flees. Staff has made sure to intercept any locals that recognize the Amalgamate after its attacks. Concurrent records show that the Amalgamate appears to be growing restless, wearing its mask more often and returning to areas where it has placed symbols.

As of Observation Day 10, Temperatures within the Settlement have reached the average of the Blizzard’s original aura, and its chill can reportedly be felt for miles beyond the walls. Locals have been fascinated by the falling snow, given the local climate, but rumors have been steadily increasing surrounding the Whiteout’s presence and the increase in disappearances. Several locals said to be missing are not within the custody of staff. The Amalgamate has been making itself more scarce: actively avoiding most of its handlers and other staff when they approach. Noted sightings over the past two days have included notes regarding its appearance; its clothing and accessories have all begun changing color to a stark, bright white, which has now become uniform across its entire body. For the first time since its awakening, it has painted a face on its mask: the same smile the Tagger used.

==============

The following Audio Transmissions were received and recorded overnight between Observation Days 11 and 12. Consult the provided transcript as necessary. ===== (21:13) Handler 1: This is Handler 1! We’ve lost sight of the Amalgamate! It’s not responding to its signals, and this fog is blocking the cameras. [Clothes rustle in the background; a door opens, and screams can be faintly heard] We’re heading out to find it ourselves. Visibility is already low. Requesting precautionary backup. Rendezvous with us in town square. (22:00) [Footsteps can be heard running through snow, with scattered laughter somewhere in the distance. The radio falls into the snow as someone coughs and giggles softly.] It’s the fog… [The radio is pulled back; the voice is clear aside from their growing laughter.] Don’t breathe the--[Something roars in the distance; the radio falls as the voice is lost in loud laughter.] ///////////////// (00:28) Hello? T-This is [REDACTED], Researcher 7, of the Crater Division reporting from my Residential Acc--Look, um, listen, please. I’m in my house with my thermostat pushing 90 degrees, and it’s like nothing is changing. I’ve sent in today’s--or yesterday’s?--temperature reports already, but there’s been a sudden drop. I-It’s so cold, I can’t sleep. [She laughs wryly before pausing] Ah… Oh, that isn’t… Is the Observatory seeing this? How long--I have no messages about this. It’s a complete haze outside; visibility is next to nothing, m-maybe 20 feet. I can’t even see across the road; the closest lamppost is near covered in snow and… The snow is up to the truck tires. Okay, this isn’t anything like the expected conditions; please advise. (00:40) Researcher 7: This is Researcher 7. Block 4. All of the windows are frozen shut. I’ve woken the others, and they don’t have any notice about this either. [Someone calls her name; Her voice shakes as she walks to the source.] I’ve tried to make contact with the Handlers, but no one is picking up. How long has the weather been like this?  Researcher 5: [REDACTED], I can’t find anyone on the cameras. Half of them are all snowed to hell anyway. Security 14: I’ve been going back through the feeds. It’s not good. Researcher 7: …S-Sirs. Requesting Emergency Evacuation. We’re entering a Code 5. Alert all staff. //////////////// (03:27) …This… This is [REDACTED]. I’m Security Officer 22 in the Crater, and… How long were you going to wait to tell us? Did you know? I know you won’t respond, but I want to make sure that whoever finds this knows: They were right. They were always right.

==============

As of Observation Day 20, the Whiteout’s storm has yet to subside. Surveillance equipment is only rarely picking up any sound or activity within the Crater. The Observatory’s main camera cannot pierce the layers of clouds and haze to provide data, and many of the cameras within the city have either frozen in place or become covered in snow. Video logs showed the Whiteout’s various symbols glowing brightly on the night of Day 11; many of them, those bearing the Feather Flake symbol, began emanating the fog that now fills the city streets while others apparently summoned constructs made of snow to assist the Amalgamate in hunting stragglers. Several unmanned drones have been deployed into the Crater in the days since, and, through sample testing, it’s been determined that this haze is highly diluted Feather Flake potion. All data since the storm fell was obtained remotely, as the drones were lost before they could make their way back. Of the total 30 drones sent into the Crater, none have returned. Recovered video data shows the Whiteout or its constructs descending on the drones within minutes of their arrival, regardless of their entry point, suggesting it is able to detect movement anywhere within its aura. Data also contained footage of a home with a light flickering SOS in the window.

Current orders are to maintain constant observation. Continue deploying drones into the Crater at regular intervals to collect data. Keep the Amalgamate’s attention focused until further notice.

We would like to remind all staff that we are grateful for all you do for the Prince’s cause. Your Presence, Your Loyalty, and Your Sacrifice.

=============

Panda's Notes: Hey, it's me! >w< Thanx so much if you read the whole thing; and thanx even more if you enjoyed it! I wrote this for @squealing-santa's warm-up prompt involving "Feather Flakes". Clearly, I got kind of carried away. I'm really proud of this one though, even if it is a bit more monster than tickle. >w< I hope you guys are excited for Squealing Santa!