#so uh there will be more sporadic posts for a bit

[mpc-unofficial]

That's the power of the delibird delivery! Always running, but sometimes they're a bit late and only deliver small gifts and treats (mostly around holidays, both national and international)

It's not the best delivery service and Im pretty sure the delibirds just eat the treats sometimes instead of delivering them.

I see, hopefully they don’t end up like the pelipper…

[bloodsalted]

lil update. some medical stuff, just so ya know! (long winded. sorry!)

// soooo. now that everything is settled and fine. i just wanted to pop a message up to say thanks to everyone for being so patient with me this past month. i had a pretty big health scare that i didn't really talk about unless it was privately to a handful of people. i'm talking about four. and barely anyone offline. most of which happened about a week before the final test because i don't like people worrying about me. it was the kind where a biopsy is done and all that jazz. waiting from one test to another and the results was a mental mind fuck to put it bluntly. with my ocd and anxiety/panic disorder being triggered mainly by my health? uh. it was a wild ride. i was up and down in my moods and carrying on as normally as possible but my brain was pretty much nonstop--that.

but!!! everything is clear and non-threatening and how my gut kept telling me it'd be. ahh mental health working against you tho. it's a bitch! took me even a week or so after the good news to start getting back into my head correctly! a nurse told me it was the adrenaline built up in my kidneys and leaving my body making it so tired! this week i'm FINALLY feeling back to my normal self. with a bit more of an appreciation for my family, friends and all my loved ones. and you guys and gals and non-binary pals, too! the dash was a blessing to occupy my time with. even if i wasn't writing. reading your posts always makes me happy. so if you're on my follow list? and part of my day to day?

this is just me saying thanks. i appreciate you all more than you know. and man. don't take your health for granted. take care of yourselves. get your check ups. and do what's right for your body. cause i love ya. i'm cleaning today off and on. but i'm planning on binging some supernatural and some spooky stuff once everything's how i want it and dusting off my writing brain as i go! did a lot of video gaming to try and fill up my brain when i was being quiet, too. but it's not the most creative thing in the world! so!!! catch up is coming! much love!

ps. it took me a while to post this cause i'm so so so freaking never wanting to give peeps a reason to worry. but i really wanted you guys to know what's up and why my activity has been so sporadic/focused on a small amount of things. give ya the ol' heads up. i know none of you expect a reason or whatever. i just thought i'd share. and give ya all a reminder that you're important.

[scummy-writes]

The hurricane went by me, but ended up going through and hitting where my family and friends live. My family is fine despite some issues in town, however the town they live in mainly just got hit on the side. But my best friend, who I've known since we were children, lost their home and car. They lost everything that they didnt bring when they evacuated.

Obviously, I am preoccupied trying to help them out, but realistically all the roads near them got damaged and I can't GO there and help them, and it will likely be Weeks until I can.

They have food and water and they're in a safe place with their polycule. So instead I'm focused on building up some stuff for them for when this calms down a bit, like homegoods and similar. I'm hoping FEMA will help them too, even if its limited.

All of this to say that I am stressed. Understandably so, I hope!!!!! I don't know what this will mean for writing, honestly writing is a stress reliever despite how I talk about it, but I may just be too busy for a little bit. Or, when I have downtime I'll go insane and write a lot.

I want to like. Apologize in advance if I seem Very Fucking Odd in the upcoming weeks, like sounding frazzled or sporadic posting or really odd fanfics/writing quality decrease/etc. At the end of the day its my blog so like, i'll post whatever, but like. Still. I'm not very worried about writing stuff moreso than accidentally misreading tone more often than usual.

I may end up uh. Stopping the @ikemen-daily-questions too? Unless i hit some sorta zen moment and write out a buncha new qs and fill up the queue for a while. Idk im not thinking too hard about it right now.

Edit: gonna queue this to post a few times

[stoic--rose]

ok hi ive been struggling lately with my psp battery i bought at a retro game store near my place. its been doing a lot of weird things so today i finally decided to run some tests relating to its true battery life, and got some weird results. heres my findings

first, some background knowledge. i have a psp model 3000, it's the newest (exclusing the psp go) model of psp, and came stock with a 1200 mAh battery when it was sold. i had a hard time finding a common consensus on the battery life of a stock psp 3000 battery, but it seems to me that it would last around 6 hours when not doing anything intensive, and around 4 hours if you're playing a game or something.

the replacement battery i bought was an aftermarket battery for the 3000 by a company called xyab, and this battery was advertised at being 800 mAh, and somehow would provide "up to 6 hours of extended gameplay", according to the packaging. yeah, sure bud.

well, when i got home and put this thing in my psp, it came with a full charge and was working great. then, when my friend was playing it, it just randomly shut off, even though it didnt seem to be at low battery or anything. (i hadnt done any research on psp batteries at the time so the 800 mAh capacity didnt raise any red flags to me yet) then, when i was at work one day, the same thing happened again, and it appeared to be at 2/3rds of battery capacity when it happened. (this time i was the one playing it, so i had first hand experience.) usually, when a psp's battery is low, the green battery light will flash a bit, indicating that you need to charge it. when it shut off this time, it hadn't been blinking at all, so i figured something must have been up.

today i finally bit the bullet and ran some tests on the thing to make sure i wasn't nuts. i recorded my psp on the battery info screen, let it sit without being plugged in, and checked back on the footage later to see the percent it was at when it shut off. like i'd suspected, it shut off when it was at 38%, or around 1/3rd of its supposed battery. it lasted around 4 hours, and didn't flash the green battery light at all around the time it shut off. so, yeah, an 800 mAh battery was a scam, to say the least.

afterwards, i decided to record it charging the battery back up for a bit, and it was even funkier than when it was running the battery down. it would sporadically jump from 0% to 8%, then to 23%, then at around the 30% mark it just rocketed up all the way to 60%. i had stopped recording at that point, but then something funny happened.

uh, charging complete? you sure about that, man? yeah, it said this around the 66% mark, which solidified my theory that it was just a normal psp battery with about 2/3rds of the capacity it was supposed to have.

in conclusion, if you're gonna buy a psp replacement battery, dont buy one that says it anything under or above the 1200-1400 mAh range. if its under, you're gonna have a bad time like i did, and if its over, its literally a lie because, at the size normal psp batteries are, they literally cannot contain something with, say, 3600 mAh, which is what my old psp battery was, and it's most likely a scam. if you want to read up more on info about getting replacement psp batteries, i recommend this reddit post that i referenced when looking for a battery to replace this current one ive been complaining about this entire post.

pretty much this is all just to say, fuck this stupid ass battery it made my psp shut off when i had been playing persona 1 for a long ass time and i didnt save and it made me lose like 2 hours of progress

[w3bhead4lyfe]

hey chat

so...

idk if any of u guys r here from my dc x Spidey crossover/ao3, but if you are i have some things to say!

so uh,

1. sorry for not updating in almost two months..

2. the reasons i haven't updated is bc i was busy with school ending(+ some other stuff) and i have been meaning to go back thru and rewrite the previous chapters to make them more detailed and flow more smoothly!

3. im currently out of state and don't have my laptop w me, but im gonna try and write something tonight if im not too exhausted!

4. i have other fic ideas in mind that will also start to be written and posted on ao3 since it's summer time and im gonna have a little but more free time, but i will still probably keep updates on TSOTWCUA (my dc and spidey fic) as once a month on sporadic dates

5. im starting to get back into anime a little bit so maybe be on the lookout for that if you're interested!

6. if youre here from my merlin content, specifically my pirate au, please know that i will try and get some where with that! but im also still not too sure on what pairing to have if i even have one (i probably will)

so uh yeah that was that! if you read all of this tysm and sorry lol!

don't be afraid to send me asks btw! feel free to gently harass me if you feel the need!

i can't promise an exact date for chapter 7 of tsotwcua so js watch ur email for an update notification!

also ill try and post more on here🙏🙏😼

[peasthedumb]

Question, actually, cause I’ve finally realised the correct way to word it:

So uh….emotions yeah? Can’t actually remember if I’ve made a post venting this issue before? I usually post everything pretty spontaneously which is an awful decision tbh

Srs question that: if it’s normal, I’ll look melodramatic, if it’s not….idk? I guess I’d just rather know?

I really really feel basically nothing a lot of the time. Other than pretending emotions I think would be correct or entertaining at the time (Which also isn’t hugely a conscious decision btw). Not saying that’s a majority of the time, I do feel stuff normally most of the time too, but it’s usually just very sporadic, and when it’s done, Its back to that void until something else triggers the emotion. And a lot of the time it feels very shallow, that’s the only way I can think to word it.

Is this normal humanity shit or what? It’s not a problem, it doesn’t affect me in anyway, it’s just a little confusing and I’d just sorta like a bit of an answer? I’ve tried to figure it out myself for ages, like I even made characters to explain it to myself, like some science model shit which definitely brings me cringe to look back on (even if the designs were epic if I do say so myself >:3)

Buuuuut yeah, I do really feel like a lot of my persona is more force of habit than actual person, which yet again isn’t awful except for some annoying traits I need to fix.

Ik im better off finding some wacky subreddit to find an actual answer but Reddit is actually weirdly scary to approach somehow.

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Giant-Size X-Men 1 (May 1975)

Len Wein/Dave Cockrum

Here we...here we...here we fucking go!

This is the most important X-Men comic ever published: more important than the very first issue, even. This is also going to be a heinously long post, so strap in.

Notwithstanding the last, uh, six months of posts, this is where X-Men really starts, with it re-starting. In the mid-70s, the team had been without a book of their own for years but sporadic guest appearances had kept the characters present in the minds of readers: many of those guest appearances had been written by Len Wein, who in 1974 became editor-in-chief at Marvel and decided to revive the X-Men, but cautiously: he was going to put out a special large-format issue introducing a new team, and then follow it with further occasional large-format issues, maybe three or four times a year. He wrote the first issue, and got Dave Cockrum to draw it, creating a number of new mutants for the team's rebirth and introducing them all in a series of virtuoso sequences. I'm trying to resist the urge to just post this entire comic, but snippets will have to suffice.

Right away - this is page 1 - we see that the issue of prejudice and fear is back at the centre of the X-Men story, where it has always belonged. Not all the characters were totally new, though: one of the had been seeded a few months ago in Incredible Hulk, as we have seen.

Banshee, meanwhile - who, as we know, is canonically a country music freak - was also returning (slight sigh).

That's an interesting start - three characters and none of them Americans - but what about some non-white characters, huh?

So. The introduction and framing of the non-white, non-Western characters in this issue - and in this run of X-Men, to some extent - is obviously, shall we say, heavy-handed.

And yet, here they are - the characters exist, and I think it's important that they are drawn from all over the world: the comic is working hard to emphasise that and in doing so slips over and over into caricature in the interests of foregrounding diversity. It's not great - it's aged pretty terribly, in isolation - but with the knowledge of where these characters (particularly Storm) end up it's difficult to read any of this as actively bad, I think.

Certainly the clunkiest of these introductions is that of John Proudstar, the Apache, and it's surely no coincidence that...well, we'll get to that.

So, there they all are.

And here is someone you do recognise.

This is a long section of set-up, (re)introducing Cyclops and explainign where the others have gone: Jean, Bobby, Warren, Lorna and Alex have all gone missing on a mysterious island that seemed to house a super-powerful mutant (Beast, the X-Man we've seen most of during the hiatus, is now fully off doing his thing with the Avengers and is not involved).

There's so much going on here: we of course are all totally familiar now with the original X-Men, but some reader picking this up in 1975 very likely wouldn't have been, so here they are crammed in and then immediately disposed off. Shout-out also to Cockrum's art here, of which we'll have much more to say as we go on, but it does a huge amount, packing in character designs, costumes, action and plot while still leaving room for effect and emotion that, at times, ism almost Neal Adams-like (here, as you can see, Cyclops was briefly depowered when escaping the island, though he gets them back).

Also, here's our next big theme: infighting, introduced when Sunfire quits and then re-joins the team in the space of a single page. This is both foreshadowing and a sign that this issue was maaaaybe trying to do a bit too much.

But fuck it, this issue is great. Can you imagine the sheer richness of picking this up on a newsstand as a kid. All these characters! All this lore! All this potential! And then we get to the action of the issue, as the team fights its way across Krakoa, which is a kind of pulp nightmare landscape.

Enjoy the drama, the design, the style of this whole page: the looming temple, the strange angles, the sinister greyness of the final panel. Everything here is at the top of its game.

And then the big - if slightly obvious - reveal that the mutant is the island itself. This art kicks ass, and in the meantime introduces another thematic strand in the whole nuclear testing/cold war/mutation angle.

The final action sequence is bersekly brilliant, full of ambitious layout choices and complex storytelling that pulls of the goal of showcasing all the various disaparate X-Men and getting them to work together.

Eventually the fire the entire island into space (??) and the issue finally runs out of room and ends.

So, yeah. This issue was so obviously great, and such a success, that plans changed, and instead of occasional big stories like this, X-Men was revived as a regular monthly book: or rather, because it was still being printed but only with re-runs of original era stories, it was revamped as a book with new stories, starting with issue 94.

That's where this read will go next - and, guided by my trusty reading guide, we'll go right through for about 50 issues with only occasional guest appearances in the meantime, returning us at last to the one long on-going soap opera that is X-Men at their peak. Can't wait!

[gummybugg]

For anyone who's tagged me in writing games, I'll just have you know I wrote a bit more lately, so I wanted to share this little slice I wrote recently (from Crater City in Elijah’s POV):

After Blair finished my makeup, he began dumping the shiny containers back in the box. I stopped him midway.

"You're not going to do your makeup?"

"Me? No, it's been years..." he trailed off. "Besides, in this outfit?" he tugged at his stained shirt.

I grabbed the three eyeliner pens that hovered above the box in his grasp.

"Hold still."

With one hand placed on his chin for stability and the other with pen in hand, I began my work. A whole lotta blood sweat and tears went into it, one could say. I really had to dig deep into my early years of drawing shoddy dinosaurs and horrific animatronics. If there were any memories I was best at recovering, it was my most useless ones.

"Elijah, I can't go outside looking like I came from Cujo's Wacky Adventure."

"That's not even what I'm going for. Besides, since when do you care what you go outside looking like?"

"Are you saying that because I occasionally dress like a slob?"

"No, you dress like Blair," I finished my masterpiece and nudged him to turn around to look in the mirror. "Behold my preschool-level artistry!"

A smile crept up in his face as he touched each of the tiny white blobs I drew on his face. "Oh my God, they're ghosts with boots smoking cigars!"

"They're supposed to be geese," I laughed. "To match your shirt."

"Geese!"

As I handed him the pens to put away, I caught a glimpse at the packaging: May remove with detergent. "Uh, it's ok if the face paint lasts a little bit longer than intended?"

"Yeah, it's ok, I wasn't planning on washing it off anytime soon," he remained facing the mirror. "I'd totally be willing to die in this."

...

(Authors note, I copied this text from my photo app bc notion is hard to copy and paste from so excuse the errors)

...

Want to rot your brain with each sporadic Crater City post? Join the taglist! Maybe I'll finish this wip someday, who knows! (dm to be added/removed): @writeouswriter @lyra-brie @digitalsatyr23 @talesfromtheunknowable

[saysike-skedoodles]

EVERYBODY LIKES YOU

EVERYBODY LIKES YOU!

EVERYBODY LIKES YOU!

EVERYBODY LIKES YOU!

EVERYBODY LIKED YOU!

EVERYBODY LIED TO YOU!

---

I felt like I was never going to finish this. But I did! I got addicted to the song "Everybody Likes You" by Lemon Demon again and found myself associating the song with Bex. So what do I do when I associate a song with an OC? I draw some art based off of it obviously. Bex just can't catch a break, can she? Anyways, I still don't really know why I associate a song as sporadic and crazy as this one with Bex. Most of my reasons for when I associate songs with OCs is just "probably something they'd listen to/sing". But in this case I genuinely don't know why I think it's a "Bex song". I guess what the art here suggests is that, uh, it's relating to her trying to calm down when she is struggling to stay calm.... yeah. I've also been on a bit of an MLP high at the moment and I'm pretty sure stuff like Pinkie Pie in the episode Party of One and Twilight in Lesson Zero also indirectly inspired this. Honestly the more early 2010s and before stuff that I find that inspired TMM the more I realised this show should've just been made in the 2010s full stop HAH. I also think I'm possibly fuelling some unknown TMM creepypasta fire once I post this. I can almost see the "TMM CREEPYPASTA WHERE BEX GOES INSANE AND PULLS AN MLP CUPCAKES OOOOOOOOH SCARY OOOOOOH ISN'T THIS SCARY THAT A PLUSHIE CAT IS GOING STABBY STAB OOOOOOH-" Would be pretty funny tho not gonna lie and would add to the whole "TMM being a show from the 2010s" feel LOL. Also thanks to one of my friends that helped me out with suggesting ideas on this. This drawing actually underwent a redraw during the process cuz I didn't like how it turned out the first time so shoutout to them.

---

also uhhhh I feel like I should clarify here while I still can cuz I'm a bit paranoid of stuff like this but don't take my word for gospel and start drawing a fuck ton of gorey/REALLY edgy TMM creepypasta art- honestly it would be best if you ask before hand and don't be surprised if i give a "no" answer. Just wanted to mention that since I know I joke about "OOOH TMM CREEPYPASTA OOOOH EDGY TMM FAN CONTENT" but I don't want people to just instantly assume I would be fine with it. We're just here for 2010 fun and games and to also joke about the edginess of the 2010s that I'm pretty sure we were all apart of (I'm not lying I loved the dark mlp stuff). I know TMM is a multi coloured magic animal show but let's keep the dark stuff on the down low- (i say that and the MLP infection AUs have been spreading like wildfire)

---

I'm gonna shut up now I have a lot of thoughts in regards to art I make- I dunno if people even read through the entirety of my unhinged ramblings ehehhehehehwijhhwehewfiuhewfhiuehf-

---

Deviantart

Tumblr

Art Tumblr

Youtube

TMM Official Tumblr

Newgrounds

---

[all content I post is automatically 13+ if not stated in the title or the content itself]

[astaroth1357]

A Life Update

Hey everybody. For a majority of you, this post isn't going to matter so feel free to carry on. If you're new uh... Well hi. Nice to meet you! If you're returning, hey! It's been a while, huh?

My sudden absences seemed to have worried some people, so I thought I'd give a little update and kind of how I forsee this blog going forward. For starters, I'm alive! And in fairly good health all things considered. No need to worry there. I'm actually in school again, going for my master's in a place that I really love. Campus life is a little lonely, but I'm following my passion regardless.

Upon my extended break from this blog, I kind of realized that it got way too big, way too quickly, for me at least... I never started it looking to make a big audience, I just really loved the game and wanted to share my ideas with other people who liked it too. I wasn't ready or even built for the kind of pressure maintaining a blog with so many eyes on it would put on me. I'm an introvert, practically a recluse, it was and still is my very first blog/social media/anything. Interactions are... hard for me.

All of that being said, it seems to me like the fandom has calmed down quite a bit now and I think I may start trying to write again. The OM world has so many rich opportunities for world building and I do still want to write my own works one day... I had to take few months off from the game when it inexplicably broke on me, but since then I have come back to it and I'm still playing. I do so more conservatively now, but I haven't lost any love for it. It's just a cozy time for me.

Updates to the blog will be far more sporadic then they were in days past. I am back in school, after all. I think at this point, it'll be healthiest for me if I only post whenever the inspiration happens to strike me. That way I can keep up with my studies and keep things at an arms length unlike before.

I'm sorry if I've worried you, it wasn't my intention. But thanks for all of the concern I've seen and I hope that I can continue to write here and maybe other places too in the future. 🙂

[comickergirl]

(I’ve shared these over on Twitter, but realized that I never made a post about them here. XD)

Some Kickstarter Campaigns!

First up: Super Best Friend SERIES FINALE! 

The thrilling conclusion to the adventures of Mattie Moore and Captain Terrific, written by Jason Inman, with art by Jordi Pérez! I had the opportunity to do another variant cover, which you can grab, OR you can get the main cover by Pérez OR!!! You could grab the PHIL HESTER VARIANT. Lots of great options here for covers and add-ons, definitely check it out! (This one has, uh....less than three days left! XD Better late than never, I suppose!) 

Second: Hairology: A Celebration of Hair!

From Lifeline Comics, a 56-page anthology featuring comics centered on hair! Lots of great contributors, and a nice mix of genres, from anime-inspired action/fantasy, to autobiographical. I’m doing the art for a story by none other than the incomparable STERLING GATES, screenwriter/producer/comic creator extraordinaire, and you know the scribe of the best run of Supergirl NBD, NBD, featuring Scouts! Sporadic French! And WASPS! The book is a little over halfway to its funding goal with seventeen days to go, so a bit more time to check on this one! :D

Thanks in advance if folks decide to support/spread the word, very much appreciated--otherwise, hope everyone’s having a good start to their week!

[ofgentleresolve]

ferre's thoughts!

hi everyone! so sorry to have been absent ( or at least very sporadic ) here and across all my other blogs- i promise i never stopped thinking about my muses and all of the wonderful dynamics i have with everyone!! recently though, i guess i've been feeling a bit...meh about this blog?? so i'm just going to ramble for a hot second in these bullet points to air out my thoughts and hopefully i can get to some kind of conclusion here....feel free to throw your own opinions in here if you want to!!

this is my fault, but uh, i think i accidentally isolated myself on this blog?? like, these days most of my activity rp-related has been in discord, but i would like...to reach to ppl again if they are still interested....that being said, i know i say i love plotting with other muns, but i also know that truthfully, it takes me a while to open up and it probably doesn't help that i can take like weeks to get back to ppl ic wise....i dont want to get into the details but i'll just say that this summer was kinda...not great ( don't worry nothing bad happened, i'm just going thru a rough patch....) so that's been killing my writing mojo for a while ://

this also relates to the first point, but i realize plotting really does make a difference to me about whether or not i'm excited for a thread so i'll probably make a note about that when i rewrite & condense my rules....

ever since i moved patrick to his own blog, i've noticed that annie ( and since i gave him a connection to her ) and ga ram seem to be the most active on there...tbh there are some muses on my main muse roster that truthfully, haven't been used in months due to the lack of plots/active dynamics- i don't want to get rid of them bc nostalgia and i do intend to write them on occasion, but....if they aren't garnering as much interest then i might just have to switch around my rosters a bit....

this blog isn't nearly as much of a slice-of-life blog as it used to be....if anything, i feel like it might be better to call it a crime & slice-of-life multimuse considering that the muse who seems to come out the most often now is annie....as such i was wondering if....perhaps changing the aesthetics of this blog might help with getting into the mood for writing on here again?? if anything patrick and calum's blogs seem to embody this blog's current core themes more ^^'

this might also mean changing the username for this blog....although i will say, i am quite attached to this url as it's been my brand for YEARS... but on the other hand perhaps a url with a bit more...grit to it could help ( that and if it is change then better to accept than resist...right?? )

also saw lena on my dash ( WHICH WAS A SIGN OF A GOOD DAY FOR ME 🥺🥺🥺 ) and i lowkey?? wanna follow in their footsteps aka be more lax and free-flowing on here...so i might drop the formatting ( sans the small text ) bc that does, i will admit, take up more time to post responses than anything else :'D

okay if you read all of this, thanks for listening, i promise everything will be fine on my end <3 i really really just miss writing on here and being part of dashboard shennagans so....hope to see?? you all soon in the meanwhile, will try to get to some memes & maybe do the bingo boards for some of my muses here <3

[vital-spirit]

OFFSCREEN POST

The Older Brother: Part One

The moment the school bell chimed the day’s end, students made a mad dash out of the schoolhouse, eager to go home. Kids waiting for their parents lined up outside the entrance, taking refuge under the shade of the colorful canvas awning. And those who didn’t have someone waiting for them stayed back in the schoolhouse.

Unless they were Tyson.

“C’mon, Lillipup!” Tyson burst through the open doorway, looking left and right down the dirt road before looking back towards Bingo and his brother. “If we hurry, we can—”

“Nope.” A gloved hand suddenly scruffed the Scraggy by the loose skin, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Not gettin’ away from me this time,” Scrafty chuckled. 

Bingo skidded to a halt, haunches raised and fangs bared, a deep growl emanating from her throat as she spread out her paws into a fighting stance. 

Scrafty let out an amused huff, sticking his free hand into his pocket. “Relax, my guy. Ty’s my brother.”

AH. Bingo blinked before hesitantly relaxing her body into a sit where she very quickly began to shuffle her paws, feeling warm beneath her coat as she looked down at the ground. “I‘m sorry for growlin’, I hadn’t realized,” she responded softly.

“S’all good, kid,” he nodded, letting go of Tyson (who hit the ground with an “oof!”). “You got good defensive instincts. Best thing to have ‘round these parts.” Waving down Ryan to his side, he tilted his head down the road. “Y’all ready to go?”

The Lillipup just sat there confused, glancing over toward the Scraggy brothers with a raised brow.

Ryan blinked up at his brother. “Is Lillipup comin’ with?”

Scrafty looked from Ryan to her. “She can if she wants. I can drop ya off at Lucario’s on the way back.” With a shrug, he added, “If it’s cool wit’ you.”

“You know Mister Lucario?” Bingo asked with a tilt of her head.

He blinked. “You literally saw me havin’ a smoke on the balcony wit’ him a few nights ago.”

“Oh.” She blinked, “I forgot.”

“You forgor…” Ryan said pensively. 

Tyson skittered over to Bingo with a pleading look. “But can ya come with? Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasep—”

“Uh–,” The Lillipup briefly hesitated for a moment before answering, “...Sure?”

“Yippee!!” the brothers said in unison, throwing their arms in the air.

“A’ight then,” Scrafty nodded, beckoning Bingo to follow, “We’ll head by Lucario’s first to drop you off and then we head home.”

She nodded, standing up and quietly following after the trio of brothers.

The streets of Little Town were quite lively in the afternoon, especially so soon after school had ended. Markets were abuzz with activity, eager to catch some business from the sudden influx of Pokemon about. The group had taken the long way around, traveling down a worn-down road lined with buildings that seemed notably older and more run down than most of the other buildings around town. Unlike the central plaza, the layout of this part of town seemed more disorganized, as if it had been built sporadically. 

Glancing around as they walked, Bingo took note of the fact that this portion of town was noticeably different from the rest.

“Old Little Town,” Scrafty said suddenly, as if reading her thoughts. “This here’s the first bits of what would become Little Town later on.” Gesturing to the farmland off in the distance, he continued, “Used to be a real nothin’ town. Just a bit a’ farmin’ n’ trade. Then someone built a schoolhouse for them farm kids, n’ then the rest came wit’ it.”

“Oooh.” She nodded in response, “I see.”

Ryan wrapped an arm around Bingo’s shoulders and pulled her close as he pointed a finger at one of the run down buildings. With boarded-up windows and a scarlet tarp for part of the roof, it looked worse for wear. But the eye-catching murals on the outer wall added a pop of color and personality to the otherwise drab building.  “That right there’s Scrafty’s house!”

“Ryan… what did we say ‘bout screamin’ my address to the entire gotdamn town?” Scrafty deadpanned. 

Bingo glanced over at the house curiously for just a moment before looking down the road, acting as if she hadn’t seen it due to Scrafty’s reaction.

“Well, ya did work real hard for it!” Tyson reasoned. “Y’oughta be proud of it!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scrafty glanced aside and shrugged. “Guess so.”

The yellow Scraggy turned to Bingo and boasted, “Scrafty made them pictures himself! He’s a real artist!”

She glanced back towards the building to admire the art for a moment, “It is very good.”

The older Pokemon bashfully rubbed the back of his neck. “Well Graf helped…”

The Lillipup’s ear twitched in confusion, “Graf?”

Ryan leaned over and whispered, “Das his art buddy Grafaiai.”

“Ooh,” Bingo whispered back.

“So!” Scrafty clasped his gloved hands together, putting an end to the conversation. “How was school?”

“I killed three people in Hangman today!” Ryan shouted.

“That’s nice Ryan.”

Tyson scoffed, “That’s not how the game works.” Pointing his thumb to his chest, he proudly states, “I passed my vocab quiz!”

Scrafty nodded with a grin, “Siiiiick.”

“Barely,” Ryan mumbled.

“What ‘bout you, Pup?” The older Pokemon gestured to her. 

“Ah–” She shrugged, looking down at the ground, “I learned how to write some of the vowels today...”

Scrafty looked up in thought for a moment, then said, “That’s like… 37 n’ a half percent of your name. Once you get the L’s n’ P’s, yer home free.”

Bingo quietly nodded, “...Suppose I will be.”

“You’ll get there,” Scrafty reassured her. He scanned their surroundings to gather his bearings for a moment. “By the way, how’s travelin’ wit’ Lucario been? I know he can be a lil’ bit… hm… But he been treatin’ you a’ight?”

Tyson and Ryan immediately stared at Bingo, eagerly awaiting her response.

She glanced away from the brothers as they stared at her, shuffling her paws as she responded, “It’s been fine, Mister Lucario’s been treatin’ me okay ‘n everything.” Bingo shrugged before adding, “He’s been teachin’ me how to fight ‘n stuff.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, “Yeah, fightin’s one them skills you’ve gotta have if yer out travelin’ ‘round Nowhere.” Eyeing his brothers, he asked Bingo, “Think he mentioned somethin’ ‘bout you not really rememberin’ a whole lot from before he found ya. Anything that you do remember, though?”

“Oh!” The Lillipup answered in surprise, “Uh, yeah, I only remember that my name’s Bingo, ‘m 14, and that I–” Bingo froze, staring at Scrafty in silence for a moment, as if thinking, before looking off to the side and continuing, “...I… was somewhere I shouldn’t have been. Nothin’ else.”

It wasn’t a lie. Just a bended truth. Lucario’s told Bingo plenty about how she shouldn’t mention being human to anyone else. So she wasn’t going to.

Scrafty stared at her for a moment. He seemed to be thinking something, but it wasn’t quite clear what. After a while he finally asked, “Nothin’ else?”

“Nothin’ else.” She reiterated before adding, “I wasn’t even able to remember how to use moves until Mister Lucario found me ‘bout a month or so ago. He had to teach me how to use ‘em from the beginnin’.”

“Damn, tha’s crazy.” Tyson commented. “Whaddaya mean by ‘somewhere where ya shouldn’t be?’”

The Lillipup nonchalantly glanced over at the Scraggy, “I was in the middle of Nowhere. As in the middle of the desert itself. I was alone for a few days before Mister Lucario came across me passed out ‘cause I got caught out in the sun.”

Suddenly, Scrafty stopped in the middle of the street, his attention caught by one of the street vendors’ sales. “Oh shit, buy four, get one free? That’s one hell of a steal!” He turned to his brothers and jabbed a thumb towards the vendor. “Y’all go grab some of those toys. Coolest ones you can find.”

He didn’t even get a response back. The two Scraggies immediately darted towards the toymaker’s cart, pushing and shoving one another to get there first.

“Tch… buy four, get one free. Who the hell does he take us for?” Scrafty shook his head. Turning back to Bingo, he raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her. “So what I’m hearing is Lucario found you half-dead in the middle of Nowhere with that buzzard looming over ya?”

Scene End.

[queenofbaws]

these weeks just...just keep comin, huh??? like they don't stop or something ;P

another quick update from queenie hq: things are going to c o n t i n u e to be sporadic and strange on my end for the next couple weeks. i'm going to be hosting family, again, until roughly the end of the month, so alas, i'm not anticipating a ton of writing time. or relaxing time. or time where i'm not gritting my jaw and screaming internally. SUCH IS LIFE!

however, i'm totally psyched to report i fiiinally got to cross one long-running wip off my list (the tale(s) of the champion), and oooh the feeling of seeing a complete checkmark for that baby over on ao3 is fueling the fire for me to wrap some others up too ;P my plan for the time being is still to try and get out a chapter or two of like wringing blood in the near future, but i'm also going to be working on finally wrapping of mummy men & bathtub soup so i can open the door for other CREEPs projects. we shall see.

as always, i've thrown some snippets under the cut - strictly supermassive projects this time, hehe - and i hope you're all doing well <3

of mummy men & bathtub soup

“Uh huh. Look. I’m sure you guys have something hilarious planned for me tonight. Another A+ jumpscare courtesy of Washington Pictures, Inc. And I’m also sure that the more of this crap you get me to gobble up, the antsier all your cloak and daggers bullshit makes me, the funnier it’ll be when I fall into a swoon or whatever, but it’s not happening. Am I the brightest bulb in the lamp? No! I’m not! Am I the sort of moron who gets bit by a dog and tries to pet it a second time? Also no!”

Sam had barely started shaking her head when Fliss joined them, an unspoken question in her eyes. She latched onto her instead. “People keep talking about last night. I've heard someone mention weird stuff happening on at least three separate occasions already, so if anyone could give me just a little context, that would be so great.”

“Weird is…one way to put it,” Fliss said. “It’s not the word I would’ve picked. Freakish, maybe. Terrifying, definitely. It must’ve taken you guys forever to set that up! It was—”

“Oh no,” she breathed, dropping her head into her hands. Conrad almost expected her to sink into a nearby chair or go full-on crisscross-applesauce on the floor, so intense was her reaction. She didn’t: If anything, she set her shoulders and squared herself off, assuming the air of a battle-hardened soldier. “Okay. Okay. Okay. Listen to me. I know you think this is about you because you think everything’s about you, but I am telling you, it's not."

upcoming CREEPs project with a title that 100% spoils ALL the surprise of it and thus will not yet be included asdlkfjalskjfklsjdf

“Any word from our housetergeist?”

“Uh, not unless they suddenly share yours and Josh’s love of absolutely inscrutable inside jokes,” Ashley called back, equal measures relieved and disappointed to see the fridge decorated with the same message the guys had put up before their trip: DO THE BARTMAN. Rolling her eyes, she pulled the door open and rummaged around, making a happy little sound when she spotted what she’d wanted. “Hey,” she called again, “are you gonna be upset with me if I drink the last cream soda?”

“Josh might be!”

“I wasn’t asking about Josh, you dip! I was asking about you!”

“Oh. Then, yeah, heartbroken. I-I-I don’t know how I’ll survive! I might have to reassess this whole relationship thing. Honestly, I can’t believe you’d do something as heinous as drink the last cream soda! I thought I meant something to you!”

She grabbed the can and shut the door, groaning, “Ha ha,” before stopping cold.

The fridge magnets had moved.

a fic that started as a joke post but now has almost 40k words written for it

“Hey,” he said, giving the grate a hard shake. They all winced, pulling even farther away until they pretty much fell on top of each other. “Chill. They’re fuckin’ dead. Shit’s fine. Don’t be weird about it.”

Good deed done, he turned back around to rejoin the guys, and—fuck.

Right away, Bobby knew he didn’t like the way Chris was sizing them up. He didn’t know why he didn’t like it, he just knew it spelled trouble, one way or another.

Jack seemed to agree with him. “No,” he said long before Chris even opened his mouth. “Whatever it is you’re brewing in that snowglobe you call a skull, quit while you’re ahead. Or while you still have a head.”

“Your plan didn’t work.” For someone who usually stayed at base during their hunts on account of ‘not wanting to die the world’s stupidest death,’ Chris sure was sticking his finger awfully close to Jack’s face. That was biting range. And Jack could move quick when he wanted to. “Your plan worked even less,” he continued, moving that finger to Travis’s face instead, and Jesus Christ, that was worse!

Travis didn’t answer him. Not at first. He sucked his teeth, though. Stared at Chris’s finger. Probably thought about breaking it off if he didn’t get it out of his face. “If you don’t get that outta my face, I will break it off, so help me God.”

Yeah. Checked out.

[eliasdrid]

Three thoughts: since everyone and their mother calls build the best rider and I had a relatively mid experience with it and I see you had an awful experience with it…

number three but I put it first bc it’s the most important: why didn’t you like it? Sorry if you’ve made posts abt that—

number one, what do you consider the best rider show?

number two, have you seen kamen rider geats?

3 - Oh that wretched show (Kamen Rider Build)........................ I'll leave my full answer for last so I can just do a "read more" and spare people of spoilers for the show. The TL;DR is that I have a love/hate relationship with it, it starts really well but then it uh, it's like the show just forgets itself? does that make sense? I don't know, it disappointed me... My message to the world is: if you want to watch it (in my opinion) up to episode 33 it's pretty good, it gets worse later.

[note: edited this to be less harsh bc I liked a lot of the show in the end despite my issues with some choices and some people might think I didn't like anything at all]

1 - This kinda spoils the options for the poll a little but whatever. I got into toku this year with sentai so I've only watched Shin Kamen Rider (the 2023 movie) and then Kamen Rider Den-O (2007), Kamen Rider W (2009) and Kamen Rider Build (2017).

I don't think any of the shows are perfect but I think the most satisfying experience overall from start to finish was Den-O because it's a bit silly but consistent with it? So it's pretty enjoyable.

2 - Funny story... I started Geats but I couldn't click with it. I do think a lot of the suit designs are SUPER pretty though. Kamen Rider Geats, Cross Geats and Na-Go are my faves for sure (from the images and material I've seen).

3 - OK So let's do this. I have actually not done a list of all my issues with this show here in my blog but I have complained a lil to people I know and who have watched it (and shared my opinions). This is my personal opinion and I want to preface this by saying I'm a sci-fi nerd and I might have set the bar too high because it looked really promising to me.

SPOILERS FOR BASICALLY EVERYTHING IN THE SHOW

I'll get to issues related to characters first, I think that's easier:

Vernage could have been really interesting but she is equally under and overutilized when convenient to the point she's always doing everything with her last breath (until she does actually die... ) and shows up so sporadically you almost forgot she was still alive when she shows up again. It's wild because when she's introduced you're like? Oh? Will she give us lore and then die? Perhaps a clue to a secret weapon? Some secret power up? no!

Misora is never developed to her full potential despite going through a lot of stuff during the entire show. She could have had a more active relationship with Vernage and tap into some martian knowledge or be able to channel Vernage's power willingly but :/ Her dad literally ends in a coma and she is like... mostly unaffected? Doesn't talk about him? Idk, I'm not saying she should henshin because that's unrealistic with this show but she could have worked with Vernage to take revenge on Evolt for that (via helping the team). I WILL say, she does have her sad moments and her actress does a really good job, it broke my heart when she had her final conversation with Evolt!Soichi. But off that? She's an internet idol ^w^ and the glue that has to hold the team together even though she's like LITERALLY 18-19 and everyone else in their mid 20s and up???

Insanely enough Sawa's friend to spy to friend to spy to friend thing is decently executed so I can't complain much here.

Y'know what I can complain about though? Kazumi! Kazumi is such a character that I wanted to root for because he is so much about community once you get to know him and he has this good caring leadership vibe to him. This guy commits and this guy finds middle points and he can't forgive Gentoku but he asks anyway that he joins them and he even encourages him later to try and follow his father's footsteps. HOWEVER. HE IS A FUCKING CREEP OVER AN IDOL AND THAT UNFORTUNATELY IS MISORA. Bro is 29 years old demanding respect from Banjo and fangirling over a girl that is like... a real human being... who he actually gets to know. I thought their relationship would be... realizing she's a Real Human Being With Thoughts And Feelings but he never stops being a weirdo and it was uncomfortable... ☠

Isurugi Soichi... (not Evolt) underutilized as hell... we get this reveal that he can talk to Evolt near 33 and I thought "OH! Maybe he can influence him? Maybe this is what has been stopping Evolt from wrecking absolute havoc?" but as you might know/guess, this was not the case. There was a LOT of potential for a parallel with Him being posessed by Evolt and Misora being possessed by Vernage and Misora coming to terms with the fact that her dad got the worst alien buddy out of the situation but... they don't do this.

Evolt (Evolt)... my major problem with him is that the show literally tries to sell this "monster that didn't have feelings before" story on the last arc and it just... doesn't work? Because yeah, he's an asshole but like he clearly gets frustrated and excited and he clearly had a lot of feelings driving him around otherwise he'd not have gotten attached to the same human body for 10 YEARS and only hopped out of it when his "vessel" was complete.

Banjo, I got here finally, I deserve a medal. Not my kind of character but overall he's fine? The whole alien thing is done in the most boring way possible imo, idk how they did that but hey! The show is in such a hurry to go through as many small plots as possible near the end that it went super fast?

Sento! I can't talk about one and not the other! Overall Sento is a well done amnesiac protagonist until they make him go back to his old self to undo character development near the end for what feels like ages (I think it was just two episodes though?) and then he remembers and io and behold! he's Sento again but can remember some things from before. I have no words, it felt like he was going to stay like that for a second and all his character development would be undone. I think he could have remembered without having to go through that, I think he could have had conversations with himself without them just making him forget his friends so Katsuragi could have ONE chat with Gentoku. I think he was prone enough to monologue that he could have started remembering after Evolt by just. Literally talking to himself and finding his old self within him... like we could have had the same thing without the weird moment. I also think the whole arc with his dad suddenly coming back was poorly written... because? Suddenly he's not THE Genius and also Build wasn't "originally" meant for him even though it's hinted MANY times that it was Katsuragi who developed the Kamen Rider System entirely/mostly on his own. I think I could be ages here so I'm gonna move on by saying: it was bad.

Gentoku... my meow meow... I'm biased, overall I liked his character development and the Rogue drama was interesting? (it has a couple problems and more torture/blood than necessary maybe tho). His whole deal felt more straightforward than the rest and before he becomes a bit of a "joke" (with the identity fashion crisis and then the awkward moments) he has some really good moments of redemption. I really liked his speech in 39 when he feels bad about fucking up with Utsumi and is too injured to fight. ("Im not writing at 2 am edit": He has good character moments after 39 too! I understand they needed to kill the tension a little by making some fun of him and I liked some of it; the nepotism bit was really good! and his sacrifice was meaningful)

Honorable Utsumi mention because: what do you mean he was a cyborg??? That was so out of the blue and meant absolutely nothing because it's not... anything. For a show that did decent hints about things Utsumi suddenly being a cyborg because "haha his nickname was cyborg" and they maybe did one joke on an episode intro... it's really lame. Off this (which I needed out of my chest) he has a lot of missed potential and could (and should) have replaced Sento's dad as Evolt's "main" scientist because uhh he literally did the Sclash Driver and was very talented? Did the writer just... forget that? I guess so! It'd have been more interesting for sure if he had been working all along against Evolt fearing he'd betray Nanba but no.

I'm gonna go over plot things as quick as possible because I got too wordy with the character stuff:

The Pandora Box. I get it, it's a very convenient excuse but for a thing that Evolt seems to have created himself... they sure throw a last minute "but he doesn't know about this secret panel" I think... I think Evolt knows his funny little box for destroying planets and consuming their energy better than anyone on Earth...

The Sky Wall and the Pandora Tower. It'd have been SO much fun if, as I had hoped, the Pandora Tower was a massive labyrinth they had to figure out to get to the top and stop Evolt or some sort of ritual over a period of time...

The Show is called Kamen Rider Build! They do not build shit during the final episodes. I guess the Grease power up but he dies as soon as he uses it so that doesn't count. They literally got most of everything "solved" around the time Katsuragi made the Genius bottle so! They decide to reuse the Hazard Trigger to do something that is never hinted at (or makes sense if you ask me)... they don't even modify it 😭😭😭😭 They could have done something like before the proxy battle when Sawa and Sento do the modifications for Tank/Tank and Rabbit/Rabbit and have the team help Sento assemble a new device before fighting Evolt but no...

"Let's make a new world instead of properly defeating the bad guy" coward move! It also conveniently erases everyone's character development even if Sento and Banjo are "the same" in the new world it's just, a weird choice (I've been told they get their memories back in the specials or something but still ????)

Evolt destroying the world at random suddenly for his own amusement was really just an excuse to do the New World thing sellable and was really weird specially after the Be The One Movie in which he CLEARLY doesn't want Earth destroyed. He Loved Earth. He spent 10 slutty slutty years posing as a DILF and 3+ of them causing problems on purpose. BE REAL.

Also having Gentoku and Kazumi die was another way to make the "new world" thing more easy to digest because "see :( our friends died we need to bring them back :(" (idk man they were pretty decent at fighting, they could have not died!)

FINALLY. On the New World thing: A Post War scenario with the Kamen Riders helping rebuild the country and Kazumi and Gentoku in leadership positions, Misora reconnecting with her Dad and Sento trying to figure out how to use the bottles for good and more practical uses than fighting would have been much better...

anyway this got super long, I'm so sorry. Thank you for coming to my KRB talk. Kudos to you if you made it to the end, I probably have even more thoughts on this but we'd both be here forever. I'm locking this because people are weird about shows sometimes and I have seen people insist that Build is Really Really good when it's like. mid at best if you have to judge it from start to end.

additionally: I refuse to watch the specials <3 the movie (Be the One) was fine though, tbh it felt more on sync with the show than the finale. Even if they introduce the Blood Tribe guys only to kill them off. The Buid/Cross Z fusion bit was fun too!

[inkblot22]

HII THERE!! I’M BACK FOR MORE ASKS IF IT’S OKAY ♥️♥️ any riddle thoughts? :0 HRU BTW

Hello! Welcome back, you're always welcome here! I'm happy to see you here again, and I'm doing relatively decent, considering I'm currently having brainrot over a very specific character that is not from twst. Also tell me why I drafted this and then left without posting and the cut??? moved???

Anyways, I have a little confession to make. I do have Riddle thoughts, but he's honestly my least favorite twst character. You can cancel me for that later. For now, we have HEADCANONS to do!! Once again, this got way out of hand lmao. I remembered to add how I think he might smell this time too, thankfully :)

Uh, anyhow, tw for captivity, abuse, concerning use of magic, enabling behavior, violent descriptions, and other general yandere themes.

+ Okay so despite his general disposition, Riddle feels like he'd be slightly less strict with his darling. Don't misunderstand, he's still strict, but his favoritism shows in little things.

+ If Riddle is infatuated with you, you can get away with a lot more than say, Ace. Ace is not allowed to wear anything yellow on Tuesdays, and loses his head if he does so. You are allowed to drink honey-sweetened lemonade at nine. That kind of thing.

+ This translates in your private life. No one, not even Riddle, can maintain such an uptight persona at all times.

+ Once again, don't get me wrong. Riddle is kind of just like that, but he isn't as uptight as he is in public. Maybe it's your influence.

+ He definitely blames you. You go to bed late, and he likes to pretend that he's in control of your dreams, so he waits for you to fall asleep. He wants to know what's so great about soda, so he buys it for you and drinks half of it before you can have any. (Riddle seems like the type of guy to have grown up with spinach brownies and only mints as far as sweets go, if you know what I mean.)

+ He's definitely happy he's met you. He's even happier that he has you under his thumb, so to speak. He's experiencing so many new, wonderful things, and you're becoming a better person for it, at least in his eyes.

+You're expected to follow the rules, even if you get away with a little bit of bending and breaking here and there. You have to attend every unbirthday and every birthday, every tea party and every croquet game, and you have to be on your best behavior. Otherwise, you're in deep yogurt. More on that in a moment.

+ Uh, anyways, he's very clingy behind closed doors. I imagine if you get close to him, he smells kind of like lemon, pine, and the barest sweet note of strawberry. It's actually pretty nice, and you've started smelling similar since he demands you use his bath products as well.

+ Riddle uses a few pet names for you. Mostly "dear," "darling," "beloved," but less common and only when you're particularly distraught is "rose petal." You're his delicate little rose petal. This is only behind closed doors.

+ By the way, being lovey-dovey in public brings the wrong kind of flush to his face, so if you want to piss him off, feel free to kiss his cheek whenever you're out on one of your privileged walks.

+ Speaking of which! Riddle does get angry with you a LOT. When he's mad, you need to either move quick to diffuse the situation, or accept the impending punishment.

+ He doesn't have mood swings so much as an eager temper, so more often than not he'll just become slightly offended by a little thing you do and then think about it for a little too long.

+ Punishments are sporadic and cruel. They range from being forced to write 100 times on a chalkboard "I will not disobey," to him using his signature spell on you.

+ In the case you're not magic, Off With Your Head feels physically painful. Your limbs feel as though they're made of lead and your skin tingles with something like electricity. For a mage, it's a more emotional feeling of loss, as well as the weight of the collar, but for non-mages, it's like getting your blood forcefully sucked through your skin with a million metal straws, all hooked up to car batteries and conducting electricity.

+ That's not including the weight of the collar, by the way. The collar always leaves a red ring around your neck, a raised, irritated bruise.

+ Riddle has a tendency to not apologize when he's wrong, too, especially to you. He wants to stay the correct person in the room. He can't have you thinking less of him because he didn't like the color you wore and then threw a tantrum because of it.

+ On a completely different note, someone who sees what Riddle puts you through and says jack all is (drumroll, please🥁🥁🥁) you guessed it! Trey Clover, everyone's favorite childless dilf.

+ Trey doesn't let you completely suffer. Sometimes he'll talk Riddle down, and this one time that Riddle lost his temper completely and struck you, Trey was right there with a bag of frozen corn, but other than that?

+ You're on your own, dearest. It's you versus Riddle versus the Twisted world you're stuck in.