#so i might as well get a job i like. not just a placeholder

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Applied for a job and applying to community college. It feels weird. It feels like I'm 18 again, even though I'm turning 23 in less than a week. It feels promising though

[lunargrrrl]

Lights, Camera, Magic

Agatha Harkness sits in the director's chair of some of your favourite movies. Your world suddenly turns upside down when you're invited to audition for her latest screenplay, "Witching Hour".

Chapter 16

director!agatha harkness x fem!reader | slow burn | power dynamics | eventual smut | oh and agatha is a top in this, ofc | praise kink | smut | thank you all for your patience | i'm really bad at posting on tumblr

Dinner is served in a grand dining room, with elegant chandeliers casting a golden glow over the tables. Soft jazz plays in the background, mingling with the clinks of silverware and chatter. You glance at the set name placeholders, realising you’re seated slightly away from Agatha, opposite her and a few seats down, next to none other than Rio Vidal—the captivating woman you encountered on the roof terrace just moments ago. She exudes confidence in a tailored dark grey suit that perfectly complements her striking features and cool energy.

“I'm really glad I’m sitting next to you instead of some of these lizards,” Rio says, her voice light. “At least you know how to keep a conversation interesting. The last guy I talked to just wouldn’t stop bragging about his latest blockbuster flop.”

You chuckle. “I can imagine. It’s refreshing to talk to someone who’s real. I’m just trying to enjoy the moment and not get caught up in all the Hollywood nonsense. It’s all just… so intense.”

Rio nods. “Totally get that. It can feel like everyone’s just playing a part, trying to outshine one another. I mean, I love this industry, but sometimes it’s exhausting.” She glances around the room, lowering her voice. “I swear, if I have to hear one more person talk about their ‘vision’ for a film that’s been in development hell for years, I might just lose it.”

You laugh softly in reply as she leans in closer, a playful smile on her lips. “So, tell me, what do you do when you’re not charming the socks off everyone in this room?”

You take a sip of your drink, feeling the warmth of her compliment. “Well, the past year has just been so crazy, I don’t even know anymore. One minute, I was working for some tech company in my first job out of college, and the next, I’m here, auditioning for movies after some guy spotted me in a coffee shop. It feels like a dream that I’m just trying to keep up with.”

Rio raises an eyebrow, intrigued. “Talk about a plot twist. Honestly, I see why someone would want to scout you. It’s no wonder people can’t help but notice you.”

You laugh, feeling a flutter of connection. As dinner progresses, the conversation flows easily, filled with laughter and shared stories. As you chat, you can feel Agatha's gaze on you from across the table, her expression a mix of interest and something else—jealous, perhaps. 

That familiar, possessive gaze that refuses to leave.

-*-✨-*-

Dinner draws to a close as the servers begin to prepare the table for dessert. Rio is mid-story when her hand brushes against yours as she gestures animatedly. “And then I told him, ‘If you think that’s impressive, wait until you see my next project!’” she finishes, a grin on her lips.

You burst into laughter, and the moment is light. Friendly. But then, you catch Agatha’s eyes flicking toward you, narrowing as she engages with the heavyweight next to her, flashing a smile that feels a touch too flirtatious for comfort.

You try to shake off the discomfort, refocusing on Rio. “So, what’s next for you? Tell me about that project you’re crewing up for next year?”

“Oh yeah, it’s a new script that I think will turn some heads, I reckon you’d be a perfect fit for one of the roles,” Rio replies, her enthusiasm infectious. “It’s a dark comedy about—”

But your attention drifts as you catch another glimpse of Agatha, who is now leaning a bit too close to her companion, laughing a little too hard at something they say. Her fingers graze their wrist, and you feel a knot of annoyance tighten in your stomach.

You turn back to Rio, forcing a smile. “That sounds amazing...”

As you attempt to redirect the conversation, Agatha’s laughter rings out again, this time drawing out her iconic cackle, and you feel the heat of frustration bubble up inside you. You steal another glance at her, catching her playing with the producer’s fingers, and that’s it.

“Excuse me for a second...” you mutter under your breath, pushing back your chair with a noise that draws attention. You stand abruptly, not caring if anyone is looking, and storm away from the table, the air around you suddenly feeling too stifling.

As you pace towards the exit, the soft murmur of conversation behind you fades, drowned out by the thudding of your heart in your chest. You reach the elevator, and the doors begin to slide shut just as you take a breath to steady yourself.

And the second that the doors almost close, is the same second that a hand shoots out, catching the door and forcing it back open.

Agatha.

Your mouth goes dry, and your heart skips, responding to her presence like clockwork.

“Going somewhere?” she asks, her voice smooth as silk, laced with an undertone that makes your pulse quicken.

“I just needed some air,” you reply, trying to sound casual, but the way she’s looking at you makes it impossible to hide the tremor in your voice.

“Air?” she echoes, stepping closer, her gaze steady and piercing. “Why? You seemed pretty… relaxed out there with Rio.”

Frustration bubbles up inside you, and you do your best to hold your composure. “And what about you? I saw you flirting with that producer all dinner.”

Agatha tilts her head, an amused smile dancing on her lips. “Flirting? Hardly. I was simply being professional, and sometimes you need to play into their hands in this industry.” Her expression furrows as she steps even closer, the air between you thick with electricity. “But I’ll admit, it’s adorable how you think you can tease me and get away with it, pet.”

She continues, leaning in, “Two can play at this game, sweetheart. Do you think I didn’t notice the way she looked at you? I think you were forgetting who you belong to.”

Your breath hitches at her words, the possessive undertone igniting within you. “Well, maybe I’m not so easy to claim.”

“Oh, but I think you are.” She steps closer, closing the space between you, “You just need a little reminder.”

Before you can respond, Agatha closes the distance between you with one swift, powerful motion, slamming you against the wall of the elevator. The cool metal presses against your back, causing you to gasp.

“Agatha…” you breathe, but she silences you with her lips, crashing into you with a fervour that ignites every nerve ending in your body. The kiss is urgent and demanding, her hands framing your face as she tilts your head to deepen the connection. You melt against her, responding with equal intensity, the frustration and heat of the moment fuelling your desire.

You gasp helplessly into her hot mouth as she brushes her tongue against yours, igniting a wildfire of longing that tears through you. Her kiss is a heady mix of passion and desperation, each sweep of her tongue sends shivers shaking all over you. You feel her breath hot and rapid against your skin, mixing with the soft sighs that escape from your lips.

Every second stretches into eternity as you lose yourself in her, the world outside the elevator fading into darkness. You explore the intoxicating taste of her lips, rich with the hint of the champagne you shared; the overwhelming strength of her hold wraps around you like a spell. You run your hands up her blazer, your fingers reaching and tangling in her long brown hair, pulling her even closer.

You want to surrender yourself to her completely.

A soft moan escapes your mouth, echoing in the confined space, and Agatha responds immediately, deepening the kiss. It’s as if she craves the sound, as if every whimper from your lips is a reward she cannot resist. Her mouth captures every ounce of your breath, each kiss a sweet torment that leaves you aching for more. She pulls your bottom lip into her mouth, teasingly grazing it with her teeth, sending a rush pooling through you that makes you whimper louder.

And the second that sound slips past your lips, is the same second that Agatha can’t contain the low, throaty sigh that escapes her.

Time seems to compress, each heartbeat reverberating in your chest, leaving you breathless and aching for more, as if every inch of you is ablaze—and only Agatha has the power to quell the flames.

And then, without a word, she reaches into her pocket, retrieving a sleek hotel key card. You manage to catch a glimpse of what it swipes on the elevator panel:

Penthouse Suite

Your breath catches.

Your heart thuds.

Every inch of you pulses at the implication.

Breaking the kiss once more, Agatha pulls back just enough to look into your eyes, her expression a mix of possessiveness and desire.

“It’s time to show you who you really belong to.”

Continue reading on AO3:

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Hey I realy like your yandere twisted wonderland x kny post(s). Can I ask for the yandere dorm leaders react to (platonic and non-yandere) Tsutako Giyu blocking any of the leaders' romantic advancements toward their tanjirou!reader, because Giyu does not trust the leaders at all? Please and thank you,take care of yourself.

Tomioka Giyuu Blocking Tanjiro Reader| Yandere Twisted Wonderland

While Tsutako would certainly do that if you were her sibling but what would an average woman be able to do for you against a bunch of magical suitors stalkers. Tomioka is the one who’d really be an obstacle. No one seems to like him, let alone notice him half the time but his words are golden to you and the boys are having quite a lot of trouble getting past him. Giyuu himself may think he’s trash but you are most certainly not. You’re walking perfection and if he’s going to use the placeholder position of Hashira he’s using it to protect you: 

Idia Shroud

“Whoa!? When did you get here?!”

“A couple minutes ago.”

“Oh…okay then…”

“...”

“...”

“If you bring that device anywhere near (Y/n) I’m slicing your legs off.”

He first thought Giyuu was like him

A fellow loner who could understand his desire to have you

And he found that Giyuu was a loner

Just not one that was friendly to him

And he’s more than aware of Idia’s influence but that won’t matter when Giyuu’s faster than Ortho when it comes to his blade

“A-a worthy opponent h-has entered the chat!”

Leona Kingscholar

“They won’t have to die fighting that demon king or whatever. Don’t you want that?”

“I want them to be the next water Hashira and if you’re going to get in the way of that I know over 46 pressure points on your body that will temporarily paralyze you.”

He didn’t like him from the start 

He’s expression, his face, all of it infuriates him

Not to mention he really is that much faster than him

Leona’s going to have to try another tactic to get this guy off your back

“Maybe we’re not hearing each other right. How about you put down the sword and then try stopping me?”

Vil Schoenheit

“You seem really intent on getting in my way…is this jealousy?”

“It's not but you remind me of someone horrible.”

“Oh? Is it yourself?”

“Nope it's a horrible woman named Shinobu Kocho.”

He’s no match for him physically 

But his charisma greatly exceeds Giyuu’s 

Something he’s sure to remind the Hashira of with every chance

But since Giyuu doesn’t seem to sway he’s got to be more conniving

Which should be fine for someone with poisons against a sword

“Hope this isn't your first time playing with poisons because it may be your last.”

Azul Ashengrotto 

“You might be interested in knowing the future, right? Wouldn’t you like to find out?”

“You sound like a demon.”

“Oh? Am I a handsome one at least?”

“I kill demons for a living.”

“...oh..”

Azul’s own charm doesn’t save him here and it's killing him

He already has to woo you 

and this guy isn’t budging 

The twins won’t bother him 

And he won’t even look at a contract

This octopus is getting desperate

“You won’t like me when I’m cornered Giyuu.”

Kalim Al Asim 

“What?! Why would you want to leave? I have more of that bread you like!”

“Nice try but we have a job to get to.”

“But how do you plan to do your job when you’re going to get hurt?”

“That shouldn’t matter to a civilian like you!” 

While Giyuu is entranced by the way Kalim seems to like him

He’s sure its a trick 

And he can’t afford to die before giving you his title

“Hey. Don’t leave, we were just having fun!”

Malleus Draconia

“Why would you leave this place? If you are certain you are going to die, why bring my (Y/n) with you?”

“I’m not bringing them anywhere, this is their decision. Don’t you want to honor their avenging of their family?!”

“Not if it means losing them!”

This is a hard one 

Malleus can actually defeat Giyuu 

But his will is strong as well as his effect on you 

So he can’t be too hasty

But a prince forgets and Giyuu’s in trouble

“If you are going to be such a problem for us, I will just skip to a time where you are not alive.”

Riddle Rosehearts

“As the queen’s decree you cannot just run off with my subjects or prospective lovers!”

“And I can’t stand you types.”

“Grr! Off with his head!”

He doesn’t initially have a problem with him

But to see you rely on someone so awkward much taller

It irks him

Even worse he’s warning you about him now

And he can’t have that

“Don’t get in my way unless you want to be beheaded too!"

[mreowsu]

OPERA SERIA‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

⎯⎯⎯ Watch your back, be smart. It does not care about wealth or status. Once it creeps in, unnoticed, it's too late.

c/w: kinda yandere aphelios x semi-oblivious fem reader. established relationship. possessive/obsessive behavior. imprisonment. unbalanced power dynamic. brief mention of blood. modern au. Phel's job as a lunari soldier is depicted with him working as a mercenary for the goverment. Alune is still a spiritual presence, I'd like to think that supernatural powers still exist in this au. w/c: 5.2k

Leaning on the balcony, the cool pavement of marbled railing pressed against your elbows. The night was as dark as it could get; a mosaic of glittering white dots with the moon hung high in its rightful place. The air was crisp, and a little too cold for your liking, but you stayed put, clutching your half finished wine glass like a lifeline.

Your eyes drifted over the city ahead, it was a few kilometers from your home, give or take. Though far enough for the lights to look like distant little twinkling stars.

It was absurdly quiet, save for the distant sounds of occasional honking from cars and the shallow waters hitting the rocks below your home.

Your home. Perched high and above, far from the noise. It was a 'sanctuary', a place to keep you soundly safe, to make you feel safe. Yet tonight, you felt no better than a bird with lost feathers, nor a cat derived of its claws. It felt like a cage.

Your gaze wandered up the sky, where the moon's light engulfed you and eveything it could like an overly ambitious disco ball. "Gosh," you muttered, eyes squinting against the rays of light shooting down on you. "The moon is so extra tonight." You sighed, taking a swig of your wine.

You had everything you could ever dream of—and here you we're, in a ridiculously expensive penthouse, surrounded by more luxuries than a palace and still, you feel like.. like a gilded.. Potato.

You swirled the wine in the glass, watching it catch light.

"I've got a fridge stocked with gourmet cheese and artisanal crackers, but what's the point if there's rarely someone to argue with over the last slice of brie?" You mumbled into your palm, recalling the time you've ordered the refreshments with the intent of sharing them with your boyfriend—only to constantly be met with silence and an empty chair. It'd be far better suited to call him your roommate when you could count the times the both of you have been in the same room on one hand. Hell, even that might be too much.

You let a sigh escape and took a sip of your wine, savoring the irony. You had a view that could grace the cover of Architectural Digest, yet all you could think about was how dreadfully quiet and rigid it was.

Tapping your perfectly manicured nails on the pavement, you thought; you used to be fun. Remember fun? Parties, friends, laughter... Wait, did you even have friends or were they just really well-dressed placeholders?

You chuckled to yourself, picturing your so-called social circle. The faces blurred in your mind, all blending into a montage of selfies and Instagram stories. "Wow, I really hit the jackpot with that one," you snorted. "A thousand followers and not a single real conversation. Perfect." Another sigh.

You glanced over your shoulder to see the interior of your bedroom. Everything in there was either velvet, gold, or an unnecessary combination of both. It was like living inside a jewelry box, one that was perpetually too shiny.

You sighed again, this time louder just for good measure, in case the universe hadn't caught on your mood yet—or maybe it has, that would explain the overwhelmingly bright moonbeams sinking you. Perhaps, in a futile attempt in getting your soul to match it's radiance.

Your fingers tightened around your glass of wine. It was strange, really. To be surrounded with all these bling and shine, you felt oddly empty.

Is this how Batman feels? All moody and brooding in his high-tech lair, except, you don't have a Batmobile—you really wished you did though. Instead, what you had was just a ridiculous amount of shoes.

You eyes trailed over your walk-in closet, a shrine to retail therapy that had done little to stave off the creeping loneliness. But hey, you still we're real thankful for the red bottoms stashed in there.

"What kind of first-world problem is this?" You mused, you had always scoffed at the thought. You used to wonder if you'd really be happy accepting this lifestyle, liking this little life. But now, standing alone in your penthouse, you got it. You've totally got it.

Your eyes drifted back to the moon, and a bittersweet smile crept onto your lips.

"I wonder what Aphelios would say if he could see this."

Ah.. You chuckled at the thought of your boyfriend. Aphelios.

He was the source of all your luxuries, the reason you lived in this penthouse, dripping in designer everything. After all, his wealth and status as a lunari mercenary meant he had showered you with gifts that could give even the Kardashians a run for their money. Yet here you still we're, leaning on a fancy railing, feeling as empty as a busted piñata after a kids' party.

It wasn't that you didn't appreciate him—you did. In fact, your adoration for him could almost be considered too much. That was all you could do anyway. Give love, and be loved. You had poured so much of yourself to him, but there was a clear line between love and dependency, and somewhere along the way, that line had blurred. You wouldn't be obediently holed up in this penthouse in the first place if it hadn’t.

You cherished every part of him—well, as much as you could love someone who communicated mainly through occasional head nods. And when he did, it would be manipulative curt and controlling firm.

But despite the lifestyle, that by the way, you found out from Aphelios in his rare moments of sharings, that you could consider the nightly moonbeams as Alune watching over the two of you—still, you couldn't shake the feeling of being utterly and completely alone.

'Well, there's Alune and there's Aphelios,' you thought with a blue, lopsided smile. You imagined him standing next to you, all stoic and silent. Probably trying to communicate something profound with just a look.

Because that was all you could do, after all. Think and imagine.

"Hey, Aphelios," you weakly said towards the sky, "the moon's keeping an eye on me all too well. You should tell your sister to chill." That made you giggle.

What a strange life you led—wealthy, lonely, and dating a guy who had a direct line to the moon, who was also rarely home. If someone had told you this years ago, you would have laughed in their face. But now that you we're actually here, living this reality, you wondered who'd be laughing instead.

You thought about how much you had underestimated seclusion. 'You'd feel a tiny bit alone is all' my ass. You mocked. Is this how Alune feels? Seriously, you used to think that being rich would make you immune to it, like a fancy vaccine. But instead, it feels like you're the lonely princess in a tower, compensated with luxurious bags and platinum credit cards. A Rapunzel rip-off.

You could find a hobby, just something to pass time, since the last time you had tried to apply for a job, let's just say.. it ended with a few misguided conceptions.

‎

You sat at the dinner table, fidgeting with your fork, barely noticing the beautifully plated meal in front of you. Aphelios as usual, was quiet, his gaze focused on his food. Not even a blink sent your way. The moonlight streamed through the windows, a silent greeting from Alune. It casted a glow that seemed to make the guy sat across you even more ethereal, highlighting his angular features. If that was possible.

"So," Aphelios began lowly, he glanced up at you through dark lashes, breaking the silence. His voice had a slight rasp to it, you guessed it was from the noctum intake beforehand, though its effects had already worn off long ago. "I heard you were looking for a job."

Your fork clattered onto the table. You hadn't expected him to find out about your little secret application spree so soon. You had only applied for a few jobs—nothing major, just a couple of boutique shops and an art gallery. It wasn't about money; it was just about having something to do while he was off being the government's top asset all day.

You forced a casual smile, hoping to defuse the situation. "Oh, that." You picked your fork back up, "It was nothing serious, just something to pass the time, you know?"

Aphelios was silent for a moment, you figured he was chewing with the way his jaw suddenly tightened and flexed profusely, then set down his utensils, expression unreadable.

"I thought..." he blinked, "I thought we had everything we needed." He lifted his head, and you finally had a good look at him in a while; dark cascading hair, somehow a little longer than the last you've seen it, pale, even skin, high cheekbones and an angled jawline.

Eventually your eyes drifted towards the one thing you've been avoiding the whole meal; his eyes.

Because the moment you do; meant to chain and lock you in place. Imprisoned, just like a statue of a museum's hollowed halls, and the only means of serendipity is being fortunate enough to be frozen cold by the embrace of stone. His vision was already piercing right through you, as if waiting for you to meet his gaze the whole time you've been drinking him in with your own.

He stared at you with question, holding a look to his face—impassive and deathly cold. His lips were set in a natural line, neither smiling nor frowning, yet intense all the same. A mere feature that showed little of his displease, like a porcelain doll—perfectly unmoving, perfectly controlled. It was the face he wore during every argument, a reminder of the power he held over you, and a silent warning of the consequences if you dared to defy him. It's definitely an expression you'd need not be showing to a significant other in the moment of a brewing argument.

But, still, you held his eyes, despite the growing dread coiling in your stomach, as if obeying an unspoken royal’s decree. An absolute command—one that meant a grim fate if transgressed.

And his eyes said just that. Deep, dark voids of pure nothingness that seemed to lure you, pulling you deeper the longer you locked gazes. To break eye contact would be to admit defeat, to acknowledge his control. But the longer you stared, the more you felt yourself unraveling, falling deeper into the void that was him.

Aphelios must have sensed your weakening resolve, because his expression softened, just barely. It was enough to draw you in further, to make you believe, even if only for a moment, that he might actually care. But you knew better. Or at least, you should have.

Once Aphelios realized he's got you ensnared once again, wrapped in his cold, pale hands, he continued, "You have everything you need." a soft murmur—the sound was delicate, almost tender, almost imperceptible that had you straining to hear, desparate for each word, his utterance, the sound of his voice.

He had stated it in a matter-of-fact manner, but his eyes, however, told you a different story—black, glass of orbs, and you, foolishly reflecting in them. As if they had taken hold of your very soul, and no matter, you couldn’t even bring yourself to look away.

This was a man who have brought you the moon and stars—literally. Alune had probably blessed every piece of furniture in this penthouse.

If you knew any better, you’d have turned a deaf ear to the sly confusion and the hint of connivance hurt woven into his words.

Except, you didn’t, and you wouldn’t.

Senselessly, you’ll continue to fall for it. You always did.

His manipulation was a drug, one you couldn’t quit, no matter how much it distorted your mind, corrupted your soul. You believed each lie, clung to every promise, and followed his words like a moth to a flame.

And so, you continued to fall, right into his arms, where you were always meant to be. The hands that had you wrapped in their tightened their grip, pulling you closer, until you were wrapped up in him completely. This was where you belonged, where he wanted you, and despite everything, you wouldn't be able to resist. You couldn’t. Naively, because you love him.

Yet, how could you explain that you just wanted something of your own, something that wasn't tied to him? Why was it so hard to unpack baggage? What you really felt? To Aphelios?

Accompanied with the moonbeam's brilliance the seemed to reach greater heights, his statement from before seemed to flutter through the air like a caress, his whisper. It brushed against your ears, fleeting, and in response sent a shiver tracing its way down your spine like frost. As if it was your lover's wordless encouragement of getting you to talk.

With a deep breath, you complied. "It's not about needing anything," you gulped, trying to find the right words. "I just thought it would be nice to do something, to keep myself busy."

His face remained motionless, a sheet of ice. Though his gaze hardened, intensifying the dark pools within. You felt a pang of guilt stab through you, retract, then sheathing again, over and over. A relentless dagger.

It left your insides disarray. A gutted despair. This would explain how your insides are red; from the savage guilt that viciously attacked you for daring to go against Aphelios' wishes, when he only desired for you to be in a place he deemed safe.

"Then, were you going to do this without telling me?" Aphelios asked, his voice calm but with an edge that sliced through your defenses. Pathetic. Who were you kidding? One look, and they’d be down like they were never there in the first place. "Were you planning on keeping secrets from me?"

You swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise up your throat, shifting uncomfortably in your chair, feeling suddenly very small under his scrutinizing gaze, you could feel him burning holes into you. He was waiting, expecting, your reassurance. You knew what he wanted to hear, and a part of you longed to give it to him, to say the words that would ease his possessive grip, at least for a moment. But the other, wiser part of you, the part that had secretly sought a way out, screamed at you otherwise.

"I wasn't trying to keep a secret. I just... didn't think it was that big of a deal."

"No?" Aphelios leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Not a big deal?"

You notice him shift between your eyes, searching your face for expressions—any kind of reaction, to unearth one more wrong move of yours, something to tick a mark off his painstaking list of reasons to justify his own demands of you. When you didn't humor him, his lips moved.

"You're applying for jobs as if our life together isn't enough."

'As if what I'm providing you isn't enough.' is what he meant to say, you knew.

The porcelain mask of his face threatened to crack, with the way he's trying to hold back a frown. His lips twitched while the dark of his eyes swirled in malaise. "What else are you hiding?"

You let your brows furrow, and the room seemed to grow colder, a cold breeze brushing against your skin. The sudden chill made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on edge. Goosebumps, like tiny diamonds of frost, began to adorn your skin. They spread gently, like the touch of moonlight across a quiet lake. Your arms, once warm, now bore the delicate, cold tracery of Aphelios’ voice. Timbres of his seemed to quiet even the whistling of wind outside the windows. Yet your insides screamed impending doom, a contrary to the stillness of the room.

You hadn't thought it would come to this. It was just a few applications, just a whim. You didn’t realize it would strike such a chord with him.

"I'm not hiding anything," you said softly, "I just thought I could find something to do, something that makes me feel useful." A reason to leave this place.

Each time you opened your mouth, you feared you'd be saying the wrong things, adding fuel to fire, and worse, having your boyfriend tighten his clutches around you. And unfortunately, much to your obliviousness, is already happening.

He was quiet once more, only peering at you with lidded eyes, yet somehow, his silence was far more alarmingly menacing, pressing down heavily on your shoulders. You struggled to breathe.

The goosebumps trailing your skin increased, and you found yourself immobilized once more.

It hurt.

Like two glinting fangs, its sharpness promising allurance and pain. They pierced through your tender skin, slowly and with deliberate grace. They held your limbs in place. Blood welled up, like crimson flowers blooming under its pale moon.

Your pale moon.

And it hurt.

It was a silent devotion, a willing offer for drinking and feeding. They continue to sink words into your flesh, through your veins, seeping through each fibre of your body, to ultimately snaking in your head, it left your mind ahaze of any rationale thinking and with only one thing; to never leave.

You heard red, loud sirens wailing in your head. Constantly blinking in your mind like a strobe light and flashing the words: danger, danger, danger.

The sound thrummed your very limbs, threatening to replace order of the first that's currently flowing through your veins. Urgency throbbed beneath your skin.

Something was wrong.

As you stared back at your lover's eyes, deep and unreadable, you were suddenly reminded that he is, in fact, a mercenary of the government. A warrior for hire. A private military contractor. Hell, he's their top fucking asset.

You haven't given it much thought before, but as that fact sunk deeper into the crevices of your head, your instincts sharpened and your senses heightened. The blaring got increasingly louder, each wail a desperate plea, a cry, warning you of the man before you was very, very much dangerous.

He could do whatever to you, and you'd be defenseless.

Your vision blurred and the tears pricking at the corner of your eyes poised to slip at your revelation.

Aphelios noticed your tears, and took the liberty to talk himself.

"You don't think your presence here is enough? You don't think being with me is enough?" His voice was low, almost a whisper, almost calculated, but each word hit you like a blow. It felt hostile, he felt hostile and you wished he had stayed silent instead.

Your face twisted and burned with hot tears, no matter how tight you clasped your hands on your lap, tears hovered on the brink and wet your lashes.

Your breathe came in shallow, uneven gasps as the first escaped from the corner of your eye, tracing a glistening, burning path down the delicate crevice of your cheek. It was followed by another, then another, and another, until your fingers left your lap to desperately wipe at your face in hopes to still the steady streaming.

You wondered how he could have said such a thing. How had a simple desire to pass the time turned into this? You had always thought the both of you had a mutual understanding, that your lives together, while unconventional, were fulfilling. But, now you saw the cracks, the things left unsaid that had festered until this moment.

"I didn't mean it that way," you pleaded. "I just... I just wanted something for myself."

Aphelios stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. The action caught you off guard, and you let a quiet sob escape you, shoulders trembling.

He tapped a finger on the table, and your eyes followed it—avoiding his eyes. "If my opinions in this relationship don't matter, then maybe we need to rethink everything."

The words slipped out, cold and calculated, but Aphelios didn’t mean them—not really. He just needed to hear you say it, to contradict the words. To deny the possibility of a world without him in it. He needed to know that you were still his, as much as he was yours.

Aphelios wouldn’t hurt you, not physically, anyway. That much was true. But the idea of you straying, of seeking solace or purpose outside of the relationship, was unbearable. He couldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t. You were important to him. So sweet to him. So dutiful. So compliant.

You felt the weight of the words press tenfold down on you, his presence almost oppresive. Leaving you no room for indulgence. After all, his words were absolute. Still, you wanted to look at him, to see the emotion in his eyes, if he really meant what he said. But something held you back—fear, perhaps, or maybe the unsettling knowledge that you were standing on the edge of something far more dangerous.

You didn’t respond right away, and the silence gnawed at him, a bitter, growing void that threatened to consume him whole. He kept his face impassive, but inside, he was shitting his pants.

Maybe now would be a definite time to drink the poison and forever hold his tongue. Perhaps, even Alune could help, but he didn't like the thought of his sister lecturing him with the way he handles his relationships, what did she know? She could never understand. You and him—your love exclusively festered for him, and your bond was something only for the both of you to understand.

Speaking of which—you, your silence was starting to bother him, and he could feel the unease creeping in, a gnawing sense of discomfort, unfamiliar as it was unwelcome. Could you be thinking of leaving? Had you found something or someone else that filled the space he once occupied in your heart? Was that why you were applying for jobs?

No. That couldn’t be.

But you won't even look at him. Your eyes, usually so full of warmth and light, were now trained on his finger tapping the table, avoiding his gaze. It stung, more than he would ever admit, but he couldn’t let that show. Not now.

The silence stretched, thick and heavy, and Aphelios fought the urge to break it himself. He needed you to speak, to reassure him, to remind him that you were still his, that you hadn’t changed your mind. But the longer you remained quiet, the more his composure began to fray at the edges.

Why weren't you saying anything? Were you challenging him, testing his patience? Or were you afraid, too afraid to speak? He likes to think it was the latter—fear was easier to control, easier to mold. But what if it wasn’t fear at all? What if you were growing distant, slipping away from him little by little?

He absolutely could not allow that.

He tapped his finger on the table again, and the silverware on the table jumped and clinked from the sheer insistence, hoping to draw you out, to force you to meet his eyes. But you just stared at the spot where his finger touched the wood, refusing to look up, refusing to acknowledge the tension that was building inbetween.

His mind raced, cycling through possibilities, searching for the right words, the right approach to pull you back. He needed to act quickly before the silence turned into something worse, something he couldn’t control.

“Talk to me,” Aphelios finally said, his voice softer now, though still laced with the dangerous edge from before, a countermeasure to your reaction, a brace for impact. “Don’t shut me out.”

You finally peered up at him with trembling eyes, "Sit down, please." you whispered, looking up at him through tear-filled vision. "I didn't mean to make you feel like you don't matter. I won't apply for any more jobs. I promise."

Aphelios' shoulders sagged slightly, but there was obviously still tension in his body. Usually, you were so predictable, thoughts and feelings an open book that he could read at a glance. But now, you were starting to shut him out, keeping things from him, and it was driving him mad. 

Wordlessly, he sat back down, picking up his fork again, though his appetite seemed as absent as yours.

The room was silent, save for the soft, stifled sounds of your sobbing. The tears continued to fall, dropping on the marbled plate before you. Aphelios only continued to eat in silence, eyes focused on his food, as if choosing to shut out the sounds of your sobs for his betterment. How hypocritical of him, now he was the one shutting you out. He even had the audacity to act as if the sight of you hurt him more.

The clink of cutlery resounded in the room, mingling with your cries.

You know, this could've been a sick beat. You'd most definitely sample this if you worked as a musician. But due to circumstances, that seemed like a distant dream. Very out of reach, if you will.

As the minutes wore on, the tears began to slow, leaving a damp trail on your cheeks, you sat there exhausted. The fight drained out of you, and the remnants of Aphelios' oppression drying on your skin.

For now, you kept your head down, eating your meal in silence, resigned to a life where your every move would be watched, where every desire would have to be weighed against Aphelios' better judgment.

Because you were his. From the moment you met, he had known it—had felt the pull of fate wrapping like an unbreakable chain. You were his only means of salvation in this barren wasteland. He loved you, adored you, but that love came with a price. It meant that you had to be his and his alone. No one else could have you. No one else could even think of touching you, of taking you away from him.

Aphelios peered up from his plate of food, watching you closely, eyes narrowing as he tried to read your expressions, to understand what was going on in that beautiful head of yours. You were thinking—probably—debating, weighing options. And he needed to be sure that, in the end, there would be only one option left for you..

Him.

A cage, yes, that’s what it was, and you, the willing prisoner. Not one you could see or touch, but a cage all the same. It would be of his making, crafted carefully and patiently, with just enough room for you to breathe, but never enough to leave. You wouldn’t even know you were in it until it was too late.

‎You would walk right into it willingly, he was sure of that. He just needed to dangle the right treat, say the right words, and you would follow. And once you were inside, he would close the door and lock it, forever.

He smiled, just a little, as he watched you struggle with your thoughts. You were precious to him, so very precious. And he would do whatever it takes to keep you, to make sure you stayed right where you belonged.

In the palm of his hand.

And since then, you would never do anything without Aphelios knowing. It wasn't worth the arguments, the hurt. But never, ever would you bite down your own tongue, you'd rather much choose to die.

Welp, there goes your social life.

So.. knitting, pottery, talking to houseplants—or rather, yourself... something to fill the silence, to distract yourself of the unshaking feeling of loneliness that just seemed to follow you wherever like a loyal dog.

You pondered, picturing yourself hunched over a potter's wheel, clay smeared on your face.

"Yeah, that's not happening."

You sighed, taking a last swig of your wine. A gust of wind blew against you, and you pulled your robe tighter. You wrapped an arm around yourself, though not for warmth but, perhaps to hold yourself together.

"If only I'd known." You mused aloud, glancing at the moon. You could almost imagine Alune winking, as if to say, 'Yeah, girl, get used to it.'

You guessed that was one of the things Aphelios liked about you, and one of the things you hated about you. Your heart, so expansive and eager to love. The way you'd embrace every nuance of his affection and all the things not. Even at the cost of your own, in exchange for his struggles, his pain. You loved too hard, too deeply, and sometimes it felt more like a burden rather a gift.

The intensity of your own feelings oftentimes led you overwhelmed, open, and exposed. And that was exactly just what Aphelios needed. Ensuring you in the curl of his cold fingers.

If you loved, the type to pour your heart out into every gesture and word, he'd match your fervor with a devotion that bordered on the obsessive.

It wasn't enough for him to love you just as much as you loved him; he needed to surpass it, to ensure that his affection enveloped you entirely, as much as he'd see fit. So your heart would only react to him, your mind respond to him, until the only name branded into your mind was his, and only his. Aphelios.

His love was a force as captivating as it was consuming. And when he loved, it was all-encompassing. Surging with every heartbeat, a tempest that sought to claim every corner of your entire being.

He needed to be the center of your world, and in return, he made sure his revolved around you.

The whole thing manifested in small ways, a devotion that demanded your full submission, your surrender. So, it'd be safe to say that with the intensity of your own feelings, he'd just be mirorring and magnifying with his own.

You're just as insane as him.

You glanced back inside, a palace of pristine luxury. Every piece of furniture, every glittering surface, screamed extravagance. And it was all a gift from Aphelios but, his constant absence turned it into a feeling of living in a golden-velveted birdcage.

It was ironic, really. He's out fighting who-knows-what, while you were left to rattle around in his absence.

You leaned further over the balcony, dramatically slinging an arm out and clenching the wine glass tighter in your other hand.

"What's the point of having a boyfriend if he's never around to eat food I ordered? Or, you know, just be here?"

A truck honked from afar, loud enough to catch you off guard. To stir you from nonsense. You stood up straight, shook your head and let out a wistful laugh.

You could wait for Aphelios, though he'd most likely be back at the wee hours of midnight, or tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, or next week—still, you find his silence more comforting than any words could ever be. Well, the type of silence where he's not pissed. 

Anyhow, he'd always come back home to you. You're sure, because if he went and stayed the night at another's—you'd be damn sure to return the favor and snap his neck.

Tonight, you're content to just stand here and let the moon's ridiculous glow remind you of him. Light engulfing you whole.

"Okay, Alune," you said, shaking your head with a smile, "you win this round, you crazy celestial diva."

With that, you would retreat back inside, to where your luxurious prison awaited.

Maybe you'd light some candles, pour another glass of wine, and pretend that the moon's glow was just the world's most elaborate nightlight, instead of a reminder of your lover's semi-present life.

As you stepped back into the penthouse, you glanced one last time at the moon. "My love," you whispered to the sky.

"Hope you're out there being all heroic and broody. And maybe, just maybe, thinking of me too."

© 2024 mreowsu / strictly NO rewriting, reposting, or any form of alternation distributed of my works without myfirm permission.

eng not my main language so I shall come forth and apologize if there were terms that I used in all the wrong ways that caused u english speakers cringe 😔 or am I.. anyway and I quote "he's a 10 but he's batshit insane (so an 11)" -milksuu, in that one phel fic that shall not be named

[inkdragonworks]

June Update

Breaking the chain of not updating to talk about what I've been working on. As the absence of Poppin & Jupa here can tell, I switched projects back in April, to an older one I worked on for about 8 months in 2022. Main reason was feeling dejected a bit after the animation didn't do as well as I was expecting; been getting the impression that Tiera is more popular than them with folks lol.

Again I won't be cancelling it, or never working on PnJ, just switching focus so I can stay productive and make something that feels fun for me, which this has.

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

As a refresher, here's the game I've been picking at:

The game's current design can be broken down into:

intro sequence to introduce Tiera and the setting

initial puzzle + encounter to introduce the main mechanics

large hub in the form of Fragaria Park where you avoid the main threat, collect items, interact with side attractions, and access the 4 side areas

4 side areas, which have their own puzzles/challenges within with a primary goal at the end that progresses you towards the final escape

optional collectibles Since April I've worked on a part of the large hub, 3 of the 4 side areas, and the optional collectibles.

"Who works on optional stuff before the main game is done" well they play off of the main mechanics but mainly it's an excuse to draw something cute instead of programming.

These are Anna Banana and The Fruit Friends (Also Strawberry), characters from a cartoon show that Tiera likes (Except Strawberry).

They don't play any significant role/impact in the game (Besides Strawberry), but they reveal part of Tiera's interests, they form a small bit of the world's background, they make for fun type of collectible that gives something to do besides the main puzzles, and, again, I just felt like drawing cute shit.

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

For the hub, I worked on a themed side area dedicated to a playground. This does have puzzle elements in it, but a lot of it are silly interactions, and a reference to that cartoon I did a while back. Maybe you can recognize it here.

It's one of those "makes the setting feel more realized/fleshed out" deals.

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For the side areas, what I've mainly been doing is settling on their exact design, blocking out the areas, and working on their puzzle sequence, obstacles, and any single screens that are tied to it.

Here's what I mean by "single screen":

Something that cuts away from the main game to it's own puzzle. This one here is for the performance theater. All graphics are placeholders just to get the logic in and see if it might work.

Making these type of puzzles is fun cause it reminds me the most of Resident Evil 1 and various flash adventure games I've played.

As for obstacles, a significant one I'm playing with for the theater is darkness, making use of Tiera's sonar to detect a safe path around deep pits.

She won't fall off right away, but it's tied to the same stamina system.

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Another side area are the sewers, everyone's favorite video game setting. That obviously involves water, but the trickiest thing about it has been dealing with really complicated patterns of depth changing.

What that means is Tiera climbing up and falling down a lot, and trying to keep track of that. Here's what that looks like without proper graphics:

I'm very happy with how the area is turning out so far though, it's something you'd get to later and I think the puzzles do a good job of reflecting that progression.

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The last side area I've poked at was the final sequence of the game. I've had a lot of different ideas of how to go about it but I think I'm happy with the set of them I have planned, something that builds up towards the climax and building off of what was set up in the rest of the game.

I wanna be careful about spoiling it, but here's one effect from it I've started work on:

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I'm trying not to overshare here, though there's a lot more I've thrown into my server that I couldn't here. One of the side areas I haven't gotten to really pinning down is the Hedge Maze. I have a basic outline, but the main obstacle involved requires more dynamic logic. It's hard to settle on what that logic should be without set level design, and it's hard to settle on level design without knowing the limitations of that logic.

It's a similar issue with the main challenge of the game, both for the player and for designing: the ghosts.

What's intimidating is the feeling that they need to be very deliberate in this type of game, to balance between adding tension without veering into frustration. I'm hoping tackling everything surrounding them will make me more confident, but odds are I'll have to start with something simple and half-broken just to break the ice. And accepting I'll have to make something that gets thrown away, which I'm not used to doing... I really prefer thinking through stuff first before making it.

Anyway, thank you for reading.

[tomatoland]

Force & Book's relationship is quintessential gardener-flower relationship

So the idea of the gardener-flower dynamic is not new. It's actually been around for awhile now and has been in media (for example, season 1 of Will & Grace, the movie "I, Tonya," Will Smith made a video called "Defining Love" talking about it, but more about this in a sec), articles, etc.

It's a concept that in every relationship or “garden,” one person is the gardener who tends and one person is the flower who gets tended to. There can also be two gardeners in a relationship, but never two flowers because then no one would care to tend to anything.

In their relationship, Force is the gardener and Book is the flower. And they understand this too. Force is Book's “Life Master,” right?

Force's efforts in the early days as the gardener of their relationship are well documented in the FB fandom. How he nurtured their relationship and connection when Book was too scared to engage during Enchante era due to a painful friend experience in college.

But it's not just nurture, love and care that the gardener provides to the flower and their relationship and this next part is where I think Force is an amazing and natural gardener with Book.

"The relationship that a gardener has with a flower is, the gardener wants the flower to be what the flower is designed to be — not what the gardener wants the flower to be. You want the flower to bloom and to blossom and to become what IT wants to be, you want it to become what God designed it to be. You’re not demanding that it become what you need it to be for your ego.” -Will Smith

Whatever Book does, Force is his Number 1 supporter.

"Geng mak" or good job/well done is the unofficial foxmochi cheer because Force is always telling Book this after he performs or speaks or even illogically when they are playing on separate teams lol.

Book's love language is words of affirmation and Force always lets Book know because he knows this. And now Book tells Force this back. And foxmochis tell them both at events and appearances.

You might think this dynamic is unfair or unbalanced to the gardener because you would think that being flower is easy. The flower just exists and receives love and attention, but these were interesting insights I read about why being the flower can actually be hard. First, you have accept that you are the flower which is not so easy to do, accepting the care and nurture being given to you. It can be scary and intimidating to do the introspection, soul searching, and cliff jumping required to be the flower. There can be this fear that what you are doing is bringing down your partner. Sound a little like someone?

To me, it makes absolute sense that ForceBook as a pairing is flourishing this year because Book is truly coming into his own as the flower Force always knew he could be.

The more confident Book becomes in his abilities, in sharing his gifts with the world, the more people will see him and come to love him, to love THEM. And as a pairing, the more successful they'll be. Their star is rising sharply and while there are a lot of people in the background who contribute to this, I have to think that Force's role as the gardener to Book's flower factors significantly.

"And, as we grow, we’ll all be called upon to do some gardening of our own. Gardening that, because we’ve experienced love and care and support from others, we’ll inevitably be better at doing ourselves."

And we're now seeing this. This year was ForceBook's first LOL Fan Fest, first international fan meetings, and GMMTV fan days where they had to give speeches. And if you watch, during ments, when Force gets emotional, Book's hand always goes to Force's shoulder IMMEDIATELY as a sign of support like "I'm here for you/ Standing with you" and this helps ground Force enough so he can continue speaking (I can't find a photo rn so accept this placeholder until). Or the story they shared where they were both nervous while prepping for their first LOL Fan Fest and Force would come around and ask Book if Book wanted a hug… because Force wanted a hug. Force's love language is physical touch by the way if you couldn’t tell lol.

Or when they're doing an event or press and Force is tired or not feeling 100, Book will be MORE that day for the both of them or he'll check in on Force during interviews or press.

This unspoken dialogue and understanding they have between each other is really beautiful.

Force, I would say is still the primary gardener of their relationship, but now he doesn't always have to be. They can take turns supporting each other to be the best versions of themselves. And I love that for them.

eng trans from happyduckie_, CreamsicleBlair, ceci9697, khenhsdiary, minty_licious; articles 1 2 3 "Defining Love"

[sincerely-sofie]

Seeing as you have finished writing the script for your AU thingy, I wanna know, how?

Like, were you motivated the whole time? Or was it a on and off writing type thing?

i'm trying to write but I don't know if I have the motivation...

How did you keep the motivation if so?

Oh man. I have so much to say about writing and creativity that I could make an entire series of posts talking about the subject, but I'll try to keep things orderly and brief.

Disclaimer: I should let you know that I have never finished a writing project before recently finishing my TPiaG AU. Keep that in mind when reading the advice I offer— the tips I give have only been put into work in my own life over the course of the last couple of months, but they’ve proven very effective in my experience!

Sofie Creativity Tips Episode 1, go!!!

Was I motivated the whole time I was writing TPiaG / How did I stay motivated?

Absolutely not. If I hadn’t provided myself a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline for TPiaG before starting the writing process, I would have given up thanks to a mix of writer’s block and absent motivation. Motivation is a fickle muse and prone to ditching me for months on end, so I’ve adapted by trying not to rely on it, but also by creating new motivation rather than clinging to past motivation. I create motivation for myself in two ways: removing friction when writing and being my own fandom.

Removing friction is pretty simple— I create very detailed chapter outlines that remove any fear of writer’s block, set up my devices in a way to make it easy to access my manuscripts and notes, download premade writing playlists that have Pomodoro session break timers built into them, and more. Anything that makes the writing process easier to get into and enjoy doing, I make sure to incorporate into my life.

Being my own fandom is less intuitive, but a thousand times more rewarding in terms of motivation. I make memes of my characters. I write self-indulgent snippets on the side. I make AUs of my own work. I make playlists and save audio clips that suit the characters. I draw comics exploring concepts that might not get into the manuscript itself but that I want to make content for regardless. Basically, I dive in deep into the story, characters, and world, and try to do so with the enthusiasm that I give other people’s projects.

(That part is extra fun, because if I have a headcanon, it automatically becomes canon to whatever AU or original project I’m working on. I have all the power in the world when working like this, and it’s very fun.)

What changed and made it so I finished my first ever written project?

This isn’t exactly what was asked, but because I have eschewed motivation as the main driving force in my writing process, I figured I’d give another insight into how TPiaG went against the pattern of half-started and swiftly abandoned projects that came before it and actually got finished. Late into October, I adopted a new method of producing first drafts. Previously, I would spend weeks polishing the same chapter and would only move on to the next chapter once the current one was perfect. My new method is the complete opposite. I’ve started calling it Writing BFF:

Write bad

Write fast

Write fun

First up, write bad. The point of this is not to waste your time writing prettily during your first draft. Don’t bother agonizing over how to reword that one sentence to be more elegant when it does the job well enough to get its point across. Don’t go off on a 30-minute research tangent in the middle of a writing session because you want to fact-check that one detail and make sure it’s perfectly accurate when you could just put a placeholder detail in brackets and CTRL+F search and plug in something accurate later on. Don’t write pretty, write bad. And be okay with it. You can’t edit an empty page, so fill the page with as much garbage as possible so that you can turn it into gold later on.

Next, write fast. This is only effective when paired with writing bad. Don’t pause, don’t hesitate, don’t deliberate. Write as much as you can and do it as fast as you can. This idea is best illustrated by Chris Fox’s book 5,000 Words Per Hour, where he talks about increasing your WPM (words per minute) and how it makes everything about your writing better. The person who creates a beautiful first draft once every three years is doing okay, but the person who cranks out a complete manuscript every three months learns leagues more about writing than the first person does by the end of three years. The second person has practiced outlining, drafting, editing, publishing, and more with every manuscript completed. The faster you write, the better you get, because practice makes perfect and quantity begets quality.

Finally, write fun. I write what I enjoy, and if I’m not enjoying it, I pivot the project so that I enjoy it again. I like writing deeply personal stories, so pretty much everything I write is heavily based on my life and experiences— TPiaG included. Grovyle’s portrayal is deeply influenced by my experience being an elder sibling who has been a bad example of self-talk, and cleaned up my act because my younger sister started echoing how I spoke to myself. Dusknoir’s portrayal is informed by my experiences with being the therapist / mom friend in different social circles as well as attending actual formal therapy. Twig is the character that my experiences have the greatest influence on in her portrayal, and I joke about her being a self-insert, but ultimately all of the characters are self-inserts to some extent. I also enjoy low-stakes and slow slice-of-life stories that are driven by character growth. If I ever stop having fun with a project, I inject more of myself and my preferences into my work to get it back into my favor.

TL;DR / Writing advice lightning round

Write as badly as possible as quickly as possible, and have fun as you do it. Momentum yields motivation and stagnancy yields doubt. Editing comes only after the first draft is complete. Be your own fandom and your project’s biggest fan. Give yourself direction and ward against writer’s block by making detailed chapter-by-chapter outlines. Make the writing process as easy and enjoyable as possible. Motivation is a lie and if you chase after it instead of making your own, you’ll be writing on hard mode for the rest of your life. Reject perfectionism, embrace flawesomeness.

If I didn’t answer your question right, let me know! I’ll do my best to correct it.

[bow-of-aros]

Day Twenty-Two: Role Reversal

Summary: Daniel Jacobi is exhausted. Daniel Jacobi makes terrible fucking decisions when he's exhausted.

But, hey, at least he got to hear Kepler laugh before he dies.

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Hey folks! I struggled coming up with something for this prompt but we got there! This is literally the only way I get see Kepler being tickled and Jacobi is in Such Deep Shit. They are so silly. Hope that y'all enjoy!! <33

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“Officer Jacobi.” 

Kepler’s voice raised the hairs on the back of Jacobi’s neck. Their most recent mission had gone well with minimal casualties. Jacobi hadn’t even bothered him to the point of pulling over on the side of the road on the way back!

By all accounts, Kepler should be in a good mood.

But Jacobi’s continued survival sometimes hinged on telling the miniscule differences between Kepler’s tones. This was lower than average, the words clipped in a way they only were when Kepler was trying to curb whatever emotions he thought would give his thoughts away.

And Officer Jacobi? Kepler never called him officer. It was always Jacobi, or Mister Jacobi, or sometimes even Daniel if Kepler was trying to convince him to do something particularly heinous.

In short, Jacobi was fucked.

He looked up from his desk, all hopes of getting more than six hours of sleep fading into mist, and said, “Yes, sir?"

“Would you care to tell me what these are?”

Kepler was holding his mission report.

Or, at least, what was supposed to be his mission report.

In his exhausted state, Jacobi had decided that he could deal with that tomorrow and doodled a little picture of him in bed.

He’d been hoping that he’d look like that picture before Kepler decided to look at it.

“Look, I’m planning on getting it done tomorrow!” Jacobi tried to explain himself, “It’s just a placeholder until I get some sleep and can actually focus on it."

Kepler, stone faced, turned the paper around to show Jacobi the back.

Oh. Right.

“Is this also a placeholder, Mister Jacobi?” Is Jacobi hallucinating, or did the corner of his mouth just twitch upward?

It was a drawing of Kepler as a stick figure with some very angry eyebrows. Jacobi had his eyes closed with little z’s drifting up from his head.

He was also flipping Kepler the bird.

“…Yes?”

Jacobi didn’t get a response, so in a desperate bit to get home, he continued packing up his things. He made sure to do it slowly, any sudden movements might set Kepler off.

“You really gotta lighten up, sir.” Jacobi walked up to him, “Let loose, actually smile for once!”

Maybe it was delirium. Maybe it was exhaustion induced insanity. Maybe Jacobi was still riding the high of a job well done.

But he jabbed Kepler in the side like they were friends.

And Kepler clearly hadn’t been expecting it due to the sharp inhale that was cut off almost as soon as it had began.

That was new.

“Jacobi…”

Kepler’s tone was dangerous, a clear warning for Jacobi to back off unless he was looking for an early death.

Well, if he was going to plead insanity, might as well get as much as he can out of it.

Jacobi got a few rapid squeezes to Kepler’s side before he had to dance away. Kepler was not holding back and Jacobi wasn’t looking for a concussion right now.

But the attack hadn’t done what it had clearly intended to do, which was mask the half-flinch and choked exhale that escaped Kepler.

“Mister Jacobi, if you wish to keep your position you will ceASE—”

Because Jacobi had very little survival instinct (obviously. He worked for Goddard Futuristics. Under Warren Kepler.), he decided to take advantage of the fact that Kepler was speaking and wiggle a few fingers under his chin before rapidly pulling them away.

And there it was.

An honest to God giggle.

He’s sure that Kepler would insist that it was a catch in his throat, or maybe a shift in tone due to Jacobi’s insubordinate behaviour, but Jacobi knew.

He saw the brief flash of a genuine grin.

He heard Kepler laugh.

And now, seeing the murderous intent on his commanding officer’s face, Jacobi was pretty sure that it would be the last thing he ever heard.

“Run, Mister Jacobi.”

Wait, what?

“Sir—?”

An edge of mischief had crept into Kepler’s voice and a sort of giddy nervousness began to spread through Jacobi.

Kepler took a step forward, and Jacobi took a step back.

As he spoke, Kepler’s eyes glinted in the dim lighting of the office, and the reminder that they were the only two people there popped into Jacobi’s brain.

Nobody was here to help him.

Nobody would hear him scream.

“Three—”

Jacobi was gone before he could finish the word and an involuntary grin spread across his face when he head Kepler’s steady footsteps in pursuit.

“I will make you regret testing me, Mister Jacobi!”

Ha! Like hell he would.

Jacobi wouldn’t trade this for the fucking world.

[phantoms-autistic-hands]

HERE'S THE OUTLINE ABOUT THIS BRAINWORM

i haven't rly thought of a name for my OC so i'm just gonna use the placeholder name jean for now [after Jean Vic. don't @ me on this]. he might not even end up french tho we'll see…… anyway he was a sailor (don't ask me for further details, it's blurry. it's Real blurry) and he just got back from a voyage but he was discharged from the navy.

what happened during the voyage was he got into a relationship with a higher ranking officer and they were close but was pursuing their relationship knowing that when they get to land they won't be able to continue it (not if the officer wanted to stay in his social circles) buuut it was kind of an open secret on the ship. then there was an Accident, in which the higher ranking officer died (yes i'm going down the dead lover cliche pathway--shhh it's for the plot later). so when the higher ups were looking into the death, they found out about their relationship, which is why the discharge from the navy [[listen. i think at this point france has decriminalized homosexuality but i have no clue what it's like in the navy. so i'm assuming it's the don't ask don't tell thing. so don't @ me on this. or do, i would Love to know if anyone knows]]

so heartbroken and out of a job jean found a job vacancy of being a stagehand at the opera house. his job would be way down below the stage or way up above stage, and the job requirements reminds him of finding his way on a ship, so he's doing just fine with this. he does his job well enough, keeps his head down, tries to be friendly when he can.

after a while of doing bits and pieces here and there and he's established himself, the new chief stagehand gives him the main job of maintaining the area on the mezzanine floor where joseph buquet was killed (i'm smooshing leroux canon and alw canon together here btw. canon is toy blocks for me to pick and choose) since a lot of stagehands avoid that place like a plague. it's not out of malice, it's just that they all realize that jean doesn't rly believe in superstitions or ghosts so they're all like why not? he's knows about the stories but since he doesn't believe in ghosts (and thinks that anything about phantom as an actual dude is an exaggeration of events to attract patrons) he's like eh, alright.

all this happens while jean suspects that he's definitely traumatized by the events that happened during his voyage, obviously. he knows of stories of what happens to people who's traumatized enough. at this point in time he's given in to talking out loud to his dead lover when he's alone, so this is how one day erik heard him through that trapdoor into his home (/torture chamber). when erik tries to scare him off by speaking to him in a disembodied voice, jean Naturally thought that his trauma has given him auditory hallucinations. he at first breaks down about this because he thought he was doing better mentally, but this is a sure sign he isn't doing that great actually.

erik, absolutely confused about this reaction, decides to show himself physically after some time, just to prove to jean that he's not Actually having auditory hallucinations. but jean first mistook him for a lost patron, and is like sir u can't be here without supervision?? and jean's worried he'd lose his job if someone catches a patron wandering down here with only jean watching him bc he sure as hell ain't qualified to give patrons a tour below stage. but erik would mysteriously disappear any time anyone comes close to them. cue a whole bunch of meetings like this bc erik's lonely and this man new to the opera thinks he's a patron and treats him like a normal man and he's been starved of company ever since christine left and the mob hunted him done and he stopped bothering the opera

so they get closer. jean's half worried that erik's a hallucination, since he disappears a lot and is never seen by anybody else but jean, but he seems so real……

they get to a point where erik tells jean of christine and they bond over having lost someone they loved. erik speaks longingly of his dreams of being married and having a wife to go on sunday walks with

at this time jean is a little (a Lot) in love with him and gets his heart shattered into pieces bc god damn it he wants a wife Of Course he'd want a Wife...........

and then somehow erik finds out that jean is in love with Someone and he asks about it (somehow feeling something like Rage and Something Else because jean? in love? WHO WOULD CAPTURE THIS MAN'S ATTENTION? WHO DARES? WHO DESERVES IT?) and jean is like its of no matter (because he thinks erik wouldn't reciprocate. he's not the exactly right gender)

then jean spends a long time thinking it over and realizes that even if erik doesn't return his feelings, erik seems like someone who would benefit from being told that in this world Someone does loves him, even if he [erik] doesn't love jean back. so he tells him and it takes a while to convince erik of it but then erik remembers that jean said his love for erik is "no matter" and goes batshit about it bc does this mean he doesn't matter to jean????

and jean tells erik that it does matter. it matters to him a lot. erik matters to him a lot. but he can't give erik what he wants, their relationship would not exactly be an open one. it would be some secret thing, at the very least half hidden from society. he won't impose that on erik when he knows erik wants his little walks in the park with his lover........ erik's showing the 404 error code.

anyways idk how it goes from here but they'll get together. i swear

[tosodev]

Devblog 003:

Forgot my password to tumblr this morning and wound up making a hugely complicated password generator so it wouldn't happen again and so I could actually remember it.

Now time for actual dev content:

Since all the VFX has really been done and dusted I don't have any cool gifs to show you (that and I don't want to make them since it was really complicated.) So today I will have boring ass regular-degular screenshots. Sorry!

So first off I've implemented the save-file ranking system, of which there are 3 ranks. Silver (the basic one), Gold (the one that you get for doing something tdb), and the Rosegold (which you'll get for having the gold one and then doing something extra on top of it). I also have the hearts counter in place, which track how many "boss heros" you've killed so far. While your normal every day run of the mill hero's will be pretty easy and flimsy (and namely, randomly generated), these boss heros will occur at specific times or under specific conditions and will be like you took a high level dark souls player (me) and dropped them into your dungeon. And, as you can see, there are 5 of them. Which means they get harder. Pause for dramatic effect.

Next up I have the states of gameplay after you load a file. They have their names in the top corner of the screenshot for simplicity as well as their own color scheme which I discussed a little bit about in 002.

So in order we have:

The Combat Sate (red) : Which is for the player to use their own attacks and powers to directly combat the heros, seeing as you're the final boss and all I felt like you should be able to defend yourself. Also adds an extra layer to game design.

The Sponsor State (yellow): Will be your main way of getting GOLD which is the primary currency for all "static" buildings, traps, walls, etc. You'll accept them and they'll become visible in a sponsor tracker that I've yet to add, where you can see how happy the sponsor is with you and, in turn, how much gold they're willing to give you per day or let you spend on certain items.

The Editor State (blue): Pretty self explanatory, will allow you to place units, move units, walls, traps, etc again.

The Dialouge State (purple): This is where your little advisor goblin, which I've named Bartholomew because I thought it was funny, will speak to you. He acts as the tutorial guy for the beginning part of the game but will later on just kind of help with some more automatable tasks. Such as "if x is y then z". This is more of a later if I have time thing as it's complicated on paper so it might be more complicated in practice.

And finally the Shop State, which is basically completed apart from adding content and listings to it. This is where you buy units and everything else. You can use souls and/or gold but some units also come with a "gold/souls per day" stat, which since these monsters are your employees, will mean that you need to pay them per day. Lest they overthrow you. Gwa gwa gwa.

Right now all the listings are randomly generated and have some placeholder text as the description, but it does it's job and I know it works. As you can see here, "433" is the name of the item, "10x" is the quantity, "33g" is the basic one-time payment price and "82g/d" is the price you'd have to pay per day (obviously this will more than likely be souls since walls and traps will probably not have a gold price, but I hear dragons are pretty greedy...) And then the "Lorem ipsum" text is where the description would go.

Purchasing already works and gets added to an inventory not yet accessible to the player (today me's problem). So all I gotta do is just add in the rest of the gameplay loop elements and it should actually be playable (I say that as if that's not a lot of work.)

Ok well that's all for day 2. I'll open an ask page or whatever to answer any questions about OVERLORD while I'm working but don't expect me to keep up with it too closely.

That's all folks!

Katlikesnero

[sourcreammachine]

us state flag tierlist by how urgent the need to change them is

(not necessarily by objective quality, although they are ordered by my own personal preference within the tiers)

yeah everyone and their cunt’s done a tierlist of how good the us state flags are, but here’s one that’s more useful imo - how much they need to change. ie, how far up the statehouse’s agenda changing the shitass flag should be

the ‘perfect’ flags shouldn’t ever change. yeah, alabama’s good, i said it - it’s iconic and recognisable. and yeah colorado might be cheesy but it’s american cheese, it’s an icon. and arizona is the best flag do not @ me

‘ain’t broke don’t fix it’ means you can start nitpicking the flag, but honestly, nobody cares and there’s no point in changing. alaska and indiana are here because their mute colours hold back their excellent designs. california’s here because the bear should probably be bigger and have a different face. utah and mrs sippy’s new flags are both here because they’ve got the same problem - they’ve both chosen really horrible dark blues, honestly so bad that they should be in lower tiers, but they changed them too recently so they should stick for a while, until people get used to the, yeah, iconic and recognisable new designs. a placeholder for minnesota is here too, based offa the six finalist designs released on tuesday, because any of them would probably end up in that spot - imperfect but relatively good

‘minor tweaks maybe’ is where the nitpicks start becoming flaws and the good designs could be made perfect very easily. hawai’i doesn’t need the british canton, it just doesn’t. wyoming doesn’t need that seal inside the buffalo. and rhode island? well idk but it’s a bold design held back by, something. stew on it for a while

the final three tiers are the ones i believe should change. the first (non urgent) is for bad flags that remain somewhat distinct, and so are still managing to do their job - but could be had so much better. NC is ripping off texas. iowa and missouri are both overcomplicated and dull. and arkansas, ignoring the word ‘arkansas’ i’m definitely getting slavers’ rebellion vibes from it

the bottom two tiers unambiguously must change. ‘fairly urgent’ are the flags where there’s maybe one redeeming quality that sets the flag apart, and could be carried forward to the new one. LA’s pelican and OK’s osage shield are iconic, but they’re still a something-on-blue and need upgrading. florida is just alabama but with a seal, honestly pathetic and one of the list’s biggest tragedies. washington, yep, there he is, but it’s still just something on a plain background. i hesitated between putting delaware here or the tier below, but its boon is its recognisability with that yellowy diamond. then there’s georgia, probably the most controversial placement on the list. but yeah. that’s the fucking CSA flag. and the iconic state deserves so much better than just an undistinct crest on the slaver flag

and yeah the last category are where all the truly pathetic failures sit. the opening few have curious motifs that could be used for the new flag, like connecticut’s grapes, michigan’s elk and oregon’s 🅱️eaver. but they still suck utter pisswank, the distinguishing thing about them only becoming clear when you stop to look at it. the latter flags of the tier are fucking irredeemable trash. tell me you know which states those final four are when the picture’s zoomed out. it’s a fucking tragedy that new york the state is amongst the union’s worst, when the city’s iconic blue-and-orange could lend it so much inspiration (same could be said for IL being outshone by chicago). or if new york wants to make it distinct from the city, it could always look to old york shire’s iconic white rose. combine it with a tulip for old amsterdam and bam we’ve got a brilliant motif. i am honestly happy to call the vermontese flag the worst in the us, for a state with such history, with such a pronounced identity and spirit, how can it let itself have such horseshit. especially when the green mountain boys’ flag is such stupid, dumb brilliance. yeah, vermont is the worst because they should just change to the green flag end of story

BOUNS ROUND: provinces of canadada

perfect: la quebec

ain’t broke: sass, newfie & lab

tweak: nova scotia, new brunswick

non urgent: BC, PEI (both controversial picks ino, but they’re fuck ugly d@m)

change now: ontario, manitoba, albert

[amoebaforce]

Cat/Mouse

Part 2 of 4 (Part 1) (Part 3) (Part 4)

After a string of bold thefts rocks the Edenite art scene, veteran hunter Nadine picks up the bounty of a lifetime. Fifty thousand credits, just to capture the elusive thief and bring her in alive. It should be an easy job... but one look at her mark tells Nadine she might have bitten off more than she can chew. On a space station full of secret dealings, dirty money, and luxurious lies, it seems even the simplest contracts are prone to complication. tags: questionable morality, some in-universe prejudice, brief description of bodily harm

In a cheap motel room, Nadine snarled at her error-ridden computer screen. Her aggravated growl pierced the early morning as she slumped back onto the stiff mattress. The hunter was on her fifth hour of decryption, and things weren’t going well. The files she’d copied from Ulu’zah’s data-chip were locked behind an asymmetric algorithm — an elliptic curve, no less — and Nadine’s little ten-year-old processor was having a hell of a time solving for the key. Without it, she couldn’t open a single file out of the hundreds she’d copied. In fact, the only thing unencrypted about this data was the name of the folder it came in: 

twig_root

Nadine stared at that title for a long time, trying to decide what it meant. Even now, as she stared at a blank white ceiling instead, she wasn’t sure what to make of it. It was probably just a generated placeholder… But then again, it could be a covert naming system, or a cryptic clue about the folder’s contents. Maybe the piece to be forged was tree-themed. Maybe it was another code, a silly phrase no one would understand except–

Ulu’zah.

The name echoed in Nadine’s ears. Memories thrummed and danced across her mind, all hazy and soft and purple. She dragged a hand down her face, but she couldn’t ignore the way her guts knotted at the thought. Even hours later, Nadine couldn’t explain why she’d acted like that. Kissing that thief was bad enough, but returning the chip? Issuing a poorly veiled challenge to her bosses and then letting her go? 

Inexplicable. 

She’d done plenty of stupid things in her time, but this definitely took the cake. And to make things worse, she was already losing the race. Nadine hadn’t even started to sift through these damn files, while Ulu’zah was probably close to the end. With that kind of head start, she was already well on her way to snatching another priceless artifact and disappearing into the ether. 

Nadine couldn’t let that happen. She snatched her data-cuff from the nightstand and made a call. The line buzzed twice, then clicked as if answered, but no one spoke. Nadine rolled her eyes. Of course.

“Xerxes,” she said sharply. “I need to call in a favor.”

A beat of silence. Then, a low chuckle rattled through the speaker.

“Obviously,” a deep voice drawled. “Why else would you call at such a scandalous hour? Certainly not to ask what I’m wearing.”

“Oh, can it, would ya? I’m in deep shit.”

“Mm. That Diralith girl gave you the runaround, didn’t she?” 

Nadine could practically hear the smug look on the bounty broker’s face. It wormed through his honey-sweet tone and right under Nadine’s skin. Xerxes always had a way of bristling her. Even the first time they met, his overblown confidence and cologne-clouded office gave Nadine a migraine. Fifteen years later, the smell of vetiver still made her woozy.

“No,” Nadine snapped. “Just– Just help me decrypt this damn data packet, would you?”

“Oh-ho,” Xerxes replied mockingly. “I should have known. Nothing but a technological conundrum could sink you so low as to call upon me for aid.”

“Shut up and help!”

With a few button-mashes, Nadine linked her cuff to her computer and gave Xerxes admin access. He could see her screen through his own now, and his giggles were muffled as he scrolled through her lines of code. 

“Where did you get this thing?” he asked.

“From the thief.”

A moment of surprised silence. 

“Is she in custody? I don’t recall getting a–”

“She slipped away,” Nadine interrupted. “Long story. Doesn’t matter. The point is, whatever’s in this packet is gonna help me net her. Maybe even the whole crew.”

She bit her lip. That wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. And it certainly didn’t explain how she got her hands on this chip. Nadine prayed he wouldn’t press her for details; she wasn’t willing to part with the real ones. Fortunately, her moment of worry was broken by another quiet laugh.

“My, you sound so sure,” Xerxes replied, tone dangerously saccharine. He paused his scrolling, then deleted a few numbers and went back to skimming.

“I am sure,” Nadine insisted.

“Whatever you say, hot-shot. It’s all the same to me, so long as the credits transfer at the end of the day. Tell me, what do you know about Diralith culture?”

The hunter’s brow furrowed. “Oh, now it’s a pop quiz?”

“Humor me, won’t you? I am doing you a favor, after all.”

As if to prove his point, Xerxes zeroed in on another error in her coding. Nadine sighed heavily.

“Fine,” she relented. “Diralith are… creative. At least, all of the Diralith I’ve ever met. Singers, dancers, artists… even a contortionist, if you’d believe that.”

“I do.” Xerxes rewrote a command before he continued. “Would you say Ulu’zah fits within that generalization?”

You don’t wanna know, Nadine wanted to say, but there was no way he’d let that one fly.

“Yeah,” she told him instead. “I guess so. I mean, even if she’s only copying another artist’s work, her forgeries are convincing enough to pass visual inspections. That takes some skill.”

“True,” Xerxes said thoughtfully. “Are you aware of the planet Dira’s status with the Federation?”

“They’re allied, but not members. Something about their government being too unstructured to join.”

“That’s the gist of it, yes. In more precise terms, Dira is too egalitarian to meet the entrance standards. The Diralith uphold no hierarchies, subscribe to no doctrine but equity. Hell, they don’t even have a standard currency. They prefer to trade in goods or services. Kind of admirable, really — but completely incompatible with the Feds. And not just financially or politically, but philosophically, too.”

“Can you please get to the point?” Nadine said, patience wearing thin.

“My point is,” Xerxes emphasized, “no born-and-bred Diralith would leave that little utopia without a damn good reason. There’s a saying I learned in the Security Force. ‘An off-world Diralith is one of three things: a celebrity, an exile, or a criminal.’”

Nadine felt her mouth twitch into a frown. This was another of her gripes with Xerxes: his tendency to paint the universe in broad, careless strokes. He liked to think himself a great judge of character, but in truth, he was nothing of the sort. Xerxes’ tenure as a cop had merely fossilized his worldview into a rigid set of boxes, and he had accepted them as truth. He took great pains to sort people — cataloging, categorizing, and organizing them like trinkets — and his solution for ill-fitting confines was always to add another box. Never to knock down the walls.

“How do you know she’s born-and-bred?” Nadine countered. “Maybe she was born on a station, like I was.”

“Her name is Ulu’zah,” Xerxes argued. “That’s about as traditional as a Diralith name gets. It’s almost laughably old-fashioned — like naming a Terran baby ‘Maria’ or ‘John.’ Her parents were probably homeworld conservatives.”

“Okay, now you’re just making stuff up,” Nadine said flatly. “Ulu’zah might not even be her real name.”

He sighed. “Maybe, maybe not. We’ll just have to find out after you reel her in.”

Nadine felt her face twist. Xerxes’ words settled like stones in her gut. Reel her in, like a fish on a hook. Baited. Doomed. 

Was that really what she was doing?

Sure, Nadine had pulled her fair share of dirty tricks to catch a criminal — bribing underpaid staff, hacking security cameras, impersonating a mark’s clientele — but none of them had ever felt so heavy. So wrong. Why did it bother her so much, this game she had initiated? Ulu’zah was a thief, but one of scores Nadine had hunted through her career. She wasn’t even the first art thief. Absolutely nothing about this job was unique. 

Nothing but her.

Nadine shivered. Shook the thought from her mind.

“Alrighty,” Xerxes chirped. “Should be fixed now.”

Nadine’s eyes sliced to the screen, where her boss was typing the final characters of an execution command. She held her breath, but miraculously, the code began to run, complete with a newly added progress bar.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Xerxes said, sounding sickeningly proud of himself. “Not an error message in sight.”

“Yes, yes, real impressive,” Nadine sighed. “Thanks a bunch. Now get lost.”

The broker uttered an exaggerating gasp. 

“All that hard work to open these files, and you think I’m going to leave before I get to see what’s in them? Not on your life, Nadine.”

She gave a weary groan, weighing her options. She could hang up on him and revoke his admin privileges, but knowing Xerxes, he’d just call back until she gave in and answered. Or worse: hack his way straight back in. And it would be such a hassle to update her firewalls. Nadine pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers.

“Whatever,” she told him. “Just don’t start back-seat driving, okay?”

“I would never.”

Nadine fought the urge to scoff. The program ran and ran, until the bar was full and a wholly decrypted spread of files unfolded before her eyes. Not that the process actually helped much — every thumbnail image was blank, each title a random collection of numbers and letters. No two files seemed to be the same size, and there was no rhyme or reason to their organization. There were photos, videos, text files, digital information in formats Nadine had never even heard of, all strewn together as if they’d been selected at random. 

Another snarl fell from Nadine’s lips. She’d just have to open them all individually.

“How exciting,” Xerxes remarked. “I do love a good scavenger hunt.” 

And so it went. Nadine combed through a desert of data, sorting by type before scouring each pile systematically. Nearly half the files were entirely, utterly random: furniture instruction manuals, scanned storybook illustrations, dozens of travel brochures, pictures of strange landscapes and monuments, and years-old news articles that seemed to be about everything except crime. Another large chunk was simply empty — blank text documents, mostly, with the occasional image of a blank void. 

She pressed on, sequestering every nonsensical clump of ones and zeroes she found, until the simulated sun dawned over Eden and washed the sterile white walls with gold and pink. Then, on the three hundred sixty-first file, Nadine stumbled upon her smoking gun.

Upon first glance, it was just another “vacation” style photo. A pristine courtyard made of metal, surrounded by sleek white structures. A tall, multi-tiered fountain stood in center frame, while the edges of the shot were full of plants and bustling people. Entirely normal. But as she made to file it away, two separate realizations sent alarm bells ringing in Nadine’s sleep-deprived mind. 

First: she recognized the destination in the photo. She’d walked past that fountain every day in university; she’d know it anywhere. This was Honore Square, in the center of Eden’s East Lawn. The arts district.

Second: for the first time in any photo she’d scrolled through, there was someone looking at the camera.

The figure was small and slightly out of focus, but there it was, right beside the base of the water feature. A Terran male clad in black, identity obscured by a wide-brimmed hat and a pair of sunglasses. A half-moon smile peaked over his tall collar. His left hand was shoved into a pocket, but his right hovered in the air beside him, flashing a two-fingered peace sign right into the lens. 

“Holy shit,” Nadine whispered.

“What?” Xerxes asked suddenly. Nadine’s heart skipped a beat — the broker had been silent for so long, she’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Look,” she told him, fingers fumbling to zoom in. “This picture was taken on Eden! And wouldn’t you say that’s a weird outfit for sight-seeing?”

Xerxes hummed as he studied the male. “Unless he is allergic to the sun… I suppose it is, yes.”

“This has to mean something.”

“Perhaps. But what?”

“Maybe it’s another drop,” Nadine guessed. She swallowed hard. “Or a meeting.”

“Hm… Arranging a drop via touristic photography… It’s plausible, I admit. Though it doesn’t account for the peace sign. Unless he wants her to come unarmed.”

Xerxes giggled at his own quip, but Nadine’s mind was racing too fast to appreciate the humor. 

“It’s the time,” she concluded aloud. “Two — probably two in the morning. That’s the only thing that makes sense. He’s giving her a time and place.”

“It’s past five now,” Xerxes said. “We’ve missed it.”

Nadine shook her head, as if he could see it. 

“He means tomorrow. It was just after one in the morning when I copied this packet from the chip. There’s no way Ulu could have seen this message and made it to the fountain in less than an hour.”

Xerxes paused. “…Ulu?”

Fuck!

Nadine cringed at herself, covering her screwed-up eyes with one palm. “It’s how she introduced herself,” she admitted, having nothing better-sounding to say.

Xerxes laughed hard enough to clip the audio on their voice call.

“Oh, shit,” he wheezed through his glee. “Say no more. Save it all for the in-person report I’m gonna make you give me.” 

Nadine swore under her breath, suddenly regretting her “long story” comment from earlier. But this was a bridge for later crossing — right now, she had to focus on these damned files. 

Ignoring the snickering male, Nadine copied the photo to her hard drive and kept looking. Five more documents joined it in quick succession, and after another long hour of study and tense conversation, Nadine had everything she needed.  

“Well, Xerxes,” she said firmly, “it’s been real. I owe you one.”

“I look forward to calling that in,” Xerxes chuckled back. “You’d better get some sleep, though. You’ve an appointment to keep.”

Long after the death of the day, Nadine slipped into a narrow maintenance corridor and come to rest in a deep column of shadow. Honore Square stretched out before her, vast and eerily still, save for the bubble of the fountain and the gentle sway of leaves. She didn’t see a single soul on the way here. The East Lawn’s art galleries and theaters were long since shut, and the sky overhead was too ominous to invite late-night walks. Viscous gray clouds swirled as if stirred in a cauldron, perfuming the air with the thick scent of incoming rain.

It was almost too quiet. A breeze rose goosebumps on Nadine’s neck as she pulled her jacket tighter. 

The calm before the storm, she thought dryly. 

Somewhere in the distance, a clock proclaimed the three-quarter hour, its resonant toll rolling softly across the plaza. Nadine’s skin pebbled with anticipation. Fifteen more minutes, and she’d find out if her meeting theory was correct. What if she was wrong? What if she misinterpreted those files? Focused on the wrong details? 

Nadine pushed her thoughts away like buzzing gnats. 

Concentrate!

She inhaled. Exhaled. Tucked herself against the wall, letting darkness cocoon her from view. A few long minutes passed. Then, the sound of far-off footsteps rang out through the night, shattering the moment like a mirror. 

Nadine froze. Small feet. Stiletto heels. Coming closer, closer, until a sudden movement drew the hunter’s eye to the other side of the square. A pair of golden pumps strode out of the gloom, followed by a pair of lilac legs and a tight ivory dress. Ulu’zah’s face was last to catch the low white light of the street lamp. When it did, she took a long glance up and down the courtyard, and her lips glistened dragonfruit-pink.

Ten minutes early, Nadine noted. Casing the place? 

Ulu’zah stalked toward the fountain with determined grace. Unlike before, she carried a bag — a cloth tote slung over her shoulder, full and heavy-looking. A spike of panic prickled up Nadine’s spine. That couldn’t be the forgery, could it? It had only been a day — even the highest-end matter replicators couldn’t work that fast. Not on something like this…

The thief took a seat at the base of the fountain and plunged her hands into her bag. Nadine inched forward, slow as a snail, angling her head to get a better look. Instead of a priceless-looking artifact, though, Ulu’zah produced a thick spiral-bound notebook and a thin rectangular box. She flipped to a middle page and set it on her lap, then snapped open the case. Inside were… pens? Pencils? Something like that. There must have been dozens, all arranged by color from light to dark. 

Nadine’s fear morphed to curiosity. She watched, hardly blinking, as Ulu’zah plucked out a deep gray and began to etch a few languid lines into the page on her lap. From this distance, in this darkness, it was impossible for Nadine to see her work — but she didn’t have to. The sound of graphite on paper scratched its way to the hunter’s ears, and she knew. Ulu’zah was composing a sketch.

Maybe the sketch.

Ulu’zah was still drawing when the clock tolled two, and the first clang seemed to jolt her from a trance. She slammed her notebook closed and shoved her pencil back in its box. Her head swiveled, casting her gaze toward the back corner of the square. Nadine followed suit. At first, there was nothing. A sea of black. Then, at the edge of the light, a dark-clothed Terran male materialized like a specter.

It was the same person from the photo. Same hat, same coat, even the same glasses, despite the hour. Nadine’s hairs rose on end. Though he wasn’t there for her, she couldn’t help but dread the sight of him. And it wasn’t just his looks, but his calculated moves. The way he prowled to the fountain, tight and panther-like. The way he circled Ulu’zah once, twice, before settling into place before her. All of it was unsettling. Under the weight of his gaze, the thief stiffened. 

The male spoke first. No words reached Nadine’s ears, but she could see his thin lips part. Ulu’zah replied with a furrowed brow, then crossed her arms when he shook his head. The thief snapped. She launched into a rant, and the back-and-forth barbs grew louder and louder, until the gargle of noise sharpened into syllables and words. 

“–ridiculous!” Ulu’zah hissed.

“Pipe down,” the male commanded, jutting a thick finger at the space between her eyes. 

Nadine bristled. Who the fuck did he think he was, talking to her like that? He certainly wasn’t in charge — unless Ulu’zah’s big scary boss did his own errands. Nadine doubted it. No, this sorry punk was a lackey, through and through. He just liked pushing females around when no one was looking. 

But someone was looking. The hunter bared her teeth at the male. Committed his side profile to memory. 

His conversation with the thief continued, quieter and tauter than before. Another angry finger point, and Ulu’zah stood, fisting the handles of her bag as if it were a weapon. Maybe with all her art supplies inside, it was — like a brick in a sock.

“Get a grip,” Ulu’zah told him, loud and clear. 

It was the same stern tone she’d used on that oaf at the club. All rejection and disgust. She turned to leave, but the male grabbed her by the wrist and tugged. Ulu’zah let out a quiet yelp as her body wrenched backward. Her hand flexed open on instinct, and her bag tumbled from her grip, vomiting its contents across the ground with a loud clatter. 

Anger seared through Nadine’s veins. Her every muscle coiled with baleful ferocity. Plan be damned; she wasn’t about to sit there and watch this happen. But before she could leave her hiding place, Nadine watched Ulu’zah’s face twist into something sharper, and the hunter stopped dead in her tracks. Eyes thrown wide, lips curled to snarl, nostrils flaring. Not the passive acceptance of a condemned lamb, but the wild rage of a cornered wolf.

In one quick motion, Ulu’zah clamped her free hand around the male’s thumb and wrenched it backward, breaking his grip with an audible crack. Nadine winced. He barked with pain and anger alike, curses bouncing through the square. 

“You bitch!” he seethed, hand cradled to his chest. 

“I told you I would,” Ulu’zah spat back.

“Rock’s gonna tan your hide for this!”

Ulu’zah offered a condescending coo. “Aw, gonna run home to Daddy? Gonna tell him I was mean to you? Get real!”

The male gave an indignant snort. He muttered a threat under his breath, too low for Nadine to hear, and turned. His gaze dropped, teeth grinding, to the sketchbook by his feet. The females might as well have read his mind. 

Ulu’zah sucked in a hissing breath. “Web, I swear to–”

But her oath was cut short by the crunch of plastic under rubber. The male called Web cracked the cover with his heel, then kicked it away. Papers flew like confetti from the broken spine. Ulu’zah cried out, lifting her palms to the sky. 

“One week,” Web said over his shoulder. “That’s final.”

He stormed away, disappearing into the night. Quiet fell once more. For a long moment, all was still, as if the whole universe was holding its breath. Then, Ulu’zah’s shoulders began to quiver. She swayed. Fell to her knees. Small, half-swallowed sobs trickled like water into Nadine’s ears. The hunter’s heart clenched in her chest. As if released from a spell, her motionless body shivered back to life. Nadine stepped out of the alley, divorcing herself from the shadows. 

Her feather-soft footfall made Ulu’zah start, head snapping upward. When their eyes met, a thousand emotions danced across the Diralith’s face. Surprise, confusion, realization. Then fear, then anger. The impulse to run. Nadine held up her hands and turned them wordlessly, showing Ulu’zah their emptiness. Above them, a bolt of lightning raced cloud-to-cloud, and under its flash, Ulu’zah’s tears glistened like mercury. 

“I should have known,” Ulu’zah said finally. “You were never gonna let it go.”

Nadine tucked her chin, looking at the pages scattered around her feet. Stunningly realistic sketches, the lot. Faces, flowers, buildings, household objects, anatomy studies, color experiments. All composed of thin, elegant lines, shaded with precise crosshatches. It was the kind of work Nadine had seen in frames, selling for thousands of credits. Millions.

“Sorry, baby,” Nadine replied. 

They were the truest words she’d said in days. Ulu’zah wiped her face and sat back on her heels, looking even smaller than usual. 

“If it makes you feel better,” Nadine offered, “you definitely broke that fella’s thumb.” 

Ulu’zah emitted a shocked laugh, but her brows knitted. “Yeah, well… He’s had it coming for a while.”

“I can tell.” Thunder rumbled through the sky. “What d’ya owe them?”

After a few offended blinks, the thief huffed and crossed her arms. “How did you know?” she demanded. 

Nadine shrugged. “Young lady like you — beautiful, talented, full of potential — sticking your neck out, doing business with shady scumbags… Call it an educated guess.” 

“Point taken,” Ulu’zah huffed. “But why do you care?”

“I just think it’s a shame.”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“That’s fine. You don’t gotta. But when shit hits the fan, and your luck runs out on the job, it’s not gonna be your boss who takes the fall. And someone like you wouldn’t do well in Federation prison.”

“Stop it,” Ulu’zah said. “Stop acting like you know me. You might’ve read a file, looked at some pictures, but you don’t know the first thing about where I come from, what I’ve done.”

“I know that you don’t deserve this,” Nadine countered, gesturing to the carnage around them. She snatched a random page off the ground. “To be belittled and disrespected. Your work exploited.”

“And what would you have me do? Hm? Tell him the deal’s off, after he just moved up the deadline? I only have a week. I’m supposed to have two!” 

Her voice cracked, and tears welled fresh in her eyes. Nadine felt something deep in her soul twinge. Another crash of lightning and swell of thunder, and the simulated clouds opened up. The scattered pages began to speckle with drops of rain.

“Shit!” Ulu’zah swore, scrambling to save her work.

Nadine sprang into action. She snagged the broken bindings and gathered handfuls of paper, then joined Ulu’zah and sprinted under a nearby awning as the sprinkle turned to a downpour. They exchanged a glance, then another. Ulu’zah cleared her throat, eyeing the slightly haphazard stack in Nadine’s calloused fingers.

“I need that back,” she said pointedly.

Nadine offered it up. “Let me help you.”

“Help me?” Ulu’zah scoffed, still stuffing everything back in her bag. “Yeah, right.”

“Don’t you want to leave?”

“You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what I want. These are scary, fucked-up people, Nadine.”

The sound of her own name felt like a splash of cold water. “What would it take?” she pressed, taking a step closer. “How much? Humor me, Ulu.”

Ulu’zah’s mouth twitched into a grimace. She scanned Nadine’s face a half-dozen times.

“I’m half a million deep,” she confessed quickly. “And even if you could pay it, he’d probably kill you before he let me go.”

Nadine’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. Half a million? What the hell kind of trouble had this Diralith gotten herself into? And more importantly, who the hell was rich enough to lend her that kind of money? As Nadine’s mind raced, Ulu’zah finished packing her things.

“I have to go,” the thief muttered, eyes to the floor.

She took a slinking step back, but Nadine reached out for her to wait. 

“Just think about it, okay?” the hunter begged.

Ulu’zah bit her lip. Turned on her heel. “No promises,” she whispered. 

Then, she vanished around the corner, footsteps dissolving into the sound of the driving rain. Once more, Nadine was abandoned to the wee hours of morning. The hunter sighed long and slow. A dull impulse carried her forward, out from the refuge of the eves and into the storm. She lifted her head to the sky, eyes closed, accepting each cool, heavy raindrop that broke across her face. It was foolish to hope the water would cleanse her, as if it might seep into her very soul and scrub away the ache that lingered in its fibers. But still, Nadine hoped.

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Pride Month Character Sexuality Headcanon Moodboards 1. Yasmine - Lesbian 2. Demetri Alexopoulos - Gay 3. Moon - Bisexual 4. Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz - Bisexual

Next up is my favorite little gayboy in the whole world!!! Why am I so dead convinced he's a little gayboy and not a little biboy??? I'm so glad you asked!!!

Yes obviously he's in love with Eli, a boy, but I firmly believe Demetri has never once genuinely yearned for the touch of a woman akidjsilufhk

MF literally spends his first scene of the show limp-wristing. I am not kidding in the least.

Like even Eli is sus in the first pic akajsldibhodfku

"But that's circumstantial evidence, tumblr user demetriandelibinaryboyfriends!!!" you say. "He starts simping for Yasmine immediately after, so doesn't that cancel it out?"

Well, see, that's exactly what he wants you to think.

The reason he does this imo is actually kind of sad. Miguel comes to the table (Demetri's first potential new friend in like 10 years!!!) and immediately shows an interest in girls, establishing that he's probably a Regular Straight Guy. Miguel has seen Demetri talk in a slight gay lisp (he does!!! Don't @ me!!! Like maybe they were going for "nasally nerd voice" but it just sounds like the stereotypical gay guy voice???), have Some Kinda Fruity Vibe going with Eli, and limp-wrist all over the place, and Demetri knows this. He's also just met Miguel, and has every reason to believe this straight dude will ditch him immediately if he suspects Demetri's gay (high school kids really ARE that cruel sometimes), so...he tries to cover his ass and pretend to be straight so Miguel will stay :(

Speaking of Yasmine, though!!! Basically every time throughout the series that he shows an interest in her, it feels extremely performative. Like he's just saying what Miguel (or whoever else) would expect him to. And it's only ever about looks and social status in a way that suggests he sees Yasmine as a kind of placeholder/cover-up--"the conventionally attractive girl I act obsessed with so no one suspects I'm gay."

On that topic, the irt S1 Demetri, the fact that he picks a very unattainable girl to show blatant interest in is huge. Like what better cover than "pining" for a girl who you believe there is 0% chance you could ever actually date??? Indefinitely permanent beard without once having to fake a straight relationship!

I also think this is why Demetri is so gloriously unbothered when he botches hitting on Yasmine in 1x09. Like sure, he's socially inept, but he's not unintelligent; anyone with two brain cells could tell Yasmine wasn't interested (and he doesn't have the Eli-esque ego-driven delusion to think he's doing better with girls than he actually is). So why does he happily say "I think that went well!" when Yasmine walks away??? Because he's filled the Expected Straight Guy Quota beautifully by shooting his shot with a hot girl, and now that that failed he's off the hook!

Another funny thing is that he ONLY goes and hits on Yasmine after he's seen Eli making out with a random girl. I think it's both a mimicking kind of thing ("well, shit, if this is what Eli's doing I'd better do it too!" they're like cats I love them) and an "I guess if Eli's gonna start kissing girls and be unavailable now, I have nothing to lose so I might as well" kinda thing.

Generally speaking, S1 Demetri, um...sure does procrastinate getting romantically involved with girls. We're meant to believe it's solely a lack of confidence and his general defeatist nature, but like. Every chance he gets, he puts off making a move on girls. He straight up tells Miguel he's going to wait until he gets a well-paying, respectable job before asking any hot girls out. Homeboy literally putting off dating girls for like 5 decades. Not to mention the Halloween dance, where he tells Miguel to "slow his roll" asking girls to dance and says it "could've been worse" when they in fact don't end up dancing with any girls. Both rather flippantly and cheerfully, too! Like Demetri only ever seems to care about girls when Miguel is around, which goes back to my theory that he's worried Miguel would abandon him and Eli if he figured out Demetri was gay.

Tbh I don't think Demetri's lack of initiative with girls is because he's a defeatist because...he seems indifferent (sometimes even chipper) about his lack of luck with women. But when it comes to Eli being bullied??? He is ACTIVELY bothered. Like he's clutching the back of a chair in a silent rage during the library scene. He looks heartbroken when the cafeteria kids start snickering about Eli's mom calling the school. He goes off at Johnny when he makes fun of Eli's lip! Clearly Demetri doesn't like being at the bottom of the school food chain, even though he's also a defeatist about getting bullied. But when it comes to girls??? Every time the loser trio fails with women, Miguel tends to take it 5000% harder than Demetri, who legit barely bats an eye!

I feel like I don't need to convince you of the Demetri-Eli subtext, because otherwise you wouldn't be on my page, but...it's worth mentioning that Demetri spends all of S2 being a sad little simp for Newly Evil Eli and completely forgetting Yasmine's existence while she's in France. Moon is the only one who acknowledges Yasmine's existence all season, but that gay subtext is a conversation for another day XD In any case, Demetri quickly 100% forgets the girl he was supposedly "so into" during S1. Wack! Speaking as an ex-high schooler, btw, you don't just forget your crush over the summer if you really liked them that much. You yearn and talk wistfully to your friends about what they might be up to XD

Also worth noting that as soon as Demetri does drop the Aggressively Straight facade and forms genuine relationships with women, platonic bonds with girls seem to come second-nature to him! He very easily befriends Moon and Sam, despite being scared to so much as interact with girls for years. But as soon as he does, connecting and being amicable with girls seems effortless as long as it isn't romantic. It brings to mind how gay men often have a lot of close female friends and tend to be more at ease around them because there's no concern of underlying sexual/romantic tension.

Tbh you could argue the only time Demetri's relationships with women suffer is when he Tries Too Hard To Be Straight. He has healthy and solid friendships with Sam and Moon, and he has never once tried to flirt with either. Among all the girls in the cast Demetri regularly interacts with, Yasmine is actually the one he has the most contentious relationship with. And why's that? I would argue it's because he feels obligated to hit on her whenever they're together, lest his hard-earned new friends suspect something is abnormal about him. Not Moon as much, but Sam and Miguel for sure--as far as he can tell, they are both 100% straight and it's very possible he's worried about them abandoning him for being a "weird freak" the same way Eli did. In any case, him hitting on Yas makes the atmosphere between them tense and uncomfortable, making his relationship with her feel more stilted than his more organic-feeling interactions with Moon and Sam.

Worth noting that he only really brings up Yasmine/waxes poetic about how "into Yasmine" he is around the people he MOST wants to think he's straight--Sam, Miguel, and Eli. Sam and Miguel are his best friends sans Eli, and Eli, well...of course he would constantly bring up his Girlfriend He Totally Likes So Much around the dude he absolutely does not want to suspect he's into!!! In S4 especially he just got Eli back, and shies away from anything that might open a rift between them again, especially a big fat gay crush he's been harboring since the jump!

The whole Demetri-Yasmine relationship is super shallow and performative--in my opinion, from both sides, but Demetri's side especially. He seems to see Yasmine as more of a concept than a person, calling her the "girl of his dreams" and saying he's "101% in love" while...not appearing to know anything of substance about her. He literally never alludes to knowing anything about her personality except that she's hot and mean. And sure, you could chock this up to him being a shallow, horny teenage boy, but...we know he's anything but shallow, given how he loves his childhood best friend so much and so deeply that he forgives him for all number of horrible things in 3 seconds flat because he is that certain that Eli means his apology and is a good person deep down. Given that he has absolutely undying loyalty to his other best friend Miguel Diaz, despite Miguel being (indirectly) part of the reason that he and Eli got estranged in the first place. Given that he also has so much undying loyalty to Sam LaRusso that he backed her up in a dangerous gang fight and got his arm broken for it. Demetri clearly sees and understands the nuance and complexity in people. So why does he talk about his own girlfriend as if she has none???

Something else to note is how in S5, Demetri reveals that he and Yasmine fight so frequently that her arm is literally weighed down with all the make-up bracelets he buys her. This is just supposed to be a Funny Bit, but...I can't help but notice that this is a stark contrast to S4, where they seemed to be all over each other every time we saw them together. Maybe because when they're alone together, the facade falls away and their "relationship" doesn't really have any leg to stand on? Also one has to wonder why anyone would stay in a relationship that dysfunctional. Makes a lot more sense looking at it from the perspective that Demetri feels like he needs a beard, and isn't sure he'd be able to find another girl willing to date him. Besides, as far as fake-girlfriends-to-make-people-think-you're-straight go...well, you're really not going to do much better than Yasmine.

Mentioned in many other posts, but I firmly believe that Yasmine is a closet lesbian and she and Demetri are a case of "gay and lesbian date in high school because they subconsciously detect the gayness in each other and mistake that sense of kinship for romantic attraction."

I also think it's very possible that a little ways into dating, one or both of them realized they were gay, and they made a mutual agreement to "stay together for appearances." Yasmine's social status plummeted after the end of S1, and it's possible she had homophobic family in the picture who would make publicly coming out impractical. And Demetri, while definitely more popular than he used to be, likely thought he could stand to lose all that if it got out he was gay.

Tbh maybe it was a mutual fake dating situation from the jump!!! Point is that this relationship is WAY too stilted and awkward for me to believe one or both of them ISN'T hamming it up a little. It just does not feel genuine or natural at all :/ Although they DO actually have a lot of platonic potential (especially taking the mlm/wlw solidarity aspect into account, or even just the trope of a popular alpha bitch having a sassy gay best friend aidpsiufhodly), which leads me to believe there's more going on than just Demetri using Yasmine as a beard. I do think he likes her and admires her a lot, just not romantically or sexually!

I've actually heard from my mlm friends that it's relatively common for gay guys to be drawn to powerful and outspoken women, and mistake that admiration for a romantic crush! This is probably what happened with Yasmine, if Demetri did believe he had genuine feelings for her and wasn't faking a crush to actively hide his sexuality. I'd also imagine this is where the "bitchy queen bee girly-girl with a gay best friend" stereotype comes from!

A big part of my gay Demetri/bi Eli belief comes from how different their relationships with women are. Demetri is more comfortable with women from the jump, befriending Aisha, Moon, and Sam fairly easily in a way that could indicate a lack of attraction (so, once again, less pressure and more freedom to be his authentic self). Eli, on the other hand, seems to have more trouble with girls in a way that leads me to believe he IS attracted to (and intimidated by) them to some extent. Although he does form a close friendship with Aisha, his other relationships with girls seem to consist of him awkwardly flirting with/trying to impress them, antagonizing them (e.g. Sam in S3), or not really interacting with them at all. In S2, Eli doesn't even seem at ease around his own girlfriend! He's quick to jump to snapping the MOMENT Demetri says something that might make him look bad, like he doesn't trust Moon to like anything other than his "coolness" (which, to be fair, she...doesn't really lmao). He does befriend Tory, but it's more of a casual "work friendship" and it's nowhere near the kind of easy, close-knit friendship Sam and Demetri have. Even Dem's relationship with Yasmine is amicable enough when he's not trying too hard to hit on her. Point being that Eli struggling with girls more than Demetri kinda gives me the impression Demetri doesn't get (romantically) nervous around girls much at all. Not to say someone like Tory wouldn't make him nervous about getting punched in the face or knifed in the gut XD But nervous about dating girls??? Nah. He's only nervous about keeping up the appearance of wanting to date girls!

Just LOOK at what this mf wears!!! Like he LITERALLY has the mlm flag on a hoodie!!! With fucken purple-ass skinny jeans, the fucken bottom stripe of the mlm flag and also the gayest color alive!!! Like all throughout the show this mf's color motifs are CONSISTENTLY blue and green. The blue we could say comes with the Miyagi Do color motifs, but what of the green??? Why he wearing so much green, though??? To match Eli??? His BOYFRIEND???

Yes, it COULD be a reach, but like. It's SO CONSISTENT throughout the show!!! So much blue!!! So much green!!! And when he's NOT wearing those colors, whatever colors he's wearing usually match with Eli's outfit!

Sorry but color-coordinating your outfit with your bestie shows the fashion sense and awareness of a gay man. Demetri Alexopoulos...

As always, pic credits available upon request!

[enteroctopusdarkysilis]

✨Clone wars diorama !✨

Another one, technically the largest I have posted (yet~), featuring the 212th and a (placeholder) Jedi.

Of course, closeups and additional details below !

Views from directly in front/above :

Before I continue, I must confess it. This horrendous mistake, which you might spot by paying close attention to the right part of the image.

Yes. I somehow created an offset on the entirety of the wall’s height.

Overall, I’m quite happy with this one, mostly the environment, which turned out great (except for the offset….). What I’m not really sure leases with are the cheap AT-RTs from the battle packs, which are too bulky, but it works well enough for the moment, and since I’m not exposing to any connoisseur, it does the job.

Most of the minifigs are from these battle packs too, except for the Jedi, which is actually a savage oppress with a cloak, but every time I try to just remove the minifig, it feels like something is missing. The paratrooper captain has the hold grey kama and pauldron which always work well, even if it could have done with an additional visor.

Anyway, let’s get going with the closeups !

AT-RT scenes :

On the left, an engineer (my favorite kind of clone) fixing a broken down leg, with the help of one of the pilots. It was hard to get the minfigs in a 'lively' position, and the photo doesn’t render it correctly. The small white backpack is a piece I’ve stolen from the 501st specialist pack, because it’s nice.

On the right, a paratrooper with a completely inaccurate rocket launcher (the clone wars’ ones don’t look as cool, though). I quite like the way this part came together, even if it’s just a small detail.

Explosion scene :

I’ll admit it’s my first try with building explosions, and I’ll hopefully improve.

On the right, the clone says hi ! Well. No. He doesn’t, but it’s what he looks like on the photo, which I funny, I’ll admit, but not the image I wanted to convey, even if technically he’s set properly, as a projectile caused by the explosion.

The picture on the right convey the feeling of movement much better, with the clone shooting on the left, the others running along, and the paras being blown.

Other scenes :

The focus on the left is the droid ! I really like how it’s sprawled over that rock. Other droids can be found in the diorama, notably one being crushed by the rocket launcher AT-RT, partially under a rock, and part of one in the explosion.

On the right, we see a paratrooper down (but still fighting !) with, at his side, a medic applying a hypo. While it’s hard to see with this picture, he has a pouch at his side, and some chroma-black legs, because I was missing a pair of legs the medic has prosthetic legs, isn’t that awesome and convenient ? That is a lesson to learn, any lack can become lore ! Well, kind of. It’s what I also did with the Kashyyk MOC : I was missing all but the helmet of my ninth minifig, so I turned it into a grave of the missing squad member.

[delta-gambit-au]

A lil of game-devving (first Dev-Log?)

Today some development while we wait for interviews and other confirmations to the job hunting of Friday -- or at least something I can still do with the mouse. (all of the pictures used above on the block-out are just mere placeholders to fill up the empty gaps)

It's GUI prototyping time!

I've seen before in the past that many visual-novels and even some RPGs allow the player to fast forward dialogues and skip back and forth across them if they were already seen. I had a mind of adding these buttons too but in a less default position, to balance a little the visuals of the GUI.

So, the idea is that the upper and bottom sections would show the zone where the current scene is playing, as some sort of decoration ribbon. Since I already planned the height and width of the main screen where the scene and dialog box will appear, there's a ton of empty space around that must be filled with something! I had an idea of making use of that widescreen space not only to hang the dialog buttons, but also to show a split portrait showing the status of the character from where we are having the POV of the scene.

For example, if we are in a scene from the POV of Tasque Manager, her portrait will appear on both sides. These are to show the mental status of the character, as the player takes decisions that could possibly upset the character or make them happier. The idea is to keep track of this as is the only visual cue (if the player isn't taking mental notes of what are they doing with the current character) to see if you are going through a good route or a bad route.

The mental status of the character will also open venues for other dialogues, just like in graphic adventures of old, you could explore questions for the lulz or just cut to the chase to go faster. It can also lock you from knowing more as other characters that you angered on purpose will refuse to elaborate or will reply with something else, or will see you too upset to let them speak up.

This can serve to further move towards a different path. I plan to add different outcomes to certain decisions depending of your behaviour, though upon release only one path will be available as I want to focus on the main plot-line and add the side paths with future updates for those avid to squeeze the lore of its last remaining juices.

In a sense I believe the paths could be categorized in Light, Neutral, Dark and Darker. Obviously the Darker paths would be the ones with the most downers, and might end abruptly or perhaps open a new unseen chapter, as corruption sets itself in the characters. As said, will only add those in the future if the game gets well received and we manage to stabilize our life enough to dedicate myself fully to the project. The default path will be always the Light one by the way.

And nothing else. Must not forget to add quick buttons to Save, Load and Quit To Title... Though adding them to an ESC menu could be redundant, I rather move these buttons tastefully to improve the looks of the general GUI that the players are going to stare at 95% of the time (that's why prototyping the Game's GUI is a very important part of the development). The other parts that should receive some attention would be the Gallery and the Chapter Selection... I was wondering if adding a list of quick jumps to all the scenes could be done, so you could replay your favourite parts again, or go there to pick a different set of dialogues. In a sense the main bones of the game are just that:

Title Screen

Options

Save/Load

Gallery

Chapter Select

Game

Credits/Disclaimer (absolutely skippable after reaching the end of a chapter)

Yeah, 7 bones. I don't see anything else to add. I believe the most fun part to make would be the Chapter Select. My idea for it is quite unusual and I haven't seen it done before. It could work.

I don't have anything else to show or to ponder publicly at the moment. Hope you enjoy to have a lil glimpse on the developing of the visual-novel as I make it from the scratch.

[claire-starsword]

Shining Force Pre Release Coverage Part 2

"Claire didn't you just say you didn't have time to look at this now" didn't I also say recently I have no self control? Exactly. Also there's not much new so I might as well just get it out of the way.

Part 1 here

This time we'll be looking at recently scanned volumes of another magazine, Mega Drive Fan. Scans are here and here. Also despite the obvious enthusiasm I sure am busy lately so I won't be pointing out everything, I'm here more for translations as you can see the pictures yourself.

November 1991

okay I lied I need to start with the most important pictures

Meow

They owe me this so bad.

Also it has its tail up like in the final unused version, I don't know what's the deal with that footage I showed at the end of the previous post.

We get a better scan of Max's beta portrait. He has no Egress, which I think I have already pointed out in the previous post, I don't know it was a big post okay. He has a short sword with a weird icon, and two iconless items (the placeholders seem to be showing the item's index): the Hex Whip from Shining in the Darkness, and, uh,

"Ring of Infidelity".

Care to explain, Max???

According to my searching this isn't any carry over from SiTD, but I haven't played that in japanese yet so, grain of salt here. I was gonna say, why is a likely joke item so early in the game, and then I remembered the bunny girl in SFII so yeah, this is regular SF dev behavior.

[Edit: I'm reviewing this now and I might have misread the ring's name, it seems like the うわき (infidelity) is directly applied as an adjective so Infidel/Cheater/Fickle Ring would be better translations, which matches the japanese name for the Hex Whip, which is something like Fickle/Whimsical/Moody Whip, but with a different word that has no "cheating on your partner" connotations as far as I know. So maaaybe it's just implying the ring is cursed and does effects of its own, but by all my searching うわき is still far, far more associated with these cheating connotations at least nowadays, so either the word's usage changed a lot in the past decades or it's still a cheeky joke name]

Also, in the previous post I was clearly too taken by Mae's smile to do my job and didn't talk about the items there, so let's talk about them, or rather it, now. Max and Mae in those screenshots have the inventory full of item index 9, "Old Medical Herb". Perhaps there was some sort of expiring mechanic for the herbs. Max also has the same Short Sword and Mae has a Bronze Lance with a sword icon.

In the final version, the indexes 7, 8, and 9 became the Legs of Haste, Turbo Pepper, and Bread of Life respectively.

The item shop has a different sign. Also it seems to be just an item shop, while in final Guardiana the item and weapon shops are combined, with two sellers.

The other magazine showed yet another item shop and sign, either these are actually different towns, or different builds, which actually they sure are given the next picture.

I have been long looking for you... I have heard of the situation. Please, you must let me join you.

While both magazine issues are from the same month, here we have Arthur portrait for this character instead of Varios, and more than that, he is joining the team, there's even another screenshot in the magazine with the "has joined the force" message. Given that this is Arthur's map sprite, and Mae has been described since the start as having a dead father, I feel this is the intended version. Perhaps Varios' portrait was done first and used as placeholder?

Also I need to correct something from the previous post. This isn't a generic NPC sprite, it's just Arthur's knight sprite. The generic centaur NPC sprites are... Arthur's paladin sprite. Like, the exact same sprite. I never looked too close so I assumed there had to be some small difference, but no, they can reuse whatever sprites they want.

Arthur is not given a profile in any of these magazines so it does feel he started as a very generic recruit. Very funny considering he's now the specialest most magical centaur in the block.

Character profiles this month don't have much so I won't translate them in full. Max is referred to as capable of using magic. Lowe is again referred to as a dwarf even though the magazine points out how similar he is to Milo, and wonders if he's an ancestor of him. No mention of Mae's personality, Gort mentioned as an old servant of hers again. Hans' bio states many elves who live in forests choose bows as their weapon because they have excellent vision. This a regular fantasy thing but I don't remember seeing it in Shining content before.

There's one battle screenshot where Max has less HP and is named Hans so I feel his battle sprite wasn't done at this point. Also I didn't bring attention to it in the previous post but a lot of these battle scenes have misnamed enemies as well, it seems this skeleton was a placeholder for a lot.

December 1991

Again Max has his final portrait at this point. He has 99MP and Blaze and Heal 4, Heal having a placeholder icon. He carries the Sword of Darkness, which has a different icon, the Power Ring, and the Forbidden Box, a well documented debug item.

Nothing new in character profiles, Guntz is again referred to as a beastman, Tao is again referred to as a forest elf unlike the others. I will again bring up that the term is used for Nigel in Landstalker, and Tao and Princess Lara there have basically the same art. Does this mean something? Likely no.

Also something I failed to notice in the previous post: at this point, Tao's shoulder gems are miscolored in her portrait. Her art is already done so I assume it's a small mistake.

Enemy descriptions are mostly the same, and again the Mimic shows up.

Again there's a section dedicated to Yogurt, which is mostly the same. It specifies he eats bugs besides berries, and says he "understand human speech, but can't (won't) talk". In the JP version he does say only a single sentence, "I don't get it", so perhaps this was dropped, or he is learning.

It is also said that he's kinda popular with the force members, especially the girls, but again no one could make him a pet. We then get doodles of his secret events, and yes different doodles than last time.

January 1992

This issue gives a good look into the beta menu icons. I won't show them all here, but the icon for putting characters on the active team shows a centaur which, really gets what the game's about i guess.

There's a screenshot with Earnest's portrait but the name is actually Vankar, perhaps his portrait wasn't done yet. Or these guys changed names during production.

On the screens showing off battle graphics, Hans has Diane's palette. That is to say, the exact same palette but pink hair.

Also not to get distracted but I took a quick look at the editor and yes, despite being one of the first characters, the archer sprites are index 9 in the data, preceded by Gong and Khris, and more curiously, Guntz and Domingo, who are at index 3 and 5 respectively.

February 1992

This one was already scanned in Sega Retro and is actually how I started looking into these things. The new scans are likely better quality though, they're really good.

March 1992

The game's released, but unlike the other magazine, early build material still slipped into this one.

"Am I being of service to you? Since I'm fighting to the ends of my MP..."

Tao had this goofy, less immersive line at HQ (remember to compare it to the final JP one, the english version is its own beast). Curiously, the GBA version changed her first line back to a question. Note also that she still has the wrong portrait here.

Veeeery small detail but there's a screenshot of the Rune Knight at the first battle talking only to goblins as opposed to goblins and dwarves. Coupled with all the screenshots we see from this battle it's safe to say the dwarves were a late addition.

Finally, minister Ward had his own portrait.