#just making sure no one clicks this if they think it's gonna be spoiler free

[straycalamities]

Entre's 12th Anniversary Big Birthday Bash!

Alright! So I'd say in about 11 hours, we're gonna start the festivities for Entre's birthday/blog anniversary! He'll be turning [redacted] years old today! And his blog is turning 12 :) (Sorry about the short-notice. It took me this long to come up with something.)

Official start time is 12 PM (Noon) CT (UTC -5)

My plan is we start with a Magma board and have a good old fashioned draw party! If you want to check out Magma (or aggie.io as it was absorbed into Magma) ahead of time feel free to do so! You don't need an account to draw or chat, though! We'll do that for a couple of hours.

If you don't want to draw, feel free to put out prompts or suggestions for the ones that are drawing to pick up if they want! There's a chat feature in the Magma. (You click on your name on the top right to find it.)

(But, for the record, you don't need to be da Vinci to draw. Anyone can draw if they want to regardless of skill level.)

The board's limit is 30 people, and I don't think we're hitting it so feel free to pour in.

Then after that, we'll be headed to Hyperbeam to watch one of Entre's favorite movies: Inception! Unfortunately the viewer limit is 12 people so it'll be first come, first serve. :(

Of course it'll be the big guy all day and NOT me. So. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

If you can't join for whatever reason, feel free to fill his inbox with gifts/birthday wishes! I'll get to them as I can. :)

Under the readmore is the courtesy rules so that we make sure everyone has a fun time. If you break them, it's a 3-strike system (you'll get warnings) before you're banned (on the 3rd strike) from whichever location we're at. That sounds big n scary, but they're easy to follow so don't stress much about it.

Overall Rules: (For clarification on anything just ask me/Entre.) Rules with * are insta-bans and not subject to 3-strike system.

No NSFW discussion or behavior.

No bigoted or hateful behavior. *

Stay as polite and respectful as possible. Take all beef elsewhere.

No ship wars. No askblog/onceler fandom OC favoritism or hate.

No heavy negativity, heavy topics, nor inflammatory topics.

No trolling of any kind. (harmless jokes/pranks okay, but always use discretion/best judgement)

Magma Rules:

Do not draw on or edit other people's drawings in any way without explicit permission from the artist.

No NSFW imagery.

No triggering imagery. (Like the basic stuff: self-harm, gore, etc. If you have a question on what you're allowed to draw, ask me/Entre.)

Do not abuse the Magma permissions/tools. (excessively making layers, moving layers around, etc.)

Do not draw outside your area/draw all over the whole canvas. Leave ample space for everyone to have a spot.

Hyperbeam Rules:

No spoilers.

Do not spam the chat.

The movie has been chosen and there will not be a different one, if you do not like the movie choice, you do not have to join.

[noel-levine-fan]

Witch's Heart Survey Results - Sirius's Conclusion

! Please read everything and don't just skip to the results !

About a month ago, I posted a survey asking various questions about Witch's Heart. Here are the results!

Spoiler warning! Images used in this post may contain spoilers for all Witch's Heart games (except for Wilardo's conclusion). If you want to just see the results spoiler-free, click here.

This survey was posted before the English release of Wilardo's Conclusion, as such, the only Wilardo's Conclusion related response was the ability to pick Voice of Glamour as your favorite OP (because this OP released several months before the the release of the game).

I said I'd make a new version of the survey including Wilardo's Conclusion options a few weeks after the English release, however, this has been changed. I feel if the survey is too soon after this one, people will be less eager to fill out responses a second time. I also want to give Wilardo's Conclusion a while to sit in people's heads to see if any of their stances on favorite characters or ships changes. As such, I'm thinking I'll release the next survey when the OP for the next game releases. I know that will be a pretty long time, but I was thinking I'd make different versions of the survey for each conclusion (this this being Sirius's Conclusion ver... though it's pretty late for that game...), and all the game releases are gonna be pretty spaced out anyway, so why not, I suppose?

This is part one of the post! I really wanted to include images for every result, but tumblr's stupid image limit means this can only be part one. Please check the reblogs for the second and third parts.

I will ask to keep negativity out of reblogs. "X should've been higher..." "Why is X so high..." etc. Nothing inherently wrong with feeling that way, I just want this survey to be a fun positive thing! I can't stop you either way though, just a request.

Potential Biases

Because this was hosted by me, I expected preferences to be somewhat biased towards my content output. While not everyone who voted was a follower of mine, followers of mine are probably more likely to vote than non-followers, and followers of mine are probably more likely to enjoy the same things I do. It's worth noting that I am aware that just because I post about, say, Noel, a lot doesn't mean that every single one of my followers is as avid a Noel fan as I am, they may just enjoy content for every character including Noel, but avid Noel fans are probably more likely to follow me, and the people who follow me at the very least tolerate Noelposting - a Noel disliker is not likely to follow me. The same applies for pretty much everything I commonly post about. I thought I'd list out some possible result biases here.

Game Biases: I've never stated which game was my favorite, and my posts are more generally about the series than any specific game (though I did write notes on both Bonus Stage and Sirius's Conclusion for my replays of them), but I have referenced the content of Witch's Heart and Bonus Stage more than Sirius's Conclusion just because until I replayed it recently, I barely remembered anything that happened in Sirius's Conclusion lol. I don't really expect this to be a heavy bias though.

Song Biases: I've never mentioned any of the songs on my blog.

Character Biases: As you can see, I am a Noel blog, and very few of my posts aren't about Noel in some way. I also post about Noel and Sirius a lot, meaning I post about Sirius the second most. I post about Claire the third most because I'm a childhood trio enjoyer. I also like Lime, she's one of my favorites, but I'm not sure how much that comes across in my content output. I post about Dorothy more often than many others might.

Ship Biases: I'm a SiriNoel blog. I've posted about them a looot over the course of my blog in general. They're pretty much the only ship I regularly post about. I've also made a CharLime post and a ZizelClaire post, though the latter could be interpreted as not a ship post, so. I also don't post tooo much about the childhood trio together but I have a few times and I know I have at least quite a few followers who are SiriNoelClaire enjoyers.

I'll let you be the judge for yourself on how much these potential biases impacted the survey.

CG Usage

Some images have been cropped (the big ED images were cropped into CG size). I assuuumeee this is okay with the editing guidelines considering profile icons and banners are allowed and those are just cropped images, and the images are also displayed at this size within the game itself.

I tried to find good CGs for every character and pairing but some of the CGs are not ideal because there just weren't many good ones to pull from. Apologies in advance. (Once I play Wilardo's Conclusion, if there are any better options for a CG than what I put, I'll update the post to have those, but that might be a few days.)

There are and most likely never will be CGs or even good images of Monster Daniel, who got a vote. I put a cropped image of the only art that exists of him - I again hope that's okay with editing guidelines...

There are no CGs of Claire and Invective together as of now, so for their ship I had to put one of Invective possessing Claire.

There's only one WilSiri CG as of now, and we got votes for both platonic and romantic WilSiri, so unfortunately I had to put a CG that has Claire in it for one of them. ...There was also a vote for Claire/Sirius/Wilardo, so just so you don't mixed up, make sure to read the ship names and not just look at the images.

Results

We got a total of forty-four responses! Thank you to everyone who responded!

If you're wondering why the count of votes for a question might not line up with the number of responses, it's because users were encouraged to skip questions in which they did not have particularly strong opinions.

Results are listed from least votes to most votes to build suspense!

Question 1: What is your favorite game?

3. Witch's Heart: Unknown Past, Dorothy's Secret -Conclusion- (9 votes)

2. Witch's Heart (13 votes)

1. Witch's Heart -Bonus Stage- (20 votes)

Question 2: What is your favorite OP?

4. Inno-Syndrome (2 votes)

3. Voice of Glamour (6 votes)

2. DANCE (13 votes)

1. Moon and Wolf (15 votes)

Question 3: What is your favorite ED?

5. COSMOS (1 vote)

4. Tin Coffee Maker (3 votes)

3. Outrunning Sunset (4 votes)

2. Luna (8 votes)

1. Silver Boat (17 votes)

Question 4: Who is your favorite character? (Overall scores)

I asked for the top 5 characters. This count takes answers from all 5 questions into account, going by a point system which gives characters answered as the first favorite the most value and characters answered as the fifth favorite the least.

Worth noting, someone put two characters for their second place vote (Claire and Noel). That wasn't really supposed to happen, but until that happened, I hadn't clarified in the survey you could only put one character, so because that was my bad, I did count that as a legitimate vote for both of them.

First favorite: 5 points Second favorite: 4 points Third favorite: 3 points Fourth favorite: 2 points Fifth favorite: 1 point

12. Invective (1 point)

11. Daniel (2 points)

10. Dorothy Elford (6 points)

9. Charlotte (13 points)

8. Rouge (16 points)

7. Lime (23 points)

6. Zizel (29 points)

5. Wilardo Adler (72 points)

4. Ashe Bradley (92 points)

3. Claire Elford (118 points)

2. Sirius Gibson (123 points)

1. Noel Levine (134 points)

Continued in the next part.

[becausebuckley]

michelle's season 8 fic recs: week 41!

ALL FICS ON THIS LIST CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR 911 SEASON 8. whether they simply take place during the season or are missing scenes/codas/spec fics for future episodes, there's something for everyone! for this week's spoiler-free buddie recs, click here!

this is a mix of fics with all ratings, so some include NSFW content. please take a look at both the ratings and the fic tags before reading!

if you come across something you like in this list, remember to show some love to the author by leaving kudos and a comment!

breathe in, breathe through | cranberrymoons/@cranberrymoons | 1k | T

“Long night,” he says after a moment. It’s the first thing either of them have said since they left the station, since they ended up here by silent agreement. Eddie nods, and Buck feels himself smile. “Did I tell you I got to steal a motorcycle?” soft and intimate and just so so good <3

'cause you're a sky full of stars | yimooyi | 6.9k and counting | G

5 times Buck finds Eddie leaving him paper stars and 1 time he finds out they're more than just that. i love love love the idea of eddie doing origami and leaving the stars as little gifts for buck so much <3 lovely!!

haunt me (hold me) | paleredheadinascifi | 2.3k | T

Christopher thinks he’s too old to sleep in his dad’s bed after a nightmare. Buck thinks that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard. buckley-diaz family my most beloved <3 such a lovely look at the dynamic between these three!

lead us somewhere (to safety) | grantnashed | 798 | T

Athena is about to land a plane with injured passengers. She doesn’t think she’s gonna make it so she calls Bobby, ready to say goodbye. a little bathena is good for the soul!! i loved this scene in the epusode and i loved this version of it just as much <3

the (martial) art of you | moonsharky/@moonsharky | 16.2k | E

the one where buck and eddie fuck on the floor of an mma gym after hours this is so them <3 had such a great time reading this!!

need to know for sure | goforthetitle/@goforthetitle | 11.4k | T

the OCD!Buck fic. such a fantastic look at buck's reaction to hurting gerrard!! beautifully written <3

there ain't been no sun in LA | spiritsontheroof/@spiritsontheroof | 17.9k | T

Eddie goes back to Texas to bring his son home. Buck handles this well. i knew i would love this just from the tags and i was so happy to be proven right <3 fantastic!!

[territorial-tarot-tahr]

C.o.D smut

Word count: 6.3k

CW: Blood and general menstruation if that's gross to you, don't read it. There's self loathing but as a backdrop. Also explicit sexual content below the cut.

Summary: AFAB/Transmasc reader is in pain and Soap tries to help.

P.o.V: Second Person

Again, if you found my A03 from this, no you didn't. Shut up. This one's shorter and a bit older(4months?)than the prior piece. I'm also gonna be so real and say this was written as a mostly self indulgent piece so that's why it's stupidly corny.

No spoilers for any C.o.D game.

🚨Go to my main account "rorschach-retrograding-rotary" for requests or commissions. Or you can just toss something in the comments or something🚨

‼️🚨This was not proof read and I hate reading my work so I have no intention of proof reading it🚨‼️

Feel free to commission me or donate 𝕙𝕥𝕥𝕡𝕤://𝕜𝕠-𝕗𝕚.𝕔𝕠𝕞/𝕤𝕒𝕪_𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕤𝕖

Sweat seemed to find permanent residency on your skin, the ring around your neck was already evidence enough of that. Every second that you felt the uncomfortable ache, it seemed to cut open the scars along your chest again. People who needed to know, knew. People who didn't, didn't. Price and the medical team knew, but that was the extent. You figured the information was on a more need-to-know basis, and as such, only the aforementioned individuals and an otherwise small list knew. 

This list didn't include your 189cm, Scottish lover-boy. Whether out of fear of rejection, or attempt of denial by ignoring, you still hadn't gotten around to it. He'd yet to do anything that would make you think he wouldn't be alright with it, but it was still a risky step you weren't eager to take. You'd found yourself awoken in a disgruntled haze, hair coated in drool and some in your mouth as you blinked awake. A familiar coil of discomfort had knotted itself in your gut. With no heating pad, you'd simply dragged yourself off your cot and to the kitchen after a quick stop in the latrine, which had turned up a few painkillers that seemed to be taking their sweet time. You'd had painful cramps before, sure. But usually you had taken proper care to count and keep track of when to expect them, and as such, you were loaded up on preemptive painkillers.

You hadn't found yourself as prepared or lucky this time. This month you'd simply lost track considering that you'd been on a mission for around two weeks at the point and the focus had been more on whether you'd be alive in any given moment rather than when you'd start bleeding. Well, you reap what you sow. And now here you were, fighting your urge to double over and lay curled up on the floor till you passed out. At least the floor would probably be colder than the heat that felt as if it was stuck to your skin like a damp shirt. That was fair, your shirt was pretty soaked in sweat at the moment.

 Coffee cup after coffee cup seemed the easier answer than laying back down at the mercy of your already wide-awake mind. You couldn't wager a guess on how long you'd stood there waiting, time seemed to slip away from you. The small clock on the wall made a dull chorus of clicks as the second hand flicked by, and the 24 hour digital clock nearby clicked in chorus at every minute. Despite this, your attention did not drift to them, or the whirr of the overachieving air conditioner above, which did nothing to lessen your sweat. Instead, your attention seemed more than eager to slip away to your white-knuckled grip on the rim of the sink, a dish towel at each palm with cold water providing some relief. His hands were on your hips before you'd even realized he was actually behind you.

His breath was warm in your unwashed hair, and his calloused fingers had already begun to dig into the fabric of your shirt. Your forehead was against the cool wood of the cabinet, and it took everything in your power to try not to focus on what you assumed might've been very early morning wood. Or genuinely just something in his pocket.  

"Couldn't sleep?" His remark was sarcastic, the answer already evident as your trembling fingers worked grime off the rim of a mug. You shuddered in response, his breath warm on your neck as gooseflesh covered your body. A t-shirt and plaid pajama pants were evidently not enough to keep the cold away or hold it at bay and since it was easier to find a practically permanent spot in the barracks than getting an apartment, you found yourself cutting your loses.

"Army of coffee cups around here not tipping you off?" Your comment seemed snark-ier than you had intended, but your hand on his and a gentle squeeze seemed to be enough of an apology. Dark bags were under your eyes, fatigue and exhaustion was evident on your face as you turned to look at him over your shoulder. His shirt was faded, stains from coffee and cigarette butts formed their own patterns across the barely recognizable band logo it had once shown. Either he'd slept in his shoes and jeans or he'd decided to put them on after noticing you'd gotten up in the night.

"Collective break room. Cups were just as likely to be yours as they were to be Simons." He yawned as he leaned further against you. His footing wasn't lost but it seemed slightly comical in the moment how lazy he was trying to be. Too tired to stand up straight but enough energy to not only realize you'd woken up, but also notice you were acting odd and try to get to the bottom of it. His voice was rough, evidently still half asleep as he continued. "All I'm askin' is, what's eatin' yuh?"

You huffed softly and shuffled where you stood. You mumbled incoherently as John patted your hip, his fingers rubbed the fabric for a moment longer. He traced the indent of your hip bone against your pants before leaning down to hold his face against your neck. He spoke quietly, his voice muffled as he made a comment about you needing to eat more. You neglected to answer, scoffing and rolling your eyes as you instead pushed his hands from your hips to hold your waist instead. You heard his soft grunt of amusement before it faded to a yawn again.

He kissed along your neck for a moment as he took the mug and carelessly tossed it into the sink. A few moments more and he'd planted his feet before hoisting you up onto the counter. You'd never been particularly short, but sitting on the counter was what it took for you to be eye level with John. You could see his eyes were matched by yours with similar rings of dark circles. His lacked the bloodshot lines that creeped at the corners of yours but regardless, it was still evident that he was tired.

His lips found your neck and he bit your skin gently, leaving a small red mark that bloomed on your skin as he patted your thighs with his warm palms. His eyes searched yours for any cues he was missing, something he was supposed to be getting but wasn't, though you knew if you did decide to try and make him guess that it would be hours before he'd even be on the correct ballpark of correct answers. Easier just to throw him a bone. Something vague that would get him to back off for a bit. The back of your head touched a cabinet as you leaned back. You swiped your hand across your mouth to remove any excess coffee before shrugging.

"Just not- I'm not feeling all that great." Your brows were knit in a small scowl as you wrung your hands together. Your palms were sweaty, a sigh on your lips as his hands squeezed your waist again. His hands were warm. You could feel it through your shirt as he gently kneaded some of the skin. He didn't even seem to realize he was doing it, working more off of what felt good rather than thinking through his moves.

He attempted a light-hearted scoff as he scrutinized your excuse. Though you were unamused regardless and shoved at his shoulder, a sneer tugging at your lips. Though he quickly kissed you on the mouth, the sneer leaving your face as his lips met yours. You wagered he used more force than he meant to, as your neck was being forced to an odd angle with the back of your head against the cabinet.

"'ve seen yuh get shot, stabbed, punched, pinned. Seen all that shite. And I know yuh don't go all mopey or secretive about it. Talk to me, gaol. What's actually got yuh wide awake?" Damn, he was earnest as hell. You avoided his practically pleasing gaze as he implored you to share whatever your burden was, whatever ailed you in the moment. Whatever it was, he wanted to share it or at least try and get you to open up. You swallowed hard and you couldn't be sure if you would actually articulate anything if you opened your mouth. You weren't sure whether you wanted to or not either.

One of his hands left your hips and ran through your hair and you leaned into the touch as you begrudgingly met his gaze. Cold sweat sat in your tresses and you wondered how he could stand to touch your slicked locks.

"I'm not pulling your leg, Johnny. I'm not feeling all too hot right now. That's all." Your insistence came out as almost wishy-washy. A whiny complaint as you sat on the counter and stared at him through weary eyes. Your statement earned you unforseen side effects in the form of a cheeky grin as he kissed your cheek and spoke in a teasing tone.

"Yer definitely lookin' hot if it's any consolation."

Oh. Oh. It had little to no intention of telling him that regardless of how "hot" you looked right now, you felt like a ketchup bottle of blood and no amount of flattery would really help that.

You only seemed to register his further attempts at testing the waters when one of his hands found the hem of your shirt. He maintained eye contact as he began to tug your shirt up slightly, exposing the lower muscles of your abdomen. He seemed to be waiting more for your consent and permission, trying to see how up for action you were at the moment. He was met with you grabbing his wrist as you practically snapped:

"Wait." From you as you stared him down, wide-eyed with an air of panic streaked on you.

It wasn't as though you'd never gotten intimate before, but being intimate with him specifically would be new. You'd had a few partners in highschool but none who were important enough to mention. They'd also only known you from before your first surgery. When you'd been grabbing onto anything in an attempt to try and force yourself into the idea that if you could play the part of a highschool girl, then maybe you'd find some kind of satisfaction in that life. You didn't enjoy that part of your past, and as such you hadn't disclosed it to your peers.

You'd been too cautious to let John know about your surgery yet, too worried that he'd treat or think of you differently. As such, you'd usually turn the topic to him. With intimate times usually culminating in you practicing your blow or hand job skills or simply just denying intimacy altogether on some occasions. You always remained fully dressed, with your most casual being a tank top and shorts. You let him touch freely over your top, and he usually ended up holding the back of your head but that was the extent. You tried to focus intimacy back to him, focusing on making him feel good.

He'd always done his best to be understanding while still expressing concern for you. Nights of one-sided intimacy ended with him asking in earnest if there was something he could do for you. Stating he "didn't want to leave you with blue balls". You'd always shrugged it off and insisted you were alright, to which he'd find some way to repay you sooner or later. He'd grab a copy of a book he knew you wanted, try and cook you something in the barrack's kitchen or simply get you flowers when he saw them.

He'd done nothing that would make you think he wouldn't be accepting, and yet you still found your stomach in knots and your heart pounding away in your chest as his fingers cautiously rested on your shirt. His eyes searched yours and despite your unsure inner turmoil, you still found that you couldn't find it in yourself to ask him to stop. You wanted him to know. You wanted to stop feeling guilty. To stop feeling like it was some kind of shameful secret that you had to hide from him.

Your throat seemed suddenly and uncomfortably dry. A few swallows did nothing to quell the dry spot that seemed less than eager to leave. John removed his hand from your shirt, letting one stay on your hip and bringing the other up open palmed by his head as if in surrender.

"Not looking to tic you off, 'pologies." It was clear that there was guilt in his tone as he gently squeezed your hip again. His face gained a slight blush of embarrassment at having driven that strong of a reaction from you. Christ, had he pissed you off? Had he made things worse? Here you were simply trying to deal with whatever was makin' you get up in the middle of the night and he came along and pissed you off. Great going genius. Dumbass.

His internal monologue was practically written across his face as his gaze went from the coffee mugs, to the cabinets, the ceiling and really anything that wasn't your face. In return, you found your own embarrassment creeping on your face. He'd been trying to do something for you, to be nice and you'd snapped. You'd snapped at him for something that you had planned on doing yourself. Damnit. Alright, off with the band-aid.

"I didn't mean to yell, you just- you just startled me. That's all." It was time for your own gaze to be best friends with the floor as you continued speaking. "I'd just like to ask a selfish promise of you first. Is that okay?"

"Oddly serious."

"John."

"Sorry. Alright, ask away."

How do you phrase this? You'd never really had to think of it before, you'd naively assumed that you could cruise through the relationship without the topic ever coming up.

"Just promise that you won't get mad at me."

He paused for a moment, his eyebrow cocked up in an arch as he gnawed the inside of his cheek.

"Sounds like it's gonna depend on what yer about to spring on me."

You seemed ready to insist and he quickly amended his statement, a kiss on your forehead before he spoke.

"Yes, sorry. I promise I won't be mad at you."

You paused before nodding in acknowledgement and guiding his free hand back to your shirt hem. His fingers ran along the cloth for a few moments more before eventually tugging the cloth up again. His other hand joined the first in the ordeal of lifting up your shirt and before long, he was holding the balled up shirt in one hand haphazardly. Your thin scars sat pale and discolored against the rest of your skin and you saw his eyes trace over your body a few times before meeting your gaze again. There, you'd done it. Your cheeks burned what you could only assume was a vibrant scarlet as you waited for some statement of acknowledgement or a scoff. Maybe a huff before he broke down your self esteem.

Though you were eventually met with a sympathetic look as his set your shirt to the side and resumed holding your hips.

"That all?"

Was that all?

You'd shown the man what had been your secret. What kept you awake on some nights just wondering in a cold sweat about how he'd react, if he'd insult you, demean you. Break up with you on the spot, spread the word among your peers. Leave you getting stared at when you walked into a room. But what you'd earned instead was a "That all?"

"The fuck do you mean, 'that all?'" You weren't livid, you weren't annoyed, honestly you couldn't place what you were. Had you wanted some big reaction out of him? Had you wanted a big emotional confrontation? Well, no, but what you'd wanted at least something. Not a reaction that made it seem like you were being dismissed.

You opened your mouth to speak again and instead found him cutting you off with an abrupt kiss that bumped your head against the cabinet again from the force he'd used. He held the kiss for longer than you found normal and just as you were about to try and tap on his shoulder as a reminder that you needed to break for air, he pulled away and laughed quietly to himself as his hands rested on his own hips.

"Laddie, you had me worried yuh were about to reveal some kind of second head or fused twin in some Total Recall type of shite. Maybe a really corny tattoo that I would laugh at 'und not be able to take yuh seriously because of. But this? I don't get how yuh think I'd be mad about it. 'Could spend hours jus' starin' at you if yuh'd let me. What I'm getting at here, is that yer quite possibly the most gorgeous guy I've had the fortune of layin' eyes on. Scars or not." Near the end of his accented monologue, he gently began cupping the your face before kissing your forehead again.

Your mind seemed to have paused, processing everything slowly. Maybe you were just hormonal. Maybe you just had pent up aggression from something else, but you found self loathing begin to rush over you in droves as you thought about the aforementioned nights laying in puddles of your cold sweat as you worried and terrified yourself with an endless sleep of scenarios and what-ifs that scared you into not telling him for so long. And yet here he was. He seemed to be barely thrown-off his paces.

You found tears lining your vision, frustration at yourself as well as some swell of relief had planted seed in your heart as you leaned forward to cry into his shoulder. He looked fairly surprised or at least unexpecting of that reaction, though he quickly found his role again. One hand moved to be buried in your hair and gently massaging your scalp as the other found your back and gently patted it between your gasping inhales.

One of the few things that kept you from wailing into the material of his shirt, was the knowledge that you weren't trying to awake or draw the attention of any late night walkers nearby. Instead, you did your best for emotional release via choked sobs and your quivering breaths. You grabbed a handful of his shirt with one hand and your other wrapped under his arm to hold tightly to his back as you gave another shaky inhale and left the impression of your tears and spit in darkened patches across his shirt.

"Gotta throw this into the dryer before I call it in for the night, yeah?" He chuckled quietly into your hair as he gave you a squeeze. He was warm against you, and you found your lungs gradually being able to work actual proper breaths into your chest. Your crying hadn't lasted all that long, but your process of calming down and simply laying against him lasted far longer. He planted another kiss on your head before gently holding your jaw in his warm hands. He swiped his thumbs across your face to wipe away your stray tears.

He held your gaze for a few moments longer before speaking. His voice was quiet, his eyes searching yours as he attempted to check if you were alright or not yet in an unspoken question. You gave one final quivering exhale as you collected your thoughts and what dignity you had left.

A few moments more and you had calmed down fully and you'd hopped off the counter. He held your hand in a firm but gentle grip and it seemed like he had something more to say, but you cut off him. Figuring that you owed him an explanation for his initial question.

"I'm cramping. That's why I'm down here. Couldn't sleep."

It seemed clear that he wasn't sure what you were speaking of initially. His mind most likely moving through any of the training or sparring sessions where he might've hit you harder than necessary or when you could've possibly sprained it. Though a few moments more and a few embarrassed hand gestures from you, he seemed to get the gist. Your cheeks gained the splash of bright red again as you saw him begin trying to think through how to help.

"Pain killers?"

"A couple in my system right now. Not helping."

"..heatin' pad?"

"Couldn't find one."

He paused in his suggestions and it was clear he had something working in his mind as he stared at you for a moment longer before giving his next idea.

"You uh- you try an orgasm yet?"

You quickly threw a swing and slugged him in the shoulder as you scrunched your eyes to a glare. You called him a pervert and you saw him smile subtly as he feigned pain from your punching. He rubbed his arm and gave a quick hiss through his teeth as he continued pretending your attack had hurt him, complaining half-heartedly that you would leave a bruise. Regardless, he let you continue to punch him a few more times, though the smile and crinkle of the corners of his eyes made it clear he was anything but upset.

"Lay off, lay off." He chuckled for a moment as he took your hands in his before moving them to your side, though you quickly crossed your arms as you shot him a half-hearted glare.

"Look, all I'm sayin', luv is that I was with a girl a good number of years back. Anytime it was shark week she'd ask for some time together and I, being the astute gentleman that I am, would say yes. She was claimin' it made her feel better for a littl' while. I ain't sayin' there's some great biological flare to it, but at the very least, it took her mind off it for a while if there ain't any other explanation." He cast you a subtle smile before planting another kiss on the side of your neck, taking care to bite the skin and leave a red blemish.

Your brows furrowed as you scrunched up your face in a mild show of scrutinization. You were sure his story had some merit to it in terms of the source material but in terms of whether or not it actually meant anything? Whatever it was, he believed what he was saying even if you were suspicious of it. You found the warmth of his hands had been traveling up slowly but surely, with his hands now on your side instead of your hips. As he held your eye contact, the question was practically written on his face. His eyebrows were raised as he waited for your answer. One of his hands still squeezed your side but the other dropped slowly to rest on the curve of your groin through your pants. Damn it. What did you really have to lose?

--

"You know this is insanely unsanitary, yeah?"

Your protest was practically token at this point. You had little intention of actually backing down now but you still wanted to put all the cards on the table. Some kind of disclosure. Or at the very least one final chance for him to back out if he had his own doubts he'd been too polite to speak.

"Well aware." His tone was matter-of-factly in that his will or decision wouldn't be the one wavering. Though it was clear you were more than welcome to still change your mind if you wanted to. He'd slung your t-shirt along with his underneath you in leu of a towel or blanket considering he didn't want to risk waking anyone up on his way to the barracks. The hour was still late enough that no one else was awake. No one else should've been awake. The clock gave another scornful series of clicks and you watched his jaw already at work even as he stood with his hands on his hips staring at your closed knees.

"Are you chewing gum?"

"......maybe. That an issue?"

"Johnny, I don't want you somehow spitting gum in my- look when did you even get it?"

You watched as he quickly swallowed the piece without hesitation and shrugged as he glanced back to you. He began to speak with a tone that made it clear his comment was satirical. Or at the very least an attempt at self depreciation to try and make you more comfortable since you seemed less than whole-y in your element. He wasn't entirely stupid. He was sure if he was laying splayed out like a Christmas turkey on table, he wouldn't exactly be full of confidence. He spoke with his hands. That was something you'd begun to notice during your months of being together. And it seemed reflected now with how he spoke with vague gestures and a grin that now tugged at his lips, revealing the tops of his teeth and some hints of gums.

"Feel like there's a lot of unwarranted judgement coming my way about my breath care and gum habits. Specifically coming from someone who's asking me to eat them out or fuck their pussy till they see stars."

You cringed slightly from your spot on the table, you propped yourself up on your elbows as you stared at him from between your knees. You were sure he hadn't meant anything by it, and in all honesty you couldn't pin down why you disliked it either. But his use of "pussy" just made your stomach churn more than the cramps were already.

"Y'mind not calling it that?"

"Callin' it what? A pussy?"

"Yeah."

"Alright. I mean I can be gross and jus' call it a hole if yuh'd like. That sound insanely sexy? 'Laddie, please let me fuck your hole.'" He trailed off into a quiet laugh as he wiped his lips. It seemed clear that he was working through compromises in his mind. As much as he was joking, it seemed clear he was still trying to find a solution that pleased you. He ran his pointer finger and thumb over his top lip, rubbing what stubble had managed to grow out before he settled on one.

"Does 'cunt' work?"

You raised an eyebrow in response, seemingly more of a "convince me" rather than an absolute "no". You adjusted the shirts underneath your hips, your flannel pants were catching on the fabric and you found a short internal monologue crossing your mind as you began wondering why you hadn't already taken them off. You felt foolish. They were going to come off anyways, so why'd that have to be part of whatever attempt at being "sexy" he'd pull? Whatever. Your internal monologue was cut off by his voice soon after.

"Simple yes or no. If I were to say-" His voice started off at what you assumed was his attempt at "husky" but considering his accent, was more so borderline incomprehensible in the beginning. "There is nothing more that I'd like to do right now than grab your knees, snap your legs open and eat out your cunt like it was the last fuckin' meal on this whole damn planet-" He trailed off, his fingers had begun tracing along your hips again before eventually fondling the tassels of your pants as he undid them. When he was done, his fingers were hooked along the seam of your waist and and he was leaning his head against your partially parted legs, his cheek on your knee.

"What would yuh do then? Would that be doin' anythin' for yuh?" You feigned deep thought, rubbing your chin for a moment as you egged him on. You brought your other knee to the other side of his head and gently squeezed.

"I'd probably say I'd need a bit more convincing."

He brought a hand up to haphazardly grab at the thigh of the leg that he wasn't leaning against. He opened your legs slightly further and he enunciated his syllables further now with dropping his head and inch of two. "Alright well what 'bout this," He hummed in thought for a moment or two as he mulled over what to say.

"I could say somethin' along the lines of 'seein' you splayed out like this with a cunt that's practically begging for me to fuck, 'und a mouth that's beggin' me to kiss it. You've got eyes that make me want to get lost in 'em. You've got a voice like music." He seemed to laugh for a second before adding onto the monologue, almost in a purposely attempt to ruin whatever blissful or heartfelt tone. "You've got a cunt that I'd be more than happy to already be inside of by now."

This was met with a surprisingly sheepish grin from you as you used a hand to shove his face off your leg as you tuned away and attempted to keep some kind of cool or reserved exterior.

"Yeah sure. I guess that'd do something for me." With that confirmation of yours, he cast you a toothy grin again before making quick work of your pajamas pants. He had first bitten the hem and tugged them down a few inches, but after a look of confusion that you shot him, he quickly abandoned that idea and instead just used his hands like a normal person. He'd balled them up and tossed your pants aside without much thought. His lips soon found your abdomen and he began planting kisses all along your visible skin.

When he got to your chest, he cast you a glance. It seemed more like confirmation of permission as he held your gaze. You gaze a curt nod of acknowledgement, almost more akin to embarrassment before he exhaled warm breath onto your skin. You were met with a string of chaste kisses along one of your scars as he gently squeezed your sides. One of his knees was hiked up onto edge of the table as he leaned further forward, the kisses continuing to follow. The kisses turned to hickies as he began leaving red marks that bloomed across your skin, and you watched as he stared in some amount of odd satisfaction as the marks began to cover larger amounts of different patches of your skin.

He left another blooming red mark on the bottom of your jaw before capturing your lips in a kiss. One of his hands became tangled in your hair, grabbing almost a whole fistful as he held onto you with some depraved amount of desperation that you couldn't even be sure the origin of. After a while, he seemed to remember that it was a good idea to let you breath, and he broke the kiss. Staring down at you through hazy eyes as he huffed quietly. His huffing left every exhale as a puff of his breath straight to your face, and you counted yourself lucky that he'd had the forethought to chew the gum before hand.

He shot you a quick grin before quickly slipping off you and moving to stand at the edge of the table again. He wiped his hands on his pants though he hadn't dirtied them. He then let his fingers trail at the edges of the waistband of the boxers you had on. You grimaced slightly as he pulled at your boxers again before leaving you bare on the table. Your face burned a vibrant scarlet and you stared at one of the walls to your side, though you felt him tap your calf for your attention.

"Jus' give me the word and we'll stop. Yeah?"

You nodded shakily but kept your gaze on the wall only to hear him call for a verbal response.

"Not doin' anythin' till I hear it."

You nodded again as you responded, speaking almost under your breath in a seemingly annoyed fashion. "Understood."

"Lovely."

With that you felt him press his middle and pointer finger to the folds of your cunt. His thumb rested lazily on your clit as he dragged his fingers around for a few moments. His fingers slipped into your cunt with little resistance and he found that the blood worked surprisingly well considering he wasn't sure how aroused you were and how much of the slick was yours. You were warm. Felt slicker than he wagered you'd be after an orgasm as well. He then moved his fingers to the base of your cunt before giving one quick swipe upwards, dragging a smear of your blood up with him. You yelped, shot him a confused stare as he laid a hand open-palmed on your abdomen.

"That alright, luv?" He met your gaze for a moment as he rubbed his finger tips to his thumb, feeling your blood in a way that weirded you out. Though what drew a cry of disgust from your lips was when he swiped his fingers across his tongue, tasting your blood. You gagged for a moment and physically cringed as you began yelling about how gross he was. He shushed you quickly for a moment and was cut off by his own barky laugh.

"Again. I'm hearin' a lot of complaints from someone who's needin' somethin' from me. And if you keep yellin' like that, you're probably gonna catch some poor passerby-er's attention."

You begrudgingly gritted your teeth as you turned your gaze away from him and mumbled a half-hearted sigh of acquiescence. "Whatever."

You nodded though and returned to staring up at the ceiling above, an occasional glance at either of the two clocks as they clicked quietly. Your mind wandered for a moment as you attempted to try and keep your mind off of how exposed you felt. The cool air on your cunt only seemed to add to the sensation and you squirmed for a moment more before settling still again. What seemed to summon your attention again was his movement as he crouched down, his hands gripping the outside of your thighs. His face was between your legs and you met his gaze for a moment before you saw him lick a stripe along your folds.

You grunted, moving a hand to lay across your eyes as he dragged his tongue from bottom to top of your sex. You gritted your teeth again and found that your mind traveled to the fact of how unsanitary it all was. You thought of the mess of blood that must've been in his stubble at the moment and you found yourself suppressing a small gag. Despite this, you stayed quiet considering how good it felt. His tongue slipped into your cunt and you squeezed instinctively to which he grunted. A puff of his warm breath hit your cunt, and you heard him mumble softly. As such, you felt the vibrations hit your heart in a way that sparked a rumble in your throat.

Your cunt already ached from your cramps and you found that his tongue was driving you closer to an orgasm than you wagered you would've been otherwise or in regular circumstances. Every lick across your cunt left you fighting your urge to buck against his mouth for more friction, but you quickly found the he seemed to get the message. His hands tightened on your hips and tugged you forward for closer contact as he continued licking, his hawked nose occasionally dragging further in your folds. He wouldn't pretend that it tasted amazing, but the tang of copper on his tongue wasn't something he found particularly offsetting.

You whined softly and he squeezed the malleable flesh of your hips in what you assumed was his attempt at a reassuring fashion. His mouth moved upwards along your cunt, his tongue eventually lapping at your clit. You could more directly see the blood on his lips and stubble now as well as the flecks across his nose. His hands moved from your thighs to the tops of your knees as he began to spread your legs further. You whined softly in return, feeling your muscles ache in return as your breathing hitched.

Your heart hammered in your chest and his eyes seemed hazy as he continued lapping at your cunt like a dehydrated dog at a water bowl. He continued lapping with more intention as he dipped his tongue further between your folds. He could feel his cock grow stiff against his leg and he did his best to ignore it. You were important. This was for you. He resigned himself to fucking his hand after you fell asleep.

You whined softly and moaned from behind your hand as he tugged you closer. The work of his mouth on your clit left you giving a shrill mewl as you came. You heard him grunt in surprise and felt him release your clit which he'd begun sucking on. You saw him blink a few times before licking the discharge from your folds as it made it's way down and mixed with the remaining blood in your folds.

After he finished cleaning the remains of your orgasm, he stood back and looked you over as if to gauge your reaction or wait for any criticism. He criss-crossed his arms and laid his forearms across the tops of your knees and stared down at you before speaking softly. "Y'alright?"

You nodded blearily, half focused on him and half focused on trying to keep some kind of dignified expression again as you spoke. "M' good."

You heard and saw him chuckle before cleaning his face with his hand before wiping it on his pant's leg. He leaned over you for a moment, keeping balance on his forearm before pressing a kiss to your forehead and then pressing one to your lips. A few moments more and you rubbed your mouth absentmindedly for a moment as you looked him over. Your cunt had stopped painfully throbbing and your stomach had stopped coiling in knots for a a moment. Maybe his ex had actually been right about something.

[serenastark-official]

🧪💠 03: How NOT to Set the Lab on Fire: A Guide from Serena Stark (Yes, I’m Qualified) 🧪💠

Okay, people (looking at you Emma), listen up. I know I’m probably the last person you’d want advice from on this—after all, my track record with fire might as well be the reason Tony invested in sprinklers—but here we are.

Step 1: Know Your Materials.

Science is fun (at least until you create a chemical reaction that’s a little too enthusiastic). Before you mix anything, READ the damn labels. If it says “flammable,” don’t make it your next big project. Just trust me on this one. The explosion you don’t want is always one click away from your experiments.

Step 2: Respect the equipment.

Seriously, the lab isn’t a free-for-all. If you accidentally start poking around with the plasma torch, or somehow get distracted by a weird glowing thing (I've been there), you’re gonna regret it. So, when the manual says, “Don’t touch this unless you’re qualified,” just—take the hint. Trust me, the fire extinguisher will not be your best friend in this situation.

Step 3: Don’t mix random chemicals.

You think you’re Tony Stark, just tossing together whatever looks shiny? Nah, fam. You’re not a genius inventor (yet), so don’t try to make your own “super-cool new element” by mixing everything on the shelf. You will regret it when you’re trying to figure out how the whole lab ended up in a 10-foot radius of flame.

Step 4: Understand the difference between ‘testing’ and ‘blowing up the lab’.

I get it, you’re curious. But there’s a fine line between running an experiment and deciding the best way to cook your lunch via combustion. And trust me, the fire alarm doesn’t care if you were just “experimenting with the fusion reactor again.”

Step 5: Stop assuming things will be fine.

Just because it “looks safe” doesn’t mean it is safe. I know you’ve got this confidence thing down (I mean, you are a Stark), but if the metal's sizzling or something’s starting to smell like burnt toast, immediately back off. It’s not a sign to proceed. Trust me, I learned the hard way.

Step 6: Have a fire extinguisher, and know how to use it.

I get it, Emma, you’re all about the “cutting-edge tech” and “sophisticated gadgets,” but when it comes to fire, old school is where it’s at. Fire extinguisher should be your first line of defense. And for the love of all that is holy, make sure you know how to use it without just flailing around like I do when I panic. Fire extinguishers do not respond to panic. Trust me.

Step 7: Don’t Use My Lab for Experimenting.

Listen, I’m all for creativity and innovation, but if you’re going to keep setting the place on fire, maybe find a different lab. If I come in and smell burning plastic one more time, I swear, I’ll send Jeff after you. And, spoiler alert: He’s not gonna be happy either.

Step 8: Don’t Get Fancy with the Electricity.

Emma. Sweetheart. I know you're a Stark prodigy—but don’t go playing electrical wizard with a bunch of wires and a half-baked idea. You don’t need to turn the lab into a lightning storm just to impress the machines. Trust me, I’ve been there, and it never ends well. Remember when I electrified the fridge just trying to get ice cream? Yeah. That was a fun day for the lab.

Step 9: If all else fails, RUN.

Sometimes, despite all your best efforts, things catch fire. If that happens—step one is to not panic, and step two is to make sure you're getting out safely. The lab might be the birthplace of genius, but it’s also where disasters are born. So get the heck out, and leave the rest to the actual professionals (read: Tony, Pepper, someone who's not me).

Step 10: Learn from Your Mistakes (and Mine).

Let’s be real for a second. I’ve blown up more labs than I can count. (That’s a very Tony Stark trait I inherited, for sure.) But here’s the thing—every time I’ve learned from my epic fails, and so should you. So, next time you almost set off a chain reaction of fiery chaos, take a deep breath, stop, and think about your actions before everything around you turns into Crispy City again.

In Conclusion:

Listen, Emma, I know you’re a Stark, and burning things is kind of in our blood (right along with the whole “blow up the universe” vibe), but let’s try to keep it to a minimum, okay? You don’t need to give everyone a free pyro show.

But trust me, we’re not all Tony Stark, and sometimes, we don’t get to “just invent our way out of it” when things go wrong.

If I can do it, you can do it. And if you do it, I won’t need to make another post about setting the lab on fire.

[goodluckclove]

Movie Night With Your Eccentric Older Brother Simulator (Free Weird Movies Recs)

So I've always had a vague awareness of the archetype surrounding an Alt Older Brother who introduces you to weird media. I have no real-life frame of reference for this person. While I was close to my actual older brother for a long time, I don't think he introduced me to much.

But after finding that list of free movies and realizing the link to Evil Dead II was a podcast video about the movie as opposed to the actual movie, I decided to put together my own list of cult/weird movies. Nothing too intense. It's got some horror, but it's not all horror. Consider this a way to LARP a kind of skeevy older brother with a strange inner world who you idolize despite him clearly not doing super great right now. He loves you in a weird, scruffy way that he doesn't like to talk about in precise language.

(EDIT: Also I did go out of my way to pick kind of shitty VHS rips for some of these. I do consider them the ideal way to view them. For immersion's sake.)

Uh, hey man. So Mom and Dad left for some fuckin' - I don't know, I still had half my headphones on so I wasn't really paying attention. But they're gone for the night and I guess I'm in charge or whatever. They said I could use their card to order pizza which is pretty sick. I'll order one for each of us, and then I'll just hole up in the basement to listen to The Flower Kings and -

What? You wanna hang out?

No, that's - yeah, I guess I did make a face. My bad. Um, sure I can hang. I know you've been kind of bummed lately. I guess we could watch a movie if you want. No, dude, step the fuck away from the DVD shelf. If I have to watch Click one more goddamned time I'm gonna' blow my brains out.

I'm kidding. That was a joke. Don't tell Mom I said that. Also, scroll through this. These are all the deep cuts my friends at community college have been collecting while we stay out late and smoke - meats. Yeah - my bros Skeet and Blazer? They're big...big barbecue fans. Yeah.

Stop looking at me, dude, just pick a movie.

Pink Floyd's The Wall (1982)

Oh fuck yeah. Uh, no it's not the album. I mean, it's technically the album - but remember how I told you that The Wall is a Rock Opera? This is the visual adaptation of that Rock Opera. It's got the whole album - complete with a short song from The Final Cut which is another Pink Floyd that came out after The Wall but has a lot of the same themes. This thing has some fuckin' killer animations by Gerald Scarfe. It's a pretty intense take on modern masculinity and fame in post-war Britain from someone with direct experience in all of that.

Evil Dead II (1987) and Armies of Darkness (1992)

What? It's Sam Rami, dude, of course there's gore. It's a Sam Rami movie that isn't Spiderman, so there's a ton of gore and jump scares. No but like - they aren't good jump scares and the gore is absolutely nonsense. It's a horror comedy but it's pretty heavy on the comedy, you know? In Evil Dead II (No, you don't need to start with the first one. The first act of Evil Dead II is a remake of The Evil Dead.) the main guy Ash has his hand turn evil, so he cuts it off and replaces it with a chainsaw.

Shut the fuck up, man, it's not spoilers. It's barely top five in crazy shit that happens in this movie. It's awesome though Bruce Campbell is like horror Mister Bean. He's also hot as fuck. Nevermind. Forget I said that.

Hellraiser (1987)

Seriously, if you pick this you can't tell Mom and Dad I let you watch it. Well, I don't think it's scary, but the practical effects are pretty hardcore for its time and I remember you were pretty upset when you came in and hid in my room while Skeet and I were watching The Thing.

It's pretty gory. It's a body horror film. But aside from some retro-horror staples it's definitely not - like - realistic gore. It's like a guy will die because he gets exploded by chains from goth BDSM demons. Then he's resurrected but he's got no skin and he's kind of bitchy about it for a while. It's pretty cool. Pretty - um - it's got pronouns, you know? It's - I can't call it gay, right? No, it's literally gay. Clive Barker is a gay man. This is a pretty queer horror series.

Shock Treatment (1981)

So Jim Sherman and Richard O'Brien made Rocky Horror Picture Show. They then made an AU of their own movie musical - which is this movie, Shock Treatment. Call me a contrarian, but I like this one a bit better. RHPS is great, but it's so overwhelmingly Tim Curry that it does drown out everything else. This seems like a bit more of an ensemble cast where you can really enjoy the whole movie. Plus their song "Bitchin' in the Kitchen" is like one of my favorite musical songs.

Paprika (2006)

Satoshi Kon is easily one of the best animators of all time. He's the same guy that did Perfect Blue, but that's a little bit more of an intense watch (Although is you do decide to do it do not watch the dubbed version. I'm not being a 'subs not dubs' weeb again the ending was so subtle that the dub fucked it up). Paprika is fantastic It's a beautifully animated science-fiction adventure akin to Inception if Inception was led by a cool lady. It's gorgeous.

Synechdoche, New York (2008)

Charlie Kaufman is one of those directors who people think encourage Angsty Indie White Guys, even though all of his movies specifically focus on how pathetic Angsty Indie White Guys are. This is a big one, but it's beautiful and I've seen it five times. Every time it leaves me quiet and thoughtful. If we watch this and I cry you aren't allowed to say shit about it.

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

This is a surrealist, sci-fi black comedy by writer/director, rapper, and communist activist Boots Riley. it's pretty crazy right off the get go. It's cool to see a blatantly anti-capitalist speculative fiction story that isn't - like - blatantly ideological. It definitely has the ideology, but not at the sacrifice of great writing and directing and a really fun story.

How's that film major I'm dating? Kai is fine. Kai's cool. Kai's...enough about Kai.

Brazil (1985)

This is like 1984 but in the hands of the most creative Monty Python guys. It is crazy how creative this movie is. Like early Tim Burton. Just chaotic and hilarious and horrifying. It's awesome.

But I'm getting sick of talking. Would you pick something already?

You picked: Dancer in the Dark (2000)

The...the fucking Lars Von Trier musical starring Bjork? The that starts with Bjork playing a poor immigrant mother who's slowly going blind and struggling to make ends meet and only gets far sadder from there?

You're getting into Bjork? Now? In 2024 you're just now deciding to get into - ?

Nope. That's fine. I said you can pick, so you can pick. I'll warn you though. this thing's like two and a half hours long and I'm going to spend most of it weeping. If I see you even quiver a laugh I will doxx you online I swear to god.

[brokenmachinemusings]

hi tumblr you get to hear my insane sgdlr ramblings theories whatever about mr vein which mifht be wrong but I DOTN CARE

LINK CLICK SPOILERS . OBVIOUSLY!!!!

ok sooooo first i connected the dots with cheng xiaoshi and vein bc they had the same shadow that dropped from the top left in the anniversary pv’s. most people reacted with “you didn’t connect shit”, but i’m telling you, i connected the dots.

what caught my eye on the shadow thing is that vein’s shadow didn’f have the same circular borders as liu xiao and xia fei who were obviously meant to be the same style. so they deliberately kept it at just the top left (to cover him up also). and did i mention cheng xiaoshi looks like he is trapped behind glass in the anniversary artwork? no i didn’t. i personally think all of the anniversary artworks are supposed to represent a special part of each character (qiao ling stepping out. you know).

i have not fully analysed vein’s outfit design because frankly i’m not sure what else to search up but. i’ll talk about the parts i did find

so. first of all the pattern on his shoulders looks like blood. isn’t rhat fun!

second of all the little knots around his design, i’m pretty sure are ‘round brocade knots’ which represent “balance, completeness, good fortune”. i haven’t made exact ties between that and vein myself yet but it’s worth noting it.

i didn’t find out anything else about his design. the necklace is cut off just perfectly to not be able to see what it is (like liu xiao’s)

anyway. i’m just gonna jump to my theory. i think he is connected to either cheng xiaoshi or the disappearance of his parents!!!! wow. it might sound unlikely i am aware but this is what theories are for.

the biggest reason i came up with this is because we don’t need a new villain. we don’t need to be introduced to someone new when we already have liu xiao. but you know what liu xiao wouldn’t do? GET HIS HANDS DIRTY. at least, most likely, he strikes me as the type to work behind the scenes.

so what other reason would there be to introduce vein? “you could make the same argument for xia fei” well yeah but xia fei is a pushing force in how cheng xiaoshi and lu guang discovered their powers (probably. idk)

okkkk back to vein and cheng xiaoshi’s parents actually. why i think it’s likely they’re either missing because of vein or, if they’re dead, their bodies got disposed of for some reason? it’s because if they were caught in the earthquake THEIR BODIES WOULD BE FOUND BY NOW. at least that’s what makes sense to me lore wise. and i don’t think they would just ghost their child for like 12 years. and because from narrative storytellijg it would make sense if vein was the one that did something. (let me redirect you to pattern that looks like blood on his shoulders)

of course this could all be a red herring but the last time i said something was a red herring it turned out to be true. so i choose to stick to it this time!

the other possibility (or actually, both possibilities could ring true) is that vein was the one who shot cxs. who else would? (feel free to debate lol) i don’t think xia fei would have interest in that after the whole overseas trip business, liu xiao wouldn’t want to do it himself (he’d make someone else do it) and li tianchen is an option but we don’t know if he will be the one to do it in the end. so

i don’t have a good way to end this weird theory bit. if i think of something else i will add it. it has been plaguing at my mind. thank you tumblr user for reading my weird theory rambling and feel free to debate me. if i tjink of anything else myself i will edit and add it

[mysteryampharos]

Tell us about your favorite character?

i really love dusknoir and ampharos from the pokemon mystery dungeon series, but after playing Rainworld, i can wholeheardtedly say that the base game + downpour made five pebbles into one of my all-time favorite characters! i was gonna avoid spoilers, but ill inevitably speak about it, so ill just do two spoiler-free paragraphs first! and then go insane

for half of the campaigns in the game, i was his BIGGEST hater. i think the order you play certain campaigns in probably affects how you feel about certain characters, and boy, my choice of sequence was NOT doing him any favors. he was like a catalyst to speed up the decay of the dying world, both when it came to the enviroment itself, and other characters. he had without fail harmed all but one character he interacted with by that point.

and then. . i played the last two campaigns. with a few pearl reading sessions prior to going through them, the closer i got to finishing the game, the more my thoughts on him changed. granted, the game DID give me enough clues, but it wasnt until getting to see what happened in these campaigns that his character clicked for me. five pebbles is a surprisingly tragic character, and the dlc makes an excellent use of him to weave a beautiful narrative together with Looks to the Moon. words cannot describe how incredible and life-changing playing this game felt. (spoilers below the cut! dont read if you haven't finished rivulet and saint's campaign)

five pebbles is a rat in a cage. he tried everything he thought of to try and find an escape to the eternal life the ancients condemned the iterators to, and he did succeed in killing an iterator.

it just wasn't him.

so moon dies and is left in a worser state than ever before after being 'revived' by hunter, and now he has a ticking time bomb in the form of The Rot spreading through his superstructure and the garbage wastes like a cancerous plague. he keeps himself cut off from all and any means of contact and with the exception of artificer, is somewhat hostile to the slugcats.

it takes rivulet's campaign, where the rot has almost entirely overtaken most of the can, that his attitude changes. he is still the same as before, but much more. . sorrowful, regretful. at this point in the game, he and moon switch places: he falls deeper and deeper to disrepair while moon starts restoring her functions and communications. he's forced to sit still during rivu's campaign, but otherwise, five pebbles is largely fine when it comes to his neurons or mind.

so when i told you i cried during saint's campaign.

it was already customary. every single campaign after monk, i'd beeline for five pebbles, seeing as he was always involved somehow. so, i climb up chimney canopy as i always do to get to him through the wall, and: there it is. the infamous room

the entire right section connecting to his superstructure is gone. not even damaged or anything: it's completely vanished. and the game makes sure you feel dread the moment you see this. already, not a good sing: but hey! maybe that just fell like the underhang did. theres still another path to go through.

i hate shaded citadel, but its the only other way i know how to get there. still, i took a detour to moon first before going there, since i knew shoreline had a gate! i visited her, and was on my merry way. . until i get to the gate. something is off right away.

the path is different. sure, that's normal in this campaign, but it wasnt like the overgrowth or other snowy areas: the entire structure of the area. . was very different. its like something crushed in. the deeper i go toward the gate, the more confused and conflicted i get. i cross the gate, and the name shows up on the screen..

Silent Construct.

its like things clicked for me a second time, and it was at that point i paused the game just to think about it for a few seconds. Five Pebbles' superstructure collapsed and crushed the ENTIRETY of Shaded Citadel. the only sign of life left was a weird combination of wildlife from the exterior and shaded citadel itself, with barely any rot left. this was both one of the highlights of the whole game to me, and one of the most emotional. theres 100% gonna be echoes here, so im gonna go ahead and look for that: but five pebbles is priority.

this is one of the most interesting regions in the game to me. maybe not the most fun (I HATE THIS GAME'S SPIDER ENEMIES SO MUCH) but thematically and symbolically? second best region. i dedicated half of the time i had that sunday just to find him, and sure enough..

he is in a state even worser than how moon was when she fell to disrepair. a supercomputer degraded to a barely sentient puppet who can't remember much of anything. the only thing that remains is the music pearl hes playing, and if the player wants to,

you can take that away from him too.

is downpour canon? i don't know nor remember! will i consider it canon regardless because this was one of the greatest gaming and life experiences ive ever had? you fucking BET. i love you five pebbles im sorry for calling you a littlebitch when we first met

[raeygina-george]

@gxlexii @knightzp (this one's a bit long sorry) my link click s2 reaction!

(link click spoilers ahead!!)

-i love the way the animation style is shifting to show the chaos and confusion!!!! it looks SO good and conveys emotion so well

-lex u were right this opening is AWESOME

-at first i thought captain qian was possessed by Future Cheng Xiaoshi but i guess his eyes are just naturally yellow adkfjskd

-i knew lu guang would survive ❤️❤️❤️ but DAMN the plot is thickening

-the ending is cool too...... the first season was already so good but the second is really ramping it up so far asjfkjsk

-i love qiao ling

-WHEN CHEN BIN'S WIFE WAS CRYING AT HIS FUNERALLL 😭😭😭😭

-the pink haired person looks really interesting... I'm excited to see what's up with them

-oh god the???? the episode with the pink haired girl's family??????? what the fuck???

-"if i could have forseen all this, i wouldn't have let you experience all this pain" Hello??? (quote from lu guang)

-every time i go "wow this is intense" it just gets more intense.....

-every time i watch the opening i love it more somehow. im obsessed with it, like the song & animation is so good. i imagine it'd be really hard to write a song that sounds good played both normally and in reverse, so im thoroughly impressed

-lu guang just got kidnapped 😭 bro just can't catch a break

-i think cheng xiaoshi is my fav. i like basically everything about him and i wish i had his hair askfjskdkdk

-I LOVE QIAO LING

-OHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! the pink haired girl is actually the pink haired boy!!!!!!! that makes a lot of sense haha

-if any of the main 3 get hurt badly again im going to cry

-NOOOOO LI TIANXI!!!!!! cmon i really liked her 😭😭😭

-at one point during the final fight scene w/ captain qian my brother stopped by, said "i hope they get hit by a train" and left. like. hello?

-okay. okay. yeah. fine then. alright. whatever. sure. yeah. fine. okay. sure

-im just gonna like. go cry. the entire last episode was definitely Something

-i Really like it when character's fates are basically set in stone but they bite and kick and scream and fight for a better ending where everyone can be happy

-i really like Everything in this show actually. it aligns with my preferences so well askfjskd

end review: im chewing rocks im banging my head against the wall. head in my hands. i will never be the same

this show was amazing. if u guys have any other recommendations, feel free to send them my way!

[iviarellereads]

The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 16 - An Unexpected Offer

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Sunburst icon) In which we finally catch up with someone who's been a bit of a mystery for a hot minute.

PERSPECTIVE: Nyn wakes and thinks about her nightmares. El wakes and they discuss a plan to go to Tear but can't agree whether to go overland or by ship. They go down to the common room for breakfast, and Galad approaches them. He became a Whitecloak because it seemed the thing to do.(1)

They learn from him that Siuan has been stilled and executed, confirming their prior intel. They're both shocked, and he says it means they're free, and he can escort them to Caemlyn. He says he doesn't have much time before they're called to move, then one of the other Whitecloaks approaches and takes him away.

El makes to leave immediately, before he can find them again. In their room, packing, she says Galad is now faced with a problem: two things that are both right and in opposition. He thinks it right that he tie El up on a horse and bring her to Caemlyn (he couldn't send her unescorted) but he also has vows to maintain as a Whitecloak, and he knows that they're Tower-trained channelers, which is illegal in Amadicia. That might buy them a little time while he decides.

Thom and Juilin show up, and they plan their escape from town. Thom mentions that King Ailron (really, Pedron Niall through Ailron) wants a strip of land the whole length of the border with Altara, from Salidar to So Eban to Mosra. Something in there tickles Nyn's memory, but she can't place it.

Nyn asks Juilin if there are any smugglers who might be able to help them, but no, most thieves lie low here, and mostly they only wanted to talk about whether the menagerie might be allowed to come back and put on a show. Nyn cuts him off and says the menagerie is their ticket out. Luca wants a patron, and she and El can be them.(2) El adds that Galad will never look for them in Ghealdan, he'll expect them to go east. They send Thom and Juilin off to get supplies and a more modest wagon, and they pare down their treasures and belongings as much as they can justify.

They discuss El's feelings for Thom for a bit, Nyn recognizing a bit of El trying to become a woman by holding herself up to her mother, including thinking about her mother's former lover. She's seen it before, but never found a way to set the young woman to rights.(3) Finally, she asks El if she's certain Galad would turn them in. El says, absolutely, and if they leave it will only make the decision for him.

=====

(1) Well, he's kinda doing exactly what you'd expect of a man whose entire character and life is founded on the requirement to Do The Right Thing. He's allied himself with the zealots, because he thinks they're doing the right thing, because clearly the White Tower can't be trusted, they stole Elayne away practically in the night with no explanations or way to get in contact with her. He was looking at their literature back in Tar Valon. And, given his moral rigidity, he would gravitate toward the black and white structure of them. It's an easy answer in the face of a complex and rapidly chaos-spiraling world! The Whitecloaks have a lot of present-day comparisons available, but it feels like someone converting to US evangelicalism because this Jesus guy said some good stuff. (2) [hysterical giggling] Right, sure, okay. The guy you offended deeply by the single coin you offered is gonna help. Yep. That totally tracks. Time to go run away and join the circus! (3) I'm just gonna reiterate an "ick, blech, ptooie" here for my own sanity.

[thebearemoji]

My thoughts on the astarion romance (spoiler: they're not good)

Hoo boy going right from the wonderful bliss of karlach's romance to this.... dark mess of despair was a hell of a whiplash.

So I'm gonna assume if you clicked on that read more that you don't care about spoilers. If that's not true then dont read this. To be clear we're on the same page, astarion has two potential outcomes. You let him complete cazador's ritual and ascend to big boy vampire or you stop him from completing it.

The game made the choice to make a statement with the outcome of astarion's quest. If you don't break the cycle of abuse, then you're perpetuating it. Astarion after completing the ritual is much more cazador than himself. The romance takes this one step further, the only way to continue it if the ritual is completed is to willingly become astarion's spawn. The game implies in no uncertain terms that you will meet the same terrible fate he was so recently trapped in. Cazador's master tortured him. Cazador tortured astarion. One way or another Astarion will torture you.

He even has a line of dialogue after you reject him along the lines of "Of course I'm familiar with love. I would've tormented it out of you until you had nothing left if you'd let me." That's just the start. Just about every line to come out of a romanced evil astarion is stunningly toxic, he pretends to love you, threatens to leave you, all to get you to agree to become his spawn. You can even read his mind to find out he thinks you're degrading yourself by staying with him. It's stunningly dark, and part of me respects the writing for sticking so hard to their guns.

Speaking as a fan of roleplay focused games, this did take me off guard. I'm accustomed to games treating evil choices as options to explore your characters and develop a sense of gray morality. Because... it's a video game for fun and sometimes its fun to do silly pretend evil things and twirl my pretend evil mustache. But bg3 will occasionally treat evil choices as sins that the narrative will punish you for, sometimes immediately, sometimes later down the line. And astarion is undeniably one of these choices. A non romanced evil astarion is fine, i guess. but i know i'm not the only one out there who fell into the trap of thinking astarion could be the other half of my evil power couple.

I don't think this is necessarily inherently bad on its own. It severely reduces any desire I have to ever play an evil character again in this game, which sucks because I love minthara. HOWEVER

I got a bone to pick with the good boy astarion romance too.

So of course after the gut punch of evil astarion romance, I reloaded and made him the same good boy i did on my first play through. The subsequent romance scene is nice, and he gets the same beautiful heart-wrenching catharsis that made me sure he was the one I wanted to romance second in the first place.

But throughout all the later conversations, he keeps returning to this idea that he "seduced" my tav. ??? Where. From where I was standing, act 1 he propositions me for casual sex, my tav says yes. Afterwards he proposes continuing to have casual sex, my tav says yes.

And yet he keeps saying these words "I seduced you, manipulated you, used you." And the fact that he's admitting it is meant to show character growth.

But why is the game so determined to make my tav his victim??? Why are those my only two options? The dialogue choices didn't give me a way to say "you didn't manipulate me, I chose to be with you of my own free will, knowing what you are." There's nothing i can do to flip this narrative that my character was used and wronged, even though i dont believe she was. And that left the romance feeling very polarized, like there are only two lenses with which to view romancing astarion.

You are either his victim that he lies to for a grand majority of the game. he doesn't even like by his own admission, he claims he used you for protection. But he grows to appreciate all you did for him and even love you.

Or his helpless thrall, equal parts a victim but hell at least at that point you're embracing the kink of the whole thing.

Tbh, neither of those really do it for me.

In conclusion, astarion is an amazing character, I'm never romancing him again, and finally,

that is all

[its-short-for-jackalope]

click for quality, she's just a wee bit fuzzy :')

Now that we know exactly when episode 3 is coming, I think it's time to reveal this goofy little thing I've been working on for... a while. 😅 (with tons of feedback and suggestions from the wonderful, incomparable @man-down-in-hatchet-town, of course!)

I think I've seen people make bingo boards like this for other fandoms, and I've been so psyched for TGOA and having an absolute blast tossing theories back and forth in me & Brooke's dms—and sharing some with the rest of you in unreasonably long posts—that I thought it would be a lot of fun to make a little Bingo card with my own predictions for episode 3! some of these I'm really rooting for, but I'm just so excited for a new episode in general.

obviously space is limited, so i had a tough time choosing what to put on here. (special shout-out to "oops... somebody falls off the boat!" which I swapped out after we got the cover art. thanks, Jackie 😂💙) I also feel like some of my selections here might be a little too obvious/guaranteed, but look, guys... I wanted to make sure I had a decent chance of getting at least some of these right, okay???

what, do you think you could do better? 🤨

/jk but, really, I've got a blank card AND a .png of my little anchor stamp below the cut if you want to make your own and play along!!!

and hey, since I've got this handy dandy readmore, I'll also give a quick rundown of how I plan to do this light-hearted lil game.

Unless we do get another transmission or smth that completely confirms/disproves any of my current predictions, my card is locked in. I'm probably not gonna change anything between now and the 24th, and I DEFINITELY won't be changing anything once episode three starts broadcasting.

I'll repost my card before part 1 airs and (hopefully) start a reblog chain with stamped updates after each part goes up. The post will be tagged for spoilers right off the bat!!!

If anybody else wants to fill out a card and play along (please? 🥺💕 it would make my day), y'all can use whatever rules you want, I'm not ur dad lol. get silly with it, make a card full of guesses about what your fave gets up to and no one else, make the craziest guesses, whatever you want! also feel free to tag me! even if it's to show off that you're much better at guessing than I am, lmao. 😁🖤

and hey, maybe I'll do this again with future episodes? even if it's just me and Brooke playing along, lol. making this was fun!

now, without further ado, the blank card and the stamp, which mostly exists because I'm extra and I personally wanted to be able to do more than 'x' out stuff, lol:

[edettethegreat]

👀👀

May I get the 411 on what manga you're gushing about? 🤭

ok I’m gonna advertise this to you as well as possible because most of the online reviews of it were review-bombed by dudebros who hate seeing a girlboss win

So the manga is Munou na Nana/Talentless Nana, there’s a 13 episode anime adaptation of the beginning of it, but the anime really only covers the opening stuff

it’s a pretty standard genius vs genius mind games Shonen manga (think Death Note or The Promised Neverland)— EXCEPT it’s almost entirely female-lead. The ratio of important female characters to male characters is the exact opposite of most Shonens. (This becomes more apparent the further you get into the manga, at the beginning the ratio is about even)

now to get into plot stuff. Note that this includes spoilers for things that happen in chapter 1, and if you wanna go into this totally blind then feel free to read chapter 1 and then come back here

(also I’m gonna put in a cut where it gets up to spoilers— if it doesn’t sound interesting by the time you get up to the cut, then click read more and I promise it’ll all become interesting then)

Now onto the general set up for the plot— People suddenly start developing super powers one day, and although it’s very rare, the powers are destructive enough to cause problems. At the same time, these non-human beings(?) referred to as the “enemies of humanity” also appear and start causing harm and destruction.

The government has to come up with ways to make sure that people don’t just go around wrecking everything with their abilities (called “talents”), and at the same time they need a way to handle the enemies of humanity. So they decide to kill two birds with one stone and have the superpowered people (“Talenteds”) handle the supernatural beings.

To do this, they create a school for talenteds so they can properly learn how to fight the enemies of humanity and get some level of formal training

but PLOT TWIST there’s NO SUCH THING as “enemies of humanity” the government MADE THEM UP

and the school is a SHAM so that the government could gather talenteds in one place and just kill them all off.

Because what reasonable government would want this 0.01% of the population who are capable of mass destruction to be roaming around freely.

and so among the students they send one (not talented) assassin whose job is to kill off all the talenteds. And that’s the protagonist of the story. Our lovely girlboss Talentless Nana.

[seriouslysam8]

Please correct me and let me know if I’m reading this wrong, but I’m kind of getting Auror Harry and Demelza vibes from Sirius and Teagan. They work well together and can fool people into thinking they're a couple on a mission, but they’re just friends in the end.

With everything going on in Brumous, I can’t see him giving her the time of day if he can’t even give it to Marlene. I get the sense his main focus for a while will be Harry and protecting him from Voldemort. I find Sirius to be extremely loyal, so I think once he knows Harry is safe, maybe then he’ll look into his romantic life, but I think he’s the type of guy that would want to make sure things with Marlene are officially over before he moved on. I think there are a lot of unresolved issues, and in order to be truly happy, he needs to either resolve them or come to terms with them. Again, this is my interpretation, and because I see Sirius as someone who really values loyalty and someone who’s not one to give up on someone he loves. Feel free to let me know if I'm wrong. I don't mind at all! I just want to make sure I'm understanding things correctly.

I’m just gonna put this under a spoiler tag because I’m getting so many questions and being aloof is not working. 😂😂😂

I’m serious. Don’t read if you don’t want spoiled. Don’t send me asks about this because I won’t answer them and spoil my thought process for others. I will delete any asks that get into this spoilery information.

Make a comment or message me if you have questions.

I believe Sirius is hyper focusing on Harry in part because he really fucking cares about the kid but it is also allows him to push all of his problems back and not deal with them.

Sirius has a long laundry list of shit he needs to deal with. He’s not interested in having a girlfriend right now. He’s definitely not interested in attempting any sort of relationship with Marlene because that’s another can of worms that he doesn’t have the emotional capacity to even deal with.

But Sirius is lonely. Very lonely. He’s been lonely for a very long time. With Harry back at school and his freedom on his fingertips, I could also see Sirius entering into a very casual relationship with someone he trusts. One where he will ditch her mid-sentence because his kid calls him. One where he will have no qualms if she gets upset with him because his kid needs him and Harry comes first. One where he doesn’t want to even tell Harry about because he’s just looking to not be so fucking lonely night after night after night while Harry is at school.

I’ll be honest. I planned that while Harry was off at Hogwarts, Sirius would let off some steam with a girl for awhile now because the guy needs to let loose under the sheets. He needs a bit of physical touch that he can only get with another adult. Nothing serious. Not a relationship. Just a bit of fun where he could feel normal again and help him work out some of his issues. I had someone already planned for that role and it wasn’t Tegan.

I did not anticipate for Sirius and Tegan to have so much chemistry. I wanted her to play a role in gaining Sirius’ freedom for the Demelza storyline. But the two of them just clicked when I was writing. She seems like the better option of helping Sirius cope a bit than my original one.

But we all know that Sirius isn’t capable of any real relationship right now. Nothing more than a spot of fun. It’s more of a shag buddy situation. It’ll be long over before he leaves for the Horcrux hunt.

The real question is: what happens after the war? Who lives? Who dies? And what kind of mental state is Sirius in after the war and will he or won’t he be ready and finally be able to deal with his issues in order to have a more meaningful relationship?

Will he chose the girl he loved since eighteen whose death nearly destroyed him and knows all of his deep dark secrets and has a lot of baggage?

Will he choose the girl who is a fun and fresh clean slate that he already had a wild and carefree romp with who knows nothing of his darkness?

Will he choose the girl who I originally planned to be his shag buddy?

Will it be a girl who is none of the above?

Nobody knows. Not even me at this point.

[strymes49]

Free Fall Direct - May 2023

Hello, it’s me! The bird drawer guy. Now that Free Fall is in full swing after finishing up Chapter 1 - Terrifying Awakening, I have a few things I want to share regarding the future of the comic! So I thought I would make it all “””professional””” and make it a monthly thing where I talk about some BTS stuff going on with this project! Y’know, for those who give a flying bird.

So let’s get into it!

💜NEW WEBSITE💜

This is what the home page of the new Free Fall website looks like so far! There will be many changes made of course (i sure do love the times new roman at the top). This time it’s made in Neocities, which means no filthy dirty Wix watermark at the top anymore (sorry wix ily but you were trash)! This also means the comic will now be presented in the “normal” way, with each having its own page with arrows to click at the bottom to go to the next or previous page. Before, you just had to scroll down, but Wix wouldn’t load the entirety of Chapter 1 that way, so now it’s unreadable in that state (especially on mobile where the pages kept getting out of order), and I don’t have the energy to try and fight with a mediocre website host >:P

💜ARTWORK?💜

This website will contain a couple of new bonus features aside from the comic. One of them is the Artwork tab (a reworking of the “Art Gallery” tab from the last one). This time it will contain artwork I’ve made in the past (THAT DOESN’T CONTAIN SPOILERS), as well as concept art of the characters, locations, and other fun aspects of the story! I hope that will be a fun gander to look through, especially as more gets added to it with time! There might even be some cut content as well... oooOOhhh!

💜OST?? Like, MUSIC??💜

Oh yeah, like music.

One of my biggest visions for Free Fall was the addition of an original soundtrack that would play while you read (as an optional thing of course, and the ost would be available on youtube as well). And the OST tab would be the place to listen to any track at any time! It should be fairly easy to implement now on the new website! I’ll even put the old Free Fall tracks on my youtube under the “Free Fall Beta” playlist in there as a little bonus for that!

💜But where’s the characters tab, Strymes?? You can’t have a webcomic website without the characters tab!💜

And you’d be right! But it’s still gone, only because you can now access the characters’ “bio cards” right on the home page to learn about the cast! Under “Click HERE to learn about the Cast!” I have posted it before, but here’s a link to it if you’ve never seen it. It’s a little interactive archive of every character introduced in the story (or is confirmed to be in the story) so far: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EL9yR7b2e2eOQdZzQreuYrbqPrKfnJPKUGI-Pxh4WUA/edit?usp=sharing So that’s all I have to say about the website so far! It’s coming along and it’s been good learning how to code with HTML. A little daunting and overwhelming and gut-wrenching to get everything working... but good.

💜CHAPTER 2 NEWS💜

Now for the stuff you’re really here for.

This is a quartet of characters who are going to appear in Chapter 2. Who are they... and more importantly WHAT are they? You’ll just have to wait and see, nyeheheheheee >:3 There will of course be more of your favourites from Chapter 1 as well. I think you’re really gonna like Bella in this one XD Learning what I’ve learned from making Chapter 1, this should be a MUCH better paced romp with better writing that gets more to the point, while still having good clean dialogue, as well as better visuals (which you might have seen improved THROUGHOUT chapter 1, as that chapter took MONTHS to make lol). With that being said, it might not reach as MANY pages as chapter 1, but hopefully it will be a much more enjoyable experience overall with fun new characters!

💜IN CONCLUSION...💜

I think that’s it for now. Thank you for reading this far if you are somehow here lmao. It means a lot to me and I couldn’t be more thankful for even having an audience for this in the first place. So thank you thank you thank you. 💜😊With that being said, I’m sorry for not being as active on my socials as I used to be. I think I have less of an attachment to constantly scrolling through Insta and Tumblr these days (and I don’t have twitter to rope me back in anymore so maybe that’s a plus all around). I can assure you I am working on more art slowly but surely. I still have so many WIPS it’s not even funny, but I want to shift focus to artwork that I can truly call... well... art.And that means not just posting an oc drawing like “here you go” just to make sure I’m relevant. I couldn’t care less anymore. I am perfectly satisfied with not trying to please the algorithm at every turn, thank you VERY much.Tangent aside, thank you for reading. I’ll see you guys in June with another one of these! Weehee!

[meowymeowzers]

Oh Stanley, you didn't just activate the controls, did you?

After they kept you enslaved all these years, you go and you try to take control of the machine for yourself, is that want you wanted? Control?

Oh...Stanley. *sigh* I applaud your effort, I really do, but you need to understand; there's only so much that machine can do.

You were supposed to let it go, turn the controls off, and leave.

If you want to throw my story off track, you're gonna have to do much better than that. I'm afraid you don't have nearly the power you think you do; for example, and I believe you'll find this pertinent:

Stanley suddenly realized that he had just initiated the network's emergency detonation system. In the event that this machine is activated without proper DNA identification, nuclear detonators are set to explode, eliminating the entire complex.

How long until detonation, then? Hmm...let's say, um...two minutes.

Ah, now this is making things a little more fun, isn't it, Stanley? It's your time to shine! You are the star! It's your story now; shape it to your heart's desires.

Ooh, this is much better than what I had in mind! What a shame we have so little time left to enjoy it.

Mere moments until the bomb goes off, but what precious moments each one of them is! More time to talk about you, about me, where we're going, what this all means...I barely know where to start!

What's that? You'd like to know where your co-workers are? A moment of solace before you're obliterated?

Alright. I'm in a good mood. You're going to die anyway. I'll tell you exactly what happened to them: I erased them. I turned off the machine; I set you free.

Of course, that was merely in this instance of the story. Sometimes when I tell it, I simply let you sit there in your office forever, pushing buttons endlessly and then dying alone. Other times, I let the office sink into the ground, swallowing everyone inside; or I let it burn to a crisp.

I have to say this, though, this version of events has been rather amusing. Watching you try to make sense of everything and take back the control wrested away from you...it's quite rich. I almost hate to see it go!

But I'm sure whatever I come up with on the next go around will be even better.

My goodness! Only 34 seconds left...but I'm enjoying this so much! You know what? To hell with it. I'm going to put some extra time on the clock; why not!

These are precious additional seconds, Stanley. Time doesn't grow on trees!

Oh, dear me, what's the matter, Stanley? Is is that you have no idea where you are going or what you're supposed to be doing right now? Or did you just assume when you saw that timer that something in this room is capable of turning it off?

I mean, look at you, running from button to button, screen to screen, clicking on every little thing in this room! These numbered buttons! No! These coloured ones! Or maybe this big, red button! Or this door! Everything! Anything! Something here will save me!

Why would you think that, Stanley? That this video game can be beaten, won, solved? Do you have any idea what your purpose in this place is? Hahaha, heh, Stanley...you're in for quite a disappointment.

But here's a spoiler for you: that timer isn't a catalyst to keep the action moving along. It's just seconds ticking away to your death. You're only still playing instead of watching a cutscene because I want to watch you for every moment that you're powerless, to see you made humble.

This is not a challenge. It's a tragedy. You wanted to control this world; that's fine. But I'm going to destroy it first, so you can't.

Take a look at the clock, Stanley. That's 30 seconds you have left to struggle. Thirty seconds until a big boom, and then nothing. No ending here, just you being blown to pieces. Will you cling desperately to your frail life, or will you let it go peacefully?

Another choice! Make it count. Or don't. It's all the same to me. All a part of the joke. And believe me, I will be laughing at every second of your inevitable life, from the moment we fade in until the moment I say: Happily Ever Af-

(explosion cuts him off)

the autism and the add saw the word stanley and a silly guy has a busted lip now frm tryna not scream:3