#personally while it's fun to try to get specific numbers i don't think there's a 'real' answer here

[antigonewinchester]

sorry to bother and do not feel pressure to answer if you don't feel like it this is just something i’ve been thinking about, and i didn’t feel like going through all of post-s5 to try and satisfy my curiosity, but are there any instances where sam actually talks about how long he spent in the cage with lucifer? because i see people throwing around numbers a lot, from 200 years to thousands of years, and idk are there any moments where the amount of time sam spent getting tortured is actuallly talked about? or are people just extrapolating from what we've been told about hell+time in s4? what do you think🤔

Not a bother at all! :)

From what I can remember & from checking the Supernatural Wiki, Sam never got a specific number for his time in Hell like Dean did, so people have taken to guessing and extrapolating out how long he was trapped there.

Since we know the Cage was in Hell, I tend to use Dean’s time in Hell as a way of approximating how much time Sam spent there, too. In 4x10, Dean says his 4-ish months in Hell felt "like 40 years”, meaning 1 month on Earth is approximately 10 years in Hell. I actually did some calculations once to see if I could get a specific Time on Earth vs. Time in Hell ratio, and came up with this: If approximately 4 months (120 days) = 40 years (365 X 10 = 14,600 days) > 1 month (30 days/month) = 10 years (3,650 days/year) > then 1 day on Earth = approx 121.6 days in Hell. Based on when Dean died and was resurrected (May 2nd and Sept 18th, respectively), this accounting would technically mean he was there for more than 40 years, as if he’d been in Hell for 138 days, then 138 X 121.6 = 16,780.8 days / 365 days/year = 45.9 years.

Taking the 1 day = 121.66 days and looking at Sam’s time, he went to Hell (also!) on May 2nd, 2010, and then his soul was pulled out of Hell in early December, 2011. (I’m not sure on these exact years within the show, but it is implied that Dean spent a year with Lisa, met up with soulless!Sam after that year, and then timing of the plot approximately followed the timing of the show’s airing.) Let’s say December 2nd, 2011, is when Death pulled Sam’s soul out of Hell, just to keep it simple. That would makes Sam’s time in Hell 365 days + 215 days = 580 days. 580 X 121.6 = 70,528 days / 365 days/year = 193.2 years.

I suspect where people are getting the ‘Sam spent thousands of years in Hell’ idea is from 6x14, where Sam remembers his time in the Cage when he’s unconscious for 2 – 3 minutes and then tells Dean that this time felt like “about a week.” If 3 minutes = 1 week (or 10,080 minutes) > 1 min on Earth = 3,360 minutes in the Cage. 60 mins X 24 hrs = 1,440 mins / day on Earth > 1,440 X 3,360 = 4,838,400 mins per day in the Cage as 1 day on Earth. 580 days X 4,838,400 mins = 2,806,272,000 minutes / 60 mins/hr = 46,771,200 hrs / 24hrs/day = 1,948,800 days / 365 days/yr = 5,339.17 years in the Cage.

Now, I don’t think the writers were likely thinking of Sam or Dean’s times in Hell is this specific detail. Dean’s “40 years” in particular feels like it’s meant to evoke Biblical stories, like God telling Noah it would rain for 40 days & 40 nights during the flood, Moses being on Mount Sinai for 40 days & nights, or Jesus wandering the wilderness and rejecting Satan’s temptations over 40 days. Dean’s “40” being years is a way of further emphasizing the horror of Hell & his experiences there, as well as more metaphorically evoking the time dilation of trauma & traumatic events.

Imo, this kind of metaphorical read also applies to Sam's 3 minutes = 1 week in the Cage flashback. I do not think this was intended to line up with Sam's actual time in the Cage, as Sam isn’t physically going back to the Cage but only remembering his time there. This kind of time disparity again evokes traumatic events and how someone’s experience of time can be affected by both trauma and their remembering of it. It’s also another way the narrative can emphasize why getting rid of Sam’s wall would be a really really bad idea… which then makes Cas breaking Sam’s wall at the end of the season such an Oh Shit!! moment.

[xinganhao]

🎸 vernon dates rockstar!reader.

anon → "vernon x rockstar!reader who’s a foreigner in an international rock band"

⌗ ┆ anon are u kidding meee. vernon dating a rockstar?!?! my bread & butter (｡･`ω´･)ﾉ hope this is to your liking!

‧₊˚✩彡 includes: international rockstar!reader, f!reader, long distance relationship, established relationship, pet names, fluff, can be read not in order + headcanons under the cut.

🎸 headcanons .ᐟ

— prologue.

vernon was never really a big believer in long-distance relationships. or relationships in general, if he's being honest. they take a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of effort. his life is already hectic as it is. why rope somebody in to the life of dating an idol? why be with someone if he can't give them his 100%?

it makes sense, then, that when vernon does find someone, it's someone who runs similar circles. someone who knows what it's like to constantly be on the road, to be in the public eye more often than not.

vernon has been a casual listener of your band for a while now. it's the type of sound that fits right in to his playlists. and, okay, fine. he thinks you're attractive. sue him. but he swears he's there for the music— most of the time. there is a part of him that's there for the performance videos of you shredding your guitar, or the ones where you're screaming in to the microphone.

alright. vernon concedes: he may have a little crush on you.

so you can imagine vernon's surprise when he finds out the two of you are in the same line-up for some american music festival. it's a rare thing, for vernon to ask his managers for anything specific, but he absolutely cannot pass this chance up. he tries to be discreet about it, too. "i really like this band," he sheepishly admits to his manager. "do you think— i don't know, i could just say 'hi' to them or something?"

that's how you and vernon meet. on the sidelines of a music festival, where he's so cool about the whole thing. he's more on the soft-spoken side as he tells you that he thinks you're a great performer and that he can't wait to see you live. you'll think he's cute, and you'll thank him for going out of his way tell you personally.

you'll take a photo together. he'll give you a signed copy of the group's latest album, and you promise to give it a listen. (prior to vernon, you might have not really known too much about k-pop. that's something the two of you briefly discuss— the differences in your industries.) but, as he starts to bid goodbye, you can't resist.

"tell me," you say, small smile in place. "how would a k-pop idol react to having a rockstar slide in to their dm's?"

vernon's brain short-circuits. your words steal every single thought out of his head, and he's reminded, yet again, of small cultural differences. how much more forward americans can be when they want to. he's about to respond when his manager clears their throat, and vernon remembers his place. he flounders through some lame response.

you apologize for putting vernon on the spot, feeling a bit bad yourself. you hadn't wanted to get him in trouble. there's a little more chit-chat, and then— "quick," vernon breathes while his manager's distracted with a phone call. "got a pen on you?"

he scribbles his phone number on the corner of the album he'd just given you. "dm's don't always work for idols. but this might," vernon will say with a smirk that's not quite a smirk, and oh. you know this is going to be fun.

it takes a while for vernon and you to agree that a relationship is something you want to attempt. it will happen after months of back-and-forth via text, months of 'will they? won't they?' flirtations. it's going to be long distance in more ways than one. there's thousands of kilometers between you, a thirteen hour time difference, opposite ends of the entertainment industry.

you two agree to give it a shot anyway, because what's there to lose? no hard feelings if it doesn't work out. that's your constant refrain. you'll try. you'll do your best. and if things fall apart— well, that's just how it is.

— the texts.

except vernon finds it increasingly difficult, as times go on, to imagine a life without you. it's hard to do long distance. of course it's hard. he just thought it'd be harder, but surprisingly, it isn't.

'catch ya when i can' becomes something exchanged as often as 'i love you'. the windows of time wherein the two of you can actually talk— especially when you're both busy— are small, and so it's a bit of a game. vernon races against his busy schedule to 'catch' you, and it always feels like the biggest win in the world. even if it's just a couple of minutes where the two of you are both online, where the texts don't have hours in between each of them? he'll take 'em.

facetime can be a bit of a luxury but it's something the two of you try to do at least thrice a week. a lot of it is quiet snapshots of your daily lives. vernon eats dinner as you go through your morning routine. you get ready for bed as he tells you his plans for the day. it's the epitome of long-distance, how he says 'good morning' and you respond with 'good night.'

there's the fact that it's secret, too. no one can know that the two of you are dating. occasionally, you're linked to other people in the business. it's a grace that vernon is so secure in your relationship that he doesn't really mind. he trusts you, after all, and sees no need to blow things out of proportion. every so often, he'll feel a twinge of envy. but he knows that it's him that you'll text at the end of every day, so it's okay. that makes it okay.

that's why vernon compensates as best as he can. there's a lot of red-eye flights, from incheon to jfk and vice versa. it's easier for you to be the one to come visit him, since your fans don't keep track of you the same way that k-pop fans do. when vernon does make the flights abroad, though, he's always careful to cover up his tracks. to come up with some story of spending time abroad to visit family, to work on 'projects' he never publicly reveals.

vernon goes to your shows when he can. mostly, he watches from side stage so he's away from the view of the public. he likes it that way, really�� likes being the person you make a beeline for once you've taken your in-ears out. he'll laugh as you bear hug him. he'll keep an arm around your shoulders as he assures you that you did well. "you were so hot up there," he'll tease you. "how am i supposed to function now, huh?"

a cute little thing that vernon and you establish about midway in to your relationship is a 'couple' instagram account, except it's private and it's just for the two of you to see. @11203km (referencing the distance between you two) is a way for you to dump your thoughts/every day lives without flooding your text thread. when it's 🎸 posting, then maybe it's a carousel of your latest practice sessions or snaps of your recent attempts at cooking. when it's 🐻‍❄️'s posts, it's likely vernon's tiktok outtakes or his misadventures with the rest of the boys.

vernon had always thought that being in a relationship entailed giving your 100% all of the time. being with you has taught him otherwise. if some days, all he can give is 40%, then he can count on you to put in the rest of the 60%. the same goes for you: if you have weeks where all you can put in is 30%, then he'll step up with 70%. any relationship is work, but if it's you, then vernon is convinced that it isn't hard work. not at all.

— extra!

chwebacca 🤟 think i can join ur band now? ㅋㅋㅋ

📷 fansite photos from @Flechazo_0218.

[ivysangel]

hiii this is my first time suggesting something

can you do headcanons about giving jason a blowjob? 🫢

you are literally my favorite author here in tumblr, lysmmmm

for future reference, i don't take headcanon requests specifically, and i prefer to do them on my own time or just for fun, but you said i'm your fave author, so consider this a one-time gift :)

it's my personal philosophy that jason prefers giving head over receiving it, but he also does enjoy getting his dick wet, so if you're offering up head, he's not gonna say no

thinks it's hot when you take the lead a little, likes when you unzip his pants and pull them down. i think it's less about the act of getting head and more about your confidence. that turns him on

he enjoys making eye contact during that whole portion of it but is very much an eyes-closed, head-leaning-back kind of guy while you're blowing him

also, he's 100% a groaner, and i'll always die on that hill. and they come from the back of his throat bc he's trying to hold them in, so they come out all deep and gravelly. that alone could make a pussy wet tbh

like i said, he isn't the biggest fan of blowjobs and much prefers to cum because of penetrative sex, so i'm a believer that he'll stop you when he's close so he can creampie you or something

if you're sucking him off until he cums then he'll cum in your mouth. isn't that big a fan of cumming on your face because he doesn't like the mess, and he thinks it obstructs your beauty (he has to be feeling particularly nasty to do it)

bonus: ak!jason is a face fucker and a scalp grabber, very into you crying and has probably licked the tears off your face at some point

double bonus: fratboy!jason is a head pusher who talks you through it and also has received an insane number of bj's in closets at frat parties

[elodieunderglass]

It's not really my business, but honestly it feels like it would be advisable to hire a copyright lawyer. Like I don't feel like you're in it for the money, but it might be gratifying to have the guy milking your idea at least have to formally acknowledge you. I think I'd do it just for the peace of mind to know if I've been "legally" wronged or not. Either way, hope you continue to inspire, and live out a peaceful life.

(In reference to this post about the guy who pretends to have invented “Elder Teletubbies,” specifically how he is now kickstarting DnD minis of them.)

Ha, well, it’s all a little tricky I think. I might, hilariously, post on the r/legaladvice Reddit (even though they’re all cops lol) because the only thing I want here is for him to stop selling my “transformative work,” and ideally to stop pretending he invented it (which might be difficult as he appears to fully believe his work is creatively independent.)

I think if anything, my post counts as protected commentary or a transformative work of BBC’s Teletubbies, and I think it’s stinky to profit on that stuff in general (like I’m 190% okay with buying LotR fanart on stickers ! but I wouldn’t dream of trying to publish a fic with the serial numbers filed off. Why?)

I think ultimately I’m not a grifter, I’m a grownup, and I think it’s several levels of eye roll to sell fanart of a tv show on this level. I would be embarrassed to touch money made on that. I’m too fucking scrupulous and artisanal. I have toyed with a silly original novel for funsies since 2019 but keep saying things like, “oh, people will think this is too similar to something else that already exists” as if a silly original novel I write for fun has to somehow pass a Bar of Originality higher than anything salary-writers aim for.

I’m also pretty anti-intellectual-property myself in that leftist sense where I don’t believe people should be acting as if creative works are, like, oil. Like the resource extraction angle of intellectual property freaks me out, I don’t think getting super high-horse and snotty about Magical Brain Property is entirely compatible with the artisanal temperament I personally got going on here. I am like snufkin about this, simply smoking a pipe and making a flower crown saying “poor fools! Producing works for market, and serving as the guard dogs of the market, lest their work lose value if it becomes more common!” I do not have a high horse. I am not going to post 6900 words about the importance of defending fucking… Mickey Mouse. I buy those lotr stickers on Etsy! I do have a horse, but it’s a pretty low horse.

If it was his own work I would not care about this guy doing this in the least (apart from loftily calling it stinky - but hey, nerds are common and nerds are stinky, it’s not rare) IF he wasn’t STEALING FROM MY ANTI-COMMERCIALISATION DREAM TO DO IT.

That’s the bit that PISSES ME OFF too much to ignore: that and accepting compliments for being original like 😌 yes my twisted mind did this idk lol.

Like if you asked him point blank about the artistic choices he’d be like idk my twisted mind just sees the Teletubbies this way teehee! but if you ask ME why, for example, the adult Teletubbies live in the forest I’ll explain that in 2017 I was at a major life crossroads and this dream was ABOUT that. It was goodbye to my identity as a foreigner from the pine forests, and full steam ahead to settling permanently in the fucking shire (where the baby teletubbies on the bbc show live). It was about going back to work having had my first child, and saying goodbye to my various career dreams for myself (famous scientist! Published author!) as I chose instead, finally, the responsibility of working humbly as a public servant for the actual good of society. It is about witnessing the wild and saying “I am not of it, but it is my job to be its witness and voice.” That’s why the adult Teletubbies are dancing in my native forests while I’m watching them from the English hills. This guy doesn’t know that he just vaguely heard “spooky forest cryptid” and didn’t develop it at all, I do more work than that with FANFICTION in my time off!!!

So it’s really about nebulous stuff and ethics and not something worth paying a lawyer for I think!

But thank you so much for this, I think the thing that gets most perennial about it is the TOTAL GASLIGHTING of the “outside world” of the rest of the internet like, fully believing they invented this, and they DIDNT. They’re so wrong on the internet and they don’t know

[lynaferns]

The Forest On The Other Side

Chapter 1: I want to go home.

Ver. [ENGLISH / SPANISH]

EDIT: This fic is now on AO3

A girl gets lost in the forest and finds a misterious gate in the middle of nowhere. At the other side she meets a... very peculiar individual who seems to only want to befriend her and play. Everything seems fine. Until night falls and someone else joins to play...

Again, I appreciate feedback about the english adaptation. English is not my first lenguage and I still mess up sometimes.

This is in some way a more "joyful" story than BIOMáquina, still with its dark themes. I wrote this a year ago. By this I mean I forced myself to get it written down and ended up hating it and burning myself out. A couple of weeks ago I decided to reread it and I though it was pretty ok actually, so I edited it a bit to make it flow better. It used to be written more as a script for the comic I wanted to draw buuuut that didn't happen (cough stressed myself out cough forced myself cough don't force yourself to make content out of a hobby, a hobby is supposed to be for your own fun). I'm not completely satisfied with the final draft but I think is good enough for my first ever fic written.

I originally planned to make it a Y/N thing but that didn't last long. But I keeped the original idea of the first person POV. The Y/N stories I've read has always some narrator telling you what you do insert you in the story. I thought of making the MC the narrator, this way the reader can insert themselves like it's their story or they can read it as if someone else is telling them a story. This is also a bit limiting, since the narration is also the MCs thought process and sometimes I may skip details MC couldn't have seen.

AU, Magical forest, DCA centered, Sun fnaf, Moon fnaf, Elves Sun & Moon, OC, Selfinsert, Character & OC, platonic, friendship, slowburn (kind of), Moon is agresive at first, Moon is also a bit of a gremlin, Protective Sun (I think), OC is a potty mouth, Female Main Character, First person, Angst.

The first post where I showed this AU and my first sketches ideas.

Tumblr archive with all of the art, ideas and anwsered asks.

Youtube Playlist which I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :] It's in a specific order but you can put it on mix.

Note: even though I try to keep things light some things may be triggering for some readers.

CW: Anxiety, Suicide ideation, Implied death, Choking, Non sexual abuse.

Wordcount: 9,700 (It's not rounded, that's literally the number Word tells me it's at lol)

Welp.

Here we are again, in the old village house (yey...). Well, 'I am', my family won't arrive to settle in for another week. They brought me here beforehand a few days ago for organizational reasons. They took a quick look inside before they left to see the state of the house, if it needed any repairs and such, and they headed back to the city. While they finish preparing everything, I take care of the house and text them messages about anything that may be needed for when they return.

We haven't been here in years, the house needs some repairs, and I'm sorry for the spiders, but it could use a deep cleaning. We can't do a deep cleaning but I have been cleaning what I can these last few days, at least so that it looks decent... at first glance.

Well, it's not like anyone is coming to visit.

It's a quiet town, until the kids from the town next door come to make a racket with their bikes. They play in our field, scare away the cats and throw cans around. They are assholes.

Anyways, the people in the village are nice. The adults I mean, the kids I used to play with, I don't get along with them anymore. Some of them aren't kids anymore, we have grown up and are going down different paths. But those who are still kids... they're still interested in the only older kid in the town who listened to them and let them do whatever they wanted, to a certain extent.

I don't want them to come looking for me to go out and play. I've been avoiding them by saying that I'm busy cleaning the house and getting it ready for when my family arrives, but I feel like interacting with them less and less. That's why I'm going out to the woods behind the house to get lost for a while, as always. The kids don't go near the forest so they won't bother me there.

There is an area for tourism and hiking but not many people come, some police cars border the forest from time to time but they never go inside. The reports of missing people in this forest have been coming in for decades, only some lost children have returned but there is no trace of any of the adults who disappeared along with the rest of the children. The areas marked with signs are safe but you can't go out of bounds unless you want to disappear with those people.

And I, who right now am alone and with no one to notice my absence if I go missing, am going to head straight to the forest. Don't you think, I don't want to disappear, I just don't like people and I usually go into the forest but I don't go too far away. As long as I see my house in the distance, I know how to return.

I grab my bag with my sketchbook and pencil case, in case I feel like drawing (probably won't) and step out to the back porch. The outer sliding metal door that protects the inner one is rusty and difficult to open. It would be better to oil it but I don't know when it will be done, considering that the broken railing has had a wooden board tied to it for years. I already sent my mother a message talking about it.

I enter the forest and start walking around. It's hot, of course, it's early summer, but it's quite noticeable after being in the cool inside the brick and stone house. That's the good thing about coming here in summer, the houses are made to stay cold inside and it's great, sometimes I even need to wear a jacket. But outside I'm dying, the trees don't provide enough shade. In fact, some trees are missing. I used to have my routes memorized but time has passed and some paths have changed, some have disappeared and others have formed. I admit that it makes me a little sad... I began to walk absorbed in my thoughts not paying attention to where I was going.

I'm walking away, I should go back. I'm not going to draw anything here anyway, and it's hotter outside than inside so I'm gonna to turn around-

I hear screams and laughter in the distance, the sound of the voices produces me an immediate disgust. It's those kids from the next door village. They must have come to 'investigate' about the disappearances or maybe they don't care and they just came to be idiots-

They're getting closer.

I don't want them to see me. God. Don't let them see me. Anyone but them. They're getting closser. Don't let them see me. I can't go back home now. They're cutting me off. Of all the people who could have found me. It had to be them. No, please. Don't let them see me. I have to go further into the forest, I can't let them see me. They're getting closer. Don't let them see me. I want to leave. I want to leave. I'm getting too far. I want to leave. I don't see my house. I want to leave. I don't see the village. I want to leave. I don't see the kids.

...

...

...

Where am I?

Fuck.

Where am I?

I want to leave.

I want to leave.

I want to leave.

I want to leave.

…

—

Now I'm wandering through the forest. I don't want to go back. I want to get out of here. Even though I'm walking in a straight line I feel like I'm going around in circles, and I'm not going to get out of here now. Great. I'm lost. Now what? People who get lost in this forest don't return, no one has returned except for some children.

...

I'm going to disappear.

...

For now I keep walking until something happens. Maybe there's an animal that kills people who get lost, or maybe it's a group of kidnappers, or maybe I should stop giving myself anxiety and focus on getting out of here. Maybe if I find a field or road, or even the tourist area, I'll be able to get out of here and return bordering the fores-

...

There is... colorful graffitis on the trees. Someone has painted eyes, hands, stars and more on the bark of the trees...

What's this?

I don't know where I've come to, I didn't know this was here, in the middle of nowhere in the forest. The trees have red leaves like in autumn even though summer has just started... The first thing I thought was 'climate change's fault' but there is something that stands out in the middle of this entire flat area and it is disturbing me.

In the center there is a kind of circular gate made of stones supported by roots.

Okay, maybe it doesn't sound aaaaas disturbing as, I don't know, a totem with a human figure being impaled or something, but it's giving me a bad vibe. What is this place? Who built a stone arch in the middle of everything and why?

A bird appears flying from behind me and goes through the gate, but nothing comes out on the other side... wait what? how? The bird has crossed the gate, and disappeared behind the stone arch? ...I had to imagine it, it's not possible that that happened. I approach the arch but not before picking up a rock from the ground and throwing it to the other side of the gate.

It's still there.

…

For some reason the thought of going through the gate makes me uncomfortable, so I go around it.

...

...And the rock? It's not there.

I go back and look from inside the portal.

The rock is there.

...

I look from outside. The rock is not there. I repeat this multiple times. Rock. No rock. Rock. No rock. Rock. No rock... What?

Alright, this is weird, this is VERY weird.

Even though it is clear that this isn't normal, I have to go back, pick up a fallen branch from the ground and pass it through the portal. This time I don't throw it, I've grabbed a branch long enough to see it peek out from the other side of the arch.

...

Welp.

I should be seeing not only the branch, but also my hand sticking out of the side, but I'M NOT SEEING IT. OKAY. OK. ALRIGHT. IT'S CONFIRMED. THIS IS WEIRD.

I'm asleep, right? Or unconscious. I must have passed out from exhaustion from endlessly wandering through the woods and I'm delirious or something. No, wait, it can't be, in my dreams I'm not this aware of what's around me. Where am I?

A breeze begins to pass through the gate. It's getting stronger but not enough to push me. The leaves rise from the ground and float towards the portal, none slipping outside, all entering through the stone arch. Suddenly the breeze that had become wind stops. The leaves fall to the ground.

...

I look back for a moment, as if there was something behind me that could help me make a decision. Grabbing with both hands my bag strap I look back at the portal again. Okay. Alright. This is possibly the death of me. I'm going to cross. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm just one step away from crossing. I wrinkle my face and narrow my eyes before taking the last step.

...

Nothing has happened. Everything seems the same. However, I know it's not the same... Or at least it doesn't feel the same!

Well, I've already crossed. I'm gonna... keep walking, I guess, even though this is scaring me and I don't know if I'll know how to go back. For now I'm moving forward. The red leaves have disappeared several meters ago. It's starting to look like a normal forest, except for the multicolored drawings and handprints that I keep seeing on the trees. In fact, it seems like the trees are taller with every step I take. So high that I can barely see the top. I almost tripped while looking up. Whether this is the same forest I come from, I no longer know.

This was a bad idea. I just hope to find something that'll help me know where I am, a sign or the road if possible.

*cling*

...?

I hit something with my foot. There is a ball attached to a small chain on the ground. Oh, no, wait. *cling diring ding* It's a rusty bell, I think. It doesn't have the typical cross-shaped hole or slot, rather it has several holes in a pattern. It looks like it can be opened.

There's nothing inside.

?

There's nothing? But I could have sworn it had rang. I close it again and shake it.

*...*

Nothing.

I'm going to put it in the bag, it's totally a good idea. I'll think about it later, for now I'm moving on.

—

I've been walking for a while now and throughout this time I had a constant chill on the back of my neck, as if someone had their eyes on me.

*din dirring* I hear a soft tinkling in the distance.

Okay, I'm not alone, awesome, what do I do now? Do I say hi and risk the potential danger finding me? Do I ignore the sound of bells and keep moving? It's very possible that whatever made that sound is watching me right now...

“Hello?” Still nervous, I try to say hello looking around “...” “Is someone there? H-hello?”

“-HEEEEELLO!”

“AAAAAH-!” I cover my mouth with my hands as I turn to look at what the hell has greeted me back. I take a few steps back while I look at the figure of earthy and sunny tones who responded, he seems as surprised as I am, I think (with the scream I made, normal), at least it looks like he's surprised. He wears a two toned wooden mask... it looks like a sun, with a crescent moon on its right... It gives the impression of two faces merged into one... Damn, he is tall, he's almost doubles my size. He appears to have two skin tones dividing him in half, his right side being the lighter and the left darker, especially the arm, which also has a light-colored tattoo of lines representing a sun symbol that covers from the shoulder to the pectoral and to the middle of the bicep. The right arm is covered by a long fingerless glove that reaches to the shoulder and is tied around the chest. He's wearing baggy pants with leaves coming out of the waist and legs, some... cloth boots? with a long toe bending sharply and curving in a geometric swirl with a bell at the tips, a bag hangs from the waistband of his pants and falls below his hips. His chest and neck are tied by ropes decorated with hanging stones, metals and crystals, he wears a pendant that ends in a carved symbol of a crescent moon with rays. Some of the 'sunrays' on his mask have ropes tied between them holding them in place and some metal dangling. Some red ribbons along with bells hang from his wrists.

“um... Helloooooo.” He greets again, this time he lowers his tone of voice. I manage to react, I turn around and walk away. “¡ah- eh- Wait!” Nope, I'm not going to wait and see what he does with me, I'm leaving. “He-! Hey!” Nope. I quicken my pace and try to get lost among the trees, changing direction every time he appears in my vision angle. “Human? Human-! FRIEND. Can I call you friend?!” Nope, nope, nopnop, nop, nop, nope. “Friend! Hey!” God, no, god, god, no, why are you following me? “Look, I know what you're trying to look for...! And believe me, you're not going to find it~!” How are you still following me? Where do you come from? “Hey! Listen! Why don't we do something else besides running in circles!?” Noooooooooo... “There are TONS of other activities we could do! Like... HOLY MOLY, look at this stick! Do you like sticks!?” Leave me aloneee... “You aren't looking at it! Okay, alright, you don't like sticks, erm... what might be of interest to you...” If I don't look at it it doesn't exist. “Could you help me a little here?” I want to leave... “Look, no matter how much you wander around, you won't find the portal-!”

“STOP—! STOP FOLLOWING ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!” The sudden scream startles him again, making him jump in place. He stands completely still looking at me. I'm leaving before he gets angry.

“B-but I- ...okay.” I thought I heard him say before I left him behind.

It seems that this time he's not following me, finally... Although I'm not calm, he could still be following me and simply not be in sight. Anyway, I think I'm coming back? I hope I am. I want to find that portal as soon as possible and go back to the house- what the fu-? “WHY?”

He's there. Right where I left him. Sitting on a rock. Waiting. “...! I haven't moved from the spot!”

“Yeah- but- WHY?”

“Because I knew you were going to come back here!”

“...What?”

“Is what I was trying to tell you! You can't leave! No matter how hard you try to find the portal, it won't appear before you!” The Sunman exclaimed.

“…” I'm just about to turn around. In fact, I'm already turning around.

“N-No, wait! Please don't go!” I stop in my track and look back at him. He gets off the rock he was sitting on but remains squatting, almost at my height, a little below. I move back, keeping my distance. He puts his hands up. “Look, I'm not doing anything! I won't chase you! Just- ...don't go.”

“…”

“L-look, listen, there's no way it's going to show up! Well, not to you at least. But even if you find it back, it won't work! It only works when it wants to work.”

“...” Let's imagine that I trust what he says “Ok... and when does it want to be working?”

“...” “No idea!”

“...”

“...”

I'm about to collapse on the spot. At least he doesn't seem hostile, for now. “...” “Okay... Good... Great...” “...” “FanTAS-tic.”

“...” “You don't seem like it.”

*ಠ_ಠ* I could only look to the side in frustration in response to that. I looked back at him with concern showing on my face and grabbing the strap of my bag with both hands. “And... what... do you plan to do with me?”

He took his hand to the chin of his mask and with the other he held his elbow in a comical thoughtful pose. “MmmmnnDUN know! What do you plan to do?” He asked so nonchalantly. He ended up sitting on the ground crossing his legs. “You have a good while until the portal opens again...!”

“...”

“...”

“...”

He started swaying. The silence has become uncomfortable for a while now, but I can't organize myself on what to say, and I don't know if I trust him. I don't even know if he's human, although something tells me he's not.

“You could wait here.” He suggested, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Or anywhere else, if you want. I would recommend somewhere high like the treetops (for no particular reason)! If you're going to wait... But wouldn't that be really boring?” There was something in his tone of voice... “Being there... at the top of a tree... waiting... alone... with no friends to hang out with (can I call you a friend?). Aaall on your own until the portal opens again.” He looks aside for a moment “...” And back at me again. “With no one to be with you.” He repeats the head motion “...” “alone...” Wow... I wonder what he's implying, ahem. “Wouldn't you want to have someone...? ...Someone...keeping you company?” Yeah, yeah...

“...” I guess... “I-I guess I wouldn't want to be alon-?”

He rises to his knees. “That's what I thought! Do you want me to accompany you? Only if you want! But can I?” He clasped his hands together as if asking a favor.

“um...”

“Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?Can I?” He approaches, dragging his knees on the ground.

I'm starting to miss personal space. “Okay! Okay, alright...”

“REALLY?” He started hopping and jumping around me. “OH, ohoho hO! Great! Oh, there are TONS of things we could do! Like... Like...!” He moves faster, doing bigger and bigger flips and jumps, it almost seems that he is very light, as if the breeze of air lifted him. “We could paint and decorate trees! Or we can also paint on rocks! Or paint leaves! Or paint us! Oh! We can tell stories! I'm very good at making shadows and puppets.” He moves from place to place with each sentence he says. “We can also play something!” It's moving so fast all I can see is the wind and the leaves it stirs up as it moves. “Anything! Whatever you want!” Finally he stopped in front of me half crouched. “What do ya say?! Hmm! Friend!?”

“Don't... call me like that.” Makes me feel awkward.

“Oh...why not-? Oh true, true! How silly, I don't know your name! What do you call yourself, potential friend?”

“...”

“...” “Aren't... you gonna tell me your name?”

I twist the bag strap “Depends...” I must say I'm a little skeptical about this. “Are there any consequences for telling you my name?”

“...Consequences...?”

“Like... I don't know... Mmm-by telling you my name I become your possession and cannot regain my freedom until... certain conditions are met...”

“...”

“...”

“Why- how-? Where did you get that from!?” It did sound a bit stupid when I said it out loud.

“I dunno- that's what they say in old children's stories about elves and fairies!” I just hope the embarrassment isn't showing on my face.

“Really?” I could feel his deadpan expression behind the mask.

I shrugged.

“...” “Okay... Oh, what if I tell you my name first? Will you tell me yours? It's only fair, I'm Sun!”

“...”

“Can I know your name now?” He asked expectantly.

“...How do I know you're not trying to trick me?”

“...” I must be driving him crazy with this “The only thing I can do with your name is treasure it in my memory.” He put his hands together as if he was carefully holding something and brought them to the forehead of the mask. I gave him a distrustful look. It doesn't seem like it made him desist “Please?”

I grip at my worn out bag strap “...” “ Fern...” I ended up murmuring.

“Hmm? Fern? OH, I like it!” “Sounds like FRIEND.” He emphasized the last word by making a gesture like jazz hands, leaning to the side and moving his head closer to me.

“Yeah... I think you are missing a couple of letters.”

He straightened his posture again. “Nope, I don't think so!”

“You're still not my friend.”

“Oooowwwwwnnnnnggghhh” He lowers his head dramatically until it practically touches the ground “nnnnnnngggghh, alright!” And cartwheels to stand up again “So... what will it be?”

“Hm?”

He straightened his posture and puts his arms on his hips “We have plenty of time, ya? What do you wanna to do?”

“I don't know, what do you want to do-?” Bad mistake.

“Come with me!”

“aaAAAAA-!” Before I knew it, he had grabbed my arm and I was being dragged through the woods. We visited several places and he offered me an activity to do in each of them.

—

Sun took me to a place where the trees were full of colorful paint “We practice painting on the trees here!” He said.

“Ah.” That explains the crossed out lines and the repeated imperfect shapes. By the look of it is also where he tests the quality of the paint.

“Do you want us to paint something!?”

“Not really...”

“Oh, would you prefer it to be on a rock?”

“Nah.”

“...And in star leaves-?”

“I don't want to paint, Sun.”

“Oh... Well, I can show you more places!”

“OkayyEEEEEE-” And I'm being dragged away again.

—

He brought me to another area of the forest, the ground here seemed more leveled. Not a single tree was straight, all of them were twisted and even seemed to be hollow. “How about playing something!? Like hide and seek-! No, wait, I can’t let you out of my sight.” He mumbled at the end “And chase?! We can climb a tree and see who reaches the top first! We have a place full of vines and it's perfect for swinging- and jumping from one tree to another-!”

“I don't... really want to move a lot…” With the way he runs without getting tired and me, who doesn't exercise... he would let me dead.

“Oh... well, theeen-”

—

We arrived at a place full of vegetation and humidity. Sun seemed quite excited... “This place is full of insects! We can look for cool bugs!”

“Mmmmmnoooo... I don't want to.” I had to tell him, trying to show as little disinterest as I could.

“You don't like them?” He sounded a little disappointed hearing my reaction.

“No, I do like them, some of them, but I don't like to touch them.” And I'm terrified of them flying into my face.

“Oh, well, it's okay!” He said brushing it off and we moved on to the next stop.

—

“I know that bird!” He stopped us on the way to point at a robin high up on a branch.

“ah.” I said as I removed leaves from my hair and clothes, and checked that I still had my glasses.

“He's a little rascal!”

“...” I think the bird is making us the equivalent of 'mooning'.

—

“Look fish-! Oh, they're gone…” The noise must have scared them away “We can go find more places to look at them if you want!”

“...” “...no, pass...”

“…”

—

“Look at this stick!” Sun had suddenly sprinted past me, picked up something from the ground, and came back just as fast, showing me the stick as if it were a sword.

“oh.” It's a cool stick, must admit it.

“Do you want to look for more sticks!?”

“No...”

“oh...” He looked at the ground in disappointment.

“Why would we go looking for sticks? There are all over the ground.” Specifically, in this area the ground was all sticks. We are literally just stepping on sticks right now. I don't see the ground.

“Variety!” Sun said pointing at the ground with both hands. A branch is heard falling in the distance.

—

“That's a deer!” He pointed at the deer passing nearby. The deer stopped to look at us.

“Yeah, I see.”

“We call 'em Adoquín!”

“...Why is it called Adoquí-?”

*THUMP!*

“…”

The deer smacked itself against a tree when trying to run away. It stands still for a minute, processing the hit, looks at a side and then the other, then runs off again but this time avoiding the tree.

Another *thump!* is heard in the distance.

“...” Alright.

—

“Do you wannaaaa look for pine cones? There will be some fallen around here. Oh! We can also look for mushrooms!”

I keep saying no to everything he suggests and it doesn't look like he's going to run out of ideas to pass the time. In fact, he's very insistent that we do something. I guess at some point I'll have to say yes to something. “...” “...okay...”

“Hmm?! Okay? Okay to what?” His exaggerated surprise offends me but I don't blame him.

“To... I don't know, pine cones?”

“...You don't look very convinced.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“OKAY! On the hunt for pine cones then!” I startle a little at the sudden shout. He makes a pose pointing in a direction, as if he were leading an expedition.

He takes me through the forest looking for pine cones. We aren't finding many, especially me who's not paying any interest. He tries encouraging me to put more effort into it but I keep looking at my boots.

We passed near a shingle river. I find a pebble at my feet and bend down to pick it up and take a better look. It's like a bluish gray, it has some reddish lines in the shape of waves, it feels good to the touch.

I hear the soft tinkling of a bell and feel a shadow fall beside me. “You like pebbles?” Sun is crouched next to me with his arms full of pine cones.

“…” I nod.

We go down to the river and spend some time collecting pebbles with curious shapes or small details of colors, lines, spots, etc. He comes over to show me one every time he finds weird shapes.

“…”

*rin* This time he's hunched over resting his hands on his knees. “You look… a little down.”

“…”

“Hey... we can do something else if you're tired of the pebbles.”

“...” I drop the pebbles I was looking at on the ground.

“...” He turns his gaze from me to the sky. It hasn't gotten late enough to be getting dark, but it's been a while between the walks we've taken (dragging me from here to there), looking for pine cones and then pebbles in the river. He looks back at me. “Oh, I know! Can I take you to one last place? A better place than the ones I've shown you!”

“…” I got up from the ground and waited for him to start leading to follow him.

We enter the increasingly thick forest. The trees are taller and bigger, in fact, I start to see platforms and bridges lying between the trees, I even see small shanties in them.

“Wait here!” He takes a run and jumps onto one of the trees with bridges. He takes three steps running up the tree, with a jump he pushes himself off and climbs with agility until he reaches the platform and climbs on it. “Just a moment!” It can't be seen from here but I can faintly hear some squeaks. I have no idea of what he's doin-

*rush*

“........eh?”

A rope.

A rope has fallen. At the level of my head.

“.......”

What?

…

He said he knew a better place.

No. It can't be this.

“Is it at a good height?! Can you reach it?!” He says...

It can't be.

A better place.

He can't be referring to this.

A better place.

A better place. A better place. A better place. A better place.

“Can you put your foot in?!”

“..........” For some reason what he said throws me off. “WAT-?”

“Can you put your foot in the loop and hold on to the rope so I can pull you up!?”

“..............”

“You can't climb trees, can you?! ...or you can?"

… “...” Oh “....It's...It's too high!”

“Okay!” Squeaks are heard and the rope descends to the ground.

I put my foot into the rope as he told me and hold on to it. “O-okay...!”

“Are you ready!?”

“Yes!”

“Okay!”

He begins to pull up the rope (which doesn't tighten around my foot as it supports my weight) and helps me up to the platform. (That's what it was for, obviously, what else would he want? I'm such an...) “Come on!” He says cheerfully, as always, and takes me over the bridges. “You seem tense... Don't tell me you're afraid of heights!”

“S-something like that... it's nothing.” He tilts his head at that but he says nothing. I have an unpleasant sensation in my throat.

We arrived at a high place with a view of waterfalls, I can't see above the trees. We sat on one of the bridges, resting our arms on the rope that serves as a railing and letting our legs hang off the bridge. I've thought about taking out the sketchbook to draw... but I don't really feel like it right now, so I just quietly observe the landscape. It is a better place, yeah.

…

I feel watched. I turn to look at him ...Of course he was looking at me. I don't even know whether to say something or keep quiet. ...I decide... not to say anything and look to the front.

“You... aren't very talkative, huh.”

“…”

“Not that it's a bad thing! Many people who have come here weren't very talkative at first either.” More people...

“...” “I have… nothing to talk about.” I don't want to talk.

“...” “Well, I do.”

“…”

“If it's okay with you, of course.” He laughed. Although something tells me that he is going to talk anyway.

“…”

“...” “What brings you to the forest?”

“...” Really? “I got lost.”

“Yeah, I already know!” He says between laughs “But what made you get lost?”

“...” “There was a group of kids I didn't want to get close to and I decided to go into the woods to lose them.” He makes a 'hum' sound and looks at me expectantly waiting for me to continue “And... I ended up getting myself lost...”

“...” “Only that?”

“...” “Well, yeah.” What do you mean 'oNlY tHaT'?

“...Mmm...” He places his hand on the chin of the mask.

“...” “What?”

“Nothing!” “...” “You know? You're the first human to visit the forest in a loooong time. For several cycles now…”

“Cycles?”

“Mhm” He nods.

“...What are cycles?”

Sun points to the sky “The turns that the Moon makes in the sky!” He emphasizes by rotating his arm in the air. It's pointing right at the Moon that's visible in the sky.

“Oh...” He uses the lunar cycles to know what day he's in, makes sense. “...” “So no one has been here in a while.”

“That's what I said! Well no, but yes!”

“A-and so the humans who came are still here? Have they been here all this time?”

“Yeah...! Well, no!” He paused. “They're gone!”

“What do you mean they're-?” He didn't let me finish the question.

“They are gone! They 'left'!” It sounded like he had given this answer many times already.

“What do you mean they left-?”

“They 'left'!”

“...” “...You mean...they disappear-?”

“Nope!” “...” “Something like that!” “…” “Mmmore or less…” He hesitated between one answer and another.

It seemed worthless to ask about the missing people. “...okay.” “Can I ask you-?”

“You can ask me anything!” A hint of nervousness escaped his tone.

“...okay. What is this forest?”

“My home! And the home of many other animals.”

“...” “Alright, and... how many are you...? How many of you live here? I mean. You have taken me everywhere and we haven't seen anyone of your…” I make a pointing gesture, spinning my hand around in the air. He can't be human, it doesn't look like he is. “...” “Honestly, I don't know what you are.”

“...” “There's only me... And someone else!” He looks away, as if trying to hide something.

“Oh... and who's that someone?”

“Oh! N-no, don't worry! He’s… just a friend… But it’s not important that you meet him or anything!” He brushes it off making a gesture with his hand. “Uh-um- How about we talk about you!? huh? What things do you like? Earlier, since you said no to everything, I thought you didn't like ANYTHING!” He continued talking without letting me respond. “I didn't know what to do if I ran out of ideas. I started to worry! But at least you're not one of those who spend all day shouting and threatening with a weapon in hand, ahaha...” He let out a nervous laugh.

“Um-”

“Well, you ran away screaming, yes.” He began to gesticulate widely as he complained “Like everyone-! No, not like everyone, some don't run, but those who, apart from running and screaming, attack you...! I mean...!” Something tells me he wasn't going to shut up and I was already half listening. “First they throw rocks at my head, then they insult me and run away. And I have to run after them because I can't just leave a human running around alone! No! I can't! Not in this forest! Anything could happen to them! But they never let me warn them!” He sounded tired. “And when I get them to stop running away from me, they throw things at me again and yell before demanding me to tell them where are they and how to get out of here, and when I explain it, they yell at me even more and accuse me of lying!” He turns to look at me with his hands pointing to his chest. “What reason would I have to lie?!” I don't know if he hasn't noticed or if he's ignoring the deapan I responded with. “UGH! I don't know what to do with those! But anyhow... I'm so glad we found something to do in the end!

“eh?” I snap out of my thoughts. It seems that now he is directing the conversation to me.

“The pebbles!” He sits turning his body towards me, leaving one single leg hanging from the bridge and the other resting on it. He takes out of his pocket some of the pebbles that he had been collecting with me. “I don't know why I assumed you wouldn't want to look for rocks. Maybe because you didn't want to paint them before... You left them back in the river in the end tho, I thought you would keep some.”

“Ah... I don't know. I didn't think I could take them with me.”

“You can keep some of mine!”

“No, it's okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You suuuuure??” He insist.

“Yeees.”

He puts a pebble very close to my face “Suuuuuuuure?” Each 'u' sounding higher than the last.

“...” I push the pebble away from my face “Yeeeees.”

“mmmh... Okay! But I hope you don't regret it later when you don't have a cool rock like these and think 'Oh man, I could have a cool rock right now!'.” After a bad impression of me, he keeps the rocks in his pants. “So... Besides pebbles, what else do you like? Mm? I haven't been able to deduce much from today.”

“Don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know!? Oh! Is it a secret?” He approaches and starts to whisper, putting his hands to the mask's mouth “I won't tell anyone, promise.”

“No. I don't know.” I looked to the side. “I can't think of anything... so suddenly.”

“ooow...” He slumps a little over the railing, looking sad.

“…” I hesitate whether to say something or not “...Drawing...”

“Mmm?!” He no longer seems sad.

“And listening to music, I guess.” “It's... all I do... most of the time.”

“Really!? Oh! I also like drawing! And music! But is that really all you do all day? Don't you do other kinds of things? Like reading! Or writting. Don't you go out for a walk or play with your friends?” I wrinkle my face at that last bit and he tilts his head in confusion.

“I don't go out.” “I have comics, but I rarely read.”

“Comics?”

“Um... They are stories but instead of narrating what happens there are drawings and only what the characters say is written.”

“...It's a book with drawings?”

“Yeah, but with a lot of drawings on each page, from start to finish.”

“WOAH.” He sounded perplexed. “That's drawing A LOT.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Ahh, I'd love to see what they look like.” He rested his arm on the railing to hold his head in his hand “Too bad I can't…”

“I didn't bring them anyway.”

“Do you normally carry them around?”

“No, it's just that I didn't bring them to the village with me, I left them at home.”

“...” “Oh!” It seems that something has clicked on him. “You are not from the village.”

“No, I'm from a more urban area. My family used to come to the village every year in the summer, but we stopped coming. Now it seems that we are trying to get back into the habit.” I sighed.

“Why did you stop coming?”

“...That's personal.”

“Oh... okay.” He let a minute of awkward silence pass. “Hey, I can bring some books that I have at home! I think you might be interes-!” He looks away from me to the sunset behind us, the sun is almost gone. “-ted...” I look at the sunset too and then at him with confusion. “...” “...oh...oh-OH, Oh-no!” He stands up abruptly causing the bridge to shake slightly. What could have he seen? “We have to move!” He extends a hand to help me up. “We have to start moving!”

I get up in a hurry on my own, ignoring his hand. “O-okay, to where?”

“Come, run!” Once again he grabs me by the arm and leads me over the bridges between the trees until we reach a tree hut. It's small and dark, it looks like a small shelter. He opens the door and enters “You'll spend the night here, stay inside, do not go out, try to hide well and don't open the windows or doors, okay? Here, there are some blankets. I'll come back later.”

“Wait wait wait! What? What do you mean you'll come back later? What's happening? Why do I have to hide-!?”

“Sssh-ssh-sh” He grabs me and covers my hand with his, his left hand resting on the back of my right hand. He begins to speak in a calmer tone, with a voice that I had not heard him use until now. “It's okay, nothing happens. I have to go, I'll come back, but I can't stay now. You hide, try to rest, I'll be back, I promise.”

“...” I take my hand away from his. “Okay.” “I'll stay, but don't take too long.” Please, I don't want to be here alone.

“Yes. I'll be back.” He affirmed one last time. I watch him run away and disappear among the trees and undergrowth. I enter the small shelter to inspect it.

*TAP TAP TAP* *PLOK* *TAP TAP FOOSSSH! *

…? A noise comes from behind me. I turn around and there's a pebble on the floor.

…

Okay.

I take out my phones flashlight to see better inside the house. There are what appear to be some trunks, small cabinets, and a trapdoor in the floor, It seems that there are corners and blind spots for the windows where the little moonlight that enters through the cracks cannot reach. It's freezing cold and I haven't brought my jacket. I leave the bag on the floor against the wall, I cover myself with the blanket and curl up in a ball in the most hidden corner I can find. I'm tired, I want to sleep, but I can't close my eyes.

…

—

It's been a few hours now.

…

I can't sleep, I simply can't.

…

It doesn't look like he's coming back.

*creek*

…?

*rin*

*tap tap, creek*

Sun?

“S-...” I pause before saying a word, I have the feeling I shouldn't speak. I remain silent and wait.

*tap, tap, tap, creeeeeek, tap*

*rin dirrin*

If it were Sun he would have already let me know it is him. That or he's playing a prank on me which isn't funny, but I'd better stay silent. From the shadow I look at the windows. I notice movement through the cracks, something has just passed through the wall next to me.

*dirriring dirring*

I cover myself more with the blanket, back against the wall, I stay as still as I can, I leave a gap between the blankets and the floor to see. A red glow sneaks through the cracks in the window and scans the room.

…

The glow is gone.

*tap, tap, rin, tap, dirring, tap, tap*

It's on the roof.

…

*tap, tap, tap...*

It moves again.

*rin *

…

It sounded on the other side of the wall.

…

…

“nghehe...”

It laughed. Why did it laugh? Whatever is on the other side of the wall just let out a laugh that made the hairs on the back of my neck and all over my back rise.

…

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no no no no.

I have to move. I have to get out of here. I can't stay here.

*creeek*

It came from the door. It's trying to get in.

*rin*

The trapdoor.

*rin dirring*

Where was the trapdoor?

*creek creeeek*

I crawl across the floor making the minimum noise, carefully feeling the floor, looking for the edge of the door.

*tap tap ring dirring*

…!

I found it. I open it carefully. It's too high. I'm at a very high altitude, I don't know if I'll be able to go down.

*rin, creeek...*

…

Fuck it. I slip through the gap quietly, closing it slowly, but that doesn't stop the door from creaking. I cling to the bark of the tree-

…

I left my bag. If it comes in and see it it'll know for sure that I have been there-

…

It doesn't matter now. I have to focus on getting down from the tree without killing myself. My fingers hurt and I can't put my foot down properly because of the soles of my boots. I feel like I'm going to slip at any moment. Somehow I make it to the ground. Still attached to the tree, I look up at the house. I don't see it-

…

A shadow appears from behind the tree. I press myself against the tree and hold my breath. It's looking for something. When he doesn't seem to look I move to a nearby tree, he moves to another tree, I move to the next, and the next, and the next. We continue like this until I start to get further and further away from him. When I think I've lost him I start running. I hide behind a tree to catch my breath.

…

I slowly peek out from behind the tree.

*rin*

…

It sounded above me.

…

I don't look up, I run.

“nnghehee...” He laughs.

He gives me a few seconds advantage before coming after me. The chase begins.

I run forward as much as I can, I hear his footsteps behind me but I don't look back, there's no time for that. I hear him laughing like a madman as he moves from left to right, from one tree to another, crawling on the ground, trying to confuse me, waiting for me to make the slightest mistake to catch me.

“Ah-” I trip. As soon as I fall to the ground I get up, ripping my stockings and scraping my knees, falling again, my nerves not letting me stand up.

“Nnhehehhehe...” Asshole. He has stopped running, he approaches by walking. I try to keep as much distance as my hands and legs allow me to move. I search desperately with my hand for something on the ground to throw. Finally my hand finds something.

I throw a rock at him “AGH!”

The rock passes by him, flying one or two meters away from him. He hasn't even moved, he didn't move a single muscle to avoid it, he just watches me still from where he is. I hear the nearby *pof* of the rock falling to the ground.

“...”

“...”

…

I get up and run. He grabs my leg and I fall to the ground again. He won't let me get up, every time I try he throws me to the ground. I struggle, I kick, but I don't break free from his grip. He never stops laughing, he is enjoying this. He drags me closer to him, no matter how much I twists, he doesn't let go. “ACKH-!...Hhhh-hh...-hh-h...” He grabs me by the neck, red pupils stared at me, I'm looking straight into his crescent moon mask (or waning, I don't know. Do you think I care right now?). He raises his free hand and his veins begin to glow a platinum color that extends to his fingertips. The hand approaches my face, I don't know what it's going to do to me, I'm scared, I don't want to look. I close my eyes, cover my face with my hands. I wait.

…

…

…?

Nothing's happening. It stopped. Why?

“Mun, nïe.” I hear Sun's voice. I open my hands a little to see what's going on. Indeed, it is Sun, several meters away from us... He looks exhausted. The one with the moon mask stares at him for a moment, until he decides to look at me again while bringing his glowing veiny hand closer. “¡Mun!” The Moonman looks at Sun again “Fehreh.” He seems to speak another language, I don't understand what he says.

“...” “Nïe” For the first time I hear him say something else besides laughing. Even though I can't understand him.

“Fïer pehgïer.” Sun responds.

“...” Moonman remains silent again.

“Bïelïe óubseh góuh...” Sun continues.

“Móu txehb móunsuvïe.” The Moon responds.

“Lïe bóu ¿Sóundïe mïesugïeb fehreh nïe txehtehrlïe?”

…

The air feels tense. Probably because of the hand grabbing my neck.

“¿Zkaóu fuóunbehb txehtóur tkaehnvïe nïe bóueh mehb zkaóu ïesreh rehuh óunsóurrehveh óun leh suóurreh?” Longest sentence I've heard him say so far.

“...” “Fïer óubseh góuh.” “...” “Vóuyehmóu óuntehrdehrmóu vóu óulleh” Sun takes a step forward “Nïe suóunóu fïer zkaóu ehtehkehr ehbu” Another step forward “Nïe sóunóumïeb fïer zkaóu txehtóurlóub... óubsïe” Another step “Óullïeb bïelïe óubsehn... fóurvuvïeb.”

“...” There's no response from the moon man.

“Behkehb tïemïe óub óubïe.”

“...”

…

The hand that grabbed my neck now grabs my shirt and yanks it. I grab his wrist as he pulls me to my feet and drags me to Sun, making me stumble. He throws me against him. Sun catches me before I fall over.

“Ska óubpkaóurhïe óub óun gehnïe.” The moon says something as he walks past. Sun puts a hand on his shoulder before letting him go, there's a pause between the two. The Moonman disappears into the trees. Wind and leaves are heard passing by.

…

He's gone. I feel dizzy. I fall down.

—

…

…

…

A faint light begins to seep through the cracks, illuminating enough to wake me up and make me open my eyes, I look around. I see my bag propped against the wall. I'm at the shelter where Sun left me.

…

My body aches, I have a hard time keeping my eyes open, it feels like I've been sleeping on the hard floor. No, wait, there are some blankets underneath me... It's still too hard to sleep well, either that or as I said, it shouldn't help me at all that everything hurts. After a while of staring at the ceiling I try to sit up. I emphasize trying. With every slight effort a pained moan escapes me.

“Oof...” Hurts.

*creek, tap tap tap tap*

Those wood creaks bring back bad memories from last night (which by the way, I'm alive, wow, I just realized), I can't help but cringe at every noise, I hear footsteps approaching, I try to move but the stinging pain prevents me from it.

*creek... *

The door opens.

Triangular shapes appear through the door followed by orange earth tones. “…Oh…!” “Early bird!” Thank god it's Sun and not the other one, or something worse “I didn't expect you up this early!” He says laughingly.

“ah?”

“How are you feeling?” He walks in. When he sets foot inside I lean back, towards the wall. “...” I don't really know why I did that. Sun stands at the door showing confusion with his usual head tilt. “...Arrr...re you okay, Fern?”

“...” I became tense suddenly. I really don't know still if I can trust him? He hasn't done anything to me yet but that doesn't mean that I can trust him. I don't know if he plans to do something with me like whatever that other one, the moon one, was going to do last night. “...ehh...hhh...h...” I can't get a word out, I'm afraid to ask.

“Mm?”

“...” I don't know what to say to him. My eyes go somewhere else.

…

He enters further into the house, ignoring that I keep my distance from him, leaves a bag he was carrying on the floor and begins to open the windows, letting in the little light of the dawn that is just beginning. He kneels on the floor in front of me with the bag. “Are you hungry?” He opens the bag and takes out an apple “Do you like apples?”

“...”

“No?”

“...”

“Um... I also brought berries... (It's what I had on hand coming here) There are... different types, you can choose” He brings the bag closer to me. I move further away. “uhhh...”

“...” I want to leave.

“You don't like them either...?”

“...” I don't want to eat. I want to leave.

“...”

“*snif... *”

“u-um...!”

“...*snif* *sob*...” I started crying out of nowhere.

“Ahhh...! D-do- don't cry! Ah-I-Um- Ca-can go find other things you might like-!”

I felt ashamed for crying and I put my hands to my face trying to wipe away the tears, but they wouldn't stop coming. “*hic, sniff, snif *” I looked away in an attempt to cover my face. I ended up looking at the floor, letting my hair act as a curtain.

“I can go in a moment!” Sun was already getting up.

“...w-want to leave...” I managed to get a murmur out.

“...W-what? Um...”

“...” *hic, hic *

“O-okay, um... If you aren't hungry... -we can do something else- uh- we can go look for rocks like yesterday in the river!”

“...” I don't want to do anything “...want to leave...”

“O-or we can do something else! Ah-bah-b-b-b- W-won't you like to go draw??! Somewhere, some landscape?! Wherever you want! We can draw together! If you prefer we can look for animals instead of landscapes!”

“...leave...want to...go... *hic, snif *”

“¡D-don't n- uh! ¡L-let's... um- let's not- uh!” He no longer knew how to order his words “H-hey, ¿Why don't we go to-?” He extends his hand towards my arm.

“I want to go home...”

He stops before touching me and removes his hand. “...” “...home?” There is a pause. He remains silent and unmoving. He finally speaks “Do you want…?” His tone became more serious.

“...”

“...to... go see the portal?” I look up slightly, I can't see through the tears and the fogged lenses of my glasses.

“...” I nod my head.

—

…

We didn't walk far until the red began to become visible. He brought me back to the portal. The same plain of red leaves and stone arch in the center of it all, as yesterday.

…

Sun has been quiet the entire time.

He advances towards the portal and stands facing it. He turns. “Come.” He extends his hand towards me. “You can pass through.”

“...”

I advance towards the portal. I stop before crossing. If it doesn't take me back home, what do I do? I don't want to stay.

A breeze begins to come out of the portal. The breeze turns to wind, the leaves rise, they pass through us. It's the same thing that happened yesterday when I went to cross. I turn to face Sun. Motionless, he looks back at me, the leaves pause in the air for a second as if time has stopped, the wind changes. From where the wind and leaves came now they come in, they push me towards the portal. I finally cross it.

…

Am I in the forest I know? I turn to look at Sun who stayed behind in the portal. “...Sun?” He's not there. I look around. He's not here. I've already crossed the portal, he must have left.

I notice a sudden draft pass by me. It's soft, like someone walking past you. I turn towards the forest, I have to start moving, I don't want to be here another minute.

...The air current that I noticed has lifted some leaves, they reach the trees, between them the wind does something strange, it forms a transparent silhouette. It looks like Sun, I can barely see him but I could swear it's him. The wind figure raises its hand and makes a gesture, it wants me to follow it. When I approach it turns around and walks into the forest, leaving a trail of leaves behind it. I follow the trail of the air current. Sometimes it stops to look at me, making sure I'm still following it. The red-leafed trees and the paintings disappear from view the farther we go. We crossed the forest until we arrived at the entrance of the town, near my house. There is no one on the street. If I walked into the house and pretended nothing had happened, officially no one would have noticed my absence.

I'm not one hundred percent sure if the wind figure that guided me is Sun or not, but I should at least thank him for bringing me back.

…

The air current has dissipated before I turn around. I look around, there's no one.

…

…

…

I enter the house, go up to my room and throw the bag on the floor. I go to the bathroom to wash. …I feel something strange in my hands but I couldn't say what. Doesn't matter. I change my clothes and get into bed, the tiredness of the previous night makes my body succumb immediately and I fall asleep instantly.

—

…

…

…

“ah...!” I wake up with my lungs begging for air. I need a moment to calm my breathing. I look at the clock without lifting my head from the pillow.

…

It is 12 midday. I rub my eyes and from my eyes I move to my face. I'm still tired. My body still aches. I stare at the ceiling.

…

My bag. I reach out to pick it up from the floor, making strange positions so as not to get out of bed.

I open it and search in the pockets. The bell. I put the bell to my ear. “...” I shake it.

*rin, diring diring*

“...”

I open it.

…

It's empty.

[theheelerhouse]

Littles with/recovering from Eating Disorders!

Before you read!: This specific post is focused on eating disorders which make it difficult to eat or want to eat food (since that is what I personally have experience with and can talk on.) All eating disorders deserve recognition, help, and advice, but I don't want to speak on a topic I have no experience with.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` 1.) Some progress is still progress! Don't downplay the progress made! Encouragement is typically very helpful for people struggling!

2.) Reward charts! Star charts and reminders are amazing! They can be a fun and encouraging way. For example, "if you get x number of stars, then you get a reward". Stars can be whatever you need them to be. Eating one meal, eating two, eating all three, trying to eat, eating a snack, etc. Very easy to manipulate and change based on what your little needs.

3.) Remember that bad days do exist There may be days that your little doesn't want to or won't eat. Don't try and force them. It can be stressful for the person with the disordered eating. Instead, gently encourage and if they don't think they can then try again tomorrow

4.) In this case, punishing a little does not work typically In the case of eating, for a lot of littles being "punished" for not eating can actually be quite harmful. It can make them feel like they aren't trying hard enough. While reward+punishment works with some things, it oftentimes doesn't work with this. Either way, communication is key and this is a good thing to communicate.

5.) Alternatives Little can't handle a full meal? Little doesn't want a full meal? That's okay for tonight! Try just taking a few bites? Try a snack instead? How about some crackers since they're easy on the stomach? No? Okay how about you at least drink some water. There are ways to accept and try other alternatives to try and get at least some nutrients in a persons system. And if it still doesn't work, that's okay. At least you tried and there's always tomorrow <3

[in1-nutshell]

Hey, sooo could you do buddy as drifts sibling/sparkling (which ever you want) and knew him when he was deadlock with him leaving them on accident with them running into each other again with buddy still being a con would drift try to have them join the lost light?

We are going with the twin route because not even I'm ready for an abandoned sparkling one. Also added some extra things, hope that was okay!

Personally, I don't think he would ever willingly abandon his sparkling or twin under any circumstance

Hope you enjoy!

Drift's twin the Con who was left behind on accident

SFW, Platonic, Familial, Slight Angst, Romance, Cybertronain reader

MTMTE

Buddy had been by Drift/Deadlock side since the beginning.

From the overdose.

Meeting Ratchet and Orion Pax.

Meeting Megatron and joining the ranks.

Being one of the best snipers compared to their twin.

“I bet you 50 shanix you can’t hit the bot over there.”--Deadlock

“The one behind the rocks with that horrendous color scheme? Please, I’d do it for free, but since your offering…”--Buddy

Buddy closes their optics and fires the round hitting the bot on the shoulder.

“Non-lethal. Doesn’t count.”--Deadlock

Buddy holds a digit in the air.

The bot suddenly explodes.

Deadlock smirks.

“Compression rounds?”--Deadlock

“You know me Deadlock, I have to make my presence known one way or another. What better way with an explosion.”--Buddy

Deadlock reading his rounds.

“Always one for the grand entrances.”--Deadlock

Buddy smirks back.

“Always.”--Buddy

Drift/Deadlock was their entire world and vice versa.

Buddy was his light in this dark world.

The only rocks in the world they had were each other.

Through the fun times and worst times, they stayed loyal to each other’s side.

But then the accident came.

It was the two of them and a small group of Cons on a stake out.

No one knew about the bombing raids.

Drift remembered the screaming and grabbing Buddy’s servo trying to get to safety.

He remembered the feeling of violently getting flunked into the air and blacking out.

He remembered waking up to nothing but scraps of metal and holes in the ground.

He remembered screaming and yelling for Buddy, realizing they weren’t holding his servo or anywhere in sight.

He remembered clawing the dirt around him trying to find them, hoping that they had been partially buried and safe.

He found nothing and went back to the base empty handed and empty hearted.

Buddy’s death was one of the turning points for Drift when he thought about his purpose with the cons and eventually joining the Autobots.

He would later tell the life of his beloved twin to his closest allies on the Lost Light.

Not a day goes by when he doesn’t say a little prayer to Buddy. It was a way of coping with the loss for so long.

Obviously, Buddy isn’t dead.

As it turned out the explosion took them much farther than everyone else.

Their signal had gotten jammed with the surrounding fauna and injuries didn’t help.

They remembered blackout out for a while before a group of Decepticon’s stumbled across their stasis frame. After an accidental reactivation Buddy was brought back to their ship for repairs.

A group they called the Scavengers.

Krok, the unofficial leader welcomed them to their group.

Buddy ended up joining the group as they added more members slowly as they tried to get back in contact with everyone.

The Scavenger couldn’t count the number of times they found Buddy try and contact Deadlock.

They tried to get in touch with Deadlock, but soon it became clear to Buddy that there was no possible way to communicate with him or anyone without the specific equipment for it.

It was now hope that fueled Buddy to one day see their twin again.

It was never a dull moment with the Scavengers and Buddy liked it.

The addition of Fulcrum and Grimlock just added to the fire.

The war may have been a loss… but it wasn’t a loss for everyone.

Krok looking at Buddy who had fallen asleep at the main console again.

He sighed before going over and gently picking them up.

Buddy stirred a bit in their sleep but didn’t wake up.

“They fell asleep at the console again?”--Spinister

Krok just nods as he moves to get Buddy to their habsuite.

“How many times has it been this week?”--Misfire

“Its none of our concern Misfire… They’re just tired.”

“Maybe they should start actually recharging at a decent hour.”--Fulcrum

“Maybe…”--Krok

“They need to let loose a bit you know. Maybe, I don’t know, take them out?”--Misfire

Krok stops in front of the door.

He feels his face plate warmer than usual.

“They won’t be interested.”--Krok

“You could always shoot them.”--Spinister

“No!—I mean—Spinister we don’t shoot team mates.”--Krok

“Krok I think we all know you and Buddy are a little pass the ‘Team mates’ phase.”--Fulcrum

“What makes you say that?”--Krok

Crankcase points at him.

“You carried them to bed and actively tucking them in.”--Crankcase

Krok paused for a moment before walking to the doorway.

“Listen, they are just another valuable member of the team. Anyways—”--Krok

“Krok.”--Crankcase

“Who in their right mind would want to go out on a date me?”--Krok

“Krok.”--Spinister

“They’re smarter, they’ll find some one else to settle down with.”--Krok

“Krok.”--Fulcrum

“Even if they do want to settle—"--Krok

“Krok.”--Misfire

“What?!”--Krok

The four Scavengers point behind him.

He turns and is face to face with Buddy.

“GAH!”--Krok

Krok trips backwards but Buddy grabs him and pulls him flush to their chassis.

Krok feels warmer than usual.

“Buddy… I thought you were asleep?”--Krok

“When your one of the best sniper of the Decepticon army and Deadlock’s your twin, you learn how to sleep lightly and play robot-opposum.”--Buddy

Krok chuckles nervously.

Buddy smirks at him.

“You know… there’s a planet that’s Cybertronain friendly coming up. We could go do some site seeing, what do you say?”--Buddy

Krok tries to speak but he just dumbly nods.

All the Scavengers behind him face palm at the interaction.

Buddy’s smirk turns to a genuine smile.

“All right then, see you in a couple hours then Krok.”--Buddy

They wink and close the door.

Krok just stares at the door.

“What did we just witness?”--Misfire

“That Buddy clearly has more game than Krok?”--Spinister

It was no surprise that Krok had feelings for Buddy.

But when Buddy reciprocated them, that took them all by surprise.

They worked perfectly with each other like a well-oiled machine.

They worked together determined to stick with each other through thick and thin.

“Krok, you’re doing it again.”--Buddy

“Doing what?”--Krok

“The clicking…”--Buddy

Krok looks down at the clicker and slowly sets it down.

Buddy comes to his side and slips their servo into his giving a loving squeeze.

Krok just rest his helm on their shoulder sighing.

“Do you want to talk about it now?”--Buddy

Krok shakes his helm.

Buddy moves their servo and pulls him into a side hug.

“Is this okay?”--Buddy

Krok vents and nods.

They stay on the couch for a bit.

“Buddy?”--Krok

“Hmm?”--Buddy

“Thanks… Thanks…”--Krok

Buddy reaches and hugs him properly.

He responds immediately.

“No, thank you Krok…”--Buddy

The pair end up cuddling in Krok’s room for the rest of the night.

The pair had often danced around being Conjunxes, but both were too shy to bring that up.

The rest of the crew has their own romantic drama to watch now, and they don’t even need a TV for it.

One night the WAP’s engine broke down.

They sent out an emergency pin for repairs.

They received one back.

From the Lost Light.

The ships captain had offered a temporary stay on the ship while their ship was being repaired on the condition that they would be on their best behavior.

The team agreed.

Now The Scavengers were walking to the entrance port as the giant ship had latched onto it.

“Hey Misfire, who did you say the captain was again?”--Fulcrum

“Rodium? Rod? Hang on its on the tip—”--Misfire

The doors open.

“Guess we’ll find out.”--Krok

Buddy takes the lead.

Krok gives them a questioning look.

They walk in and nearly have a spark attack when they see the Co- captains, Ultra Magnus and a familiar felicon.

“Buddy? Your online?”—Megatron and Ravage

Buddy walks forward to the big grey mech.

They stick their servo out.

“Megatron. Its… been a while.”--Buddy

Megatron wordlessly takes the servo.

“It has…”--Megatron

“That’s Buddy? I thought they offlined a while back.”--Rodimus

“Well, they’re not.”--Grimlock

“Grimlock!?”—Rodimus and Ultra Magnus

“This day is just full of surprises isn’t it.”—Ravage

Upon remembering Buddy’s infamously and realizing that the ship was practically crawling with Autobot bot, the Scavengers formed a protective circle around Buddy as they continued to walk with the three other bots.

Ravage took this chance to leave the group.

He knew there was someone that needed to see this.

The group made it to Swerve’s and Buddy instinctively went on guard.

They were honestly glad they brought Grimlock as he gently pushed them forward when they wanted to stop.

Buddy felt uncomfortable knowing full well that many bots had recognized them, ye they weren’t doing anything.

As the group sat down in one of the larger booths, Buddy reached under the table and grasped Krok’s servo.

He sent out loving squeezes trying to soothe them a bit.

“How are you feeling about all… of this?”--Krok

“…Could be better honestly…”--Buddy

“At least Misfire and Grimlock seem to be having fun.”--Krok

Buddy looked over to see Misfire and Grimlock happily chatting with the red minibot bartender.

“Good for them—”--Spinister

BANG!

Buddy immediately moves in front of Krok upon hearing the noise.

There at the entrance of the bar was a white and red mech.

Behind him another white and orange mech panting behind.

“Drift… I swear if you ever do that again…”--Ratchet

Drifts optics frantically searched the bar until they found Buddy.

Buddy felt their spark stop for a second.

Their frame slightly trembled.

“Buddy?”--Drift

Buddy quickly moved across the bar and tackled the mech down in a hug.

Ratchet quickly moved out of the way of the tender reunion.

Drift latched onto Buddy.

They were both slightly teary optic.

“Drift… Oh Drift…”--Buddy

“Oh, Thank Primus… You’re here! You’re here!”—Drift

There was a lot of catching up between the twins as they left to a more private place on the ship.

Drift really owed ravage this one.

Throughout the next few days Drift and Buddy hardly left each other’s side. It soon was made official that The Scavenger’s would be a part of the Lost Light, the twins were overjoyed.

“Drift! I haven’t properly introduced my team.”--Buddy

Drift smiled at them.

It was almost hard to believe that this mech was once one of the most feared mechs in the Decepticon armada.

“You’re the ones who saved Buddy?”--Drift

“Yes.”--Krok

Drift shook their servos.

“Thank you doesn’t even cover it.”--Drift

Buddy slides next to Krok and holds his servo.

Drift looks at this interaction and gives Buddy a smirk.

Buddy looks at Ratchet behind him yelling at a poor bot that decided to play with his equipment.

They mirror his smirk.

“Who would have thought you fell for the one mech that saved your sorry behind all those years ago.”--Buddy

“You aren’t one to talk. At least he’s my Conjunx, is he yours yet?”--Drift

“Not yet—KROK!”--Buddy

Krok fainted in Buddy’s arms.

“DANG IT NOT AGAIN! SOMEONE CALL A MEDIC! OR GET SPINISTER HERE!”--Buddy

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN AGAIN!?”--Drift

[the-kr8tor]

Oh my god i was scrolling through instagram and now i want lifeguard hobie x reader or lifeguard reader x hobie. Like either would be cute and imagine they start talking more and more. Think of how cute itd be. Maybe itd both be when they were teens and now they are looking back on it. Young summer romance and love? And now it could be fast forward where they are at the beach together instead of the pool one of them had worked as a lifeguard at. Heksndnekdksjeabandsk

I chose the first one! Thank you for requesting, bestie! ❤️❤️❤️

Pairing: Hobie Brown x fem! Reader/ Spider-Punk x fem! Reader

Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, FLUFF.

ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ

You've been up and down the same whirly slide for at least an hour. It's not even that special, the slide, it's just an ordinary one that has a drop and a short loopty loop. It's so common that there's only a handful of people lining up for it, they prefer to go down the most popular one that has the strobe lights and a hundred feet long tunnel.

You've been going on it for how many times that you've lost count and going down the slide isn't even as fun anymore. The number of times you've gone up and down has significantly made it less thrilling. You're sure that your friends might think you're crazy because you've left them for a water park slide. But they don't know that it isn't the slide that you've grown fond of, it's the hot lifeguard that keeps smiling and making conversation at you while you're in line.

Your hair clings to your wet face and you stink of chlorine but the lifeguard that you only know from his nametag still beams at you like you're the only person in the entire water park. ‘Ned’ once again greets you at the top of the slide, chiseled face shining in the late afternoon sun. It's that late and you have no idea or concept of time anymore because of the fit bloke talking to you about how Olympic synchronized swimmers need to put gelatin in their hair so it doesn't mess up their routine and thermodynamics.

“A bit weird, innit?” He taps the yellow floatie in his arms, rubber squeaking as the familiar rush of water filters in your ears. “Imagine me using that instead of hair gel before a show. Less mess I bet,” he blinks, the cogs in his head turning. “Huh, I guess it's not that bad. It'll last longer too.”

You look behind you, expecting a few people waiting their turn, to your happiness, you find no one. You've got the slide all to yourself, or him for that matter. “I guess so, but wouldn't it be hard to take it off?” You're intrigued by the word ‘show.’ Your new friend has a side you never knew in the last two hours you've been chatting with him.

“I might buy one of those little shovels to get rid of them.” He shrugs, and you tilt your head, wanting to get to know eachother better especially now that the water park is about to close. “Just scoop it out y’know.” He gestures like he's digging in his head.

“Or you could ask for help.” Your heart hammers in your chest, hoping, praying to any entity out there listening to you that he wants to know you too.

He chuckles, piercings shining, laugh rumbling in his throat. “You volunteerin’?”

You inhale, trying to act nonchalant by leaning over the mouth of the slide. Arms crossed on your torso, you finally ask. “If you want to, I'm curious about those shows you're in.”

Nodding, his heart pounds with excitement. “I'm in a band, love. If you'd do me the honour.” Your hands are getting sweatier and sweatier, you don't notice your body slowly sliding downwards. “Do I have to dunk my hair in gelatine so you'd come to our show next week on Friday at the white horse pub at eight pm?”

“It's not a prerequisite. And that was very smooth, Ned, very smooth.”

His loud laugh echoes, you're sure that the entire park heard it louder than the thrumming of your heart and your big fat crush on the lifeguard. “Thanks, love, but uh,” he leans forward, you can see every green speck in his hazel eyes. “My name isn't Ned.”

“W-what?” With one wrong foot over the other, you slip and fall inside the slide, ‘Ned’ gets smaller and smaller by the second you're inside. “What's your name then?!” Your voice echoes inside the plastic, warbling as you go down the slide. “Fuck!” You plunge into the pool, water in your ears and eyes as you swim up and cough out chlorine filled water. “Goddamnit,” you splash the water with your hands, frustrated that you might've lost who could've been the love of your life. At least you know where his band would be playing.

“It's Hobie.” His voice suddenly appears above you, hand reaching downwards to help you. Chest noticeably heaving, sweat dripping down his temple. He ran down the long steps to get down to you as fast as he could.

“What?” You splutter, not the most attractive thing to do.

“My actual name, it's Hobie.” ‘Hobie’ points at his nametag. “I nicked this from a friend so I could get in for free, the manager found me so now I had to work a shift. But I could think of one good thing that happened to me today though.” His smug smile makes you hide under the water.

“You could've started with that, Hobie.” You reach towards his helping hand. “You do not look like a Ned—!” With a pull, you yank him inside the pool. You laugh, and he resurfaces drenched from head to toe.

“Cheeky.” He wipes his palms on his eyelids and he blinks at you standing over him.

“I'll see you on friday, Hobie?” You saying his name is music to his ears, or that might be the water in his ears. But the sight of you with the backdrop of the cotton candy orange sky makes his thwarted evil plan all worth it. “I'll bring the gelatine.”

“And I’ll brin' the little shovel.” Hobie smiles up at you. Maybe he should bring something nice to Ned as a thank you and compensation for almost getting him fired.

[alicenpai]

hi! ive been a big fan of your work for a while now, and i was just wondering if you have any tips or anything for selling merch online? :>

hi anon! so you want to be a con artist huh 👁👁 ...

^ a real con artist..

i’m not sure if you wanted online specific tips or general merch tips, but i compiled a bit of both! (also not sure if you're a beginner to art in general, there's a difference between a more experienced artist doing merch for the first time + beginner artists trying merch for the first time bc the risks involved are different)

i wrote more on the subject but i cut some out because it seemed too long.. and i tend to ramble ^__T it's hard to answer questions like these because they're so generalized, but if you had any more specific questions feel free to send another ask!

^ random image for visual interest

general tips for beginners(?)

merch can be fun, and it is! but in the end always remind yourself you're running a business, and it's real money you're going to be spending. it's good to take risks (on things like, new product types if you think your art is ready for it, or less popular series/more experimental designs, etc.) as you learn a lot from them, but always think over financial decisions carefully at the same time.

what helped me grow a lot as both a merch artist (and as a general artist) over 10 years is - a lot of reflection. and i mean a LOT of it. in terms of art in general i don't personally do a lot of studies (which is probably my downfall and i need to get back to it) but i think im pretty observant and introspective which helps me improve a lot. i often write my silly little blog posts on tumblr, I'll write notes on my phone if i have a train of thought i need to get down quickly.

i also often discuss merch things with friends and it really helps to get varying perspectives. (though i admit i should really share wips more, i used to but not as much anymore. blame the working life haha, not as many people have time to discuss non-work art anymore ;_;). all of these things keep me on my toes and weigh my strengths and weaknesses. if anyone is interested i could write more on the specific topics i reflect on after every con/shop opening.

stick to the tried and true 5-10 copies per design for beginners! this range sounds too little, but don't forget the big picture as well... you'll likely also have multiple different designs, across different product types.

e.g. 5 copies x 4 characters/designs, and let's say you do this for every product type (e.g. postcards, stickers, charms), 5 x 4 x 3 = 60 individual pieces of merch. that's a pretty solid number for a first timer!

i also personally print 5-10 copies of designs im doing for a test print run, or for characters that don't seem particularly popular.

15 is the average amount for me for a short run product (1 con season)

i certainly reprint often + go higher sometimes if i dont mind the product being in my catalogue for years.

15 is not too many in case the design is unpopular and doesn't sell, and it's also not too little that it won't be enough sales to break even.

promo images & taking photos (online specific)

i'm not a professional photographer and these photos might be absolute ass to some people. i will accept that, and honestly id agree with you. this is just my advice for straightforward, simple photos.

good quality and clear photos are best. it's great fun to use props in photos, and they can certainly turn your photos from plain to impressive. but it's easy to get carried away with props and fancy scrapbook paper imo, and i prefer to let the artwork speak for itself. honestly keeping it simple can be the best option sometimes. i used to take a lot more photos back in 2022 when i had less new products, but nowadays i find that i have too many products to take photos of, so i prefer to just keep my photos simple with a white piece of paper as my backdrop. i just. shrimply cannot be bothered taking out all of the props anymore...

above: the backdrop in this photo is bad, it's distracting and takes away from the artwork. (fe charms from 2016)

this are photos taken on a sunny day.

if you don't have a good phone camera (mine is ~5 years old), ive found that taking photos on a sunny day, either inside or outside, work great for me, as it shows off the natural colour of your product best. i either take it to the garden or i like to find a patch of sunlight filtering through the window. be wary of glare or too much light reflecting on your merch in photos though, because it can be distracting and take away from visibility on the product. but i can understand if a bit of glare ends up on one's finalized merch photos.

this is an example of utilizing light at a certain angle to show off the holographic film on this charm.

sunny photo vs cloudy photo.

taking photos inside on a cloudy day during daylight hours is also a popular option, especially if you live in an area where there isn't much direct sunlight/cloudy season, but for me personally i find cloudy day photos come out a bit dull and do take a bit of colour correcting. all of my cloudy day photos are tweaked and i find the colours to be a bit off from the original products, but that's just how it is with taking photos i guess.

because i don't have a great phone camera, my personal alternative is to make graphics! i just think of it as a collage to use fun textures and PNGs! im obviously not a professional, and these probably look very bad in a professional's eye. but i think it's fun. i like to incorporate the aesthetic or visual style of the series into the graphic if i do make em. ^_^

store platform

each one has their pros and cons. many store platforms have trial periods/free plans for people to try out.

bigcartel is what i use and i'm familiar with, and i would honestly recommend it. (i'm too lazy to move or try another platform right now...) for big store openings ill pay for a month or two of the basic $15 plan. ill use the free gold plan on bigcartel if im only planning to open my store for a limited time and don't want to commit to a full monthly plan.

storenvy: i've used storenvy from about 2014-16. i moved from storenvy for issues such as charging customers fees for purchasing from storenvy's marketplace page (and not from your actual personalized storefront) and urging me to use stripe even though it wasn't supported in canada at that time. im not sure if theyve fixed these issues but they were pervasive issues at the time that honestly forced me to quit. it also has a kind of outdated UI (e.g. can't zoom into pics on mobile?).

i think storenvy is a very easy to use platform for beginners because it's very basic! but i wouldn't recommend it if you have a great number of products, or if you're looking for more advanced features.

tictail isn't available anymore, i couldn't recommend it for that reason. i used it from around 2016-18.

i don't have any experience on shopify or etsy. shopify i heard is great because of all of the neat features you can implement, which you can use to really make your store yours. etsy has a huge marketplace which helps discoverability, but i have also heard there are many fees, so a lot of artists unfortunately make their prices a bit higher on etsy.

ecwid is also one that i've heard pop up. some also host shops on weebly or squarespace.

shipping

if you don't already have a kitchen scale, it's a good idea to get one if you think you'll be using it a lot to weigh packages! a postage scale is probably better. i just have a kitchen scale because it's cheap. as long as the measurements are precise (don't use a bathroom scale with a dial like me when i started out lmao).

thermal labels are also a good investment if you think youll need em!! i actually don't personally use them, because i have way too much hand-me-down stacks of paper in my home, so i don't see the need to make an extra investment. the downside to printing shipping labels on paper is taking the time to cut and stick them on packages.

i'm from canada (surprising the amount of people who think im from the US T__T) so these tips will be canadian specific, but you can hopefully get the gist.

when i was starting out, i used canada post (usps is the american equivalent) to send out store orders. however shipping labels from your govt post office can be pricey. which is why it's a good option to join their small business program if they have one, where you'll receive discounts on shipping labels. i don't use canada post shipping anymore, but i will use them for countries that my shipping agent doesn't ship to.

also take advantage of their free shipping tuesdays for domestic packages in october!! i believe you can receive 2 free labels per tuesday, up to 4 or 5 tuesdays for the entire month = 8-10 free labels in october.

next step is shipping agents!! if you live close to a chitchats or stallion express facility, they're great, and they usually provide tracking on shipping by default. in my opinion, tracking on orders is a MUST, so customers can have peace of mind! (minus like sticker-only shipping because that could be sent with postage stamps)

they also do home pickup if you have a bunch of packages in bulk/can't get to a facility. i believe americans have pirate ship.

you print and stick on your shipping labels at home, then you just travel to the shipping facility and throw your packages in the right bins (e.g. domestic, US, international). that's it! easy as pie!

i personally use chitchats because that is closer to me. i had heard stallion provides better rates for international shipping, which i'll have to look at at a later date.

most of my orders come from the US and canada. (funnily enough it is unfortunately cheaper to send packages from canada to USA, than it is for me to send packages within canada.) international orders are a bit of a pain, and you will need to know tariff codes for your product types (e.g. prints have a diff code than buttons) while writing the customs form. people in some countries will get taxed on all imported packages (e.g. packages marked as "sold goods" and not "gifts"). an alternative to this is to use etsy, so that customers can pre-pay for the tariffs before the order is processed. this is something i'll also look into for the future.

posting

wow now you're now done organizing your shop and promo images and you're ready to post! a good strategy is to post across multiple platforms to see what sticks. it takes effort and time but it can have a solid turnout! (i forget sometimes, don't be like me)

i don't know if this is true, but a lot of keywords words such as "shop", "store", "link" and etc. are apparently suppressed on social media (particularly twitter). don't take my word for it however.

shop posts don't generally do as well as regular art posts for most artists. but disregarding censored words for a second, it can also be attributed to psychological reasons, generally people don't like to be advertised to. (e.g. tumblr doesn't have an algorithm and shop posts usually dont do as well here either. tumblr users are just not receptive to clicking on links apparently).

personally, writing alternate terms like "sh0p" just isn't for me, but no shade though, bc i do understand workarounds are hard and everyone needs to make a living somehow. ill instead use words like, "leftovers are in" or "new items are up!" something more vague, but with the accompaniment of merch images, will still be clear to people that it's a shop update.

sharing your shop promo posts in artist alley discord servers also help a lot, especially if you don't know too many artists when starting out. they're a great resource and community full of passionate individuals who will boost your art. if you're not familiar with them, you can find some public ones on google or maybe even artist communities on reddit. a big one is Artist Alley Network International.

if there are some topics you think i've missed, feel free to send em over to my inbox!! ill also think more about this in the coming days and edit this post as i see fit 🫡

[capt-t-leela]

why don't the new Futurama episodes scratch the itch in the same way that the classic episodes do?

I'm dashing this off quickly while my kid naps, so please keep that in mind when I speak generally and broadly and mostly from memory. It's also a very rough draft.

Classic Futurama had a pretty reproducible format that made it work from a story telling perspective as well as comedically and emotionally. The main source of humor was character driven - put a bunch of very different people into a sci-fi situation that they need to figure out and the conflict, comedy, and resolution will come together from that.

You could break the episodes down roughly like this and they'd all come together, with all of these established things paying off in the end in someway. Again, speaking broadly you establish the first act:

ACT ONE:

a. some big over arching sci-fi OR culturally satirical adventure / theme / scenario

b. an emotional conflict between some of the main characters / something someone is struggling with on their own and they need help with. This conflict is consistent with what we would expect from the characters and their development / traits.

c. a third seemingly goofy thing that was often played for laughs, but had some sort of plot relevance and helped drive the story forward.

Basically, in the first 7 minutes of the episode you'd get all three of those things laid out. The pacing is QUICK and it doesn't patronize its viewers.

Let's look at My Three Suns as an example:

ACT ONE:

a. delivery to the planet trisol - a unique and interesting setting that's new for everyone, not just fry.

b. fry is annoyed that Leela is so protective of him. Leela is annoyed that fry is being a careless idiot. Note: they both have VALID points here, one of them isn't just being irrational and easily dismissed.

c. wtf does bender actually do around here? SO once all of that is setup, we see the humor, conflict, and twists and turns stem from the questions all of these beats raise.

To boot, the characters work through whatever interpersonal / intrapersonal conflict in the context of the Big Adventure.

e.g. Fry realizes that his impulsivity has an effect on the people he cares about -- thanks to Bender's cooking leading him to drink the emperor and getting mixed up in another planet's dealings that then requires Leela to save him, despite her repeated warnings that he shouldn't be an idiot. None of this would have happened without the delivery to Trisol.

Another example:

Farnsworth Parabox:

ACT ONE:

a. the boxes with an infinite number of other universes. big sci-fi scenario to work through. with the potential for adventure! (big overarching adventure)

b. why won't Leela go out with fry??? they both know there's something there, but why is Leela so hesitant? what's stopping her? (interpersonal conflict / something emotional that needs to be resolved)

c. this episode spends a lot of time in the first act showing us key facets of the Planet Express Crew's personalities and quirks - how Leela goes about guarding the box (and her coin flipping, specifically), fry and bender trying to steal it and getting distracted (and Leela knowing what will distract each of them), professor being a crackpot, Hermes being a no nonsense pencil pusher, zoidberg being the worst - these are the goofy things that pay off because The Fighting Mongooses are our crew's foils and fun house mirrors and the comedy comes from their similarities and differences. (something seemingly goofy that helps drive the plot and conflict forward)

All of this is established in the first seven minutes of the episode!

Think about your favorite episodes, and I bet they breakdown similarly. Think about the episodes that don't land for you and I bet they're missing one ingredient (usually one, some, or both of the first two with the third thing usually being something completely irrelevant to the story).

Some Comedy Central era episodes that absolutely follow this formula to great success (not an exhaustive list):

The Prisoner of Benda

The Late Philip J Fry

A Farewell to Arms

Fry and Leela's Big Fling

Which leads me to my final point here....

IMHO one of the best Hulu era episodes is Related to Items You've Viewed, not just because I love me some Freela, but because it follows the formula. Momazon - tech company / monopoly cultural observation. Fry and Leela move in together, they have to navigate that big change together within the context of using Momazon. Bender does a Bender and feels left out, so he acts impulsively and runs away also to Momazon.

The formula isn't EVERYTHING, but it's a solid structure on which to hang lots of references and jokes and character growth.

Ok I gotta go actually like do parenting things, but there ya go. whatcha think?

[angelofthepage]

Thoughts on the "Updated" Bendy Employee Handbook

Before we go any further, let's make it very clear what kind of post this is: we're not here to hate on the book, and none of anything I'm about to say is said with ill intent. I am here for analysis, constructive criticism, and discussion. This post is a little more critical than what I would usually share, so viewer discretion is advised.

Today we're talking about the newly updated Bendy Employee Handbook, which just recently released as of this month at the time of this post. And I have a lot of questions about this entry, and really, game guides as a whole in our modern gaming world. This book appeared to advertise itself as a rerelease of the original handbook with additional content for Bendy and the Dark Revival, but upon comparing the two, I've noticed there's actually a number of changes they've made, some good, some bad, and some that I'm not sure what to make of. So come and join me under the cut, and if you have some thoughts of your own, feel free to comment or reblog and add to the discussion. Without further ado, here we go!

Part 1: The Baffling Amount of Cut Content

Our story begins where most stories do, the table of contents. So right off the bat, when comparing this book to the original, you'll notice something off.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, an entire section of the original book was cut, on top of making other sections shorter. And the weirdest part? Some of these things were exclusive to that original book, they didn't appear anywhere else in the Bendy franchise. So already we're off to a weird start. Some of these missing pages aren't so bad though. In some cases, they're just format changes to make the book flow a little better/take up less room. Sometimes they succeed in that, sometimes they end up feeling more cramped, it's pretty subjective whether or not this improved the book. But it certainly does cut down on pages. Case in point, the beginning of each chapter of BATIM.

Don't worry, Joey's letter hasn't been cut, but it has been moved to earlier in the book, so it's no longer in Chapter 1. This was a very odd change. Other things that are missing are character monologues, but it's inconsistent. Alice Angel's speech about the screaming well of voices and Joey's monologue right before the final boss were kept, but Sammy's "sheep sheep sheep" speech and Bertrum's audiolog right before his boss fight were inexplicably cut.

Here are a few cuts I found pretty significant.

These pages are all missing from the update. In the case of this newspaper article, what does that mean in regards to whether or not this is "canon" or "retconned"? Joey Drew, did you or did you not have plans to expand into a Bendy themed toothpaste? The people need to know! X''D But seriously, while some of this is inconsequential, some of it matters. The mascot costume in particular, that's the only sketch we get (that I'm assuming came from Bertrum or Joey regarding that part of the parks, no one is specifically credited for making it). It doesn't show up anywhere else in the series (to my knowledge). It's strange that it's just, gone now. The Bendyland spread is such an unfortunate loss, that's some of the closest we've ever gotten to seeing the map of the park. Yes you can see it in BATIM, but being able to get up close and personal with it without having to control Henry was really nice. It makes me wonder if they're trying to erase the past details so they can do more with Bendyland in the future, something that's different from the original vision. I don't think that's it, but it could be, though they'd also have to go back on The Illusion of Living too, given it’s discussed there with some really fun details.

Speaking of which, that's the weirdest piece of cut content: the missing section that ends the old book (that was reiterated in The Illusion of Living). It's Joey Drew's tips for making a cartoon. It's formatted differently and has no images in TIOL, but the basic information is still the same. What's not the same though, is the loss of the tutorial pages for drawing the toons. These are another thing that don’t show up anywhere else in the series, making them a much more permanent loss. And even though this section is cut, it’s still referenced on the back cover of the new book, which is a bit odd.

These were really cute and showed so much personality for not just the toons, but for Joey as he described them. Cutting this was genuinely disappointing for me. Same with the paperwork in Joey's apartment. Those were some of the highest quality images we had of what was on his desk and bulletin board, and I liked being able to see them clearer. The biggest loss of the cut content isn’t just the pages themselves, but the personality they gave to this book, and the Bendy world as a whole. 

This was the very first Bendy book to be released, and therefore our first look into this world in this format. And while I don’t think it’s the greatest thing in the world in terms of being a game guide, I didn’t pick up the original for a game guide. I picked it up because I wanted to see if it provided more context for the world. And when it does that, it does a good job. The memos from characters we know, Joey’s financial records, the images from the desks of people like Joey and Bertrum, they give us insight into how things were going at the studio. Some of my favorite details from the original are Joey’s memo about how Susie was replaced by Allison, and the receipt for Joe’s Fine Dining. The fact that that memo was distributed to everyone but Susie enhanced what we already knew from BATIM, and it paints him as a much crueler character than we knew him to be. Not to mention the repeated use of “I have to say, I’m an instant fan”. Having Joey say those words makes the concept of him creating the cycle so much more interesting. Like did he script out every little action these characters take? Or is this something Susie picked up and recycled from him after potentially finding this memo in real life? Oh there are so many delicious possibilities. And the lunch date, oh my gosh. One, it started my quest to build the Joey Drew menu using all the things he eats in the books, because damn does he have good taste. And two, it was so cool to have a look into an interaction Susie told us about in that one tape. Like that was REALLY GOOD. Give me more like that! When you have other parts of the series back up things we’ve heard only one character say, it gives more credence to the idea that they actually happened that way, or gives us a clue that we need to check for character biases when they tell us their side of the story. And in a series where MOST characters are unreliable narrators, that is REALLY IMPORTANT for establishing timelines and figuring out what’s real versus what’s fabricated. That was my biggest hope for the update, for more flavortext and world building that expands on things we already know. 

But um…the dark revival part of the book doesn’t do that. 

Part 2: The Dark Revival’s Minimal Offerings

After an abrupt jump from Bendyland to BATDR, we get into the new stuff. The Bendy and the Dark Revival section of this book is alarmingly short and has very little substance. There is no new expansion of the worldbuilding or insight into these characters. I mean, the book describes Heidi as being a female lost one? So if you wanted a confirmation on her gender, there you go I guess? I guess that detail was never like, stated explicitly, but this is me stretching to find something new that it gives us. Actually, wait, it does give us one new thing, but I’m gonna be honest, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

The book refers to Allison having a “pet wolf” when we get her introduction in Chapter 1. It then later describes that Tom “likes being pet” when we get his introduction in Chapter 5. Which by the way, is the only image of Tom in this entire book, since his original render from the old version was cut. Now, I’ll be honest, I used to like that second detail, I thought it was cute that he doesn’t just tolerate Audrey, he actually LIKES being pet. Those are two different things, having some insights into Tom’s feelings and characterization would have been a breath of fresh air. But no, when I reread the book and saw that first detail, that made that really weird and uncomfortable actually. It would be one thing if in-universe, Tom called himself a pet, or Allison called him that with consent. Heck, if there was another character in-universe who wanted to purposely insult Allison and Tom by saying that, that would be fine too, then it’d be reiterating the narrative. But on its own? I take issue with taking Tom of all characters and calling him her pet. The Safehouse Boris never got treated that badly, hell, Buddy in the books never got dehumanized this badly when he became a Boris. But Tom, Tom gets to be the one that’s dehumanized? There is something that really rubs me the wrong way about that. Especially if he turns out to be Thomas Connor or has some connection to him. I can’t assume if he is or isn’t anymore given all the stuff BATDR pulled with Allison and Henry. But on the chance he IS Thomas Connor, do you have any idea how bad that looks, to have a character that, because of details written in Dreams Come to Life, many fans speculate to be a person of color, referring to him as Allison’s “pet”? And even if he ends up not being a person of color (I say as I groan about the inevitable discourse for the DCTL graphic novel that’s coming out), it’s still kind of awful to say that about anyone. Tom is a character that has repeatedly gotten the short end of the stick in this series. He’s relevant to BATDR for all of a couple of minutes, and he’s incredibly underutilized and lacking details or depth for most of the series. Thomas Connor, he gets a bit of depth as of The Lost Ones, that novel does great things for him. But Tom Wolf? Short end of the stick. And I’m sad to see that continue here. 

The one positive thing I have to say about this section is that it’s really nice to have so many of the audiolog character transcripts here. Most of the notes and logs from BATDR are here with all their words typed out. The ones that in-game had a chiller styled font are transcribed a bit strangely, as now they’re written like the messages written on the walls in-game. But it’s not the worst. If anything, all of this gives me a great resource as a theorist. Having a record of all of these and what chapters they appear in makes my goal of constructing a timeline and cross checking information much easier. 

Though from a graphic design standpoint, these pages frustrate me a little bit. They’re so cramped, and there’s several spots where the text isn’t centered properly within its text block. I get the sense on some parts, it’s because it’s placed so close to the spine of the book, so they don’t want any information getting cut off, but it still looks funky. And there are several spots where that explanation doesn’t really apply. There’s also some weird placement of fun facts. While I love that this book lets us in on some secrets, they’re not always placed in an area that makes sense? Like, there’s a note about how to get the Inkjets Concert, but the steps for how to get it are placed way after a point in the narrative where you’d be able to get it, and I’m kind of scratching my head as to why it was done that way. Is it to encourage a second playthrough? Or is it to not spoil the story? Why not split the information up? Or have a dedicated secrets page like they do with the achievements and theMeatly’s cutouts? 

Though speaking of not spoiling things, this book is really odd about what it chooses to focus on. So, Henry’s model is in this book, right next to a passage about a “mysterious man” you can meet in the Cyclebreakers area. They showed his model but didn’t name him as Henry? I don’t quite get that choice. Also, despite the cyclebreakers being very important to this story, they aren’t really mentioned before this very brief section. However, Porter? The character shown for all of a few seconds? He’s got at least three images throughout this book. The balance feels off with what this book chooses to put emphasis on. 

Also, this one really annoyed me: Allison. So for everyone who’s actually played BATIM, you would know that Allison Angel is never referred to as Allison within BATIM. We only know she’s called that because people dove into the game’s files and revealed her and Tom’s names upon the release of Chapter 4. And the book follows suit with this, it does not call her Allison in the original handbook whatsoever. HOWEVER, the BATDR section messes this up. When it introduces her, even though in-game she introduces herself as Alice, the book introduces her as Allison. But when we get to Chapter 5, the part where she’s actually named Allison by Audrey, it suddenly switches to calling her Nice Alice? It’s a weird choice and I don’t understand why this happened. 

It leaves me wondering just how much the new author of this section and their editors know about the Bendy series before going into this project. What context were they given to write this thing? It makes the book feel unpolished to have so many mistakes in its formatting and information. I don’t know what the quality control team for this release looked like, but a part of me wonders how many editors this went through before making it to the final release. I don’t work in publishing to know what that looks like, but I’d genuinely love to learn more on this subject, it’s fascinating. 

There’s also a very strong dissonance in the imagery. While I’m glad to see the renders from BATDR’s advertising so clearly and up close, the difference in their coloring looks strange when put next to the rest of Bendy’s usual color palette. It leaves me wondering what assets the book team was given for use in this release. There’s a lot I could say here about the importance of press kits and brand guidelines, especially in this day and age when so many fans are making just as high quality of content as the official releases of media. And that leads me to the most disappointing part of this book. 

Part 3: Stolen Content

If you’re active in the Bendy fandom and know its many creative members, then you may already know what I’m about to dive into. MLSpence3D is an artist that enjoys 3D modeling, rigging, animating, and rendering. He can often be found engaging in all sorts of corners in the indie mascot horror community, such as playing a notable role in the production of SuperHorrorBro’s upcoming title, Glitched Out, as well as providing the renders used on the Bendy Wiki of the in-game characters. Spence has had his work mistaken for official renders before, and unfortunately, it’s not just fans making that mistake. The render of the Piper used in the BATIM portion of the original handbook is Spence’s, and it unfortunately hasn’t been removed in this update, nor has he been credited or asked for permission to have it used here. I’ll admit, his stuff looks so official that I’ve mistaken it as such too, and it speaks to a much needed conversation on assets, metadata, and protection for artists of all mediums. 

Our fandom is not the only place where this happens. Back when FNAF: Help Wanted was in production, the cover art mistakenly used fan renders as a part of its photomanipulation. Developer Scott Cawthon was quick to apologize and make things right, removing the renders and replacing them with officially made FNAF models. Heck, we had something similar happen right here with Bendy back when the voice cast of BATDR started working with Streamily. The initial post that advertised their Streamily debut used renders from Spence and a few other artists that had to be tracked down, and they didn’t have the rights to use them, nor were they credited. It makes a lot of sense that this happens, when you don’t have sufficient resources and aren’t an active member of the fandom, if you’re a graphic designer trying to make a piece to advertise something, you’re going to need assets to make that. And if you’re not given sufficient assets by the people you’re designing for, you turn to other sources to get the job done. They may not know what on Google is official vs fan content. The fans are so skilled and passionate about what they do, and with the number of series that have fans steadily joining the official teams, it’s incredible what can result from being passionate. But it also makes for a much needed reminder to add metadata to your files so that they can be traced back as belonging to you. Watermark your stuff, clearly mark your work as fan content in the tags, captions, and descriptions, in an effort to protect yourself. Don’t use images you find online unless you have a very clear idea of where they came from, so you can direct people back to the source when they ask about it (or better yet, link the source in your description from the start). Give people another reason to pause and double check their work in the chain of command (they should be pausing to double check anyway, but let's be real, we don't live in a perfect world). In a world where credit and sources are more important than ever, remembering to give credit where it’s due from the start will save you all kinds of headaches in the future. Video game developers, especially those of you in the indie scene: please develop press kits to give to people your teams collaborate with. By giving them assets they can reliably use to advertise for you, you will save everyone a lot of hassle in the long run. And if this is still happening even with a press kit, it merits having some conversations to evaluate why and solve the problem. If there is no other takeaway anyone gets from this post, this is the big one I want to see some positive change on in the future.

Part 4: The Functionality as a Game Guide

This book works for your first time through BATDR, but not for any kind of sequential playthroughs. The way it directs you through the game uses the audiologs and notes as waypoints. Once you pick them up, they are removed from the environment, and so if you’re picking up the game after a long time away from it, you’re not gonna remember where those were, so it’s likely not going to be useful for navigating. It reminds me a lot of the way my parents talked about one of our old hometowns. We lived in Vermont for a little while, and there were two things about our area that we laughed about. One, never leave your car unlocked unless you want it filled with zucchini. Two, if you ask for directions, you’re not gonna have a clue unless you’re a local, because they word everything in a similar fashion to “you’re gonna drive past where the old barn used to be”. At least give me a landmark that still exists, or a map! The BATIM chapters aren’t much better, they sort of give you a layout map, but it’s not helpful. Especially in Chapter 3, the place where you arguably need a map the most, there is no kind of instruction for how to get through Alice’s fetch quests if you get lost. 

In my mind, a game guide is something you turn to when you need help getting through a game. Now, mind you, I am not the target audience for a game guide. I don’t own game guides. There are a few in my household that my siblings own, for stuff like Super Mario Sunshine, and I guess technically my Pokedex for Pokemon Black and White 2 DOES double as a game guide. But like, we now live in the age of the internet. If you want to know how to get through something, there are a million articles and Let’s Plays that detail how to complete the base story, find secrets, and even suggest strategies for tackling difficult challenges. Some of these are designed to be informative, and some are more reactionary and built for entertainment, there’s lots of flavors to choose from! 

And it makes me wonder, what does that mean for the medium of game guides as a whole? I think they still have their place. For one thing, different people benefit from different learning styles. Being able to read a guide may work better for someone than a video depending on their brain wiring. And for people who don’t have reliable or frankly any internet, or rely on a library for that, it’s nice to have a book so that you don’t have to wait to keep playing. I’ve never seen anyone get a game guide from a library, but I absolutely think it’s something a library could have. It’s also just really convenient to have all of that information available in one book, as opposed to having to search through multiple forums and sources and risk getting spoiled. And when they’re done well, sometimes they can have secrets not even the existing player base knew. Like I knew that there was this secret about a ghost train that appears if you set your system’s clock to 4:14, but I didn’t know if AM or PM mattered. Thanks to this book, now I know that it doesn’t matter, both work, which is really handy to know! But uh…most of the secrets that were revealed in this book were things I knew within the first month that BATDR came out. None of them were new to me as someone who’s plugged into the world of Bendy. There have been multiple videos detailing how to get these secrets, and how to play this game, by many different indie horror enthusiasts. It almost makes it feel like this book came out a bit too late, and it’s only released about a year or so after this game came out.

Which really begs the question, who was the target audience for this book? Was it for new fans who were struggling with these games? Was it for longtime fans who wanted a memento of the occasion and a record of all the stuff in these games? Was it for lore hunters hungry for new secrets and world building? Having read both versions of the employee handbook, I still can’t definitively say who the target audience is. That kind of frustrates me, that’s the first thing they taught us about back when I went to school for graphic design. It’s important to keep your audience in mind when designing something, that way it caters to their needs, appeals to them, and gets your message across effectively. 

Part 5: Final Thoughts

I still can’t say for sure what I was supposed to get out of this.The parts of it that I found charming and appealing were not continued or built upon in this update. There is no new world building or lore. It doesn’t do an effective job as a game guide given its reliance on non-permanent elements of gameplay. It doesn’t give us tools to cross reference what we know from previous entries, nor does it expand upon details that lacked clarity within BATDR or BATIM. It removed some of its more charming content, and it still has stolen artwork from its previous iteration. By the time I got done reading this book, I was left feeling disappointed and kind of exhausted. No joke, I grabbed a friend, and we went through it all to compare it page by page to see what changed. It was something you could make a drinking game out of, not that I would recommend that. 

I would struggle to recommend this book to any Bendy fan, unless you’re a completionist like me who wants to own every book as a physical copy. The original employee handbook was a far better read, and if you can find a copy secondhand or at your local library, you’re in for a small but tasty treat (quite literally if you decide to make the bacon soup recipe, which fun fact, originated in this book and was developed by the wife of Bookpast, one of the writers on this series!). The Dark Revival section feels tacked on and not as well thought out as the original book was. There is a very odd disconnect between the two. I’m genuinely confused as to why it was put in a rerelease of this book rather than making an entirely new book for Dark Revival. Dark Revival is a much longer and detailed game than Bendy and the Ink Machine. I would expect a book that describes how to play it and its world building to take up a lot more pages and go in depth on different details than this one did. So why was it done this way? Does this have to do with some sort of contract with Scholastic that we don’t know about? Was there a time constraint, or a page count that had to be met that they couldn’t meet with just BATDR? Did the people working on Bendy have too much on their plates to dedicate the time to a new book? What happened here? I wasn’t expecting to leave this book with more questions than answers, but here we are. 

Overall, I don’t think it was worth what I paid for it, but it’s going to live on my shelf with the rest of my books. This will be handy for when I need to reference the audiologs and don’t want to look up a YouTube video to remember what was said. It’ll also be nice if I’m traveling. See, whenever I visit my grandparents, their wifi is pretty limited, so if I want to draw anything while I’m up there, I have to print out references or download images on my phone before I go so I can do that. Having some of the new renders in this book will be useful if I decide I want to draw Bendy stuff or theorize while on the road. 

Now it's your turn. Tell me your thoughts on the Updated Edition of the Bendy Employee Handbook! Is this something you want to read? If you have read it, did you enjoy it? Were you left wanting more? If we ever get another book like this, what sort of things would you like to see? Let's talk about it. And remember, if you did enjoy it, that's not a bad thing, absolutely no judgement there. Just because it wasn't for me doesn't mean it's not going to be enjoyable for someone else. Every work of fiction has its audience. <3 Here's wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and happy reading!

[velnna]

Since you probably use more social media than most people, I was curious on what you think of the ones u use, especially now that blue sky is open to the public

Eh, I'm not super well versed on them these days because I mostly use them to respond to notifications, post and disappear, plus I have notifications filtered everywhere so I don't keep track of engagement. ESPECIALLY with bluesky, I've never even opened the general timeline there 😅

Twitter is still my favourite social media and the one I use more seamlessly. I think I see value in it because it's not primarily meant for visual posts and there's people from a bunch of different fields and industries engaging with whatever all at once, plus the line between commenting on a post and making a post yourself is blurred which gives for some funny interactions. It used to intimidate me but now I'm just chilling.

Bluesky I guess is supposed to be the same thing? But I can't bring myself to engage with it idk. Back when it started I could see that the most active people there were the ones actively hating twitter, while.. doing the exact same things on bluesky they did on twitter 🤷‍♂️ so I think Elon Musk aside it's basically the same thing with less users.

I used to be big on instagram but basically stopped using it when they introduced reels, now I just post and disappear. I hate that they couldn't just leave it simple and uncluttered and the fact that reels became so popular pissed me off lmao.

Tiktok is a tricky one for me because I go "viral" easily there and it's my biggest platform BUT it's very addicting and you sorta have to scroll through the main page to find content to make + a lot of the time you need to make content specifically for it. Which is a time sink for me in a lot of ways :') I tend to open it every other month to maybe post something then ghost again

Tumblr is... fine? Idk tumblr definitely feels like both the most useless and the easiest social media to use. Useless in the sense that I never expect anything that happens on tumblr to materialise into anything outside of it. Easiest in the sense that it's just chill for me to post and engage with what people send me without needing to think about it too hard. Trying to get original content to take off here was in vain but fanart does particularly well as expected.. which means it only started being fun for me when I got into BG3 as I'd never been in a fandom before lmao. I like that, just like twitter, it's not only for visual posts, but get overwhelmed at the idea of blogs and formatting and sorting posts, so I only use it barebones and tend to not engage with the main page/timeline either

Engagement-wise, I honestly couldn't tell ya. I think that comes down to you paying attention to each social media's trends and how people interact with it. Personally I'm (very luckily) at a stage where 99% of the time I don't care about whether a post makes numbers or flops, and my platforms are big enough that if I REALLY needed something to do well I could probably find a way to make it loud enough so yknow

Hope this answers your question :'D

[bomberqueen17]

it came from the notes

Ha I reblogged this post a bit ago and happened to see this in the notes from @uxbridgeenglishdictionary

[image descriptions: tumblr tags reading #also hi bomberqueen17 #love your work #is your Morvran demi]

HA yes. Busted. He is, because I tend to write demisexuals into everything I write. He's more of a Trauma Ace than me, and his specific manifestation of demi is not quite like mine, but yeah that's him. Sexual Attraction Isn't Real And They're Making It Up, he thinks, Or Maybe I'm Just Broken, Probably That's It, Glad Everybody Else Is Having Fun But I'm Better Off Out Of It, and then he gets hit with the Oh She's Competent stick really hard and doesn't know what to do with himself for a good while.

Wait till he realizes that like almost every demisexual I know, he's bi too. Actually I feel like there should be a different word for that entire mode of attraction, because it's not a separate thing at all. "Demi-bisexual" sounds really weird and clunky and not right but almost every person I know who manages to figure out they're demi also has, as a feature of their specifically-demisexual mode of attraction, the major component that the things that will tick their boxes until they hit the "attraction" tipping point tend not to include gender as a salient or primary point (or, I think in many cases, as a point at all). For me it's someone being funny, really smart, into me, a huge dork, good at witty turns of phrase or at least corny puns, and reasonably kind, and whether they have a penis or a vulva or neither or something else entirely, I really don't care and genuinely don't have a preference. And that experience (not the specifics but the generals) is so common, even universal among people I talk to who are demi, that I almost think demisexual probably implies some flavor of bi, too, largely by definition. I'm not really worried about the label, I really feel like it's an "if you know you know" kind of thing, but like. We know.

For Morvran, his specifics are "competent, terrifying, niceys to me", mostly I think, though we'll have to see. (I haven't actually written in a male character for him to get pantsfeelings about, as such, but I have some ideas, which I may or may not wind up exploring but just know, it's there and it's a thing.)

I was hesitant over making him demi because I was worried that sex-repulsed aces would be disappointend and like, ok, but my beta was like "dude there's nothing wrong with being demi and it's not letting down the side" and i realized that was definitely an internalized kind of self-loathing demiphobic instict right there, astutely pointed out. I should write a sex-repulsed ace character sympathetically sometime, and I will (probably I have?? idk I do tend to digress into porn a lot so it's hard to say, and I don't fuckin remember), but I've let my id lay the groundwork for Morvran's demi awakening and it would be weird to not do that.

*deep sigh* as I've said before, I'm a pony of a limited number of tricks but they're like, good tricks, mostly, and there's no harm in trying to learn new ones but it's also not like a bad thing to use my favorite ones. It's not like the world is completely drowning in nuanced, informed demisexual representation.

[myrtles-and-blood]

ive been pagan for a while in theory but im just starting to try and put things into practise. Since ive started i feel a really deep resonation with Ares. I was always fascinated with him anyways, but now its enhanced i guess?? I'm unsure how to ask him to work with me and to be my patron as this will be the first time I do this but I really want to work with him. Do you have any tips or advice??? have a good day!! <3

omg I'm starting to get asks this is so fun.

OKAY SO I got to tell you, I'm really inexperienced in this but I'll help you with what I can.

I feel like being extremely interested in a deity is like the number one sign you should talk to them. That's how I got into working with my deities and I'm really happy with it.

Now, talking to Ares is pretty easy in general, just reach out to him and tell him that you want to work with him. However, being specific, he really wants you to be clear with him. He wants to get to the point of what you want and he's gonna help you get it (if he wants, of course).

I recommend getting a couple divination methods and sitting with him for a while, telling him your intentions and asking him what he thinks, asking for any advice or things that he thinks you should work with him, etc. Good communication is key with all deities.

In my experience, he is quite serious with me. Not in a mean way, he's just serious and a bit distant. That is just because of our relationship, but yours doesn't have to look like this. Don't expect anything because you are your own person and he will want to do things with you that he won't want to do with me nor with anyone else.

So, the key points for me would be: clear communication, tell him what you want with respect and take his opinion into account, at the end of the day he's the one helping you; be open to whatever needs to happen! He may not want to do it now, he may want to work on a different thing, or he may love your idea; be calm, he's not gonna kill you and he is pretty chill to talk to, and I'm sure he wants to listen to you; know him! Research a bit about him, his associations, his myths, etc.

I told you he was a bit distant with me, but in my experience every time I call him for some help he's there SO FAST to try and help me and be around me when I need him. His presence is so recognisable, strong, energetic and brave, and I try my best for him and also for me, because he just wants me to be as happy and healthy as I possibly can be.

Go talk to him, I'm sure he'll be waiting for you with welcoming arms. :D

[merge-conflict]

thinking about Goro ever leaving Arasaka is such a fun but heartbreaking thing to think about because like– what would truly make him leave? what would destroy his faith and his loyalty so utterly that he'd walk away from his identity? because it's not just a job, being a soldier is who he is, and he's specifically an Arasaka soldier. when he expresses any doubt about the life he's had or what he really wants it's always with an air of inevitability that Arasaka will exist and continue to exist. what's the alternative? he asks V, because he truly doesn't believe there can be one. he can't believe it, or if he does he has to believe it's not worth the cost, because otherwise what has his life been in service of?

but while he's stubborn and loyal, he isn't stupid. he'll deflect v or get angry when they dismiss corporations entirely not because he thinks they're shining forces of good but because he sees fighting against them as naivety. the world is hard, but that's how it is, and fighting against it will only cause more suffering.

and yet. and yet. he is blind in a particular way, that I think comes from his success and the reward for his hard work. certainly there are plenty of people like him, who were smart and worked hard and came from nothing but were never rewarded for that because they didn't do it in quite the right way, or they weren't liked, or they were simply one among hundreds and thousands, just a number on a spreadsheet– they were never someone noticed personally by Saburo Arasaka. he's absolutely conditioned to believe that the system works because it worked for him.

so to come back around to the question– what could shake his faith in that so entirely that he can start to see the lie he's pledged himself to? that this empire, this corporation is truly no better than any other, and is just as disgustingly hypocritical and pathetic when threatened as any other power?

I can see a lot of possible answers to the question, and though I'm a romantic I can't say the answer is just love– he could deny himself that, I'm sure, and any personal sort of happiness. he could tell himself anyone he loved deserves someone who can give their full attention (and how could he ever give Arasaka less than everything he has? even for his suicidal revenge he means it as a warning, a rallying cry, for Arasaka to save itself from those who would destroy it).

but! the thing about corporations is that they will tell you the rules, and their ideals, and they will enforce them. and you at some point will become a representative of that corp and make promises according to those ideals, and the corp will make a liar of you. whatever trust you've built, whatever standards you hold yourself to in order to maintain your reputation? meaningless. and that more than anything is something I think that Goro would be unable to accept, that something that was his responsibility and his promise was broken without remorse or even consultation. perhaps he could counsel himself through that doubt, and remain in the fold, but it would be one of those moments where he is truly vulnerable to break away, and certainly a reason to shake his faith.

even then– even then I don't think he could see it all at once. he's in too deep, and he wants to believe that Arasaka can work so badly, that he's blind to the reality of its existence. so even if he does break free, then what? and I think the answer to that is that he will always want to believe that if juuust a few things were fixed Arasaka would be on the right path, or would be redeemed.

and that deprogramming will take forever to undo, if he ever lived long enough to try it.

anyway I started writing this post because I'm writing that initial break from his pov where he's struggling with it and internally he's just thinking: Maybe if I kill myself righting this wrong Saburo will understand and Arasaka will go back to being something I can feel proud of! and I want to chew through the drywall why doesn't he get it (I know why)

[honeyspawn]

Some ideas about Paul's family:

Option 1: Jon Matteson Fmily Tree - full-transparency, the Jon Matteson family tree has never really been my personal favorite, or at the very least, the idea of Paul specifically having a big chaotic extended family has never felt very "Paul" to me. Paul has always struck me as such a solitary entity in Hatchetfield, or at least until Emma shows up. That being said, I won't deny that the idea is fun. That being said, I think if we're gonna go with the whole Paul is Richie's uncle thing, I don't think he's literally the brother of one of Richie's parents. I think "uncle" in this case is used in the general way a kid refers to an adult relative, and he's more of a distant cousin. I don't really know how to explain it, but I simply cannot picture Paul with siblings. Overall though, to me, I think I prefer the idea of Gary and Boy Jerry being Richie's uncles, and Paul is just kinda separate.

Option 2: Generic Retirees - I've mentioned this in another post, but something about Paul having no relatives in Hatchetfield even though he's lived there his whole life there feels very "Paul" to me. I suppose you could conclude from this that his parents are dead, but seeing as he's only in his early 30s and that implies his parents probably died kind of young (probably somewhere in the 50s-70s range depending on how old they were when Paul was born and when they died), I like the idea instead that the explanation is the most boring one possible; they retired in Florida. Their names are Arthur and Martha Matthews, or something similarly generic. They are the most boring 60 year old couple imaginable. Arthur likes to garden. Martha likes bird watching. They have no other hobbies. They visit Paul a couple times a year. They are constantly trying to convince Paul to move to Florida. They are the Matthews family. They are boring.

Option 3: Crack Theory Time - This is insane, and I don't really believe this theory, but the idea came to me one day and I the thought wouldn't leave my head, so I need to share it. So the idea behind this is Paul is such a singular entity that it's almost enigmatic, or at least it would be if anyone cared that much. Paul never talks about his family to anyone. He never really thinks about his family, and he feels like he's been on his own for a long time. That's not to say he doesn't remember having a family. He had a mom. She was nice. It was a shame she passed away 15 years ago. And when he starts dating Emma and she asks about his family, that's all he has to say. "I had a mom. She was nice. It was a shame she passed away 15 years ago." He remembers having a mother, but he doesn't really remember anything that specific about her. He's not sure why. He never thinks too deeply about it. He's not sure he can properly recall her face unless he's looking at an old scrapbook. It's strange, though. As soon as he puts the scrapbook back on the shelf, it's like he forgets again. All that really sticks is he had a mom. She was nice. It's a shame she passed away 15 years ago. It's not like he didn't love her, of course he did, she was his mom. And she was a good mom too, he's sure of it. One thing he does remember though, is before she died, she had a long talk with him. He can't remember about what exactly, but he knows it was important. He's pretty sure she was saying goodbye. If you've watched nightmare time, you may have guessed where I'm going with this. I don't really know where this idea of mine that Miss Holloway is Paul's mom came from, it just kind of seemed like Paul being a mysteriously solo entity in Hatchetfield makes sense, and this seemed like an interesting explanation. It also would tie into the fact that Paul might have a slight latent resistance to the LiBs. In tgwdlm, Paul has a whole musical number where he resists the Hive while being infected, while the only other times anyone gets infected on stage, it's a matter of seconds. Paul is also one of the only adult characters who sees through Tickle-Me-Wiggly; even Emma thinks Tim would want a Wiggly "more than anything." Do I think this is all some insane foreshadowing? Absolutely not. This seems extremely unlikely to me, and a product of my own over-thinking, but it sure is fun to think about anyway. (Also, I've never seen anything about this online before, but if this is an existing fan theory, please let me know. The Miss Matthews theory, if you will)

Option 4: He Doesn't Have One - Paul does not have a family. He is just Paul. It's not important for Paul to have a family because they are not relevant, and therefore, they simply do not exist. This also seems very possible to me, and tbh feels appropriate, both for Paul, and for Hatchetfield. I mean heck, according to Curt Mega his shopper character in Black Friday is literally named "Shopper No. 4". Paul just straight up not having a family because he's Just A Guy™️ feels right.

Wow, this was a lot, actually. If you read this whole thing, thanks for letting me infodump, and I'd love to hear what you think.