#leaf separator machine

[allroundvp]

Allround Vegetable Processing offers a superior range of sorting, grading, washing, polishing, brushing, weighing, bagging, and material handling lines. Next to that, you can count on us for storage equipment and loading and unloading lines for multiple vegetables.

[tmntseparatedaucompetition]

I MEANT TO REPLACE BASEBALL WITH KAROKEE NOOO

its baseball now 👍

if you wonder what my thought process was for coming up with themes, im as clueless as you

[spideyanakin]

always remember us this way (e.m)

summary - corroded coffin member!reader, what if you wrote 'always remember us this way' for Eddie Munson?

warnings - sad ending, star is born vibes im sry :(, mention of sex

word count: 7.3k

thank you @inknopewetrust for proof reading some bits <3

back to main masterlist

eddie munson masterlist

That passion in your heart, burnin' in your eyes.

You fiddled with your pen as you watched Eddie from the other corner of the classroom. He was somewhere else; eyes distant and removed from the room you both occupied with 25 other bored souls. Mrs. Click was a drag. Her red manicured hands gripped the white chalk as it scratched the green stone.

The sound pulled him out of his stupor. He mumbled something incoherently and drew his pencil onto his paper. 

On the other side of the room, you couldn’t focus at all. 

A tune was haunting you. It was singing in the back of your mind as the melody began to swim around you. The notes of a song begging to be put onto a page and heard around the world. It was all you could think about; refrains coming to you two days ago when the boy across the room was six-feet-deep in a game of Dig Dug on your last date at the arcade.

A rhythm that you couldn't get out of your skin.

The mix of game chants and arcade music melted into one beat that you ended up humming all night. Fingers mindlessly drumming on the side of machines every time Eddie played his turn. 

You knew that when night fell, Eddie could sense you had music dancing in your mind. It was what brought you two together, after all. The melodies of songs that shaped a life; how stories could express feeling without ever feeling too vulnerable. Eddie knew the sensation all too well. For many a night he had been the victim of that vacant expression and mindless humming of the same few lines over and over.

You were so lost in the tune that when Eddie’s turn was over and he had been defeated for the ten millionth time that evening, his eyes burning a hole into your head hadn’t even fazed you. There you were, half leaning against the machine with eyes glazed over on the odd shapes and colors that danced on the carpet your polished shoes touched. Perhaps you could see the lyrics on the floor. The shapes and colors filled with blues and yellows jumped from their home and painted a score above. 

He called your name once. He called it twice. 

"What are you thinking about?" 

Eddie leaned on the machine’s panel that separated him from you, whispering the words in your ear. The light from Dig Dug illuminated his profile. He belonged in a place like this. A place where he could be free and seen and heard. No bands needth play when the song of Eddie Munson’s eyes filled your soul with warmth. Goosebumps passed through you. You blinked away the music from your mind and caught his gaze. 

He was looking at you with so much love you thought you were about to burst. Leaning so close you could see the tiny sparks of gold in his eyes.

One of his hands came to hold yours, reaching up with his ring-clad fingers to play with the bracelet he had gifted you two weeks before–a dark blue band with mini skulls braided in. It screamed Eddie and that's probably why you loved it so much. He had never seen you take it off since he had gifted it, and it made a small smile appear on his lips each time he saw it where it was meant to be.

And that's when the first piece of lyrics came into mind.

'You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire'

When the words started fitting together in your mind, you could feel the way it made you flustered—heat creeping up your neck and traveling up to your cheeks.

You really did feel like you were about to catch on fire that evening.

Two days later, in the desks of Mrs. Click’s class, you tapped your pen on the back of your hand as it rested over a loose-leaf sheet of paper that had scribbled lyrics that kept popping up. It was like catching butterflies with the words. They came and went, difficult to grasp and hold onto if you didn’t have a pen handy. 

That passion in your heart, burnin' in your eyes

You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire

It's buried in my soul, like California gold

You found the light in me that I couldn't find

The words “CHORUS” were written in sloppy big letters in the middle of the page. You scratched your head with the back of your pen, pouting as you tried to reach unknown corners of your brain for any kind of inspiration.

You had been on literal fire writing the first stanza. The words flowed freely and quickly and without remorse that perhaps it was cheesy that a boy in high school who you envisioned a life with had inspired those lyrics. 

When you look at me and I can't find the words

When the sun goes down,

And the clouds all fade

You looked back to Eddie in hopes something would appear. He was the reason for the song, the whole why as to why those words had made their way to the page in the first place. You watched as he scribbled something of his own, dropping his pencil onto his own desk before suddenly turning his head around and meeting your eyes.

It would be a lie to say that you weren’t caught off guard. Seized in the midst of your contemplation, in mid quest to squeeze any more inspiration out of the being that was Eddie Munson.

He smirked, mouthing something but you couldn’t do anything back. You could barely make out his words. He made you all choked up. Your cheeks started to burn again at the simple thought of him. His smirk, his pretty face… it all disappeared as he turned his head back around.

 He really had to choose now to be a good student?

You munched on the tip of your pencil before eying your page again. And as a light went off, you felt like scribbling something new. 

So when I'm all choked up

When you look at me and I can't find the words.

~

"You keep staring lately." 

Eddie took you by surprise, making you jump as he appeared behind you and laid his  chin on your shoulder.

"I always stare… you’re my boyfriend, Eds," you pointed out, tightening your grip on your piece of paper where your lyrics had been written—hoping he wouldn’t see it.

"Then there’s something different to your stare," he offered, leaving his place at your shoulder to step in front of you.

You grinned, shaking your head and smiling before leaning in for a kiss.

There was something so cheesy about being one of those couples you had once snickered about in the halls. Love had not reached you then. It hadn’t filled every part of your being with the pure adrenaline and immense pleasure it could provide by looking at the one you loved. It had never been obvious to you before that what those people had, you now did too and it was something you would never trade for the world. 

"Maybe it’s just because you’ve finally realized how desperately in love I am," you whispered against his lips and Eddie thought he could melt right there. He too had felt that love. He knew the Earth could swallow him whole and he would fly up to a heaven knowing that the girl of his dreams had loved him back. 

Instead of answering with words, he brushed a strand of hair that had fallen onto your forehead, gently pressing a new kiss to your lips.

"I love you so much" he breathed out, leaning against you as your foreheads touched. The bell sounded–the passing period was over. Eddie backed away, raised his arm to lay over your shoulders and the two of you bounded off to class for the fifth hour of the day.

~

Eddie's bed was filled with random papers, scattered pencils, and mini figurines—your two bodies mingled in the middle of it all. Your chin rested on his bare chest while your legs were tangled up together.

You watched him frown as he dropped the paper he was holding and blindly tried to find another one. He wiggled under you in an attempt to fetch a half-crumpled piece of paper from the other corner of the bed, succeeding after a minute of struggle.

You chuckled at his theatrics. He was never one for subtlety. He moved the paper away from his face to meet your eyes and grin back at you.

"How's that campaign going?" You murmured, almost too scared to break the silence.

For the past thirty minutes, the only noise that could be heard were the rustling of the trees and the uneven buzzing of the fridge coming from the living room mixed with yours and Eddie's pencils scribbling on paper.

It all started an hour and a half ago, when you both couldn't sleep. You thought that maybe tearing each other's clothes off and moaning the other’s names would have been enough to put you to sleep—but there you were at 2 am, after having cooked a box of cheap mac and cheese that had been bought so long ago it expired in a week. You were wearing the shirt he had been wearing that day while he was just in his boxers.

You still felt guilty for laughing at him when hot cheese splashed onto his chest, slightly burning him. You had been a laughing mess when you scolded him for not wearing a shirt while cooking. It was dangerous, you had to chuckle at the act as it was so abundantly Eddie. 

But now the bowls rested empty in the sink and Eddie was focusing on his campaign while you continued to think of the song that haunted your very being. The melody wasn’t catching. The lyrics weren’t forming and the ones that had stuck, from earlier that morning, loomed over your head like a big raincloud. 

Sleep was still far from both your eyes.

"It’s going well," he beamed, lifting his head while you perched yourself off him to steal a kiss.

You leaned back into the position you were in and watched as he began to work again. He grabbed a D&D figurine from the box he had almost fully emptied on the bed minutes prior. He inspected it, trying to find any specific detail that could be scoured for ideas before diving back into his paper and scribbling something new.

You couldn’t keep your eyes away from his face. To the way his tongue slipped between his lips in focus, or how he drew in his eyebrows, and tapped the tip of his pencil to his temple.

He scrunched up his nose before using the little space left on his chest next to your head to erase his scribbling.

You sighed in content. Tracing circles on his skin with your free hand, you had to force your eyes away from his face to look back at your page of writing.

The lyrics slowly began to take shape. The melody wished to fly from your mind and out from your lips, the tune familiar to him. Eddie had heard it for two days straight and couldn’t place it. He knew it was new. He knew it was original.

Your hums broke Eddie's train of thought and he brought his attention back to you, a figurine still in his hand as the pencil wavered in the other. 

"You keep humming this tune lately. I don’t recognize it," he spoke. 

You felt the joy of songwriting leap from you. There was a grin on your face that threatened to hurt your face. You were certain that you were smiling so hard that the strain in your cheeks was unnatural. 

"That's because I made it up,” you admitted. “It came to me that night at the arcade." 

Eddie's face lit up. He dropped the paper he was holding to give you his full attention. Everything in his hands disappeared and found refuge on the floor. 

"I've started writing lyrics to it as well," before you could even try and say something else, anything else to sell him your song, he was already wiggling himself away from the bed and walking to his guitars scattered around the room. 

He didn’t have much, but what he had was certainly enough. 

"Electric or Acoustic?" He asked, hand on his hips as he pointed to his most precious possessions.

"Acoustic… It’s 2 am, Eds, you don’t want to wake the whole trailer park," you chuckled.

"Who said I was plugging in an amp?" He turned to you, eyebrow quirked high in judgment before you gave him a flat face. He was joking. 

"I'm still going to pick Acoustic," he rolled his eyes before grabbing his black guitar and settling with it on the carpet.

He waited until you followed him. Eddie patted the floor in front of him as if to say, ‘hurry up, we haven’t got all night.’ So, you sat right in front of him with your paper delicately placed between the two of you. Lyrics now exposed to the world, the melody was beginning to be strummed without rhyme nor reason, just talent and the sheer excitement of producing something new. 

"What’s it about?" He questioned aloud as he started fiddling with the strings and pegs.

"You.” 

Eddie’s fingers froze in place. Head raising to meet your eyes, his face brightened and he gave you his best grin before muttering:

"Will you sing it for me?"

Butterflies fluttered in your stomach as they caught the lyrics. 

"Ok," you cleared your throat before reaching for the paper on the floor. You already knew the lyrics. They had been burned into your soul by this point because it’s the only thing you’ve been able to think about for 48 hours. But, you needed something to distract you from his burning gaze. "You ready?" 

“To hear you sing? Always,” you blushed. His hands were already clasping his guitar, impatient to hear you.

"Also, it's far from being finished–"

“Sweetheart,” Eddie let out a breath,  “just sing,”

“Alright,” you shifted on your spot "Ok,"

"Ok," Eddie repeated with a smile. Nodding, as if to tell you everything was going to be just fine.

"That passion in your heart,” you sang in the way you imagined you could hear it on the guitar. The rhythm and the pacing; all of it was to be done without the chords but the silence of the room and the tonal shifts in your voice. 

“Burnin' in your eyes. You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire,” your head was low, eyes fixed on your lyrics as Eddie's jaw almost dropped to the floor, his heart beating in his ears.

"It's buried in my soul, like California gold, you found the light in me that I couldn't find," he thought he was going to melt right there on the carpet of his bedroom floor as the words sunk in.

"So when I'm all choked up, but I can't find the words," you raised your melody, knowing you hadn't any lyrics to this part yet. You weren’t sure what would fill the space when your mind stopped working and all that was left was the loud, thumping of your heart and a mind that raced to find the words that Eddie Munson made you feel. 

"When the sun goes down and the clouds all fade," you let out a bit more, until you stopped and finally gathered the courage to stare up at him as the words disappeared from mind. 

"I think I've found lyrics for the next verse, but I'm not sure yet," you commented, dropping the paper on the ground again, meeting Eddie’s starstruck eyes with clarity. 

You waited for him to say something, anything, that would make your anxiety about sharing this piece of work with him go away. But when he didn’t reply, his eyes just stared wide at you, mouth agape, heat climbed up to your cheeks and you suddenly felt shy. 

"So… what do you think?" you barely mumbled under your breath. 

"Are you sure this is really about me?" He asked, jolted that someone would write a passionate song about him.

"Yes, silly!" you took the lyrics on that loose-leaf sheet of paper and slapped at his chest lightly. "You've been judging me for staring at you too much lately! I'm sorry to say, but you inspire me and if staring at you is going to get me to write, then I’ll do it forever." 

A bright smile appeared on his lips and before you knew it, his guitar was on the floor and he was kissing you.

"What's the next verse?" He muttered in between kisses, hovering over you as you reached to get the paper back. 

"Tonight's scenery," your eyes scanned over the page and back to his eyes. You never wanted to look away from them, pools of honey that melted with his love for you. They were softened by his smile, you had to steal another kiss before you could read the rest to him.

"Lovers in the night, poets tryin' to write, we don't know how to rhyme, but damn we try"

"How are you so damn good at writing?"

"Because you inspired me," you tucked a rogue curl behind his ear.

"We’ve got to show this to the rest of the band!"

"It's not finished though!" you shrieked at the possibility of those boys witnessing this song in its incomplete nature. "It's far from being finished!"

"That's alright!” Eddie brushed it aside. “We can at least work on the melody with them if you'd like? We don't have to show them the words just yet."

He was so sincere. So honest and considerate. It made those words jittery on your fingertips; an itch to write again and put down more of what Eddie meant to you. 

“Ok,” you nodded at him, a smile of your own creeping its way onto your face. “That would work.” 

~

“This is useless,” Gareth pointed out, throwing his drumsticks to the floor and tugging at his hair. “Without Eddie were never going to get the proper rhythm, no offence Y/n.”

“Non-taken,” you shrugged, biting your lip as you looked down to your instrument. 

It was a cheap blue and pink electric guitar you had gotten two christmas’s ago. It suddenly felt heavy, hanging by the strap wrapped around one shoulder. It wasn’t as near powerful or clean sounding as Eddie’s ‘second sweetheart’. The notes didn’t sound as graceful and as Rock’N’Roll as his warlock did. Your fingers tapped on the side of it, you occasionally played it as a backup for Eddie’s, never even attempted to lead using it. 

It didn’t make the situation any better that you didn’t know how to play like Eddie, and that factor seem to aggravate the mood even more.

You knew that if Eddie had been absent with a reason, it wouldn’t have affected this rehearsal one bit. You had practiced multiple times without him before: like when he got caught up in detention or what ever odd side quests Eddie Munson was up to that week.

But this time, something was wrong and it was buzzing in the dusty Hawkins air, slithering through the streets and making people double lock their doors at night and barely leaving their homes. The paranoia was becoming unsettling, and it was starting to bubble in the stuffy air of Gareth’s garage.

Eddie had gone missing for two days now, he had left you soon after your last campaign, and you hadn’t seen him since. It didn’t help that Wayne Munson wouldn’t answer your calls and that Dustin Henderson refused to answer any of your questions. He’d told you a vague ‘He’s alright, don’t worry’, before scurrying off and getting into Steve Harrigton’s car, leaving with unanswered questions and mixed feelings.

No one wanted to tell you the truth and you had gotten answers from no one. 

The rest of the band knew as little as you did. 

There had been a murder at the trailer park, and Eddie had gone missing.

You also knew it wouldn’t be long before the police came at your doorstep to ask you about Eddie. You were just grateful Wayne hadn’t let your name slip.

Great.

Just great. 

“You know what,” you spoke up, breaking the heavy silence. “Let’s just cancel band practice today,” you removed the guitar strap from your shoulders, heading to put it back in your case. “I don’t think any of us can focus.”

“Yeah,” the boys muttered, watching you leave without another word. 

They all knew this was taking a toll on you, and all felt like they could use a good rest anyways. 

You missed Jason, his gang and Lucas by luck that day.

~

“Hey, do you hear that?” Eddie jumped, a faint whisper of a voice making the hair on his arm spike, goosebumps tumbling down his spine. 

The upsidedown was already a creepy place, and the last thing Eddie needed was whispers to start haunting him–he seriously didn’t know how much longer he could last in this place.

“Hear what?” Nancy turned, her torchlight lighting up Eddie’s face.

“I thought I heard a whisper,” Eddie muttered, eyes squinting from the light aggression. 

“Didn’t hear anything,” Robin concluded and continued her walk through the dodgy forest.

Eddie recognised this place, they were already far from lover’s lake and were almost by the main road, not far from where you lived. 

He bit his lip as he thought of you. He hated not telling you anything, but he knew it was to protect you. He couldn’t risk that the the evil he was wittnissing first hand to get to you, or hurt you in any way. He knew he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if anything were to happen.

“Eddie,”

He jumped like a startled cat, the whisper had been clear, sharper. 

“This time you guys must have heard it too!” He whined, gulping when everyone turned around with annoyed looks on their faces.

“Litsen, we’re not going to make it far if you keep stopping because you think you heard something!” Steve grumbled towards the metalhead, the aggravated look on his face becoming more serious. Steve’s hand was impatiently resting on his hip, now covered by Eddie’s battle jacket.

“I don’t think! I heard it loud and clear!” Eddie spoke up, matching Steve’s tone. “It called my name.”

“Great, now were loosing Eddie!” Robin whined before taking a step towards him and snapping her fingers in front of his face. “Get it together, Munson! We have to find a way out of here!”

“Right, sorry,” Eddie shook his head and continued his walk, pushing away what ever was happening to him–and ignoring the unknown whispers that nagged at his ear.

“Eddie please, answer me,” your fingers gripped the side of your talkie, in hopes that maybe, just maybe he would answer you. 

But by the fourth time you called, the talkie unwinglingly dropped from your hand, tumbling from your bed to find a new home on the carpet of your bedroom floor. 

Eddie had been missing for four days.  

Four days of escaping Jason, four days of trying to squeeze an answer out of anyone. 

“Eds, where are you?” You whispered to yourself, closing your eyes as your head fell straight into your pillow, clutching it at your side as you tried not to cry.

You hadn’t left your room today, only muttering a thank you to your mom for lying to Jason when he came at your door, again.

Things were leading to nowhere and the rumours were doing nothing good for your spiralling thoughts.

You lifted your head up from your pillow, sighing as your eyes caught a polaroid of you and Eddie. It had been taken by Gareth right after one of your gigs at The Hideout. You remembered Eddie asking you to do his eyeliner a few hours prior. You had neatly applied it all around his eyes as if he had been Billy Idol prepping for a concert, but after shredding his guitar like freaking Jimmy Hendrix on that small crooked stage, he looked more like a slanky raccoon than a rockstar.

His arm was wrapped around your shoulders, your hair was as wild as Eddie’s, going all over the place from the hour of performing. Both your eyes sparkled with some kind of after show high, but yours held something else entierly as you looked at Eddie. You looked so in love it only reminded you how much you cared about him.

About how much he means to you.

Stop. You decided it was enough sulking for one day. Swinging your legs on the side of your bed, socked feet touching your soft carpet before you snatched your notebook and pen from your nightstand, throwing it on the floor before taking your acoustic guitar from it’s spot on your wall. Your eyes barely caught the ‘This machine slays dragons’, spray painted in pink–done by Eddie himself on a rainy afternoon.

You sighed as you crossed your legs, resting the guitar on the edges of your thighs before starting to tune it, mindlessly twisting the pegs as you tride to push the ache from your heart away–maybe even channel it into words and music. 

You opened your notebook, hoping to find something to save you, but it was just a reminder. The song still rested on the white pages, words mending together in pretty loops of letters. You had almost finished it before he vanished, and even if writing music had been the last thing on Corroded Coffin’s mind, it was the only thing that could keep you from spirialing. The only thing that kept you sane in this mess of a situation. 

The page you were staring at had been wrinkled by your aggressive erasing during the past few days. The pencil writing of your most recent words were already smudged from the tears and constant doubting on the way it sounded with your melody.

But all I really know, you're where I wanna go, 

And maybe, just maybe if you had told him these words before you would know where he is. Maybe you’d be with him and help him sort through this mess.

 ~

A week.

A week of silence.

And Hawkins had crumbled under your feet.

Your grip tightened on the cardboard box filled with clothes to donate. You had gone alone–sent by your mother who had been too busy to go herself. You tried to calm down your nerves as you walked in through the large double doors of the gymnasium. You didn’t know why anxiety was munching at your stomach, threatening to swallow you whole–but the bad feeling was rising in your chest and you couldn’t push the intuition away.

You caught a glimpse of Dustin talking to Wayne, frowning when the conversation didn’t look very joyous. Dustin had his fist closed, handing something you couldn’t see from that far to the older man sitting in front of him.

“You should give it to her yourself,” Wayne mumbled, pushing away the boy’s hand away. 

Dustin blinked, shock seeping through him at the suggestion. God he didn’t know how he would even tell you.

And just like that Dustin found your eyes. You were already looking at him from the distance–eyes wide in silent question–maybe also fear; he couldn’t be sure, he couldn’t know until he actually talked to you. 

He gulped.

Dustin’s face held nothing but anguish and the closer he was to you the better you could see the tear stains on his cheeks and the slight glaze in his eyes.

He didn’t have to even speak. He didn’t even need to voice it–the look in his eyes said everything that needed to be said.

Tears prickled at your eyes and you felt the sudden erge to throw up. The feeling rose and your heart physically started to ache–was that what grief felt like? Was that the feeling that came crashing onto your body like waves onto cliffs.

You didn’t even know what Dustin had said. It was all a distant echo, a distant voice in a parallel reality–muffled by the way your body’s reaction.

You caught some words. Sentences that didn’t ease the feeling.

‘He talked about you t’il the end.’

‘He didn’t want to put you in danger.’

‘He really, really loved you.’

‘He left this for you’

You didn’t know how long ago he had left. How long you had been standing there–Eddie’s pick necklace resting against your palm. 

But it was long enough for you to register the sudden feeling of loneliness, washed up from the storm on the shores of your mind. 

Your other half was gone.

~

"This is um- the song" You zipped up your bag, slipping out the tear-stained paper you had spent the last few days blankly staring at. Maybe hoping it would bring him back.

Jeff grabbed it without a word, giving you a tight smile. You could see he had been crying too.

You looked away as his eyes started shifting across the paper. You looked at the small window of Gareth's garage, the sunset bringing the rays of golden hour across the musty room.

If he had been here, everyone would have taken a break and you would all be watching the sunset. You'd be wrapped in his arms giggling to some dumb joke he made about whatever was on his mind.

But that wasn't the case.

And everything felt so dull now.

You looked around. You were slouched onto an old green bean bag chair, the one you and Eddie would fight over every single band practice, but now he wasn’t there to fight you for it–you had the dirty, half empty and wrapped up in duck tape poor exuse for a sagbag all to yourself. The used up thing didn’t even look appealing anymore, and you hoped Gareth would throw it away for your sake. 

The garage’s owner was blankly staring at his cymbals, drum sticks barely hanging from his hand and threatening to drop on the carpet. He looked like hell, not much of a difference from his band mates if you were honest.

Jeff's bass was hanging low around his shoulders as he read, tears nudging at his eyes.

"You- you wrote this?" The strain in his voice was evident. "For Eddie?"

"I wrote it with Eddie, but I want to change a lyric, before we um, do anything with it."

"Yeah go ahead," he blinked the shock out of his eyes.

The lyrics felt so beautiful, so magical. To him, you and Eddie had been nothing but one of those high school couples that would either go on to get married, just to have that classic white picket fence life or end up breaking up before graduation. Nothing more, nothing less.

But as he looked at you wiping tears off your cheeks he realized it was so much more, and it had always been so much more.

The both of you were never going to fall into either of these two options. The two of you had always been the odds one out of the pack, the whole of Hawkins had been a witness to they way your crazy minds worked–but your relationship didn’t just hold on your similarities. The two of you had been in love, truly in love. Like the type of love Aragorn and Arwen shared, or the one in the stupid movies channel six passed on friday nights. The ones poets wrote about and people died for. 

You were meant to be rock stars together as you crossed the world. The two of you were supposed to be the pillars of this band, the glue that would hold everything and see members come and go. He didn’t know why it took him all this mess to realise. 

"You want to read it?" You looked at Gareth who looked up from his drum set with a blank expression.

"I'd rather hear you sing," he muttered.

"Alright,” you cleared your throat. "Can you-" You were about to ask if he could play the guitar for you but remembered that was Eddie's job. Jeff played bass, and Gareth was on the drums. "Nevermind," you took the decision on your own–you’d do it accapella.

You weren’t bad at guitar, you knew how too strum a few simple chords, but you weren’t Eddie.

"When the sun goes down" your voice cracked and you had to close your eyes to keep focus "and the band won't play," your words felt heavy in the room, and a sad smile adorned Jeff's lips. "I'll always remember us this way," you continued, and suddenly Gareth started playing the rhythm that you had rehearsed two weeks prior. Jeff started on the bass, and as they started duetting–your eyes fell upon Eddie's guitar.

You picked it up.

You grabbed the guitar from the corner of the room, hanging it on your shoulders and attempting to keep singing as you plugged it in the brand new Marshall amp–a gift from Gareth’s mom to the band. 

You thought that maybe Eddie would be proud–proud of all of you for continuing music even if he wasn’t there.

"Lovers in the night," Gareth picked up the pace on the drums, and you desperately tried to follow the rhythm, hanging on to what Eddie had taught you. "Poets tryin' to write, we don't know how to rhyme, but damn we try," it took everything for you not to cry. “But all I really know, you're where I wanna go," You closed your eyes in anticipation of the next line, the one you had written just yesterday, "the part of me that's you will never die"

"So when I'm all choked up, and I can't find the words" Eddie was peering up at you with the brightest smile you had ever seen. "Every time we say goodbye, baby, it hurts" Your fingers glided over the guitar strings, Eddie knew you were fully into the song but he just had to stop you.

"What?" You smiled as his hand reached the guitar and his other your cheek.

"I cannot believe you wrote that about me"

You giggled, "is that so bad about?"

"I love you," you could have stared at the giddy smile across his face for ever.

"I love you too,"

"And I love the new lyrics, please continue, I'm sorry I've cut you off" He sealed the moment with a kiss, before leaning away and sitting patiently in front of you again.

"When the sun goes down, and the band won't play," the memory was cut by you opening your eyes again.

The sun might have been setting a beautiful color upon the walls, but the garage felt so much darker without him. Without his voice.

"I'll always remember us this way"

~

"So what inspired you to write this song?" The interviewer pursed her lips before settling her papers back onto her lap, fixing her glasses before staring back to you.

You looked down at your skull bracelet, sad smile forming upon your lips.

"Isn't it obvious?" You quirked an eyebrow, hiding behind humor to stop the bubbling feelings.

"Love?" She smiled back and you nodded your head. You wanted this conversation to end like it usually did. You always gave the same answer; Love.

The same music with cheeky gazes and smiles always followed;

‘Is it anyone we know?’ 

‘Is he in the band?’

‘Are they famous?’

‘Are you in a relationship?’

You never answered. Gareth, Jeff or the latest addition to the band would change the subject–but as the crowds grew, so did their curiosity. You knew you couldn't hide from the eyes of the public much longer.

"Yes, but we all want to know more,” she urged on, her tone staying sweet and comprehending. “You once said it was one of Corroded Coffin's most personal songs if I’m not mistaken." 

There it was. You were alone–no boys to help you change the subject with a joke or random statement about the song. You looked at your shoes for a brief instant; maybe trying to sum up the courage and push away the feeling of dread. Attempt to mend the hole in your heart, just for a few minutes. After this you could leave back to your hotel room and find a way to drown your sorrows.

When you didn’t reply, she continued.

"I can't help but notice that there's a certain sadness to the lyrics?"

She hit the bull's eye.

"Well," You looked up, meeting her gaze. Maybe it was the unspoken comprehension of a woman towards another–the subconscious bond that created itself just by your similar place in the world that made you more comfortable to share. Maybe it was what caused her to spot the hidden meaning–or maybe it was just her journalist mind that picked the song apart, ready to latch onto any information you were ready to hand over.

"What people don't usually realize is that the song takes a turn,” you shifted uncomfortable in your seat–you had never gotten this personal in an interview before. "It starts out as this love song. Two soulmates who can't believe they've found each other," Eddie's pick necklace felt burning hot against your chest, the ring you had slid on the chain too–a diamond ring that belonged to Eddie’s grandmother. 

You remembered the moment you had discovered it. You were going through Eddie’s room accompanied by Wayne, trying to naviagte around the ruins of the trailer and scavenge for anything that was left plausible to use or donate. Boxes of random objects and clothes laid in between all the mess and you had already managed to find his guitar–releif when it was in perfect condition, left untouch by the damages of the earthquake. Which now hung on your living room wall, preciously behind a glass frame.

Your attention had been caught on the broken closet while Wayne was going through the drawers of the small desk. The earthquake had broken one of its feet; making half of the drawers hang open with clothes tumbling out of it. You had organized his shirts and jeans already–piling up the ones you could keep and the ones you could give away or give to the corroded coffin boys to share upon themselves.

Your fingers gripped the handle of the third drawer–and you'd only realize this after but it was probably the last time you’d have any a glimpse of sanity in your bones; if you had even any sanity left since he passed away.

If you were honest with yourself you didn’t even really know what this drawer contained. He had never really opened it in front of you and you couldn’t say that you had much curiosity towards it before. You half expected it to be his sock drawer–but your breath caught in your throat when you slid it open.

A collection of souvenirs–mainly of you, laid at the bottom of the hard wood. Photos, souvenirs, concert tickets, boxes with what you assumed even more trinkets and things he collected since the start of your relationship.

You gulped in a pour attempt to push the tears away. 

You started sorting through the collection papers and polaroids–everything bringing memories that were dug deep into your brain’s memory, hidden behind other memories of Eddie. You already knew you’d keep everything, probably throw everything in a box and sort it out in the comfort of your own room–when Wayne wasn’t there to see you crumble even more as you gazed upon Eddie’s collection.

There was a mediumish wooden black box nestled in the far corner of the drawer, and it immediately caught your attention–like something pulling you towards it, screaming for your acknowledgment.

The box wasn’t heavy in your hand, it almost looked like the boxes Eddie used to store his extra special drugs and you expected that to be the content. Eddie hid drugs everywhere in the trailer in a poor attempt at covering up the fact that he wasn’t a drug dealer in his spare time. That if the Hopper or some other dumb officer ever came around they couldn’t possibly find everything he hid. 

But even if there was, most probably a zip-lock bag with some kind of funky psychedelic powder or pills hidden inside–you still wanted to be sure. You fiddled with the unlocked buckle, and pushed the lid open; but you were met with no drugs. 

Instead there was another black box. A small squared box draped in black velvet. You frowned, it… couldnt be? No. You refused to even think about the idea–this was again probably one of Eddie’s weird drug hiding spots.

This must have been something even more special than the special K.

With trembling hands you grabbed it, fingers wrapping around the top of the box and popping it open.

You blinked, all words dying in the back of your throat. You didn’t trust your voice, but your mind had talked at loud on it’s own.

“Um, Wayne?” Your voice was definitely shaking, and he immediately turned to face you. “Do- um- what- huh-” You couldn’t formulate a proper sentence, and you watched Wayne’s expression soften when his eyes caught what was in your hands. 

His mother’s engagement ring.

“So that’s where the little devil’s kept it,” Wayne almost laughed, almost chuckled at the absurdity of the unworldly situation. Your frown deepened and your heart raced to your ears, you couldn’t formulate one single thought and Wayne seemed to take notice because he continued, “we found it in a box a few months ago, Eddie was adamant of keeping it,” Wayne weighed out his words, wondering if he should continue. He knew well enough this was going to break you even more, but now that Eddie was gone, he couldn’t keep the subject of his conversations with his nephew to himself, “to give it to you someday.”

Wayne had insisted that you kept it. That it was meant for you and that he’d have no use of it–that it would be collecting dust in a drawer when Eddie wanted you to have it, when Eddie had kept it stored in the back of his closet for you.

You had worn it on your ring finger for months–as if he had actually given it to you himself. As if he had made it past graduation and got down on one knee, locking your lives together forever.

Gareth had caught you speaking of him one too many times at bars. You would have one drink too many, some guy had probably made a move and you shoved your hand towards his face, drunkenly rambling a life you wished had been real.

But your drunken and fuzzy mind always caught up with the fact that you were lying. That your fiance wasn’t really on a trip and you weren't just at a bar with your best friends to celebrate being engaged and soon to be married- and that's when the tears became uncontrollable.

Gareth-the usually sober one often found himself attempting to dry your tears, trying to sober you up on the floor of the dodgy tour bus or in some hidden corner of the bar if the bus had already been taken hostage by Jeff and his latest conquest.

But when fame rolled down at your doorstep you had to remove the ring from your finger to keep any unwanted rumors away.

And right now you couldn’t just open your room’s mini fridge to scavenge for anything that could take the pain away from your chest, you had to continue that interview.

"But then the song becomes a requiem," you continued, trying to keep your voice from wavering. You watched the interviewer face almost fall, her mouth opening into an 'o' as she pieced up the lyrics together.

You thanked the stars she was being respectful, maybe even understood.

Soon enough the interview was finished, and neither Jeff nor Gareth or the world was ready for what you did the next time you stood on stage. 

Because for the first time in years you spoke his name.

For the first time, you told the world who this song was about.

[flowercrowngods]

sometimes i wonder if i’m really mentally ill. my food doesn’t go bad, and my dishes don’t sit around longer than three days before i get to them. i change my sheets on the first of every month and do my laundry once a week. i put it in the wardrobe after at least a day. i go to the store to buy groceries every week, then i make food and eat it and separate my waste — plastics, paper, compostable organics and non-compostable “other”. i separate recycling and glass bottles. i wipe my surfaces and vacuum my room, i make my bed every morning, i air out my room and i water my plants and watch them grow, smiling at each new leaf winning the battle against all circumstances that want to keep life on the down-low around me.

sometimes i wonder if i’m really mentally ill when i see people unable to get out of bed let alone make it, when i see piles of dishes and laundry around them, when i see media portrayals of illness as nothing short of a disability. sometimes i wonder if that’s why i don’t get help. when i get grades no lower than a B, when i go to work and seem to all of society like a functioning member, like another cog in the machine flying under the radar.

sometimes i wonder if maybe i should stop doing the dishes. sometimes i wonder if i should stop washing my clothes, if i should stop getting any grades at all, if i should stop going to work and not get out of bed. sometimes i wonder if that’s what it takes for anyone to see. to see that there’s no joy to be found within these walls. no point, no reason, no purpose. no ambition, no hopes, no dreams.

sometimes i wonder what it means to be mentally ill, because obviously i am not. i’m too self-aware, too functional, not doing badly enough. the air constructing in my lungs is not bad enough, the tremor in my hands thinking about tomorrow is not bad enough, the hopelessness residing in the centre of my being is not bad enough, the pointlessness of everything not strong enough, the thoughts of dying not secret enough.

because i do my dishes. i eat my food before it goes bad. i have fresh clothes each day. i go to uni, i go to work, i water my plants and watch them grow.

i am not mentally ill. you will not find me on the screen. you will only read about me in an obituary.

— thoughts of a crazy person

[cozza-frenzy]

Update on our situation

Terry here. I'll be honest, I'm only writing this down now things seem to have Stopped Happening so I can kind of take inventory. I haven't had any time to process any of this, so I'm just going to go through Simply Plural and list things. Thanks for bearing with us. It's been an awful couple of weeks.

Fusions Anarchy - Fused with Gadget, who briefly came out of dormancy Bitter - Fused with Mayhem, now goes by He/It/That Bastard (which is still funny to me) Dr. Brewer - Fused with Jeremy and Getter after a long negotiation period, to try and offset the harm they were doing to the system and to each other; seems to have succeeded, sometimes struggles a bit. Retained his identity post-fusion Holiday - Fused with Arcadia, minor changes to in-sys appearance Martin - Fused with Seamus (a new fragment); now carries some memories of our grandparents, no major change in appearance but has taken to using a cane to walk in the Inner World Papyrus - Still around but fused with Deedee (a new fragment); now in charge of "pathfinding" for Chaos' doors, increasing speed and accuracy, and making it easy to form permanent connections between areas of the Inner World Raine - Fused with Sasha, a new introject from The Magnus Archives. She identifies as both names (we sometimes call them Sasha-Raine) and uses She/They Taffy - Still around; lost Celeste's part but fused with Susan, now uses Any/All + Star/Stars Terry - Fused with Exi, I retained my identity and have a few minor changes to my in-sys appearance Returning Celeste - Returned from dormancy, and re-separated from Taffy Dagwood (Partial) - Nathan's part came out of dormancy and began communicating again; they have not re-separated Leaf - Returned from dormancy, re-separated from Raine Mello - Re-separated from Exi after they fused with me, because I'm not able to hold trauma long-term; they seem confident in their ability to tackle this, and want to try fusion again someday New Alters "Apple" (She/Her) - Introject from a source she doesn't want to disclose. In-system therapist; offers a private space for alters to process their feelings while not fronting. Soft-spoken, easily embarrassed, but a good listener Helena (She/They/It) - Brainmade. Aims to uncover repressed desires and counter harmful behaviors related to suppressing them. Uses a lot of italics while typing, speaks her mind, very flirty Hermes (He/They) - Brainmade. In-system "mailman", facilitates communication. Friendly and a little naive, "happy to help" Hex (It/They) - Introject from Discworld. Artificial intelligence that helps manage the library, and keeps an eye on the system's status. Finds human bodily functions to be "weird", can front via a hologram, not usually very emotional but very attached to their favorite teddy bear (anyone who knows its source will know why) Tabitha (She/Her) - Brainmade/"Factive" introject of our late grandparents. Holds memories of them, and is a caregiver to alters of all ages. Your pretty typical "feisty old lady", likes card games and doesn't like to be coddled Tellie (It/None) - Introject from Pendog Creative Library. Seemingly holds our knowledge of how to drive and operate the complex electronics and machines from our various jobs and hobbies. Seems to "hide in the wires" of the Inner World, existing as pure electricity until it makes itself known Yggy (Any/All) - Pronounced "Iggy"; seems to have a connection to the Inner World's giant tree. Sounds a bit like a stereotypical "hippie"; it's able to come and go as he pleases without using doors, and can help identify the source of emotional pain "Zee" (They/Them) - Introject from a source they don't want to disclose. Gender dysphoria holder; a bit jaded, prone to sarcasm, but open to exploration of their own identity, and willing to help others with theirs

I have no idea what our current headcount is, but I'll update it when I have the energy for it. We haven't had anyone show up in the past 48 hours or so, but I'll give it a full week before I decide this whole thing is finally over, and we can start picking up the pieces. Hope everyone's having a happy and safe holiday. I'll try and post something more positive tomorrow, if I have time.

[gwenkress]

Novel 002: Shroud of Dawn

A bounty hunter chasing down his own murderer teams up with a scholarly, buglike alien who’s trying to find his way home. Peppered with questions he doesn’t want to answer, the bounty hunter finds himself at the crux of a mystery that concerns his entire species. 🤠❤️🪲

Death! Rebirth! Revenge! Queer romance! Unlearning the internal toxicity of common cowboy stereotypes! This book is DONE (ish) and out querying agents right now! DM me if you're interested in beta reading. :)

Pinterest board (contains spoilers!)

Writing aesthetic Spotify playlist (the instrumental music I had on while I was writing)

Major characters under the cut! :)

Meet the blorbos from Shroud of Dawn!

Glicht Aarvam

"Sure, I recognize that whatever on Khala’s shell Dawn actually is, it saved my life. More than that, it brought me back from the dead. But that don’t mean I’m obligated to enjoy what it’s done to me, and by sight it don’t mean I’m obligated to think highly of it. The thing is more stupid than it is smart, and its sparing my life more than anything foretells that.”

A bounty hunter by trade, Glicht has led a long life of emotional ups and downs, getting better at his profession with every bullet dodged. Recently, he's fallen into an apathetic rut that he can't name the source of; so when he discovers within himself a deep hatred for murderer and gang leader Tek Slonden, he leaps on the feeling and devotes his life to hunting Slonden down.

When that devotion results in the deaths of hundreds, however, Glicht needs to face what he's become. But Slonden is still out there, so that will have to wait; in the meantime, he'll just lie to himself until his gun hand stops shaking.

Spotify playlist (contains spoilers!)

Lohak

“Oh, no, it’s very straightforward for me. There’s simply nothing I could have been other than a scholar. Nothing. I’m always asking questions—my mother likes to say that my first word was a question. I grew up reading books and getting thrown out of classrooms for challenging the teacher. Of course I would latch onto the world’s biggest mystery, wouldn’t I? Where else would I be?”

A member of the zhel species, which is the dominant species on the planet Khala where our story takes place, Lohak has a leaf-green carapace, four arms, and an unmatched zest for knowledge. So, as soon as he found out that no one really knew where humans came from five hundred years ago, he dove straight into the deep end of the mystery and started digging.

When hundreds of people are killed in a disaster during his excavation, Lohak gets separated from the rest of his team and winds up tagging along with a human bounty hunter for safety. His new partner is terse, interesting, and alluringly actionable rather than calculative, and it isn't long before Lohak falls completely in love.

There are a lot of things he doesn't know about Glicht, however; and despite considering himself clearheaded and logical, Lohak is determined to believe that his team all made it home safely. All he needs to do is catch up with them.

Spotify playlist (contains spoilers! though not as bad as the others)

Dawn

"I do not want. My purpose is to keep [humans] healthy. You were the first to come within my sight since I lost memory."

Dawn is a 'doctor machine' buried beneath the place where Lohak's team was digging. When Glicht gets himself killed along with hundreds, he happens to cross paths with it, which enables it to resuscitate him.

Although it has lost contact with its main store of memories, Dawn is clearly a link between the present and the ancient past--the target of Lohak's research. And, now that Glicht is dependent on Dawn for survival, so is he.

Spotify playlist (MAJOR spoilers)

[20dollarlolita]

Ever wanted some cool leaf patterns to cut on your vinyl cutter machine?

Here's the pattern after a readmore (because it's a lomg picture). I cut this out at about 0.85" wide to get designs that are about 30" long, which was enough to spiral down my crutches.

Here's a link to the ping files if you'd rather download high-res ones. I'm bad and don't actually use vectors to cricut, so you're going to have to just import the two colors separately and line them up in the software. (Fun fact, you can change the color of one of the files, and then line them up properly. Design Space will then split it up by color for you. In other news, today someone who totally wasn't me spent like 4 hours trying to make it do that, when it's literally a fucntion of the software that took me mere minutes to actually do once I looked up how).

Or you can save yourself a ton of time and cut it in one color only, if you don't care about secret messages.

[avareiahgt]

So, this is my first writing in order to explain a bit of my world. I'm so sorry for my English, i hope you can at least understand what I'm trying to say hehe.

I would love to post some pictures of my characters but I'm not the artist type, to my disgrace.

No more waiting, I know this chapter isn't the most interesting, but it's our introduction and I think it's important.

Warnings: mentions of death, mentions of violence, human experimentation

Next part

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PROLOGUE

I guess you’re wondering what everything of this is about. Well, I’m going to tell you an ancient story:

History books say, a lot of centuries ago, one and only kind of humans inhabited this planet. They were all the same, they were born with the same abilities and possibilities, paying some mind to little differences: skin color, religion or sexuality were some of them…

But one day marked the future and all those things that kept them separated stopped matter anymore.

First offspring met daylight crushing the mother form the insides. Four months forward, that baby had the stature of an adult, normal human. Emergency interventions by the responsible scientists were actually useless, letting the breaking news slip into radio and TV, the project of a giant baby that made its mother explode due to the fetus’s abnormal size and development.

It would be a wonderful terror story if it weren’t because it wasn’t an isolated case. A lot of incidents like the previous one peaked some weeks after that. Who knows if the rich and privileged knew about this before the rest of us…

Strong investigations started in every country. What could it be? Toxins, viroides, mutations… Nothing seemed to make sense, they couldn’t find the reason. Sadly, some predacious people put their eye on it looking for a unique opportunity. New test tube babies. They weren’t genetically engineered but, once fertilized and showed an excessive growth, they were extracted from the belly and maintained on enormous tanks that emulated placenta.

First years were met with failures and the deafening fall in the world birth rate. Just a few babies were born with normal conditions, with human proportions. Anyways, the discouraging perspective for couples to keep trying to be parents made it collapse. No one wanted to give birth. Chances were low, only 12% of pregnancies found the four-leaf clover and went awfully normal. The horror of the remaining 88% meant an overdeveloped not-born crushed the mother form the inside without enough development to eat, breath of merely live without a machine. They were trying to maintain a giant one or two-month fetus. It would never work.

Babies kept growing in size while time passed but not a single one survived. One decade went by a number of deaths and lost inversions until… a baby girl was born. Healthy, pretty and gigantic. While the clinics and labs halls were full of cheers, streets were full of hate. What to do with a baby that no one could properly attend? Who would teach, feed and handle her? And, the least and worst, who was going to deal with her when she was adult enough? Who were supposed to go against her wishes?

Sooner than later, some of the brightest minds found a conclusion: if we couldn’t stop nor fix whatever mutation that afflicts them, we would improve it. We would learn and work for a new human generation. Opposition and admiration became enemies to death. Cities burned, complains were massacred and, of course, entire governments and countries fell. From time to time, the first fights were replaced for some with new values. Nevertheless, there was something that anybody could kill… human scientific curiosity.

More than a million new human failures were the first stone for the future path: to replicate the original mutation on adults became a reality. Shifting was slow, painful and irreversible, but compulsory. First of all, it was a progressive change, they were bigger each time holding their morality and intelligence, which only resulted in more experiments, cheerfully this time. Even so, it all was a unique question: why would you want -and keep- 90 feet human guinea pigs if you weren’t enough strong nor competent to even control them? Like every human being, those experiments also became ambitious. Finally, an important 72% of population reacted positive to the mutation, it seemed that the new designed virus acclimated itself slow but unstoppable. From that initial 72% only the half made it through. Which was the position the old generation was holding in now? A minority, so small at number and size both.

There were multiple tries for coexistence thanks to equality factions, none of them worked. There wasn’t a single person in the whole world that didn’t know the REM implications. It started as an integrative association for the new -old- minority for them to live in big cities, just so oversized for them. Unfortunately, soon the cover went down: it was a military special branch focused in infiltrations and information seekers. They had never stopped those experiments. The main director, Avery Dorens, showed his face without doubt when his name appeared on every media. Visionary, he called himself, who had been fighting in order to find a cure for the Older’s involution problem. His followers were ex-military agents, spies and even ex-convicted. All of them strong people with weak or broken ideals. Nothing could stop him and, some years later, even with his expedient still opened, Dorens’s project received tons of support and financing.

That’s how war started. A war my side lost. Giants versus humans. Step by step, giants replaced us. Some of us were immune, I don’t know why, so we saw ourselves as the resistance. We were the ones loyal to the human race. This meant a rupture with society. Most of knowledge became lost or destroyed because of the war. Giants called themselves Newman, the new improved human race, since my kind was baptized as Older, the old, outdated, weak that had to disappear in order to favor the specie’s development. Newman versus Older.

Older were expelled after losing the Size War. They hid themselves into the most rural places, out of reach from Newman. It wasn’t an easy task since nature seemed to grow with them, grass strands were the size of a person. A lot of species disappeared along the Size War, some others integrated the mutation.

Nowadays, here we are. It’s been 200 years and, theoretically, Older are all dead. We are a fantasy creature that only appear on kid’s tales and history books. We have been forgotten and my generation is being prepared to guide our little world, the one they let us without knowing it.

Who would believe that creepy story? It was a horror tale to tell the children to sleep. Real world was there waiting for me to conquer it. I wasn’t supposed to waste my life yearning for something interesting to happen in Berhem, was I? It was a beautiful and small city with a familiar atmosphere. It was perfect for breeding kids and living a peaceful, long live. It was placed in a long-lost forest, protected by some hundreds of natural, green barriers that kept us from the ugly outside. None of the young knew how to go through it neither we had permission. Where was the sea? Snow? Dessert? Legends, that’s all it was. And I wasn’t one to keep dreaming and waste my time wondering. I needed to know the truth.

What was outside those green walls?

—Don’t stop running, Walker! — the trainer’s voice resonated through the pavilion’s walls. I knew she wasn’t expecting an answer, so I didn’t. I kept my usual rhythm. Resistance test was the one I was focused now, it took me time to get the trick, but I got it at least.

Sooner than later, my life was going to change. I was training for the Military Force, Exterior Initiative -MFEI abbreviated - section. I’d always been a curious child. Reckless and shameless, my mother used to say. Me joining MFEI was completely opposite to her beliefs but she had understood it would be the only way for me to be happy: finding answers to my never-ending questions.

I could have started my own little company, study abroad, learn a profession or even just stay at home with a good husband who would keep me fed and healthy, but that wasn’t my deal after all. I dreamt about exploring new areas, look for whatever land that was our so far in the past. I wanted to find a time where we weren’t Older, just human.

And that time would come when I was accepted at MFEI.

[ceruleanmusings]

Sunrise Sanctuary: Guest Log; Thorn

a/n: i have many ideas of the "guests" that visit or live at sunrise sanctuary and their backstories that would have either been long gone or not mentioned by the time the events in sunrise sanctuary happen. i wanted a place to put these ideas so i decided to write a separate "log" to showcase them. here's the first entry: thorn!

tagging @witchfog for all her support with sunrise sanctuary! i think i'll leave the logs here for now as "bonus" content and then migrate them over to ao3 eventually.

The leaf blower roared to life, the sound cutting in half seconds later when Skylar snapped headphones over her ears. Adjusting the machine on her back, she tightened her grip on the throttle trigger and started forward with her task for the day. Waving her arm in a sweeping motion, the propelled air blasted the leaves scattered along the ground up into the air.

They danced and twirled in an invisible cyclone; stark reds, bright yellows, and vibrant oranges. Against the stark splash of blue above and lush green below, nature painted a masterpiece on a canvas with every sweep of air.

Skylar cleared a few feet in front of her when something brushed by her leg. What the...? She paused, twisting to look down, not too far and not too fast or else she would wind up on the ground.

The last time that happened she blew herself across the ground, tumbling and rolling, due to the sheer power behind the leaf blower. Her father, Zenith, finally came to her rescue after he got his laughter under control. Mud-stained clothes, a couple bruises, and one hurt ego later, she made sure to let go of the trigger any time she felt herself tipping.

Seeing nothing but grass and leaves, Skylar shrugged and went back to blowing. Must've been Delta. The vaporeon loved to antagonize her and run away when she began to cross a line. Skylar took ten more slow steps when it happened again. Another brush of her ankle. Stopping, she slowly turned in a circle. Nothing. Water rippled on the surface of the pond nearby, breaking a second later when a lotad popped its head out, water dribbling out the top of its large leaf. Mollie, a miltank, lounged on the dock, her tail swinging above the water. Dasher, a rapidash, ran along the fence line, her flame matching the saturated colors on the trees she galloped past.

Brows furrowing, Skylar went back to leaf blowing. She managed to reach the horse stalls when she felt it again. A hit to her leg this time, it nearly buckled her knee and sent her into the wooden structure.

That's it!

With gritted teeth, she turned off the blower and yanked the headphones down to her neck, whirling around.

All fight drained out of her at the sight of the crouching pokemon. Instead of seeing a vaporeon with a curled tail and eyes sparkling with mirth, instead she was greeted to the sight of a nidoran♂ with its back arched, barbs extended and sharpened, pointing in her direction. His eyes narrowed and his lips pulled back in a snarl, a chattering warning sound coming from its mouth.

"Hey Thorn." Skylar slowly sank to a knee, ignoring the water immediately soaking through the thick denim. She held out one hand, palm facing outwards. "It's okay. It's just a leaf blower."

Thorn's ears wiggled and twitched as she spoke. His nostrils flared when her hand got close and its tense muscles eased, just a little. Its flank flowered a couple inches but the barbs remained raised while his eyes rained on the object on her back.

"There's no danger. I'm just pushing the leaves." Skylar kept her voice low and calm, fighting the strong beat of her heart against her chest at the sight of the barbs on him. Thorn had no problem putting their poison to good use when they sensed danger. Then it hit her—duh!—he thought she was in danger! Scratching by her leg was probably his way of getting her attention, or even trying to climb her to get to the contraption. Her heart melted at his protectiveness, ven though she'd be on the reviving end of that poison sting attack. "That must've hurt your ears though, huh? That's why you wanted to attack?"

Thorn chattered again and a fresh wave of despair hit her at his gummy mouth. Where his large front teeth should have been was an empty ridge. Thorn had been brought to them by a good samaritan; he wandered out of Viridian Forest worse for wear with blood dripping out his mouth. A battle gone wrong or the aftermath of a poacher, she didn't know. Either way, she and her father both agreed he wouldn't survive long if they released him back to the forest, if he was even accepted back into his herd. It was best for him to stay with them. He was on a soft, nearly liquid diet comprising of plants, herbs, and berries. Anything tougher had to be cut into smaller bites or added to generic soft pokemon food.

"It's just air. Look." Skylar readjusted the bag on her back, pointing it away from Thorn and blew it at her hand. Her hand bobbed beneath the force of the air shooting out of the machine. She then pointed it down at the grass, pushing the tall blades of grass over. They undulated like grassy ocean waves, green shifting to white and back with each push of air.

Thorn slowly lowered his flank, barbs shifting back to its normal position. He took a couple tentative steps forward, red eyes filled with curiosity. She turned off the air and held out the nozzle, waiting as he brushed his nose against the opening. Then he lowered his head and thrust its barb inside. The metal pinged and clinked against his scrabbling.

Skylar allowed a soft laugh to slip out her mouth at the sight. "Careful, you'll get stuck," she said. Thorn backed away, sitting down on his hindquarters, staring hard at the machine on her back. "It won't hurt you. I just need to get the leaves in a pile like this." Turning, she blew more of the leaves away until they settled into a small pile. "You can jump in them if you want."

Thorn stared at her, his head tilting to the side, ears lowering.

"It's a game," she explained. "It's fun." Then she cringed. With her flat explanation she made it sound as enjoyable as a visit to the dentist. How long had it been since she last jumped in the leaves? She scratched the side of her head as she thought, crawling back through the years. Probably...right before she started taking on more duties around the sanctuary six years ago. Just around her 10th birthday.

I'm big enough to help! she had insisted when Zenith tried to put her off the idea. She placed her hands on her hips and lifted her chin and held him in a defiant stare. I can do this! I've seen you work every day! i'll take it seriously! Let me try!

She'd been focused on her duties after that, making sure she mucked and provided food and groomed and, on time every time. No guest would endure more suffering under her watch. Fun and games fell by the wayside, she had a job to do after all. Her guests always came first.

She smiled. Her guests always came first.

"Okay, watch. You'll see." Raising the headphones to her ears again, she blew more leaves, adding to the pile until it came up a little over her knees. She shrugged the leaf blower off her back and set it aside, tossing the headphones to go with them. "Watch," she repeated to Thorn.

Taking a few steps back, she ran forward with a few strides and jumped into the red-hued pile. Her landed was soft among the leaves; they let out a satisfying crunch beneath her weight, tickled the exposed skin on her arms, and fluttered up around her head like autumn's own unique snowflakes.

"See?" A big grin burst on her face as she turned around, wading through the sea of foliage to crawl out. "You just jump right in." She brushed loose twigs clinging to the thick denim and swipe off the remnants of the water ring on her knees. Traces of mud smeared along the edges. She could worry about that later. Laundry was never ending at Sunrise Sanctuary. "Now it's your turn."

Thorn's earns flattened against his head and he lowered his head. He took a step back, his chattering now softer than before. Clicking her tongue, Skylar approached and crouched with her hands on her knees. "We can do it together. Okay?"

Thorn looked between her and the pile and he gave a tentative nod. She flashed a thumbs up and stood to full height. "Just run and jump, okay? Ready...go!"

Within seconds the two were airborn and landed in the the enveloping arms of the leaf pile. Skylar laughed, brushing loose leaves off her head while Thorn disappeared beneath the surface. A couple seconds later his forehead horn popped up and moved around the pile like a snorkel on a scuba diver, making her laugh harder.

Forelegs resting on her knees, Thorn popped out of the leaves with a big, toothless smile. "See? I told you it was fun," she said, stroking his head. And as he purred beneath her hand, she realized just how much she needed to tell herself those exact words. After all, a little bit of fun never hurt anyone. What was the point of it all if not to find the fun moments?

Thorn pushed into her hand, nearly crawling up her legs to get into her lap. "You want to go again?" He nodded, "Okay, but let me blow more leaves first so we can have an even bigger pile!"

[jadeazora]

The New Message from the Masters Team is out!

EX Roles are coming: By unlocking an EX Role, a Sync Pair will gain traits of a different Role in addition to the one they started with. For example, if they're a Strike Pair with the Tech Role, their Sync Moves will hit all opponents and receive a 50% power boost. These can be unlocked with Role Cakes, which are earned by getting Role Cakes coins. You can get these accomplishing the Daily Missions scheduled to start Aug28, and as battle completions rewards from the new difficulty level they'll add to the Daily Region Rotation coming Sept3.

Leaf will be added to the Lodge starting Aug30!

New Sync Pairs are also going to be added to the BP pair item exchange. There's four new 4⭐ units and two new 5⭐ units. They also plan to add daily tickets to the daily missions, which can be exchanged for Roll Cakes coins.

Details on the Anniversary Pairs! In addition to the standard Master Fair, there will be a paid banner that rewards a Roll Cake when you Scout the featured Pair. Their Neo Champion event begins Aug28. (I'll likely cover the Villain Arc stuff before this.)

The prelude to the final Villain Arc chapter will be added Aug28, with the final chapter coming Sept4. Villains on Pasio begin to start acting on their own beliefs again. By completing the final chapter, you can exchange for a new style for your Trainer Lodge!

A new Stop the Evil Mastermind special event is coming. There's also a special log-in bonus that will highlight the evil machinations of Team Rocket members, a new Variety Scout that will offers the chance to team up with Giovanni and the Executives, and a new co-op mission that have several in-game missions, and a separate rally with special rewards based on the number of missions completed by all Trainers.

4yr anniversary missions that will reward a Ticket that will allow you to team up with N/Zekrom, Raihan/Duraludon, or Marnie/Morpeko. (Well, she's the only one I haven't 3/5'd yet...)

A Rental battle event using preset teams, and special 15x and 25x paid Select Scout banners that have a few Pokefair pairs added.

Future plans include updates to battles and upgrading Trainers, new types of battle content, and expanding the Profile features, such as adding a photo feature that will allow you to create your own photos by arranging Trainers.

Next update message scheduled for late September!

[meseob]

the more I think about the live action the more it's kinda pissing me off actually, changes aren't always bad but they literally made the worst ones and for what? as if squeezing 20 episodes into 8 isn't already crazy they include stuff from later seasons for no fucking reason, everyone walks around like a exposition machine we barely get to see their personalities shine and also because they took a big fat chunk out of them they feel like empty shells compared to the og, Katara doesn't feel like Katara at all, why is the Gaang constantly separated? toning down the humor way too much yet including overly comical scenes like the cabbage merchant and lettuce leaf? why the fuck have I not seen Aang waterbend at all until now? they really ruined what could've been a good adaptation with an awful script because honestly everything else is quite decent

[peardian]

Here is some behind-the-scenes commentary for my new animation, "Raymond's New (Cat) Groove"! I want to get out all my thoughts here before I forget anything. I'll be covering the entire video, so if you want to avoid spoilers, go watch it first!

First up is The Zoom! Ever since I started planning this animation 2+ years ago, I knew that this would be the first shot. Since zooming in on his eye would produce a mirrored view of the video, a double-zoom-out was necessary.

My original plan was to have the zoom be done purely in 3D. However, when it came time to implement it, I realized the shot did not look good when done realistically. The images distorted due to the curvature of the reflection, and Raymond's glasses got in the way due to how big and round his head is.

Also, even his iris was edited in. I made an HD version of his face texture, which you can see in how smooth the edge of his eye is, but because of the model's texture mapping (UVs), the iris was all distorted. I'm glad I edited in the new iris, though, because I got to make it even higher-resolution.

I already covered all the details on the laptop screen in a separate post, which you can find here.

The first good view of Raymond's room. For the most part, it is a recreation of his default room layout in New Horizons, with a few differences, such as his fax machine being removed. I didn't have all of the furniture models, so all the stuff that isn't shown directly (e.g. safe, water cooler, second desk) are super-low-poly recreations.

The laptop is from Splatoon 2. It is Marina's laptop, with all the stickers removed. If you look closely during the zoom out, you can see that the keys still have the Splatoon language keys.

Also, fun fact, his chair was a Froggy Chair as a placeholder until I got the office chair model. I was planning to keep it, too, if I couldn't get the office chair.

The animation's events really kick off once Raymond begins dreaming. The way his idea lightbulb lights up the room, and how the light persists afterward, is the first sign that things are not normal.

When I first started planning this, I had the New Leaf version of the office wallpaper in mind. While New Horizons has the windows completely obscured by blinds, the New Leaf version has a cityscape visible through the gaps in the blinds. I was originally planning to have the sky change, going from a fake sky to a vibrant real night sky.

Raymond reaches into his desk for the Ocarina of Time, giving the first style shift. This is another scene that I had in mind for years. Originally, I wanted this scene to be super-realistic. Instead of those cartoony leaves from the game, I wanted just a big pile of real-life dried up leaves, with labels written on them. They'd rustle and slide around when the drawer is pulled open just as you'd expect from leaves. I love the idea that, from an outsider's perspective, the villagers are just a bunch of adorably dumb animal children, gathering leaves and pretending they are furniture.

Here are all the leaf types in Raymond's desk. There are two "???" leaves, for a total of 10. Sadly, my favorite ones are completely hidden due to how the physics simulation worked out.

Speaking of physics, I meant to have Raymond pull the Ocarina out. However, every time I ran the simulation, everything freaked out the moment the Ocarina tried to move to his hand, causing the contents to fly out everywhere. Maybe later I'll render out that part for fun.

The Majora's Mask time travel scene. I had the scene ripped from when I was mapping the game, so recreating it was easy. I referenced footage from the game for the animation timing, which is why this and the Ocarina-playing scene are some of the only parts of the video that aren't overly fast-paced. If I had more time, I would have added in the light-blue sparkles that come off the items, just like in the game.

For the anime-esque sequence, the original idea was just to have the hair be flowing smoothly. At some point, I realized that drawing hair on the 3D model would look weird, so I decided to draw the whole thing. I've never really animated like this before, so it was a fun experiment. I posted the raw drawings in another post, here.

For the background, I wanted to reference the time travel scene in the cartoon Samurai Jack. However, the effect there is very intense and hard to look at, so I greatly toned down the flashing effect to the point of being unrecognizable.

Raymond crash-lands in the city from Animal Crossing for the Wii. All the trash that pop up are items from the game, of course. I chose an alleyway so that I didn't have to bother with assembling the city itself. While most of the scene is made from assets from the city, the brick texture is just one of the home wallpaper options.

Did you notice? Before Raymond puts his glasses on, the world is only in 480p, but when he puts them on (stylishly), the screen transitions to full 1080p. The Wii's resolution isn't 480p, but the original Cat Groove's is.

Also, this scene gives a clear example of one of the dream-like effects I used throughout the latter half of the animation. Take a close look at the placement of the bricks relative to the poster. Every time the camera changes, things subtly shift around! It's hard to notice because these are details you normally don't pay much attention to. My favorite use of this effect is in Yoshi's Island, where terrain details are randomized every time you enter a room.

It's not easy to make Raymond look happy when his expressions are normally so serious. Also, did you notice? The floor is entirely different in some shots. It has the same color palette and general design, so it feels the same, but the details and patterns are entirely different.

When the camera points up, you get a brief view of the highly-saturated night sky. Even though it's night, everything is brightly lit, another dream sign. By the way, there's supposed to be a chimney up there, but I guess I didn't put it close enough to the edge to be seen. I completely forgot about it until later.

Here is a closer look at one of the blimps flying in the sky. It's an edit of the Luigi blimp from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, with Rosie's face added on. This is actually an homage to an anime movie, something I rarely talk about. Specifically, the Madoka Magica movie. Rebellion.

Raymond meets a younger Dr. Shrunk at the club entrance, leading to another style shift. This is another scene I imagined for years. Those hands are actually Pikachu's from Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/Ultimate, with some clothes added on. Also, again, different floor.

While the art style here looks like late-'90s/early 2000s CGI, this wasn't intentional. I didn't realize the resemblance until after I had rendered it. I guess it's just a natural result of using smooth models with super-basic lighting and solid-color materials.

One idea that I'm sad I didn't have time to implement was that the text on the checklist was going to subtly change as Shrunk's hand passed over it. Just like a dream, the text would change every time you read it.

At the bottom there is the rule against allowing OCs in, the explanation for why Raymond can't get in. It continues out of frame, but you can see more of it when he puts the clipboard away. I even included doodles of some YouTuber OCs! Just for clarification, I have nothing against OCs, it just seemed like the funniest option.

The orb appears!

I am not great at special effects, so this was my best attempt at a reality-warping entrance effect. Sure, it's not very dynamic, but I like how it came out. The sound it makes is a distorted, reversed version of one of the Animal Crossing jingles.

I originally had a different ending in mind. Rather than dashing into the door, Raymond would have climbed up on top of the building to look for another way in. There, he would have seen the orb sinking into the roof.

Raymond achieves his dream! For this scene, I originally imagined it ending with that Undertale sound that plays when going through the dramatic exit door to the ruins. You know the one.

Also, darn walk cycles! This was the fifth one I had to animate in a row, using nothing but pure IK. If I wasn't so exhausted by that point, I might have thought to have the camera zoom in or something.

Raymond sleeps soundly while Cat Spin auto-plays. The snoring you hear is a recording of a real cat snoring, which I found on a free sound effect website. The main reason I included it was so that nobody thought Raymond was dead. His tiny arms don't really lend themselves well to a good sleeping pose.

So, why is Rosie there?? Well, originally, my plan was for the camera to look over at the whiteboard, where something like "Happy Anniversary Cat Groove" would be written on it. This is why the whiteboard is at an angle instead of parallel to the wall like normal. However, when I animated the scene, I didn't have the whiteboard yet.

When I finally got the whiteboard model, I realized I had overestimated its size, and sizing it up didn't look good. So, I had to find a way to fill the empty space above the board. I considered a banner or Rosie-shaped balloons, but I eventually settled on the most ridiculous option: having Rosie herself.

The End!

For the credits music, I chose the Smash remix of Bubblegum K.K., not just because of how many people associate it with Raymond (because of those singing videos people made), but because I just really like it. Other songs I considered were K.K. Disco and the Jimmy T. stage intro from WarioWare: Smooth Moves.

You may have noticed that I used very little of the song Catgroove in the video. Back when I made the original Cat Groove video, the video got a copyright claim, blocking it from being viewed by my European friends. I don't know if the company making the claim was legitimate or not, but I appealed and they removed the block.

Fast-forward a number of years, and Cat Groove was at hundrends of thousands of views, eclipsing everything else I've ever made. I decided that, as much as I enjoy his music, I didn't want to be mooching off of Parov Stelar's work. That's part of why I made Cat Spin, using only Nintendo music, to show the direction I wanted to go. Besides, if the video gets claimed, then I can't show it to all my friends. Otherwise, I might have chosen something like Jimmy's Gang for the credits music.

~

Anyway, that's all I had to say! The end result may be a bit rough, but I'm glad I finally got to bring this idea to life and share it with the world after years of tossing it around in my mind.

A big "Thank you!" to everyone who watched the video from start to finish! I don't know if/when I'll make another big animation like this, but I hope you'll look forward to whatever I make next.

[anonzentimes]

I’m happy you’re liking it so far!! :D (I was going to put the entire dr3 story in one ask but over 2000 words was just too much ! Lol )

So, Saki was going to go with Nagito to the vending machine but remembered there were other things she had to do, so they separated. A flower she was looking for should have been around this fountain area but it’s nowhere to be seen.

She was going to do a double-check, re-looking at her notes to make sure she was in the right area. When she bumped into Hajime! Saki apologized and went to grab the notebook she dropped when Hajime had the same idea.

They just stared at each other awkwardly for a moment before Saki stood up to let him grab it, thanking him. And maybe by random chance, he might be able to help so she asked him if he had seen the flower she was looking for.

So, she showed him a picture and asked! It was a good thing she did because Hajime mentioned that he did see something similar to what she was looking for that was actually at a park nearby! She hugged and thanked him!

Which made Hajime feel so awkward because it came out of nowhere. Then Saki realized she had written the wrong location but she was still grateful for his help regardless.

Chisa showed up and introduced herself since Saki was the last person she was looking for. Chisa noticed Hajime's reserve course outfit and asked him about it. then she had to run after “Ryota” when he tried to escape.

Saki had to write in her notebook while she waited to fix the mistake she made so she went to the right place this time! Hajime mentions that, that Main course student seemed a bit ridiculous because he thought they’d be more like elites and wished he had a talent too. Saki just says that talented or not they’re still human.

And having a talent or being a part of Hope’s Peak might not be everything he thinks it is. Besides he could be anything he wanted to be. He might not be the best to be called an ultimate but still, he had so much freedom. When Chisa comes back, grabbing Saki’s hand and saying bye to Hajime before dragging her away.

Even though Saki wanted to go to the park before she went back to the Main course she just decided to do it tomorrow and gave a wave of goodbye to Hajime!

It’s been a bit since and they’ve had perfect attendance and you know it was fine they haven’t come together as a group but at least some were having fun. Like Akane and Nekomaru even though they were destroying the classroom. She does end up leaving because it was distracting and she can’t focus on her research.

Ryota was also outside the classroom. He talks about having friends or being united as a group doesn’t matter because they’re elites and all they need to do is graduate to succeed in life. While Saki doesn’t completely agree with that she does think that it’d be hard to make friends because being a botanist isn’t that interesting and sometimes it feels like that’s all she’s good for.

Chisa pops up giving her a speech on how she’s sure there are other things that Saki likes to do that can do with the class! But she also doesn’t even know if other people don’t want to hear about her talent because she never even tried to say anything about it! She is way more than just talent and it’s not important to live a happy life.

So this part I did have trouble with because I wasn’t sure how to have Saki bond with her classmates with something that fits her character and also something the rest of the class would do. But I did come up with something so you can tell me what you think!

I haven’t mentioned this yet but Saki has always been a pretty creative person! She loves making things, things like beaded necklaces/bracelets, flower crowns, and sometimes earrings.

The flower choker and leaf hair clip she wears she made herself using real plants! Same with all her flower crowns. So since she likes to do these things maybe her classmates would too. She brought everything she had to the classroom and they were just going to have fun and make whatever they wanted. 

I do think it would take some convincing to get everyone on board because it may not sound as fun as it ended up being! But also the way she bonds with Hajime is a bit different mostly because I can’t really imagine them just doing arts and crafts, maybe sometimes.

So instead she bonds by talking! She can tell he’s insecure and she wants to help if she can. One of the chats she had with him was about how she also had high expectations for Hope’s Peak and the people around it. Before she got accepted she was somewhat indifferent toward the school.

Only because she just never assumed she’d get it so she tried to not let it bother her. She thought it’d be a hard-working school with hard-working people! That’d be super stressful and difficult.

Then she did get accepted and she was shocked but honored because to her it seemed like they thought she was good enough to handle it. They wouldn’t have invited her if they didn’t think she could do it, you know? Then she got there and well it wasn’t like that at all, you don’t even have to attend classes as long as you pass the exams. Safe to say she was disappointed.

But also being in the Main course or having a talent didn’t get her to become friends with her classmates. Sure it was the reason she met all of them and even Hajime but 2 months ago she still only hung around with her one friend that she knew before Hope’s Peak but she was the one who tried to make an effort to be friends with them by being herself.

So basically what she’s trying to say she that Hajime probably won’t find the confidence he’s looking for by being a Main Course student or having talent. It all comes from him only.

Saki also officially became the class rep showing how she was willing to defend Hiyoko from Teruteru during the food scene by giving a hard backhand slap to his face. She wasn’t going to accept at first thinking she wasn’t fit for it but everyone’s support made her go for it.

But she was getting closer to her classmates and Hajime having a good time! Hajime was late to their usual hangout spot but he did show up. He couldn’t stay because he had something to take care of but asked Saki to make a bunch of memories for him.

Saki agreed and said that she’d see him tomorrow. Then the school gymnasium had an explosion which led to the suspension of Nagito and Chisa leaving to teach at the Reserve Course for 6 months.

Saki promised to protect her classmates for the time being while Chisa was out but it was kind of a struggle. Part of her felt lonely she’d never been away from Nagito like this basically since they met. Hajime still hasn’t shown up and now Chisa’s gone.

That's soooo interesting having the person you've known practically your whole life be suspended and having to improvise is interesting lol. I enjoy the way she empathizes, obviously, and knows how to articulate the main points better than Chiaki did. I think them getting closer by her talking and giving flower gifts to the class is sweet! I like how much she values consent much like Nagito, I can imagine she was at least slightly influenced by him since cares about it so so much (which GOOD!)

[an-aussie-button-masher]

Planet of Lana - Quick Review

  A once-peaceful world under attack, a mysterious army of faceless robots, a kidnapped sister, a young girl with her loyal companion, and one of the most cinematic puzzle games you’ll play all year. Welcome to Planet of Lana. A side-scrolling puzzle and stealth game by Wishfully, Planet of Lana is about a girl that survives an invasion from strange machines that abduct her entire village, including her sister. Determined to rescue the only family she has left, Lana sets out into the wilderness of Nova to find her. Along the way, she encounters a tiny creature called Mui who instantly befriends Lana and follows her commands, helping her solve puzzles and survive her journey. Together, the duo stealthily avoid and outsmart robotic scouts and vicious wildlife in a beautifully hand-painted world that hides just how dangerous and surprisingly creepy it can be, uncovering the secrets of Nova on a planet-spanning odyssey.

   First off, I cannot stress enough just how gorgeous this game is. The environments are all completely hand-painted, from every leaf on every tree to each individual blade of grass. Every now and then the game shows off these grand, vast background shots that really sell the idea of this huge adventurous planet you’re exploring. Even the sound design is amazing, like Mui’s adorable little chirps and the eerie melody droned by the robots throughout the game. The robots also have this jarringly distinct artstyle that separates them from everything else in the game, giving off the sense that they aren’t of this world.   In terms of gameplay, Planet of Lana isn’t exactly anything mechanically groundbreaking; you more or less spend the game just walking to the right and solving puzzles or sneaking past robots along the way. It doesn’t do anything new, but what it does, it does extremely well. Despite the straightforward gameplay, the puzzles are often surprisingly difficult headscratchers and the stealth segments are always incredibly tense.   The lack of complex mechanics to learn also means you can focus more on the quiet yet powerful plot - Planet of Lana tells an emotional story from beginning to end, all without a single word of actual dialogue. It’s about a scared yet brave young girl that just wants her sister back, and will quite literally walk to the ends of the world to find her. Add an adorable little creature companion, creepy robots and a stunning artstyle, and you’ve got yourself a truly brilliant game.   I hope you enjoyed the review - reblogs and likes are much appreciated!   Thanks for reading!

[birbs-in-space]

woo I've got 3 of 4 crochet projects done! I'm taking a quick break before i return to the final one, but here's what I've been working on for the past month!

brief explanation: a friend of mine talked me into putting together some crochet stuff for the fiber arts part of my local fair! all submissions are due may 26th (including photography and art, which I'm going to figure out after I'm done with my crochet work) so I've been scrambling ever since finishing up with my dcrb stuff

the first of the projects is an elephant themed handbag. it's technically a bit of a collab with a friend of mine who came up with the initial idea and is going to be dealing with the interfacing and the lining, so I'm going to have to sort out how to represent that in the submission but

here's what it will look like, minus the ears, tail, and feet. i photographed it before sending it off to her! i also made a trial bag ahead of time

i also made this to trial run my design ideas. it's got some major flaws though i do actually like the head shape more lol even though I spent a LOT of time trying to make the final one work properly.

project 2 is these parols! if you're unfamiliar, an actual parole is a star-shaped paper lantern made in the philippines as a christmas decoration. now i can't make paper lanterns but i can make these, which i did, based off of a design i worked out last Christmas to make some as a gift for my mom. most of these were made using lily sugar and cream yarn which was a Huge Mistake lol.

project 3, which i actually finished a while ago before finishing up the parols are these...things. it's a bit tricky to explain but basically i made these both for fun and as an experiment to test out the capabilities and limitations of chatgpt. if you're somewhat familiar with me, you'll know I'm a programmer by career. which means i have to keep abreast of technological developments NOT because i need them for my job, but because i WILL get pestered by other people who think i know the answer (a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, that). plus, machine learning is a bit fun cause it's a) it's fun to see it flop and flail around cause it doesn't actually know shit and b) it's a fascinating reflection of the world we've created and the failures and limitations of the structures we create to define and control it.

which is to say that i asked it for various patterns with varying levels of specificity and oversight and crocheted what it gave me with varying levels of "forgiveness" (damn thing doesn't even tell me where to sew or attach things most of the time). IF my submission is accepted, I'm hoping they'll let me submit some explanations to go with lol. and also after finishing the last pattern, which i generated maybe 2 weeks ago, I've finished off the project in solidarity with WGA and the newly unionized "AI" content moderators.

(the most powerful tool i think i have personally is my ability to explain why chatgpt and it's siblings are so limited in their ability and why people ought to be careful implementing them in any meaningful way)

so now that I've adequately proved that i am not a tech bro, actually. observe: my children

the absolutely comical moray eel

i requested a separate jaw piece and that it be long and thin. it gave me this in the silliest way possible.

yes the fins are all wrong and the body is weirdly twisted. i don't know why it gave me a trapezoidal panel. it didn't even tell me to make a tube out of it or how but idk what else i couldve possibly done. anyway, i love him

next, a small collection of flowers.

one looks like a sunny side up egg but pink. chat gpt claimed the one on the left was specifically supposed to be a rose, which is genuinely funny. it's a flower doily, at best, and not even a good one at that.

poppy, orange

im actually quite impressed by these, especially the poppy petals and the leaf of the orange (though the orange is rather flat... i squished it in a bit for the sake of the picture. also check out that stem. wild.)

mystery patterns 1 and 2

these were supposed to resemble actual things, when i was done with them. they do not.

my beloved pill quail

the pattern actually had the dots misaligned because it miscounted the number of stitches in the round, making the instructions mathematically impossible. for the sake of not accidentally creating a physical impossibility and plunging the world into a spontaneously generated black hole, i decided to fix it instead. though that didn't stop my poor quail from literally being capsule shaped, having coffin shaped wings, and the largest quail beak ever. i actually was very specific about this pattern and had to ask it for modifications and answer regenerations a lot (if you do this, you'll find that the average crochet pattern it makes is JUST outside the bounds of it's character limit), so the fact it turned out so funny looking will never not be hilarious to me

mushrooms

for the first, it actually just gave me a panel for the stem, but not cylindrifying it made no sense. for the second it literally just gave me two balls but the nature of crochet balls is you can kinda squish them into shapes.

the "flower basket"

i asked it for an idea to put into the fair, it gave me the flower basket—a small, deflated ball. 10/10. the biggest failure, which is why I love it so

the water lily

it did not adequately tell me how to put the petals onto the circular back panel (which it called the flower). I'd say what i did is probably what it was going for, but it's literally incapable of going for anything. that's not how text predictive models work. and fun fact! no water lily patterns on the internet look like this

self-representation

if chatgpt looked like a little crochet guy, it would look like this, according to it. (once you get past it insisting that if has no visible/physical form) apologies for the very mediocre glasses—i did not get into this hobby to embroider. i am very specifically not good at that. also it's feet were literally too big to have it NOT be sitting. and i did ask for the size safety eyes i should use, which is why they're so small lmfao

and finally:

Ert the hedgehog. it told me i COULD add spikes by using a crochet hook to add yarn at the top of its head. it did not tell me how. so i did that...for at LEAST as much time as it took to make the rest of it. Ert is my newest scapegoat whenever i have a problem. also i forgot to style his spikes for this photo lmaoo

bonus:

[catcheyes-t-shirt]

Yarn Manufacturing Process

The Yarn manufacturing process involves 2 processing units: the Ginning factory and the Spinning factory. Cotton bales are collected from the farms, and these bales get cleaned, and cotton is separated from the seed in the ginning factory. The separated cotton is then sent to the spinning factory, where the formation of yarn takes place. In the spinning factory, various processes take place blow room → carding → combing → drawing → Roving → spinning. These yarns are now ready to be transported to the fabric manufacturing unit. The wholesalers and retailers buy t-shirts in bulk, and at the time of buying they consider the fabric quality which is derived by the yarn. So, it is a highly important step in the t-shirt manufacturing process. 

Ginning Process

Ginning is the primary step of the yarn manufacturing process. Ginning mills are usually situated near cotton farms to save on the transportation cost. Earlier, it used to take a whole day for a person to separate half a kg of cotton and seed. Now, 2,30,000 kgs can be separated using modern machines. Below is the process of the ginning factory. 

Ginning Process Steps 

Cotton enters a ginning unit in the form of cotton bales. In the first step, the cotton wetness is checked, and if it is wetter than 5%, then it is sent to get dried and if it is dryer than 5%, then more water is added to it. In the second step, the cotton is cleaned using several cleaning equipment; leaf, stem, dust and other foreign particles are separated. In the third step, the fiber and lint are separated using a saw ginning machine. In the ginning machine, with the help of a roller, the seed is stuck, and fiber is extracted. In the last step, the fibers are compressed to aid the transportation process, these fibers are compressed in 227 kgs of cotton bales. 

Spinning Process

Spinning is the second step in the yarn manufacturing process. In this unit, fiber enters as a raw material and exits yarn as a finished product. The spinning process is very crucial in the yarn manufacturing process. In this unit majority of steps of yarn manufacturing take place. In the spinning unit, the first step is blow room, and the last step is ring spinning. In the below paragraph, let's learn about the steps of the spinning process. 

Spinning Process Steps

The Blow Room is the first step of the spinning process, where the cotton bales are opened, cleaned and blended. Before the blow room the cotton bales are converted into cotton tufts to aid the blow room process. Carding is the second step; this is where the fiber starts taking shape called sliver. In this process, the machine used has 2 rollers, 1 roller extracts the short fibers and dust and on the second roller sliver forms. 

Combing is the third step, in this process, the sliver is combed in order to extract the small fibers and to straighten up the neps. The machine used has lots of nails like structure on a plate through which sliver is passed, and this makes the whole process successful. 

Drawing is the fourth step, this is the step where the sliver is converted into thick sliver thread. There are 9 rollers attached in the machine, which converts the sliver sheet into the sliver thread, and this is the last step where cleaning of fibers takes place. Roving and Drafting is the fifth step,until now the sliver thread is very thick now in this step with the help of 3 rollers it is converted into a thin thread, which would be suitable for the ring spinning machine. 

Ring Spinning is the sixth and last step of the yarn manufacturing process, this is the step where the thread is spun using the ring, and this thread is then collected on a tube called bobbin. Now, the yarn is ready to be transported to the fabric manufacturers. Catcheyes is one of the best t-shirt manufacturers in Tirupur. Visit our website and buy bulk printed t-shirts.