#no one asked but i made a new and 'improved' version of that last set

[thegreatestunknown]

MILLENNIUM PARADE ★ Ｗ●ＲＫ (2023) dir. Kodama Yuichi

[binglebongle7]

Emerald Green

Pairing: Variant!Loki (MCU) x Avengers!Reader

Summary: Set in an alternative timeline where Thor didn't take Loki back to Asguard after the attack on New York. They decide to keep him in the Avengers tower, though they stay away from him as much as possible. You are the only one he talks to on a regular basis apart from his brother. Feelings come to the surface. Everything seemed perfect, until it wasn't. After protecting you from a certain death in a fight, Loki had been taken to a place called the TVA because you were supposed to die. He found out he was a variant and that he wasn't the only version of Loki. After what felt like months to him, he met other Loki's and they share stories about their lives. After all of them manage to get back to the TVA and overthrow it, they get to see what has become of their timelines. Your Loki sees you, a few years older now, with a little girl in your arms, calling you mom. His heart breaks, thinking you had found another, until the girl jumps out of your grasp and runs to his brother, calling him uncle.

Author's note: This is the first fanfic I've ever posted so if anyone could give me advice on how to improve my writing, vocabulary, ect and feedback I would really appreciate it!

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After the attack on New York, Thor offered to take his brother back to Asguard but the team refused, saying that they should keep him here. Since the god of thunder spent most of his time with the Avengers, he accepted the offer. The bindings preventing Loki from using his magic were to be kept on at all times but were removed after a few months.

After a month of being isolated on an entire floor of the tower, Loki had been authorized to wander around with the rest of the team. Although he spent most of his time in the library, away from the others. Mainly because he enjoyed reading but also because the Avengers avoided him like the plague.

Well, almost all the others. You were the exception. From the start, you had been nothing but kind to him, despite the destruction he had once brought upon your home. He once confronted you about it, you simply dismissed it and said that everyone deserved a second chance. Since then, you and the trickster god have been known to spend most of your time together.

Months went by and Loki had decided that, maybe, this wasn't as bad as he originally made it out to be. You had always been curious about his magic and asked him to teach you some since you knew you had magical abilities, you've just never been taught to control them. You remember vividly the day he showed you how to perform the very fist trick. Fireworks in the palm of your hand. Out of everything he's taught you, this one would always be your favorite, because it was the first.

(Time Skip)

This couldn't be real... You sat there, your knees scraping on the ground of the battlefield, frozen in place. The golden helm in you had in your shaky hands was the last thing you had of him now. Tears streamed down your face when Thor found you. The god of thunder took one look at the helm in your hands and understood, tears of his own falling to the ground. You held each other as you cried, having lost a lover and a brother.

The ride home in the Quinjet was silent. The air felt heavy with guilt and grief. After you landed, you left to barricade yourself in your room. As you entered your bedroom, everything you saw reminded you of him. You cried until all the tears in your body were gone. Then you felt empty, like someone had ripped out your heart from your chest.

Weeks after that, you began to feel sick. Every morning, you woke up and rushed to the bathroom to empty the contents of your stomach. That day, you left the tower for the first time in weeks. You bought a pregnancy test. You came back, ignoring the questions of the team and went straight back to your bathroom, sitting anxiously on the floor as you waited for the results. The timer you had set up rang. You turned the test and felt tears coming back to your eyes. Positive. You were pregnant.

You cried, both of sadness and joy. You were sad because this child would grow up without a father and Loki would never get to meet them. But you were also happy because this child was a little piece of him, so he would always be with you. The next day, you told Thor, who brought you into a bear hug, happy to be an uncle even in these circumstances. You then told the team, they told you that if you ever needed anything, you only had to say the word.

You decided to have a home birth, just in case the baby inherited Loki's Jotun appearance. The birth had been long but it was all worth it in the end. A healthy baby girl. You were proven correct, she had blue skin and red eyes, just like her father. But as soon as she was placed in your arms, her skin became like yours, her hair remained black and her eyes were an icy blue. A carbon copy of Loki. Tears fell from your eyes once more, but there was no sadness in this moment. You had decided to call her Figga, knowing Loki had always been close with his mother. Frigga Lokisdottir.

(Somewhere in time and space, The TVA)

How long had it been? Weeks? Months? Years? Loki didn't know. The only thing he knew was that it had been too long since he had seen you. But they had finally done it, the TVA was now free from "He who remains". The employees, being variants themselves, were free to return to their timelines. Loki and his variants decided to look at what had become of theirs before deciding if they wanted to go back or not. Your Loki, entered a password he had stolen from a higher up to have access to a visual image of his timeline, of you.

His heart soared in his chest as he saw you. How beautiful you were. You were wearing an emerald green loose shirt with black pants. His admired how his signature colors looked on you. You seemed to be a few years older now, he often forgot that time passed differently in the TVA. You were walking through the halls of the Avengers tower, seemingly searching for someone. You approached his brother, asking if he has seen "her". His brother answered that he hadn't. As you opened your mouth to say anything else, a high pitched scream came from the lab, you laughed and told Thor that you knew where "she" was. A little girl who appeared to be around 6 years old came running out of the lab, an annoyed Tony and a laughing Steve following suit. The girl jumped in your arms, giggling with a mischievous smile, her black hair covering her face as she hugged you.

You smiled and kissed the girl's head. Loki's heart broke for a moment, thinking you had found another lover. His heartbreak was cut shirt by the girl wiggling out of your arms and running towards his brother, calling him "uncle". The girl was his, his child. He could see the resemblance now. The little girl had his raven hair and blue eyes. Thor lifted the girl on his shoulders, making her squeal in delight as you waved off Steve and Tony.

You turned back to your daughter, a look that said "seriously?" in your eyes. Thor set down the girl and silently excused himself. The girl now seemed nervous, waiting for you to scold her. Instead you started laughing. You crouched down to her level and patted her head gently.

"You're... not mad?" The girl asked shyly. "Mad? How could I be mad?" You asked her, she shrugged, looking at the floor. You smiled gently and said "You know, me and your dad used to do way worse than this.." The girl's eyes seemed to light up at the mention of her father. "Really?" She asked, mischievous smile coming back to her adorable face. Loki could see himself through her, a carbon copy.

You nodded, a nostalgic look in your eyes. You sighed softly as you looked at your daughter. "You look exactly like him, you know? Like this and when you're blue." You booped her nose, making her giggle as her eyes widen. "Daddy was blue too??" She asked, the excitement in her voice making you laugh as you nodded once more. You waved your hand over her, making the spell of her human appearance fade, revealing blue skin with intricate markings and ruby red eyes.

Loki's eyes were now filled with tears, she was just like him. He himself had never fully accepted his Jotun nature, but you've helped him accept it a little more, saying he was beautiful in any form. The girl's expression did not change as she looked at her own appearance in a nearby mirror with you crouched next to her. She seemed so happy to resemble him this much. Of course you must have spoken well of him, but he didn't expect to be a person his daughter looked up to that much.

Her expression changed for a moment, looking back at the lab. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" You asked softly. Your daughter looked at the floor and mumbled "Tony said that I looked like a monster..." You could see her ruby eyes fill with tears and her bottom lip tremble. You brought her in your arms, kissing the top of her head.

"You're not a monster, baby." You pulled away from the hug, your hands resting on her small shoulders, looking straight into her teary eyes. "You, Frigga Lokisdottir, are a gift. A gift I haven't always deserved and that I never thought I would have the pleasure of receiving. You are not a monster, and never let anyone tell you otherwise." By this point, Loki was full on sobbing in front of the TVA screen. You had named her after his mother and given her his name as a family name. You had truly honored him.

Frigga wiped away her tears with a yawn, you cooed at her sleepy state. "How about you go take a nap, sweetheart?" She nodded as you took her small form in your arms, turning her appearance back. You tucked her in comfortably as she stared at you with her big blue eyes. "Wanna see something cool?" You whispered. Frigga nodded, smile on her face.

You raised your hand up, palm open as small fireworks seemed to appear from your hand. Frigga looked in awe as you softly explained "This is the first thing your dad showed me how to do." Your daughter smiled as she asked "Could you teach me?" You smiled, tears threatening to spill from your eyes. "Tomorrow." You kissed her head as she snuggled into her bed "Goodnight, sweetheart."

[forevergoldgame]

Episode 1 Progress Update

According to timestamps it's been approximately 3 months since our last update. Embarrassing! This is why I'd never survive as a career social media person. Thankfully, the lack of updates isn't due to a lack of progress - we've been working on the game the whole time. There's just a bit of a story to tell there... you may have heard the phrase, "progress isn't always a straight line." It is a phrase that haunts the mind of every creative, but our contempt for it does not make it any less true.

This post is all good news, though! Keep reading for more details.

So, what happened?

As we said last update, after the demo we more or less jumped right into producing Episode 1. We had a clear vision of the common "beginning of story" pitfalls we were going to avoid, and our strategy for avoiding those. There was just one problem:

We spent so much energy avoiding them in our first pass of Episode 1 that we accidentally ended up ignoring what the story needed and recreating the issues we aimed to avoid.

Luckily, we had only wasted maybe a month or so on this version of the story. We knew it would cause delays, but we didn't want to write an update about it until we had a draft of Episode 1 that we trusted. An update that only reads "um... yeah we don't like it, we're going to do something else but we dunno what yet" doesn't exactly inspire confidence in a project, you know?

It is safe to say we have that better draft now. There are still many scenes to finish and editing passes to be done and bugs to quash, but this improved version of Episode 1 has made it through the uncertainty of development and I can say with confidence it is the version of Episode 1 you will receive.

Compared to the draft we burned, this one is much better suited to the twine medium. While certainly longer than our freakishly truncated first draft, the pacing is far more organic, allowing players more opportunities to play and make decisions as they are brought up to speed on the status quo of the setting and Quincy's place in the world at the outset. Though there is a lot of ground to cover, my hope is that it will be interesting in and of itself and not reek of "unskippable videogame tutorial."

With that out of the way, I'd like to address a question a few of you are probably thinking:

"Will these sort of draft rewrite delays be a common issue?"

Nope! We meant it when we said that our aim for future releases is smaller, frequent updates. The problem with Episode 1 is that it is a unique challenge to build and by nature cannot be a "small update."

There is no other point in the story (aside from perhaps the beginning of Act 2) that is going to be as fiddly as this. Episode 1 bears a lot of responsibilities that other episodes just won't. It has to be a hook for the main plot. It has to give readers enough information about the setting and how it works to understand said plot. It has to introduce a number of core characters. Toughest of all, it has to do these things competently enough that people who read it want to come back for Episode 2!

So, we kind of have no choice but to put in the extra time here. Them's the breaks!

In other news...

The delays on the writing end gave me more time to sure up the UIX and fix/pretty up some stuff I was originally going to let be. I won't detail everything I've done, but mobile users will be pleased to know there will be an adjustment slider for swipe sensitivity and all users will be pleased to know that the layout just generally breaks less in the coming version of the game. I've continued to implement user feedback and make navigation more intuitive where I can.

I've also prettied up some layout elements even though no one asked me to...

...and redrawn other utility art for the game. Look at this map! You can kind of tell what Vestur's landscape is supposed to be like now! You can hardly detect how much I struggled when deciding where the major rivers were!

As we continue to lick Episode 1 into shape, we hope to share more specific tidbits with you all. If all goes well, the phase of development where we can show teaser screenshots is right around the corner.

Thank you for your patience!

-LS

[fozmeadows]

hey. i think i'm going through a phase of self-hatred and… I don't know, of believing I'm not capable of anything. would you have any tips or books that approach this from an AFAB/trans perspective so I can cope? (it's not that I hate myself for being trans. I just have insecurities, anxieties and I don't know what to do to stop most things from seeming so discouraging, for lack of a better word.)

I'm sorry you're having a hard time! I don't have any book recommendations, and I'm not exactly an expert, but:

Where possible, try to focus on what you enjoy about the process of an action instead of worrying about the end result. A lot of anxiety comes from privileging a hypothetical future version of yourself ahead of the person you are in the moment, and while it's still good to have goals and aspirations for the future, that doesn't render your present self irrelevant, because that's who you have to be to achieve them.

To give a personal example: late last year, I was really disappointed with how little reading I'd managed to get done in 2023 particularly, but also over the pandemic. I'd bought all these awesome books that I really wanted to read, but I never seemed to get around to starting most of them, and meanwhile, I was spending hours of my life mindlessly doomscrolling Twitter and TikTok, which regardless of anything else is a really good way to depress yourself about the state of the world. So I sat down and thought about it, and I realized that the problem was how much pressure I was putting on myself about reading. I wanted so badly to finish books that I was psyching myself out of starting them in the first place, because each choice had to be Perfect, lest I pick the wrong book at the wrong time and waste twenty minutes or an hour or three reading something I might later set aside. And because I'd subconsciously set the stakes for starting a book so much higher than they needed to be, I'd end up dithering and scrolling social media to delay having to make a high-pressure choice at all.

In other words: I'd become so concerned about Future Foz's hypothetical dislike of a book I was yet to start reading that Present Foz would be scared to start it in the first place. I was forever privileging a version of myself that didn't exist and likely never would over the person I was now, and it was making me wildly unhappy, because it felt like I was failing at something I loved.

So my single New Years' Resolution became: to value myself and my time in the moment. If I catch myself scrolling for too long, I ask myself: is there literally anything else I'd rather be doing right now? Could I start a TV show, or a book, or a game, or write something, or message a friend, or have a bath? It doesn't matter if the activity goes anywhere long term; what matters is that I inevitably get more pleasure out of doing something than not. My time now matters, because I matter.

And suddenly, just from that one change? For the first time in I couldn't even say how long, I've read something every single day this year. In the whole of 2023, I read just 67 books; it's now the 30th of March 2024, and I've already finished 33. By giving myself permission to start things without the pressure to finish them, I'm suddenly finishing way more than when I was telling myself I had to finish everything, and I am vastly happier for it.

Is the world still a burning hellscape that daily makes me want to yeet a solid 80% of elected politicians globally into the sun? Yes. Am I still working on self-improvement in other areas of my life? Yes. Is it magically any easier being trans and queer in the current moment? No. But it helps to focus on who I am now, in this hour, in this minute, instead of worrying so much about whether some future version of me will think I spent this time badly that I don't use it for anything at all.

I don't know if this is helpful to your situation, and if it's not, I apologize for rambling. But it's a little change I've made lately that's helped me a lot, and I hope it might help you, too.

[chocodile]

Answering this in TWO PARTS because I have a lot of thoughts! CLICK HERE FOR PART 1.

PART 2: FALLOUT 'VERSE (Frank's default setting)

Warning that this one gets a little weird (gross) at the end (maybe more than a little).

The one scenario where I could see them interacting at length would be Fallout AU. I've talked about Fallout AU Hyden before, but to sum him up, he's a pre-war scientist turned brain in a jar remote controlling a synth body. Unfortunately, hundreds of years of deteriorating hardware and brain-meat have degraded the connection to the point where his synth body is basically completely numb. In this setting, he wouldn't have the luxury of being picky about allies (especially since he's double-crossed half the groups in the wasteland during his artificially long life). So I could see him grubbing around with someone like Frank under this circumstance. Frank is a scavenger, after all. He can help Hyden find materials he needs to repair his system and can be paid in food--something Hyden has limited use for. That makes him useful. (Also he couldn't smell Frank with his senses numbed, which would improve their relationship.)

Fallout AU Frank would think this brain-in-a-jar guy is weird as heck. Frank considers pre-war people "good", so Hyden would have that point in his favor, but is distrustful of non-humans, including synths. He'd probably have some trouble understanding exactly what Hyden is. He'd start to get it after watching Hyden "die" and come back with a new synth body a few times. He'd think that was extremely untrustworthy behavior, though. Things are supposed to die when you kill them. Not doing that is… wrong.

But Frank is a simple creature, and can be convinced to look the other way on moral failings like being a weird unkillable robot clone (or something) if you grease his palms… or rather, his mouth. If Hyden proved himself to be a reliable quest-giving NPC who rewarded him with man-dog treats for delivering scrap metal and computer components, he could come to be at ease around him, even if he still thought he was weird and sketchy. And he'll even agree to some of Hyden's more perplexing requests, like when he wants to sit there awkwardly watching him eat macaroni for an hour and interrupting him every few bites asking what the macaroni "feels" like. Frank doesn't get it, but hey, a free dinner's a free dinner. Maybe that's just what it's like being friends with a robot.

…Though, I did some googling, and… great news! Apparently synths are made of lab-grown meat and CAN be eaten with the cannibal perk! That… certainly opens up some INCREDIBLY dysfunctional paths for this relationship to take! Two morally bankrupt, empathy deficient weirdos, one of which is an obedient, social-cue-blind cannibal and one of which is an unkillable completely off the rails masochist. Good lord. Here's an alternate version of that last image with very offcolor joke (I mean it).

[geekywritings]

The Dark Side

Every Jedi faces the Dark Side. And it’s so easy to fall... But you won’t ever let Cal lose the fight against the darkness. Not as long as you’re around. 

Fluff. Pure Cal x reader fluff with a very supportive and loving reader :D

____________________

Every Jedi faces the Dark Side. It was a lesson instilled in Cal and you since childhood. The challenge was not to give in. To always have control of your emotions. Even better, not to feel certain things at all.

Looking back, those rules were impossible to follow. Holding in love, hate, jealousy, fear, and affection was more destructive than the Dark Side could ever be. However, accepting this fact didn’t protect you from the temptations still facing you.

War made it only harder, requiring you to make difficult decisions on a daily basis.

Jedi didn’t seek aggression, but you had learned that it was either kill or be killed these days. And both you and Cal had taken your fair share of lives already, each one bringing you closer to the edge of an endless abyss.

You were both staring into it, fighting its pull and hoping you could retain the best possible version of yourselves.

But it was getting harder every day. You saw the fatigue in Cal’s eyes, felt the way he clutched you tighter at night, as if your presence alone could save him from the darkness. The constant fighting was taking its toll on him. Badly.

At times, he was close to losing control on the battlefield, allowing his rage rather than his instinct to lead his blade. He cut down his foes with more ferocity, showing mercy only when it was absolutely deserved. It started to worry you, so you decided to approach him about it.

You had landed on a tiny moon in the Outer-Rim to refuel your ship, picking the inconspicuous location to stay hidden. The people here cared little about the galactic conflicts all around them and would not sell you out. As long as you paid good credits, you could relax.

Theoretically. Not really.

Cal’s shoulders were tense as he stood outside the Mantis, staring at the distant setting sun at the horizon. Nothing but vast empty plains stretched before your eyes, making you wonder what was captivating him so.

“Cal? You ok?”, you asked and he nodded, eyes still on the sunset. You joined him, hand automatically slipping into his, with him instantly returning the gesture by intertwining his fingers with yours.

“And now the truth. Are you ok?”, you asked again, sending a small smile his way. Now his gaze did move toward you and his lip twitched upward.

“Why did I have to fall for a woman who can read my mind?”, he asked, tone jokingly exasperated. But seriousness quickly returned to his features, as he sighed. “I am just exhausted. No need to worry.”

“I will always worry about you.”, you were quick to retort and silently invited him to sit with you for a more comfortable conversation. “It’s about our last mission, isn’t it?”

The two of you had infiltrated an imperial base to retrieve some vital information regarding new weapons. You thought they were merely in their planning stage, but once inside, you shockingly came to discover they were already in mass production. Improved blasters with additional fire power, long range detonators and other tech that would make life for the rebellion even harder.

Discoveries like this always made you wonder if you even stood any chance to defeat the Empire. If all you did was merely scratching the surface and giving the Inquisitors something to do. It must have been the same for Cal.

“We killed civilians back there…”, he whispered and you shuddered at the memory. It hadn’t been intentional. You had wanted to sabotage the factory, but had come face to face with several imperial guards. The fight had spiralled out of control, resulting in an explosion. One thing had led to another and you had barely managed to escape the building before it collapsed. A lot of Stormtroopers and Imperial officers had died back there… but so had many factory workers. Honest people, who were just trying to get by under Imperial rule. It wasn’t their fault weapon factories were the only work available.

“It was an accident…”, you started slowly, as if your nightmares and conscience weren’t plagued by the event.

“I know… but still… I feel so much guilt… so much hate.”, Cal spoke through gritted teeth. The Empire was forcing your hands more and more, but stopping wasn’t an option either.

“Cal…”, his name fell from your lips in a soft whisper. “I know it’s hard. I really do… but you can’t let this turn you into a monster. Into them.”, you began, louder this time, underlining your words by resting a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t seem like enough, however. So you moved to sit in front of him, placing both of your hands on his cheeks and making him look at you.

“I am giving you an order, Cal.”, you spoke firmly. “Every time you feel the hatred consume you, you come to me. Every time you feel guilt swallow you, you come to me. I will always be there to keep you from falling. The Dark Side won’t get you as long as I am here.”

Relief washed through him and you could clearly see it in his eyes. Moments later his arms were around your waist, pulling you toward him. The "thank you" he mumbled into your neck almost didn’t reach your ears, but the gesture showed clearly enough what he felt. Your own arms wrapped around him, holding him as close as possible.

“We will get through this together.”, you kept whispering sweet assurances, while you stroked his back. “We might not always make the right decisions, but we will never become like them…” You forced as much confidence as possible into those words because you needed to hear them as much as he did. “We just have to stick together. I’ll be your light and you’ll be mine.”

Cal’s face emerged from your neck and his lips sought yours in a sweet, yet desperate kiss. You were alone, just allowing passion to drown whatever fears and worries you had. Just for a while, you could forget everything: The war, the loss, the very existence of the Dark Side. And for now, these moments had to be enough.

[delusional-fantasising]

My Sweet Heavenly Drug (Dead!Dean x Angel!Castiel)

Synopsis: After finale, Dean is in heaven and he seems to be slightly unhappy since he wants to see one person, to give them his answer to their confession of love to him. Gabriel makes a cameo 😋

Warnings: None really besides some angst and fluff

Heaven, somewhere and a something not many people understand. Sometimes heaven isn’t a place or object, a person.

Sure Dean has most of his heaven where he stood but the thing is, he was missing one person. He just missed him dearly and had a few things to say if he ever were to see the man or the Angel named Castiel. Everyone just told Dean to try calling Castiel or summoning him but maybe it was because the lack of response he gave the angel when the angel gave to him made him scared that he came off as rude. Making it seem like Castiel’s feelings were unrequited even though he didn’t want to make it seem that way, the hunter had some feelings.

Ever since raising him out of the depths of hell, Castiel has been a lingering swirl of confusing feelings. His vessel and the angel’s funny aloof charm capturing Dean’s eye. That angel of the lord was Dean’s strange addiction, going through so much like no one else.

Dean was sitting in his cabin out in the woods, looking out the window taking a sip of his beer while staring out into space. His surroundings a serenade compared to the horror’s he saw while alive preventing so many apocalypses or seeing everyone he has ever loved died. It wasn’t a big surprise when he decided to just spend time by himself with the dog he had raised with Sam before his last moments. Jack had sent the dog practically VIP passes to Dean, that dog never left his side.

The dog lay near his feet, Dean sighed as he stood up heading inside. He set the beer down and looked over at his mantle where many pictures frames sat there. Pictures of back when he was alive and pictures he had gotten in heaven, a picture that Sam took as a joke but Dean kept; him and Castiel passed out in the back of the impala with Sam grinning like an idiot holding up a card saying, ‘Third wheeling it.’

“This is it,” Dean muttered as he pressed his hands together just to make sure the call went through. “Cas where ever you are, I need you here.”

It was silent not even the sound of an angel landing in the room. Dean decides to crack a joke that he made a long time ago maybe hoping for a reply, “Cas get out of my ass…”

It stayed silent before a familiar voice spoke up breaking the quietness, “Dean. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever call me.”

Castiel was behind Dean, smiling at the reference of an old joke that was made so long ago once they were face to face there was a tension in the room. They hugged after it was too long since they had seen each other, a bear hug that could crush a frail person. Once they broke apart there was just so many emotions swirling between them. That butterfly feeling and Castiel internally freaking out by this call not knowing why now Dean has summoned for his presence.

“So Dean how are you enjoying this new version of heaven that I helped created with Jack?” The angel asked as he straightened out his trench coat nervously, his eyes almost piercing the mortal’s soul. “Well at least last time I was here I gotta say I’m loving the improvements but obviously there’s just something missing for me in heaven.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes trying to think what he could have forgotten; He made sure to get pies that Dean always loved appearing in his fridge, his favourite liquor, his favourite adult magazines, everything that Dean could ever want.

“What’s missing Dean?”

“Well Cas, ever since I thought you went in the void I was thinking about what you said to me, what you admitted,” Dean began trying to find the words that didn’t came out weird or awkward, this was one of the things that he always struggled with when it came to anyone either platonic or romantic; communication. Castiel did that head tilt that he always did and the first thing he did when they first met face to face, “What I said?”

Sure what he said was what he thought to be his final words but Jack rose him back to life which made things more difficult for this exact day. The eye contact was hard to maintain, neither man wanted to look each other in the eye and talk about this. This never came natural to either.

“Well Cas it was just what you told me, everything happened so fast. I wasn’t able to tell you anything. I didn’t knowing what to say in that moment then and I still don’t but Cas I just want to make it clear that I don’t don’t feel the same for you.” Dean tried explaining, his hands fidgeting with his jean belt loops, while tilting his head side to side slightly. Castiel had this hopeful look in his eyes but he masked it to not rush the whole thing, “Dean?”

“I just… hear me out. I have been always scared of ever getting involved with someone that’s why I rarely stuck around with people for long periods of time since I have always been on the move, I don’t know if I could ever or we could ever be… something,” Dean tried explaining since he knew that he had to keep some slight distance, feelings were never his strong suit neither words.

“Dean, why are you scared still?”

There was vulnerability showing within both, both a sad and scared vulnerability that no one wanted to own up to but they had to.

“I lost you over and over Cas. I watched you die so many times that I just wonder if it was shit luck rubbing on you. You becoming a fallen angel for me and risk your life so many times for me that I just don’t know where to start with how reckless you can be, I don’t want to lose you again because of me. It destroyed me every time thinking that maybe this time you did die and I won’t ever see you again,” Dean spoke, his voice cracking with the raw anguish thinking of all the times Castiel put his life on the line repeatedly like it was some stupid game of calling quits all the time. The angel step forward with his hand reaching out, placing it on Dean’s left shoulder gripping it tightly as he tried cutting Dean off, “Dean wait I-”

“No I just want you to listen, I need you to hear this coming from me,” Dean spoke as he raised his hand slightly silencing Castiel from continuing as he went on, “It’s not that I don’t want to try, I miss being with you, hunting with you or listening to music while I drive Baby but I am terrified of the amount of times I failed you. I failed you so many times I failed you went you took the mental burden when you had to stay in a mental hospital or the time I failed you when you became human and you had to be homeless. I failed you so much…”

“Dean…” His grip tightened firmly as he searched for the words to say, “Dean that happened so long ago, I have forgiven you for everything.”

“Cas you forgive too easily,” Dean muttered pressing his forehead against Castiel’s. They both had a moment of silence where they both closed their eyes. A stray tear falling down both their cheeks, Castiel did a small miracle with the help of a secret wingman who was outside of the cabin with a boombox blasting romantic slow music. Dean had to stifle a chuckle as he asked, “Is that Sam or Jack?”

“Neither, it’s Gabriel,” Castiel chuckled as he wrapped his arms around Dean as the other man did the same. The hunter wasn’t angry or even surprised, “Of course it’s Gabe, I’m not even surprised he’s alive.”

“Jack brought him back not too long ago and he’s already liking the new order that isn’t controlled by Chuck,” Castiel murmured with his lips tugging into a smile, their swaying together and no worry about monsters or anything interrupting them.

“Cas I wasn’t able to give you a response then but I love you too.”

Castiel and Dean got closer, pressing their lips in a soft tender kiss. A soft hum and Dean could feel Castiel smiling against the kiss, happy that this was the day it happened.

Happy that they can finally be together.

[whisker-biscuit]

Sonic Big Bang 2024

Close Encounters of the Grim Kind: Chapter 3

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

Through the next few days, Tails discovered three things aside from his alternate dimensional research.

It took about six hours for the probe to make a round trip from him to his new pen pal and back when they tested it.

His pen pal was extremely intelligent and just as interested in the state of the Shatterverse as he was. They did not, however, want to talk about anything else, and especially not themselves.

Sonic was still refusing to share the full picture of what happened during his adventure.

Only one of these things was technically a problem, but the fox was a scientist first and foremost, and a very curious child on top of that. So, he set out to “solve” each and every one.

The first one was easy, relatively speaking. The device had been built to travel indefinitely, collecting data at manageable speeds to be analyzed later. Now that it wasn’t being used as a probe but as a simple messenger, it was no issue to redirect some of its power output away from its memory banks and towards its speed instead. He let his pen pal know what he was doing, and wasn’t surprised when they offered their own assistance, claiming that they had worked with Paradox Prism energy to know how to make movement almost instantaneous. Working off only a fraction of that power instead of the entire prism meant it would still be slower than that, but any upgrade on that front would be an improvement.

Together, they were able to drop the travel time from six hours to two, which helped immensely. It also made Tails debate crossing “Sails” off of his list of potential people, because Sonic never mentioned the pirate ever getting close enough to the Prism to learn how to do that. In the end, he kept the name on because the evidence against its presence was still flimsy.

Additionally, his unknown collaborator sent equations that would allow Tails to duplicate his own technology with Prism energy, which he used to make several more probes to send out across the Shatterverse. None of those devices were intercepted and fed data at a constant rate to his computer for him to observe and report back to the pen pal.

By the end of the week, it became routine for a familiar flash of light to appear in the fox’s shop every few hours. He’d pause in whatever he was working on to read and respond to the message as though it were an overly detailed texting app instead of the intricate probe that he’d built it to be.

[ have you found any interdimensional cracks or signs of decay? ]

– No. So far, none of my probes have registered any anomalies. –

[ good ]

[ i was unable to check for that since losing access to the shards ]

[ was worried it might return even though the paradox prism was reformed ]

– What about you? –

– Did you see anything concerning appear in your own dimension recently? –

[ none so far but ill keep you posted if that changes ]

The second problem took a little longer to work around, and Tails wracked his brain for ways to approach it without raising suspicion. He desperately wanted to know whether he was working with an Eggman above all else. It was hard to think about how their minimal exchange exploring and discussing the Shatterspace’s state of being was beneficial to any version of the mad scientist, but he’d been caught off guard by a convoluted evil scheme before and had no intention of kickstarting another with his own help.

At first, he tried to gauge his mystery partner’s interest in technology.

– I’m sorry my last message was delayed for so long. –

– I was caught up in a new invention idea and lost track of time. –

[ theres no expectation for a prompt response ]

[ im not offended ]

– That’s a relief. Do you ever get tunnel vision with your own projects like me? –

[ yes ]

– Glad to see I’m not alone! –

– What kind of projects do you like to work on? –

Asking that last question led to him being ignored for nearly half a day until one of his probes completed its semi-scheduled data returns, in which his pen pal finally sent the device back asking about its findings. There was no mention of the original inquiry; Tails got the message and didn’t bring the topic up again.

It did make him cross out Mr. Dr. Eggman’s name on his list, however – from what Sonic had told him, the man never would have been able to pass up the chance to brag about his own genius, no matter how obvious the trap.

His second attempt was more roundabout – disguising it as idle curiosity about the Paradox Prism and the Shatterverse.

– There’s still so much we don’t know about all of this. –

– My memory is a bit hazy about what happened when the dimensions split. What do you remember? –

It was admittedly a dangerous gamble. He didn’t know how many people Sonic had told about the Prism being from Green Hill, or that he himself had no recollection of the dimensions breaking apart. Someone as smart as his pen pal might be able to deduce who exactly he was – and by extension, where Sonic was – if he made a single misstep. The last thing Tails wanted was to put another target on his brother’s back even if it was from a source that probably wasn’t much of a current threat without a way to cross dimensions independently. Eggman ingenuity was never a thing to take lightly.

[ i didnt personally notice anything different until sonic first appeared ]

[ he was the catalyst for the changes in our dimension and across the shatterverse ]

Tails couldn’t help but laugh when he received that message.

– Yeah, that seems to be a constant for him. –

– He mentioned he had Prism energy inside his body that allowed him to traverse the dimensions –

– Did you ever see that in action? –

[ yes. it was remarkable to experience ]

[ the first time he used that power, he briefly shut down power in all the machines in a significant area ]

That little tidbit gave the fox pause. He remembered very well Sonic’s description of that event – and how it had happened when he was a captive of the Chaos Council. Without immediately replying, the fox instead found his notebook of names and finally removed Sails from it. Then his pencil hovered over Nine’s name for a solid minute. Sonic had mentioned that dimensional counterpart had been captured at the time as well, but had he actually been there to witness the explosion Sonic had caused?

Asking outright was likely going to go ignored again. He tapped the pencil to paper and stared at the probe as he considered how to react to this new revelation without his pen pal shutting it down.

– What was that power output like? Was it a visible phenomenon? –

Receiving a response within the average two hours made him heave a sigh of relief.

[ extremely visible ]

[ the best way to describe it was a giant rainbow hued shockwave that extended outward from his body ]

[ it was pure unfiltered prism energy with no direction or goal ]

– That sounds incredible. Did the Paradox Prism ever do something like that independent of Sonic? –

[ yes, but it looked a bit different ]

And so, the inquiry turned back around to their research without any further fanfare. As grateful as Tails was for the new hint and frustrated that it was still too vague to fully confirm his pen pal’s identity, he left those follow-up questions alone for the time being. Patience was going to be his best friend in this careful investigation.

Speaking of best friends…

Sonic had finally started to lose his manic energy regarding his friends. He wasn’t pestering them for hang-outs as often, he wasn’t spending most of his time loitering around outside Tails’ workshop anymore, and his daily runs were taking him far enough away again that sometimes it would be more than a day before any of them caught even a glimpse of him. Both Amy and Knuckles expressed their relief to see him settling back in after his solo adventure, and even Rouge made a passing comment about it when they crossed paths.

The fact that he still hadn’t told Tails about everything that had happened wasn’t as worrisome any longer, and probably would have just become idle curiosity if not for how he stumbled onto something he was obviously not meant to see.

He’d been on his way back from Amy’s house and decided to take a quick detour towards the waterfall he had first met Shadow at, hoping to tell the hedgehog that Sonic finally seemed to be doing better again. He’d flown up the cliff from the hill’s side until he reached the very top, but found himself to be the only one there today.

Then the familiar sound of a sonic boom made his ears twitch and he looked out at the landscape.

A blue streak was approaching, followed by a yellow one that was keeping pace but not gaining it. Tails watched, surprised, as his brother came to a stop at the shore of the lake below the waterfall. What was even more surprising was how Shadow caught up a second later and stood beside him instead of challenging him to a spar or another race to even the score. They began speaking, too far away for him to hear, but even from up high he could tell by their body language that it was a tense conversation.

Getting close enough to eavesdrop wasn’t an option. Both hedgehogs had hearing that would pick up his flying immediately, and he was almost certain that whatever they were talking about it would stop the instant they noticed his presence. Feeling a twinge of guilt that wasn’t enough to assuage his interest, the fox pulled out his Miles Electric and began tuning it to amplify the sound waves from below to a frequency he could hear and understand.

“….fine, Shadow, honest! Man, I had no idea you were such a mother hen.”

“It’s not about ‘mothering’, Sonic. It’s a legitimate concern.”

“Aww, you’re concerned about little old me? Never thought I’d hear you confess it outright.”

The sound of their banter made Tails’ shoulders relax when he hadn’t even realized they’d been raised. It meant that whatever they were talking about probably wasn’t all that serious after all. Or it meant…

“Stop deflecting. It’s not going to get you out of this conversation.”

…His brother was avoiding a discussion, again.

Sonic sighed so visibly that Tails didn’t even need his device to see the action. He put his hands on his hips and turned towards the lake, kicking a rock into the water as he did so.

“I really mean it, Shadow. I’m fine. I feel fine. Nothing about that has changed since we returned to Green Hill. I get why you’re worried, but there’s nothing to be worried about anymore.”

“Your brother seemed to think differently.”

“Tails?” His head whipped around so fast to stare at Shadow that all his quills bounced in sync. “What do you mean? You’ve been talking to him? What did he say?”

The other hedgehog crossed his arms, looking irritated even from far below. “Contrary to whatever belief you might hold, we keep in contact when the situation calls for it. He has expressed worry that you aren’t behaving like yourself.”

Tails’ eyes went wide. What was Shadow doing? Hadn’t he been the one who insisted that they keep Sonic out of their arrangement? And now he was blabbing about a private conversation!

“Oh, well, if that’s why you’re suddenly up in my business, don’t worry. We talked it out a while back.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, Shadow, geez. He noticed I’ve been a little…clingy, and I told him it was because I was thinking a lot about the dimensional counterparts we had to leave behind. Plus, y’know, the whole “all my friends became shadows of themselves that I thought I’d never be able to piece back together” part? Pretty obvious why I’ve been off my game the last few weeks.”

“Did you tell him about –”

“No, I didn’t, and I don’t need to.” Sonic’s tone took on a hard edge. “I’m not about to put that on his shoulders. It has nothing to do with him and he’d still feel guilty about it.”

“What happens if you ever start to deteriorate?”

Deteriorate?!

“I’m not going to, Shadow! There’s literally been no reason to worry about that! You are literally the only one worrying about that.”

“Of course I am, Sonic!” The hedgehog closed his eyes. A pained expression flashed across his face and his voice grew softer when he spoke again. “Of course, I am. You were…dying in my arms.”

Tails felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. He backed away from the edge of the cliff and clutched the Miles Electric in shock, hoping he’d misheard what had just been said. The long silence that fell between the two down below was enough of an answer. Too much of an answer.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about that,” Sonic finally said, sounding more somber than he’d been in a long time. “Truly, I am. I wish I could go back and do things differently so you never had to experience that. But I mean it when I say that I haven’t felt any different since we got back. No weird energy, no sparks, no teleporting no matter how fast I’ve been running. Nine said he pulled all of it out of me and I have no reason not to believe him. Especially not after…all of that.”

More silence. Tails curled his namesakes around himself to try and soothe his sudden shaking.

“…You really trust him that much, huh?” Shadow’s voice was unreadable, and so quiet that it was barely audible even through the device.

“Absolutely. Just as much as I trust Tails. We’d all be wiped from existence if it weren’t for him.”

Another long pause.

“Shadow, I get why you’re worried, and I promise I’ll tell you if something changes. We both said we’d be better about communicating after this, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“Then trust me when I say I’m okay. Please?”

“…Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“You really should tell someone else about this, though. If not your brother, then one of your friends.”

“I’ll think about it. You up for a race to the ocean?”

“Perhaps another time.”

“Alrighty, then. See you later.”

A blue streak zoomed off, visible for only a few seconds before disappearing beyond the horizon. Tails found the ability to move and peeked back over the side of the cliff. Shadow was still at the lake shore, staring in the direction Sonic had run off in. His back was turned to the waterfall and so the fox couldn’t see his expression. After nearly a minute of standing there like a statue, his rocket shoes kicked into gear and he dashed off as well in a different direction.

Tails sat down right where he was, completely stunned by everything he had just heard and struggling to process it. Sonic had almost died. Sonic had been dying and hadn’t told anyone about it. How had that even happened? They’d mentioned something about “weird energy.” Was that because of the Chaos Council? The Shatterverse breaking down? Him being displaced from the dimensions in the first place and physics had finally caught up to his body?

And why on Mobius did he think Tails would blame himself if he knew?

Thoroughly shaken up, the fox flew straight home. He was still so blindsided by the information he’d unintentionally learned that he didn’t even notice the probe hovering above his desk until he collapsed into his chair after almost an hour of pacing his workshop.

He picked it up almost on autopilot, staring at the latest messages there without really reading them. It was some theory about why the other dimensions still existed with the Paradox Prism reformed, but he couldn’t wrap his head around the words no matter how he tried to distract himself with them. What did pointless theories matter when his own brother had nearly died – might still be at risk of it if Shadow’s concern was valid?

Tails needed answers and he needed them now. Screw Shadow’s terms, screw whether this mystery person was a friend or foe, screw everything that wasn’t going to tell him what he needed to know. If it ensured Sonic’s safety then he’d take any risk.

Instead of replying, the young scientist shut the device off and pulled out its blueprints, along with the notebook he’d used to parse out the equations for how to make it travel faster between dimensions. Additionally, he recalled all of his probes that had been out collecting data. Two hours between messages was too long to wait for each reply. He needed this to be as instantaneous as his pen pal had claimed the Prism energy was capable of, and he was going to use all the energy currently at his disposal to do it.

A preliminary glance at the time told him it was early evening. He turned off or flipped over every clock and time-keeper in his space, knowing this was going to be a long haul. From the kitchen he retrieved a full pitcher of water, an entire half-pan of lasagna leftovers, and three unopened energy drinks. As each probe returned one by one in small flashes of rainbow light, Tails cracked his fingers, stretched his arms once over his head, and got right to work.

It took most of the night. By the time he shut the final panel on the device, finished charging it with all the other probes, and turned it back on, the nearest clock read nearly 3 AM when he dared to look. The fox cradled the device in his hands, thoroughly exhausted. For all the work that he had just accomplished, he knew that was technically the easiest part of this entire thing. The rest hinged entirely on his mystery collaborator.

Tails drank the rest of his last energy drink, then spent the next five minutes crafting a message that would get his intentions across without scaring his pen pal away forever.

– I know we agreed to keep this as solely a research venture but this is urgent. –

– Do you know what happened to Sonic before he returned to Green Hill? Is there a chance it could happen to him again? –

– Please. I need to know. –

He sent it out before he could second-guess the wording. Then he waited.

Nothing came back.

The fox gave it ten minutes. Thirty. An hour. Just like the very first time he’d activated the device, he was left in limbo, waiting and wondering if everything he’d worked so hard for was about to go up in flames. He knew it wasn’t just about technological limitations anymore. There was a small chance that his pen pal was asleep, but their time zones were very different and they seemed to have just as odd a sleeping schedule as he did. The radio silence was most likely an intentional one.

Eventually, out of lack of anything better to do, Tails began cleaning up his work station just to get rid of some of the nervous energy jittering through his body. He glanced at his desk for any sign of flashing lights so often it was quickly becoming a compulsion, and so he forced himself to leave the room entirely. Crawling into bed had him feeling conflicted; he was so tired and on the verge of a crash, but he was terrified that any minute the device would return and he would miss it for hours.

In the end, physical needs won. Tails passed out the moment his head hit the pillow and he drifted off into restless sleep.

[thefirstknife]

Exo anon: YOU ARE A TREASURE thank you for pointing me back to more sources. As to Alkahest being needed for a reboot, the second half of the final entry on Legacy's Lament that discusses a reboot, "You're sure about this? This is the last of the radiolarian fluid, you know," which says to me it's somehow necessary for the process. However... One thing that comes to mind is that the exos on Europa weren't just getting memory wiped, but being uploaded with their last saved version, so that raises the possibility that that's part of what the radiolarian fluid facilitates? Maybe memories are wiped with all reboots, but installing backup memories requires Alkahest? (Just spitballing, that...)

The whole memory wipe/reboot process and its implications are just so *clenches fist.* I wish there were more details in game. But for now, thank you for your loremastery!

No problem!

Oh yeah, that line implies some use of Alkahest for... something. It's possible that a lot of them were just reuploaded into new bodies, possibly because of all the damage done in combat. Or something as you suggested. I think if a new body is needed or there's significant damage done, Alkahest would be required again.

The memories are technically not even being entirely deleted with reboots; they're just being blocked (which explains why some still access them sometimes, like Cayde and many others did). This whole section from Clovis' journal is really interesting:

I am much more interested in the surprising success of memory wipes. I became so tired of answering the questions asked by new exos—what had happened to the scanning clinic, how long had it been, would I let them see their families—that I began inducing retrograde amnesia before spin—up. Interestingly, this seems to have improved their resilience against exomind rejection. From now on, we will block access to pre—upload episodic memory. We should also consider a built—in procedure to block memories formed after the exobody transubstantiation, returning them to a “factory state” should the need to restart occur. It would be very difficult to actually track down and delete the full memory engrams since they are stored in so many scattered parts of the brain. Instead, we can tourniquet off associative access to those memories and let them wither away in isolation. A memory is not a recording, after all. It is a set of instructions to reenact a brain state— choreography for a play. And like any play, it will fade if left unperformed.

Note that this specifies "pre-upload" memory, but also Clovis planning some sort of a feature to also block new memories made after. Also added to this is the fact that Darkness was used as part of Alkahest and Darkness for sure helps memory stay around.

It's really hard to tell what's the exact process and while we'll all love more details, I think that's by design. Still, I'd kill to know more, especially about Ada-1, because she's unique.

[missr3n3]

Augusnippets Day 8

reunion/found family/friends

fandom: cabin tales TW: aftermath of torture, guilt, implied exes to lovers word count: 551 @augusnippets summary: Rachel needed one more letter of recommendation for her college application: a letter her history teacher, Mr Barnett, was happy to provide in exchange for a favor. For his doctorate in sociology, he planned a modified version of the prisoner's dilemma to truly test humanity's trust in each other, a test which needed volunteers. Rachel's first thought was her ex-boyfriend Jeremy and his group of friends - a well-known, unbreakable clique. She had no idea what she signed them up for.

No matter how many breathing exercises Amber showed her, how many times the doctor assured her of the boys' continued improvement, or how many reminders the nurses gave about Jeremy specifically asking to see her, Rachel couldn't shake the feeling of walking into an execution.

None of them understand. They weren't the ones who encouraged Mr. Barnett's experiment. I… I did.

One more vain attempt to quell her nerves with a deep breath, then the door squeaked open.

Seeing Jeremy not only awake, but smiling at her, made her guilt even more crushing.

“Rachel!” Jeremy beamed; much as he could with a third of his face bandaged up. “Long time, no see.”

“Not that long, really…” Rachel took step after shameful step until she stood beside the hospital bed.

“Shit, yeah… It's kinda hard to tell how long I've been here.” Jeremy sheepishly shrugged. “I've been out of it on… I don't know, horse tranquilizers or something, for a while. Good news is that I'm better enough for them to have finally lowered the dosage.”

“Yeah…” Rachel croaked. Jeremy's bright expression faltered.

“Um… Is something wrong? Like, besides the obvious.” Through bandages and fading Lichtenberg burns creeping up his neck, a faint redness dusted his cheeks. “I, uh, thought seeing how I've recovered might… I don't know, bring you some peace of mind?”

“I-It helps a little…” Rachel’s eyes shut as she willed her tears not to fall.

“But?”

“But I… Fuck, Jay, this is all my fault!” Rachel’s voice cracked as the dam burst. “I-if I hadn't agreed to help Barnett with his s-stupid experiment and volunteered you guys-”

“Oh, Rachel…” Jeremy sat up straighter – the most movement his bandages would allow. “It’s not your fault. Not at all.”

“Y-you don't mean that,” Rachel sobbed.

“I do. On God, I really mean it. Hell, you're the only reason I'm still here to discuss this! That's like, the opposite of it being your fault.”

“B-but you wouldn't have needed rescuing i-if I hadn't ignored the red flags, if I told him to get lost, if I got you all out sooner-”

“Rachel…” Jeremy fell silent, shame and guilt smothered Rachel's mind. Through her blurry vision, she noticed Jeremy’s eyes widening. “I'll put it this way: You're not the one who chained us to those chairs, right?”

“N-no, the whole thing was… was already like that by the time I got there,” Rachel weakly admitted.

“And you're not the one who set off the timer.”

“No, but-”

“And you're not the one who…” Jeremy's voice shook as he tried to fight back memories Rachel was all too familiar with. “You're not the one who voted to kill Kevin.”

“Th-that wasn't their fault either!” Rachel blurted. “You guys were all scared, a-and you didn't know what would happen-”

“Sounds familiar, doesn't it?” Rachel couldn't decide if she wanted to groan in frustration at Jeremy's cocky grin, or kiss him to shut him up.

“…Fine, you win.”

“Oh, uh, speaking of that… You wouldn't happen to know who won our last game, would you?”

“It…” For a moment, Rachel couldn't decide how to respond: comfort, or the truth. No, he deserves to know what happened. “No one did. It was cancelled. Because… the four of you didn't show up. You were already…”

“…Oh.”

[shizukateal]

What do you think about Eternal Sailor Moon? What would you change to improve her design?

It sucks. I'm sorry, I wish I could give the single most famous and influential magical girl ever a more tactful sentence but I can't. It sucks. The layered skirt and it's color scheme sucks, the thin belt ribbon sucks, the excessive pearl adornments on the hair and gloves suck, the lack of proper contrast for the white wings of the eternal moon article sucks, and those goddamn pink bubblegum sleeves especially suck.

Ok, I got that out of my system, I can be respectful now. Buckle up anon, you're getting more than you asked for.

Let's analyze first why Takeuchi-sensei might have made some of these choices. The pink bubblegum sleeves? She probably realized that there was too much white around her torso already and there was a need for a color break. The ugly 3 layering? Takeuchi-sensei likes figure skating, which is why in the manga and Sailor Moon Crystal the skirts are not stiff at all. So she gave Usagi something that would work in a figure skating costume, not realizing that every other element of the torso and gloves is too stiff to pull that off. The thin belts and ribbons? She probably wanted a swallowtail butterfly effect with the wings, but she realized that a big ribbon behind would compete with the wings so the put those thin strands and then realized that the usual belt is too thick for them so she changed that too, again, under the assumption that it would work in the same way for a figure skating costume.

And the excessive accesorization? Well, how else are you supposed to "upgrade" a base as concise and short as the og uniform? You can't even enlarge the skirt all that much without a jenga cascade of new problems, that's why all of the variations within the senshis are so subtle. So Takeuchi-sensei resorted to just add "more" stuff to give the outfit more importance. And she kinda had to, because she had already kneecapped herself with the Moon Crisis outfit:

Now, not all of the choices of this outfit are bad. Changing the skirt to white is subtle but powerful enough, and when the yellow and blue stripes aren't an ugly ombre that doesn't work on plates that stiff they actually look ok. Adding more lines to the collar is also good. However the pearls in the hair compete with the rest of the head accessories. The pale pink of the ribbon comes out of nowhere, and so do the translucent, pointy, three-layered sleeves. Aaaaaaand I hate that the brooch gets repeated on her crotch of all places.

But because Naoko chose to go with this, she set up the expectations a certain way. Essentially this outfit claims that an "evolved" Sailor Moon is a Sailor Moon with more accessories, cohesion be damned, so what else was she going to do when she had to out-perform this?

Which takes us to the second part of your question. If I want to change the Eternal transformation, I need to change the Moon Crisis transformation first so that the contrast between each other becomes a conversation that makes them stand out more. Luckily, DollDivine's Senshi Maker is miraculously still alive, so I don't have to give you an exceptionally shitty illustration of my own.

Let's start with Moon Crisis:

As you can see, my changes from the first transformation are pretty subtle, but I think they work well enough. Without the pearls in the hair the other accessories from head to neck still work as well as ever, only the choker stands out a little bit more and the difference in the hair accessories may be slightly more noticeable. Between those, the longer gloves, and the white boots I figured the amount of surface space for the color white had increased enough to make this version seem more ethereal, so I put one last touch of it on the outer edge of the skirt and made the belt red for further contrast. Keeping the ribbon red as well means it no longer clashes with the rest, and the Crisis Moon Compact can still be the nice touch of pink to tie it all up with the Kaleidomoon Scope (which, btw, should also be a fucking sword instead of a rod with a handle).

Then, finally, we can get to the Eternal Moon redesign:

So! I made 3 different versions distinguished by color scheme. Two work with the usual combination of white + primary colors and the other is white + pink and gold. I made the pink one first because I wanted to match it to the eternal tiare, and I figured that since white is the more important color it didn't matter much if I left out the rest. And while I still like it and I think it would match the show and be a proper evolution, I get why some would find it too disjointed from her original outfits without the red and blue. So I experimented with those colors instead and those are the results. I find them comparatively tackier than the pink and gold, but no more than the original eternal costume, and all in all they work well enough. Maybe I'll do a poll later so you can choose which version you like best.

Now with that out of the way I should go into the shape of the outfit, since I did make some radical changes. Believe me I don't like taking the "sailor" out of Sailor Moon anymore than you do, but in my defense the options of the flash game are limited, so hear my reasoning before you chew me out:

First and foremost, the wings present a problem. Because they are white and spring from above her shoulders they were always going to compete with the bubble sleeves, since both elements fundamentally alter the silhouette. Ergo, I chose to get rid of the sleeves, since the wings are a more powerful symbol. I chose the sweetheart neckline because it was what was available and I think it looks good, but there might have been other options if the game had more variety (which is saying a lot because the thing has a lot of options). Before you ask, no the sleeveless approach Ami has on her costume doesn't look good on her and no way no how am I doing the Shadow Galactica Senshi thing of unattached collars. Fuck that nonsense. I also left the pearls without the hair bun accessories because, again, they competed too much with everything else.

So we go with a white mini dress. I put a ruffled underskirt to give the outfit a bit more volume and looseness without fundamentally unbalancing the silhouette and since it's pale yellow and translucent it gives the idea of a halo of moonlight with the main white skirt. Without the sleeves and collar the mini dress looks more like something a figure skater would wear, so the string-y belts actually work well here. I kept the back ribbon short so that it wouldn't compete with the wings, and I put another one under the wings of the eternal moon article to balance the excess white. This leaves us with the boots. Trust me, she looks better with these than her usual ones. With a strapless and short dress like this either you go short and blocky with the footwear or go long and skin tight. Anything in the middle will look awkward. I will admit however that they need a band of color on top, but that wasn't an option in the game. Or rather there was an option and it didn't look good so I didn't take it.

In any case, I said before that the reason for re-making both outfits is so that the contrast between them makes a design throughline. So there you have it. We have the second evolution, which is a more elongated version of the first one without changing or accessorizing it too much and then our final version goes the opposite way, being more sparse and ethereal, even fairy-like as it fits an ascended, mythical figure. I hope the redesigns satisfy you, but who knows! Maybe when I get better at drawing I can come up with something else. Or not. After all, if you, like me, don't like the original eternal outfit you're always welcome to redesign it yourself. The world is our oyster 💖🌙

[mamaz00m]

So. Plans for the future. Let’s talk about it.

Going back through this fic and finally writing the last chapter opened the floodgates for me, in a way. As I said in my last post, I’d been wondering about what Gabe and Eli in the future would be like, what their lives would look like. I wrote a glimpse into their future back in 2019 in A Name of My Own. But I still feel like there’s more to uncover, more to learn, to discover.

Finishing Raise Hell felt monumental for me. When I completed the last chapter, I sat staring at the final line for fifteen minutes, asking myself if I could do this—if I could finally publish it. If I was ready for this all to be over. Because this fic had started out as a coping mechanism for me. When I’d began writing it, I identified pretty heavily with Eli—like I wanted so desperately to have someone come rescue me. Someone who knew how to care for me while also pushing me to be my best in ways that felt challenging, but not scary. Weirdly, it felt difficult to essentially ‘let go’ of that time in my life, that version of me.

Weirder, still, is the fact that just like Eli, I essentially got exactly what I wanted. I moved in with my best friend. We’ve built a life together. I’m happy, and I’m finally beginning to thrive instead of just survive. I clicked publish. I decided to let go of the 24 year old version of me.

And by the next day, (nearly) 34 year old me had an idea for a second Gabeli story—a road map unfurled in my mind, the journey these two men could take stretching out before me. I have the notes written down for a second story, ready to begin writing.

What does this mean for RH?

For Raise Hell as it currently exists? Probably nothing.

In its current form, Raise Hell has a few problems—tense-shifting, for one, a couple Boosh/Mint Royale references that would need changed if I were to publish it. I have copy/pasted the whole of the fic into my favorite writing program and am slowly combing through it, fixing the problems with tenses, formatting it, etc. I do have plans to eventually get it up for sale in its new form (with a couple extra scenes included), but that’s in the future. If you loved it, I’d download it now so that you’ll always have access to it in its original form because it might not remain forever on AO3.

What is Heaven & Earth?

The sequel I’m planning for Raise Hell. It will be set roughly two years after the conclusion of RH and will follow one major plot and two minor subplots as we follow the boys further into their relationship.

We’ll see how Jen, Ben, and Kat are doing and we’ll find out more about Spuds, James, and Alan, too.

We’ll uncover more insights about Gabe’s past and his parents, and we’ll see some things from Eli’s past get wrapped up as well.

Will you be posting H&E to AO3?

Yes! Any Gabeli stuff I work on will be posted to AO3 first and then be made available in other formats, reconfigured, improved, etc. later.

What is Hereafter?

The long and short of it is I don’t know yet! Coming back to finish a fic (and then go on to continue it) for what appears to be a dead fandom is a…weird experience, to say the least. I’m convinced at this point that I’m only continuing this for my own benefit at this point, but I think I’m fine with that.

I think once I’ve finished with H&E, the picture will become clearer for Hereafter. Or Hereafter may become just a collection of oneshots only on AO3—random snapshots of Gabe and Eli’s lives at different points. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when the time comes.

So. That’s it for the updates for now.

Thanks again.

<3

[esther-dot]

"No. It was not courage. This one was dead of fear. You could see it in his eyes, Stark."- Bran(AGOT I).

"The poor man was half mad. Something had put a fear in him so deep that my words could not reach him."- Cat(AGOT I).

Jon and Ned noticed that Gared was terrified. Ned knew he was traumatized by seeing something. I do think Grrm wanted to be critical of NW system. Ned was doing right thing according to their world. Maybe there should be changes in rules like a trial before executing for desertion. Thoughts?

(in reference to this ask)

I’m back answering all my very old asks. Apologies @please-dot !

So, I answered that last ask without rereading the chapter, but your comments made me revisit it and Ned comes across better than I remembered. Actually, he sounds as responsible as he could be in the situation:

So I agree that not only was Ned doing the right thing according to their world (duty), he was trying to do it conscientiously. I've said before, I really don't think Martin intended us to be quite as critical of Ned as we often are. I posted a quote once about Martin’s aggravation that writers ignore the realities of medieval life. He said he wanted it to have teeth, so Ned, even though he is a lord, being constrained by his duty is a genuine reality in their world. He is flawed but upheld as someone with the right ideals, and knowing this is how it begins, Ned delivering the king's justice while Bran is instructed in his way of doing so which isn’t the Targ or Robert way, and that Bran will then end up king of Westeros, well, it makes you read this whole passage with new eyes.

All of this is certainly set-up for Bran to be the person who can administer justice, potentially an even more merciful and wiser version than Ned's, but I just don't know how much Martin will allow society to progress when he wants to keep things kinda realistic?

Will the Wall fall, forcing the Watch to take a new form? Rangers who have homes and families to return to perhaps? Or will everyone accept the continued threat of the Others and they're therefore able to fill the ranks of the Watch with volunteers rather than pressing people into service? We're shown not only how unjust that is, but how these boys don't understand what the vows mean for their lives, and that they can't resist the lure of love, family, so even if it's voluntary, the celibacy thing is a problem. So, reform? keep it but overhaul it? In post canon fics we write many variations of all that, but I've never felt like I understood how the problem could be handled in a Martin-esque way. Something better is in store, surely, but I’m not sure how dramatic a change he’s aiming for.

We do have the Watch as a “shield” and I’ve mentioned before that makes Ned and Benjen’s hope for the Gift to be a “shield” a potentially hopeful sign, but that was in thinking of the FF, and we have the Others to worry about so it all depends on how resolved you think that issue will be. If they’re entirely gone, maybe there’s no need for a Watch, if not…

And then we have the idea of an independent North to throw in there. If it is free, I don’t see how the Watch / the Wall doesn’t become their thing, and not only has Jon been thoroughly disillusioned and then killed, Sansa has realized some truth about it as well (and will no doubt learn more). If they are in positions of power, it’s hard to imagine things wouldn’t infinitely improve.

But then, I look at the less hopeful Jon endings, and think he was meant to be the person with the ideals who became disillusioned who might be able to reform it—a post canon purpose for him, the prospect of short adventures beyond the Wall (Martin had at one point mentioned the desire to write a post canon adventure for Arya, and somewhere I saw a comment that made it sound like he had potential ideas for Jon too), and with the whole sequel show now in the works, I wondered if GoT really did deliver his ending, the Watch still exists and Jon is the one wise enough/with the relationships to keep the peace between the Northerners and FF. 😖

I really can’t say. I find my ideal too simplistic and the alternatives entirely unsatisfactory. I need you to tell me what to think on this one 😅

[steampaul]

i've started a little series of weekly posts documenting every MoC i made (digitally) over the last few years:

Week 9: 2022

some old MoCs returning, lego art, 90th anniversary toa team, video game stuff and more Rock Raiders (yay)

this one will be the penultimate week.

remember back in week 2 (2018) where i tested out the differences in rendering between stud.io 1 and 2? i tested out the mecabricks extention for Blender to render some digital bricks.

this took way too long to setup and render, so i decided to not use blender for rendering after that (escpecially after the win11 updated fucked with my graphics card)

another mandalorian s2 set MoC. din djarins N1 starfighter, based on the last N1 set we had back in 2015. i think these proportions aren't good, but a bit better than the official set. (its still too big though)

the Horizon: forbidden west set was also teased/revealed around that time, so i decided to make a diorama with just the watcher (and one with a corrupted one) that would be a bit more managable in both cost and size than the tallneck.

i still got the tallneck, becauce those robot dinos are cool as hell and i want to support video game based sets, even though i am a big supporter of the concept that LEGO should make more original themes instead of big and expensive licensed sets (like rivendell....)

some greebles inspired by the ones on the Icons (formerly master builder) "theme" of sets, also my header image for tumblr.

back in 2017 (week one) i made The Slugcat Portrait mosaic, and i decided in 2022 that i would remake it to be more in line with the way i would built with bricks at that time. i think i improved wuite a bit.

i like the 90 years of play tahu, even if his design was considered to be controversial, so i decided to make the full 2001 set lineup for bionicle. i think they turned out pretty good, but i find it a bit annoying that the maccaroni piece does not exist in tan or medium blue (a dicontinued colour)

anyone remeber Valley? the momentum-based FPS platformer? no? it wasn't really mind-blowing, but i still enjoyed the movement and flow of the game. i also always wanted to try out the Legoland Miniland style of character building. this was the perfect opportunity to combine both of these things.

i think the proportions might be a bit off, but i still like this little desk friend

someone asked me on twitter to send them the instructions for my marble machine MoC (as seen in week 7), but i didn't want to give them such and outdated build, so i re-designed it to be more up to date.

they ended up giving me about 14 $ for these instructions, which made me pretty happy.

i tried to make a micro-scale version of the exo-force set 7701 Grand Titan. i really dislike the way this one turned out.

Lego Ideas had yet another contest. this one was about designing a poster for the then new 21334 Jazz Quartet. i called this one "Golden Sounds" and it is the first mosaic-type MoC that i made where i first sketched it out to kinda figure out how i wanted it to look.

i like the way this one turned out, but i think i should've built it in such a way that the colours in the background wouldn't be as dim.

remember last week when i said i wanted to make more Rock raiders MoCs? turns out i did. a lot too.

this VTOL-style transport vehicle was kinda inspired by those industrial transport helicopters and was supposed to be some sort of reimagining of 4980 tunnel transport. i think it's a bit too clunky and a bit too skinny at the same time. not my favourite.

also there's a modular open container (is that what they're called?) that can be fixed under the vehicle. (as well as the room container that you'll see next)

Modular bases are so cool you guys. this one is inspired by 4990 Rock Raiders HQ and those big old moving platforms Nasa uses. it could be controlled with a motor, has a removable cockpit (with an access hatch) and the platform has a lot of room for modules. like the crystal refinery, the room container, the high platforms, the crane and the crane attachment holder.

here are a few variants for the room container: an artifact storage with workbench, a small break room and a laboratory. i like those and i might do more in some time in the future. idk yet.

my take on the rock monsters. some crystal infested/energized Fauna.

first some bipedal designs (the left one is a modded version of a deviant form an eternals sets) that could be more agressive carnivore types.

in the middle are some quadrupedal guys that could be a bit less agressive and even friendly. Left is a modded version of my SCP 860 creature from week 4 (which was based on either an legendary beast from Chima or a dragon from elves) and the right one is a recolour from the fluffy-tailed Hog from my satisfactory series from week 3

and lastly, some insectoid designs, a kind of beetly creature and two ants, one of them with wings. these could be some sort of neutral (like in minecraft) swarm that might be a problem for buildings and cocky miners.

this is probably my favourite of my Rock Raiders Builds from 2022. it's 4920 rapid rider built with modern pieces that has been overtaken by the energy crytals. it can be fully freed from crystal and reassebled, which is nice.

we'll see another rapid rider next week...

first week last week final week

[arundolyn]

do you mind if i ask how you rip guilty gear animations? ive been wanting to get into ripping however there are very limited resources and few accounts are active that still rip. advice is very appreciated, thank you:)

just realized how stupid long this got right before posting so . cut

the way i do it for strive is, via unverum just for ease of use bc you can flip mod on/off at will before opening the game, get the mods that change the background of ajatar hunting ground to black/green/blue (i think it's by ultima?) and use the color of your choice (usually i use blue because black can screw with the outlines and green can cause weird lighting issues. blue can as well but it seems the least invasive of all of them to me, you can only really notice on stuff like zato bc eddie comes out sorta bluish bc he's translucent. there may be mods to help with that kind of thing but i havent looked)

pick whatever characters you want and go to training mode (unless you need something specific, like win/lose poses, of course. if it has to be during a fight you can just go to local vs with a controller and make the other character your keyboard so you dont actually have to fight) and record with OBS. pick whatever settings you think look best graphically both in strive and on OBS, idk if i can advise with those choices too well bc my hardware is beefy enough to handle max settings for stuff, ymmv

after recording, go to photoshop (doesnt matter what version, mine is ancient and ill gotten gains ive had for years. find your means. use something similar. idk) just drag the video in (no need to import it any special way) and literally just. go frame by frame copying the stuff from the animation you want into a new file and after you have all the frames go and erase it by hand. i usually use the magic eraser thing on around 50 tolerance (may need to be adjusted at times) and with anti aliasing (just cause i like the outlines not to be smooth, that also can make the "sprites" transparent and have an ugly white outline around it in gifs, do whatever you think looks good) and contiguous unchecked (contiguous just so that you dont have to go around clicking every blue/green/black spot individually, as that takes much longer. sometimes this cant be avoided, like if your character has colors too close to the background or an effect you want to keep is too close to the background color youre erasing)

additional mods i use at times are ones that turn certain characters im not focusing on invisible (like chipp or i-no, cant remember who made that one) just so i dont have to worry about cropping around another character if they do an idle animation or something, and theres one that disables lighting effects (like gio's glowies when she has full meter, or certain moves like baiken's dust or tsurane sanzu watashi) so that the gifs look nicer devoid of the like... engine based context. of that makes sense

as for XRD, i used to use a cheat table camera mod for rev that was kinda adapted from the one for sign, but since the rollback update it looks like its broken and i dont think anyone has cared much to fix it, but also havent had the time to mess around with it myself. the sign one might still work? theres a reddit thread with it out there somewhere still i think. be warned re: sign tho bc the models are kinda janky and lower quality, which probably isnt noticeable to most people but its definitely glaring to me when i moved from sign to rev. they did some major improvements on like everyone in rev

last but not least, a word of caution regarding certain things. i'd warn against trying to do any overdrives or anything that has a superflash (when the camera focuses on the character using a move, usually, like jack-o's forever elysion driver) or the strive pre move cutscene things (like baiken's tsurane sanzu watashi) as well as intro/outro cutscenes, since making them transparent not only will be a pain in the ass but probably would look weird due to the camera movement + lack of background. same goes for stuff like bursts or walk/run cycles where the character moves significantly and the camera angle might change, since not only will it be a bitch to line up correctly so it loops properly, but if the character's location or the camera angle changes it might end up looking off because the model is being viewed from a slightly different angle. not sure how obvious that would be to someone who didnt Do it but ive learned that through trial and error. might also just be perfectionism on my part. id usually get around this on xrd with the cheat table bc you could lock the model in place (but it would still move technically, which was nice if you didnt want effects like the little dust clouds when you dash getting in the way) but ive never seen anything similar for strive. from what i know it should be possible for sure, just slightly tricky to some extent and i dont really know how one would go about doing that or have the time to learn. the console for UE is locked in strive and idk if theres a way to unlock it, but that would potentially be a way to freeze models in place quick and dirty if necessary. there ARE a few camera mods out there for strive, but any model freezing aspects are just like.. full game pause, not frozen in place.

hope this is comprehensive enough to help somewhat. have a slayer

[angelofrainfrogs]

Into the Pit: Ch. 5

~Coauthored by @zeitghest~

Fandom(s): Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach

Description: He should be in the Daycare. 

Gregory emerges from the ball pit to find not the bright, rainbow room he’s accustomed to, but a house with a huge backyard and a kiddie pool of plastic “water.” Calling for Gregory is a familiar voice—Michael. Only this time it’s not Charlie or Freddy by his side, but someone completely new. And why do they insist on calling him their son?

Gregory soon comes to realize this existence is vastly different from anything he remembers. Perhaps these last few weeks at the Pizzaplex have all been a dream…?

Rating: T

Read on Ao3

Upstairs, Gregory was having a hard time coming to terms with some things.

In the journal kept beneath his bed, something he’d apparently started when he was 8, now going on 13, was a record of his days both good and bad. Gregory was seeing a therapist for his anxiety issues, but nothing ever mentioned the delusions he was having. In fact, as the pages went on, bad days were outnumbered by the good. He’d been here for years—taken from the foster system around 7 years of age, but knowing he was going to be adopted since 6. Some things just made sense, but there was a severe lacking mention of ghosts and virtual serial killers���

When the knocked came to his door, Gregory quickly shut the thick, ink-stained book and looked to Ditty, who scuttled around his desk and inquisitively picked things up to move them about.

“I gotta eat dinner, can you find more stuff while I’m gone?” he asked, unsure if the little guy was even listening before receiving the world’s smallest thumbs up from his new robot companion. “Yeah anything with my name on it—drawings, journals, whatever…”

He’d have to read these more intently later to jog his memory. Going to the door, Gregory turned the knob and threw it open. He was getting pretty peckish at this point. worrying does a number on one’s stomach.

“Doing alright—” he finally answered. “—just going through my journals.”

“Oh, great idea!” Michael praised, his smile more genuine now. “That’s always a good way to jog your memory.” He gestured for Gregory to take the lead towards the stairs. “I made dinner—sorry it’s not going to be as good as when Dad cooks, but I promise it’s edible.”

He chuckled at the self-depreciation, hoping Gregory would get a kick out of the joke, too. The kid looked a bit better than before—not nearly as outwardly stressed. Maybe he was already improving?

Michael could hope.

Following Gregory back down, they found Jeremy had set the table again and was waiting in his chair ready to dole out the sandwiches.

“The guest of honor has arrived!” Michael announced, smirking as he pulled out Gregory’s chair with a little bow. “Your seat, monsieur.”

The double-accent sounded ridiculous, which was exactly Michael’s intent. Anything to make Gregory remember how wonderfully fun this version of his family was.

And it worked; the kid was all smiles now. He just had to pretend like this morning didn’t nearly shock the life out of him. Now it was like a game, one where he had to piece together his life to this point. There was no danger here, Gregory reminded himself. Since being adopted, nothing bad had really even happened to him. Scooting in towards the table, Gregory plopped down into the seat that Michael pulled out for him.

“Oui, oui thank you monsieur.” Gregory played along, making Jeremy laugh as he tossed a few napkins towards his son.

Jeremy placed his plate down, carrying on the joke. “Your sandwich le fromage, monsieur! It’s tres manifique.”

Despite Michael’s normally burned cooking, the sandwiches didn’t look half bad in Jeremy’s opinion—though he’d rather jump off a bridge than refuse to eat his darling husband’s food because of some char. Gregory would giggle at this, watching as Jeremy pulled Michael’s seat out for him.

“Sorry that we had to leave the Pizzaplex early, guys. My nightmare was like… really intense and was inside the mall,” he half-explained.

“No need to apologize,” Michael replied as he took his seat. “We all get a little overwhelmed sometimes. Plus, that place is always insane on Saturdays...” He shared a look with Jeremy, letting Gregory eat a few bites of sandwich before speaking again.

“Hey, Greg—” Michael gave him a smile more curious than anything, though his eyes held deep-seated empathy. “—it’s totally okay if you don’t want to talk about it right now—the last thing we want to do is stress you out more—but… we’re here if you want to share any of your dreams. No matter how bad they are, we’ll listen.”

Gregory’s smile looked strained, though he figured by this point, if none of it was real… It couldn’t hurt to tell them.

“I… had a dream I was kind of like—living at the Pizzaplex? And then things went crazy! So much happened—Charlie was in the Puppet! Like, her ghost. Yours was in Freddy’s,” Gregory began to ramble. He set down his sandwich, choosing to look at the grilled cheese rather than his dads. It helped him get his thoughts in order.

“Pappy was Bonnie. Like—his mind was stuck inside Bonnie. Not quite a ghost, but not… Man, I don’t even know what he really was. But he was using dead kids to try and bring himself back to life? Apparently he’d been doing it for years. Then he injected me with this fizzy purple stuff—it’s supposed to make you immortal or something. He thought I was Evan. Oh—Liz and Evan were dead, and he was trying to bring them back, too. Then we trapped Pappy inside a video game and I smashed it with a hammer…”

Wow, Jeremy thought. Vivid AND concerning. He realized when Gregory picked his dinner up against to take more bites that he was done with the short retelling of his dreams.

“That’s… intense, little man. I’m sorry,” was all he could say, before his brow furrowed in thought. “Wait… Puppet? Like The Puppet? From the original diner way back when?”

Had Gregory ever even seen the Marionette? That old thing had been retired to Charlie and John’s house years ago, a powered down and prized toy that June inherited but rarely played with. When Gregory gave Jeremy a confused nod, his father sat back in his seat to fold his hands together in thought. He silently looked to Michael, wondering if he ever told their kid about the old, out of date security bot.

By this point Mike was leaning forward, hand covering his mouth where it rested on his palm. This dream was far more disturbing than he’d thought it’d be…

To think everyone was dead? And possessing animatronics, to boot? Plus William was apparently a murderer—

“How did you… did Charlie tell you about that?” Michael questioned, a hint of disbelief in his tone, eyes widening at the mention of Puppet. Surely within their whole extended family someone must’ve shown off the run-down bot… but it hadn’t been Michael. He blinked, sitting up and shaking his head.

“Er—you probably don’t remember, sorry. It’s just… I don’t remember ever showing you Puppet.” He gave a nervous laugh, sharing another side-eyed glance with Jeremy. “We thought it might freak you out too much. A lot of kids thought it was unnerving, so…” He gave a weak shrug.

What the hell was going on?

“A-Anyway—” Michael’s lips curved into a light smile. “—I was stuck in Freddy? Hmm… I guess there’s worse robots to be with. I hope we were all nice, at least…?” The faint smile slipped back into a grimace. “Besides Pappy, I suppose…”

“Of course you were nice; you and Charlie protected me! But, Henry—” Gregory placed the last two bites of crust down on the plate to explain. “—he made you guys robots that looked exactly like people! He called them androids. Because… Charlie died on her sixteenth birthday. He made some for her, and then when you died, Mike—er, Dad, he made one for you. Lizzie and Evan have them, too. Charlie helped you guys attach your souls to them; apparently she’s the only one who could move them around. Cas was dead, too…”

Gregory took a break, chewing and swallowing another bite of food.

“…Puppet loved Charlie a lot. She gave really good hugs,” he remembered, missing Mari now; this little girl he made up in her mind that was so excited to talk and tell you about her day… “I don’t know… Maybe June told me about her.” He wasn’t sure how hard he wanted to think about it. Gregory let his crust drop again to his plate as he thought about his apparent grandfather, trying to downplay how his mind painted him. “William wasn’t trying to hurt me—not really. He just wanted me to be alive. I mean, he wanted Evan, but he got really confused. He didn’t care who got hurt to make himself alive either… I mean, he obviously wouldn’t ever do that here.”

“No, of course not—he loves you and wouldn’t hurt anyone like that,” Jeremy reinforced. He didn’t look tense, but he grasped Michael’s hand beneath the table for support. Running his free hand through wavy blonde hair, Jeremy let out a small laugh. “What was I doing? I hope I wasn’t being a jerk to you.”

Gregory’s eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head. “No… Uh… You weren’t there. Mi—er, Dad didn't mention you either.”

Well… That was better than actively trying to hurt the kid, Jeremy supposed. Still he couldn't help but purse his lips in thought as to why he was just never even mentioned. Nothing at all to indicate he was a part of Gregory’s life?

“Weird…,” Jeremy murmured, lost in thought.

“God… I’m so sorry, Gregory,” Michael murmured, so quiet it was as though he was talking to himself. He returned the hand squeeze under the table, for some reason getting that pit-of-the-stomach feeling that all this was somehow his fault…

But that was just his mind overreacting. No one was responsible for Gregory’s horrible dreams—not even the boy himself.

“Maybe you’ve just been overstimulated lately,” he tried to reason. Applying logic to an illogical situation—it was all he could do until he had a medical opinion tomorrow. “I mean, we’ve been visiting the Pizzaplex a lot… I know it’s fun, but there’s so much stuff going on there. We might wanna cut back a little.”

“Yeah... Yeah that's probably it.” Jeremy agreed for now. Running his thumb along the outside of Michael's hand, he told Gregory: “I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Freeman just in case. Maybe she can help us figure out where to go from there. Until then—” Jeremy cleared his throat before stacking their plates on the table. “—how do you feel about some ice cream?”

Gregory's smile turned up again, now looking back to Jeremy with glee. “I feel pretty strongly about ice cream."

With a more relaxed posture, Jeremy took the plates and lifted Michael's hand to his mouth, placing two kisses on his knuckles. “Ice cream, hon?”

He didn't want to seem like he was ignoring or trying to bury the issues. But there was no sense dwelling on imagined, horrific scenarios if they made Gregory feel bad.

“Sounds great,” Michael readily agreed, eyes crinkling at the sweet gesture. There really wasn’t much use in focusing on something they couldn’t do anything about right now. Sitting back in his chair, Michael set his hands in his lap and tried to relax. Sweet confections always improved any situation, no matter how dire it might seem.

“Let’s see, I think we’ve got… chocolate, right?” Michael asked, tracking Jeremy as he put the plates in the sink and went to the freezer. “I can’t remember what else… cookie dough, maybe?”

"Which one—"

“Chocolate!” Gregory shouted answering Jeremy's question before he could even ask it. Then, Gregory corrected himself. “Wait! Chocolate and cookie dough?”

The smile on Jeremy's face brightened with a laugh. “Sure, kid; Mike?”

“I’ll have what he’s having,” Michael confirmed, jerking his thumb towards Gregory with a grin.

While Gregory stretched his legs, Michael idly watched Jeremy get the ice cream ready. His eyes were on his husband, but his mind wandered to possessed animatronics and purple liquid that made one immortal. Two questions kept popping up in his mind:

How did Gregory know about the Puppet? And why were his eyes now shining silver?

Luckily, before he could get too lost in his thoughts three hearty bowls of ice cream were set on the table. All were piled high with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. Michael raised his brows at this.

“I didn’t even know we had sprinkles. Did you check the date on them, Jer?” His head tilted in consideration. “Wait… can sprinkles even go bad?”

The question of Gregory’s physical appearance scratched at Jeremy’s mind as well. Somehow, Gregory’s eyes reminded Jer of those old pictures of shell-shocked war veterans. He'd seen the before and after photos of a doe-eyed private that came back from battle with a wide and hollow stare. Gregory’s didn’t meet the same intensity as that, but their paleness was comparable.

A couple of scoops later, and he could pretend to forget about it for now. Michael raised an excellent question about the sprinkles, making Jeremy scratch at the short stubble on his chin.

“Sprinkles are only made of good stuff—they can’t go bad,” he fibbed, inching back towards the kitchen. Gregory raised his spoon impatiently for his mouth, only hesitating when Jeremy called: “But wait just a sec in case I’m wrong!”

There was a short beat. Then his relieved voice finally answered: “They’re good! Enjoy, guys!”

Gregory smiled towards the kitchen spouting a quick, “Thanks!” before stuffing his cheek full of the cold treat. When Gregory glanced up to Michael, they locked gazes. It was clear his Dad was staring at him. The question was exactly what he was looking at—though Gregory had his suspicions.  

Blinking to break the connection, Gregory swallowed a spoonful of ice cream and tilted his head. “…What’s wrong?”

“Nothing; sorry,” Michael responded, quickly dropping his gaze to the steadily-melting bowl of ice cream.

He took a slow, thoughtful bite, wondering if he should even bother to ask. It seemed like every time they had a semblance of peace a new concern popped up in his mind. Had he always been such a worrywart? Deep down perhaps, especially as he got older… but Michael couldn’t ever remember being this much on edge.

“…Actually, I do have another question for you, Greg,” he said after a moment of silence save for the clinking of spoons against bowls. He was watching his son again, looking for any signs of physical discomfort. “You’re not having any, um… vision problems, are you? You seem alright, I just have to ask because—well.”

With a vague gesture of his spoon, Michael indicated the boy’s startling eyes. Surely he’d caught sight of them in the mirror today… and if not, Mike would feel really bad for pointing them out and adding yet another worry to Gregory’s list. 

He knew it was coming; it was only a matter of time before one of them mentioned it. The thought crossed his mind that Gregory, along with these false memories, looked different when he woke up this morning. It was starting to make him feel as if he was still missing the bigger picture. Gregory played with the lumps of cookie dough, mashing them further into heaps of ice cream before answering.

“I can see great,” he replied with a shrug. Not a lie by any means; he could see better than ever. But he knew that wasn’t what Mike was getting at. However, if there was one thing Gregory got very good at over the course of his dream life (so he thought, at least), it was fibbing. “Why?”

Jeremy bit the inside of his lip, unsure how he would breach this topic. To him, they almost looked like cataracts if he squinted. Tinted mirrors with no reflection, swallowing all the light instead of projecting it back—save for a strange, subtle glow from within. 

“Your eyes look a little different than they normally do, that’s all.” The way he mentioned it didn’t make Gregory feel odd about the way they looked, putting him at ease. Their son didn’t want to think about why he looked the way he did and just shrugged.

“Maybe it's just the light?” Gregory remarked, experimentally batting his eyes—feeling out whether they still worked properly with the added workload.

“Yeah… I'm sure that's it. Ignore me, kiddo—I’m just turning into a worrywart like Uncle Evan. How’s your ice cream?” Michael flashed him a grin. With this and the slushie, Greg was going to be wired… and then crash equally as hard. 

“Famtabstic—” Gregory praised with a mouthful. His tongue darted out to capture a sprinkle from his lip, feeling a little bad for not opening up about what happened in his dream sooner. So he would deflect this with a valid question of his own. Swallowing what was in his mouth, Gregory looked to his Dads and asked: “I have a question, though…”

Jeremy had already made a good dent in his bowl, but saved time to ask his son: “Hm? What’s up?”

Wiping away sticky sugar from the corner of his mouth, Gregory raised a brow. “Why is this cookie dough alright to eat, but regular cookie dough isn’t?”

Jeremy opened his mouth to answer, floundering when nothing actually came to mind. He was going to have to Google this later, but he postulated regardless, turning a suspicious eye to the sugary mounds in his dish. “Maybe it’s counterfeit cookie dough.” 

“Oh my god—don’t make it sound like we’re buying black market ice cream!” Michael exclaimed with a laugh, nudging Jeremy’s leg under the table. “It’s safe because the flour and eggs in the dough have been treated to get rid of bacteria and stuff that makes us sick; the homemade kind isn’t put through that process.”

As Michael lifted the final, oversized bite of chocolate sweet to his mouth, he could feel his family’s eyes on him. With the spoon hanging in the air, he lifted an eyebrow. “What? I was raised in a pizzeria chain whose specialty dessert was ice cream. I know waaaay more details about that stuff than I ever wanted to.”

With a shrug, he set the final bite in his mouth and let his spoon clatter onto his plate with a satisfied hum.

Jeremy should’ve expected Michael to know something like that. Both he and Gregory frequently learned a lot of random, usually pizza-related facts from him.

“I wish I knew that! Here I am, thinking we got fake cookie dough,” Jeremy chuckled, locking his ankle around Michael’s. “A lot smarter than my answer anyway…”

"Nah, they pour bleach on them instead,” Gregory said after inhaling his final bite, happy to spew obvious misinformation.

“No! What? They can’t do that. That should be illegal!” Jer snorted, unable to keep a straight face as Gregory nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Nope. It’s all bleach!” Feeling like he was in a much better mood, Gregory decided to take the bowls and spoons from Jeremy’s grasp, much to the man's surprise. “It’s cool;, I’ll go rinse them out.”

“Aww—thank you, sweetheart.” Jeremy was pleasantly touched by the gesture. As Gregory passed the threshold of the kitchen, Jer leaned his head against Michael’s shoulder and contentedly closing his eyes. “What a cool kid, right?” 

“The absolute coolest,” Michael confirmed. “I think that really cheered him up. He’s already acting more like himself. Could just be the sugar high, but hey—if that’s what it takes, I’ll add ice cream to his daily routine in a heartbeat.”

Jeremy laughed quietly at this. If that was the case, it might do Gregory some good if they got him a gym membership for Mazercise. Gregory was at that age where he was going to eat his weight in junk food; lord knows Jeremy and Mike were the same way. 

“Did you say daily ice cream?” Gregory caught, peeking around the corner with a sly smirk. 

“Ice cream maybe daily. Maybe…” Jeremy sat up now, leaning over to gently pinch Gregory’s cheek, then decided to mess with his hair when the kid playfully batted at his teasing hand.

Michael chuckled at the display, tagging in for Jeremy to continue mussing up Gregory’s hair when the other was successfully fought off. The boy was soon released from his fathers’ attack, trying his best to resituate his locks as Michael grinned at him.

“Well, now that we’re all energized and sugar-ified… what do you want to do, Gregory?” he asked, standing up and stretching his arms high to the sky. “Watch some TV, play some video games, go outside for some fresh air… the possibilities are endless.”

There was that normal cheerful demeanor finally breaking through again. The more Gregory felt like himself, the more Michael did, too.

On the defensive, Gregory had lightly swatted the hands away from his hair—no wonder his once poofy mane was flat, with everyone always messing with it. It was a losing battle, as Gregory did find having his hair being played with soothing. He had his family to thank for that discovery.

While he did have all the video games he could possibly play judging by the entertainment cabinet, clear glass stocked to the brim with cartridges, discs, and cases, he had something else in mind. Fresh air would do him good; being all cooped up might be one of the things hurting him rather than helping. Gregory felt like he'd been in hiding for two weeks because of his nightmare. He missed the sunlight...

“Can we go hang outside? It's such a nice day out,” he remarked. It might be a little hot, but it beat the slowly developing hermit qualities he'd notice growing in his mind.

“Outside it is, then!” Jeremy would agree. He loved the outdoors; one of these days he was going to take them all camping again. “What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Uh...” Gregory drew a blank. What do people do together outside?

Then, he thought on it. If they went back to the little make shift ball-pit, was there a chance of jogging his memory?

“We could play in the ball pit!” Gregory suggested.

“Oh yeah!” Michael mused, now leading the way to the back door. He’d almost forgotten about that thing. “Good idea—we spent all that time getting it set up, might as well get some use out of it!”

It’d be therapeutic for all of them, he thought—childish fun without worrying about beating high scores or completing missions. Just a kid and his dads swimming in a plastic pool and having the time of their lives spending time together as a family.

Soon enough Michael was throwing open the back door, releasing his family into the warm afternoon sunlight that lit up the rainbow plastic in a beacon of fun. Gregory ran to the edge of the porch, looking into the wide pit. It was a fun idea; probably less expensive to maintain than a pool, though Gregory didn't think that was why they did it. He probably wanted the convenience of a ball pit without having to go all the way to the Daycare.

It was then that he was picked up, Jeremy having snuck up behind to toss him gently in the pool. Gregory let out a yelp of surprise at this, and as he made his short flight through the air he waited for memories to come to him...

Touchdown! A small splash of plastic orbs rained back over in his parents’ direction. The above ground inflatable pool wobbled with the motions and Gregory moved to “swim” towards the edge.

In a sudden movement, Jeremy whipped around and hugged Michael. It seemed out of nowhere. When Michael finally hugged him back, Jeremy tightened his grip and used his weight to pull them both down together, all in one singular, unspoken motion of betrayal. The sight had Gregory covering his mouth, laughter rolling out of him now.

The memories might not come so easy, Gregory thought. This could take a lot longer than he previously expected. New ones didn't hurt though...

“Unbelievable!” Michael cried as he popped above the surface. “I trusted you, Jeremy Fitzgerald! Don’t run away from me—”

As Jeremy desperately tried to escape his husband’s wrath, Michael picked up a bright red ball and threw it with perfect accuracy. It bounced harmlessly off Jeremy’s back right between the shoulder blades, but the blonde made a show of going down like it’d completely taken him out. Michael laughed at his triumph, then suddenly whirled around and scooped another ball into his hand. With a wicked grin, he tossed it in the air and caught it while eying his son.

“Don’t think you’re getting away, either!” Michael proclaimed, tossing the ball towards Gregory. And with that, the game was on.

They had fallen in with a might splash, only for Jeremy to scramble away at the last second. He fell with a dramatic yell when the plastic ball collided with his spine, face first into the pit once more. He was simply too slow to flee from Michael's wrath. Gregory shrieked, attempting to dunk under the pit, but unfortunately being clocked in the side of the head with the lightweight sphere.

These transgressions wouldn’t stand. And so the family had an all-out war, throwing balls and wrestling in the backyard.

It was what life could be. To some, what it should be…

***

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