#the KEY part of this works though i think(although i might have it switch hands)— it’s akira being in the throne but Rabid Dog goro holding-

[honeysweetcorvidae]

[WIP] (exhausted) gamers i forgot that i hate rendering again.

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2007): Epic

You know what folks? Change of plans! I must play something else before Community Chest 3 kills me with its marathon-long content. So let’s take a look at another WAD on the list before gathering material for CC3 between reviewing other WADs. And today, we have a perfect WAD that will jump-start my heart back out of the boredom.

G8: Epic

Main author(s): Alexander S. (Eternal)

Release date: October 10th, 2007 (database upload)

Version played: ???

Required port compatibility: Boom/Limit-removing

Levels: 5

Epic is one of the earlier WADs created by Eternal, who actually started posting WADs in 2007. Not only did this WAD earn one of the Cacowards but the author himself also earned the Mapper of the Year award; all in the same year, making it all look like he was just getting started. But we will have to play this WAD to see if it was all well deserved...

Spoilers: It was well deserved.

While it might not look as good as some of the other WADs released in 2007, Epic still looks great. And it’s mostly due to taking place in desert-like areas (with some jungle parts sprinkled here and there) that might give you ancient Egypt vibes. And since I’m a sucker for ancient shit, of course it would hook me in. The final map with the titular citadel is something worth seeing yourself.

Now, I’ve seen people calling this WAD an Egyptian one, but I’m not entirely sure about it, since the maps look like they have elements not only from Ancient Egypt but also from Mesoamerican civilizations. Not to mention some of the modern/army base-looking buildings here and there.

Music-wise... I think it’s all right. Nothing really to complain about, although I feel like the tracks for Sand-Storm and The Citadel are too short for such maps. Not to mention hearing Daedalus’ leitmotif so many times in the past that it gets infuriating.

These maps aren’t that complicated. You just need to remember that there are two moments on Arc of the Pendulum where you have to shoot a switch to progress.

Each map has something different to offer. A Fool's Paradise has you fighting somewhere that looks like a dock built near an ancient temple. Sand-Storm is a big, sprawling level where you can go to most of the locations in any order; you end up here by the teleporter in the previous map and you end up blowing the one from the other side, killing two poor shmucks in the blast radius. Arc of the Pendulum spends most of its time in some castle complex before ending up back in the jungle, near the train station that leads to the citadel. Helltrain makes you board the train at the end of the previous to get to the next map.

And of course, the titular Citadel, which on the foundation level is Sand-Storm again but on a bigger scale, but it tends to fresh it up, with six keys to find instead of three, a short visit to the Martian vessel, you even visit the titular building itself after taking care of the outdoor area surrounding it.

There is also one thing that doesn’t happen in the WAD – supposedly, it would make (at least some) hanging corpses destructible, like the hangmen Keens.

Now, I don’t really think Epic is hard. Sure, there are some tougher moments, but it never really felt like I was about to turn into the walking punching bag for demons. And even though there are cheap moments like with monsters hiding in corners/popping from the ground or hitscanners in the wide areas that don’t really have anything to hide from them, I think I can forgive the author for these for now since this was one of his earlier works (and the hitscanner thing happens rather rarely).

Some of the enemies get updated sprites. Hitscanners now wear different headgear per type, Imps are darker and have yellow eyes, and Revenants’ eye sockets are now green, reminiscing their Doom 3 variant.

Although I don’t remember encountering many bugs, the author recommends not playing the Citadel with the latest (at the time) version of PRBoom among other problems.

Epic might be unpolished in some places but I believe it’s one of those WADs that every Doom WAD enjoyer should play. It’s an excellent introduction to the man's work of Eternal (even if that’s not actually the first WAD he created), and it’s the biggest proof of why he was regarded as the best map maker of 2007.

Now, as for Community Chest 3, as I said at the start, I’ve decided that in the case of the community projects, I will play them the first time and gather the screenshots of where the secrets are/interesting locations between reviewing other WADs; in parts. By now I’m halfway done with CC3 secrets and I’ll try to finish searching for them before tackling The Ultimate Torment & Torture.

Until then, I’ll see you all next time.

Bye!

[hexaliamapreviews]

Celeste Map Reviews #18

I managed to escape the xmas mapping mines long enough to play a couple of maps! Before I get dragged back to hell, let's talk about them! Minor Spoilers for AWWPD!! FIRST! - Deeper Lake by Kazt! - What a fun gm map this was! Here we have another Spring Collab December entry, the first gm one! The general decor and style feels like a moderate evolution from sc's style while still staying true to it, and the music definitely has that sc vibe to it which I enjoyed. The gameplay revolves around fish, dream blocks and core blocks and has more of a focus on spinner precision like in Aquatic Underground (one of two inspirations for this map!). There's lots of cool movement in these rooms; it's very satisfying to chain supers and wavedashes and wallbounces while navigating the main entites as well! There are some cool uses of core blocks in here, ALTHOUGH! The weird jump in room 4 is VERY goofy, not sure what the deal was there. There was a berry which was also fun with a core-bloosted ultra in there (nyoom~). I just about avoided having a heart attack when I entered the final room and HE was there. Of course! Also being inspired by Fish Hell, this map was bound to have theo at the end for basically no reason. And indeed, this room is a bit jank in spots, but this wasn't a silver session so I don't have to tilt over it! I liked the core-bloosted hyper to grab theo and reach the second half! But yeah after that the map ends and that was a very fun techy map! Kazt cooked with this one, heavy recommend! Overall, smooth moves, 8.8/10

SECOND! -Collapsing Cold from A World Where People Die! - A new map pack is here, and after Avory's propaganda eventually won out, I downloaded it and gave some maps a go! Firstly, this one, an expert map. The gameplay theme here is synced falling blocks which leads to weird and wacky setups and hijinx. Some parts are cool, and some seem kinda cheesable, but I really did enjoy the novel concept! One of the berries had me stumped on how to enter it, leaving me trying to to a reverse dultra to cross the gap (yeah im dumb af lmao), but I eventually found the red bubble to take me there. As for the deco, well yeah it ain't that good really but the music was nice. Overall, YES, ANOTHER FOR THE CC COLLECTION, 7.4/10

THIRD! - Dreams in October from AWWPD! - Still in this map pack, I ran into a puzzly expert map! Of course apparently it's 50/50 whether I enjoy puzzles or not, but the coin flip worked out this time! This map features a core inventory dream dash gimmick, which leads to a lot of thinking about your movement options and how and where you can use your dashes. Zippers and swap blocks are also here to spice up the puzzles, and figuring out how to use them to go to the right places is essential. Indeed, deducing this map's rooms is very fun and satisfying! Some parts are evil, like the 2nd touch switch in penultimate, but there's lot of cool moments too. I like how there's kinda multiple (i think) ways to go about some rooms, so it doesn't feel toooo hopeless to complete. The berries were a nice addition of course. Also, this map is quite pretty, I like the stylegrounds, and the music is great! So yeah, overall, excellent puzzler, 8.9/10 FOURTH! - from AWWPD! - yeah, no name! Not even a difficulty either apparently, though upon entering the map, it's clear to see why things seem so weird. We have been placed in Celestial Resort A Side but... it's empty. Nothing is anywhere, no dust bunnies, no Oshiro, it's barren. I traversed the entire hotel, nabbing a strawberry and some keys along the way but, yeah, all empty. At the end heart there is a single note there which might explain things, but as it is the map ends there. Interesting.... Overall, The RESORT of Celestial (?) ??/10 Uh oh the mapping mines are calling for me sorry baiiiiiii

[lizalfosrise]

New Character - Halys Iori

Okay it’s been a while since I’ve actually had a new OC and I haven’t had an intro or working document masterpost up here before buuut:

Tada! Gunlance-wielding lamia Halys Iori! A tough and flirty delinquent neesan who’s great in a fight but perhaps a bit shy or awkward at things other than that. A metalhead with interest in visual kei, and some other genres too of course. A streamer and possibly mechanic?

Longer rambling post after here:

Although a specific setting isn’t fixed yet unlike Rise, whom there are many different versions of for different works (hence the “multidimensional lizard for hire” title) and even the different character Rize(of my avatar here), Iori is just fine being just Iori. If Rise is a lizard and Iori is somewhat of a counterpart then they should be a snake I figured. Thus we picked the race Lamia.

The snake portion of their body is based upon the tiger keelback (Rhabdophis tigrinus) there. Both it and the Halys Pit Viper (Gloydius halys) are venomous snakes found native within the Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa is a bit more famous for the Habu however, I believe. So Iori does have fangs but the keelback is a rear-fanged venomous snake thus you’d be fine from a normal bite, we just enjoy shark teeth characters a whole lot here!

I was thinking of considering the biker jacket and sarashi look as the possible default outfit choice but I want to add in elements from the Flaming Espinas gear since that would work well, especially those belts and perhaps the halfcoat-leg of the gunner version. No tattoos for now but that might change. No fullbody ref yet but I plan to save for sorting that out sometime. I dig the scaly hands look a lot too, and ears/waist are optional.

There’s also these lil alts for outfits/scenarios. Embarrassing such a character with a maid outfit is still a fairly common gag so I felt obligated to follow suit >:3 Picrew is full of options sure but not everything really meshes well in the creator or the range of positioning is minuscule. Rather than on the highlighted bang the hair ties ought to go to the side locks as is more usual for example.

It can still do fairly good at getting enough variation to try the pngtuber thing though. Until I had this picrew maker (faelion’s) cross my dash I only had the name Iori and no clue what kind of character I wanted to put to it. But we came a long way in a short time - just a name as of 15/11/22 then the picrew was 18/11/22 and more or less sorted to the current degree by 20/11/22

I am also working on this custom gunlance, effectively a Rare 9 weapon akin to the Knight Captain’s Charge Blade using ore and espinas parts for Fire element (and Poison on awakening): Devouring Yamakagashi.

The shells it fires burst into purple flames as a nod to Iori from King of Fighters. Coincidentally the red eye matches that series’ evil demonic eyes of Orochi’s power, making that a twofold reference hahaha. Yamakagashi is also just the Japanese name of the tiger keelback, but this fits in with existing Monster Hunter naming conventions just fine. It’s the shield that I haven’t quite settled on the design of yet. The thoughts and sketches and annotations about the ergonomics etc are tucked away in my head so there’s limited sketching, I’m pretty rusty anyway.

While I prefer to main Switch Axe in MonHun my secondary is gunlance, so Iori has one for her main. Although Kumo Desu Ga? brought up that manoeuvring in a fight with a large nonhuman body is both difficult to protect and to move, I feel that actually a lamia mixing it up between impenetrable defensive stances and blazing powerful agility to hit hard sounds very fun, they could probably do quite well - firing a shell, using the recoil to tense up their coils ready to spring into a lunge etc. The whole post-World gunlance mechanics of stab-shell-slap-stake combo would be pretty nice for that or a fighting game too.

And then once more: a beautiful spicy tease in the very first fanart of her, done by @feedbackfuckshit !

[hephaestuscrew]

Every Time I Can Think of When Names/What People Are Called Is Significant in Wolf 359

Cutter using everyone's first names as part of his terrifying over-friendliness thing. It's also definitely a power move because the crew aren't permitted to call him by his first name. They have to address him as Mr Cutter.

Alexander Hilbert / Elias Selberg / Dmitri Volodin. Since Hilbert has been working for Goddard for a long time, we can assume that these aren't even the only names he's gone by. The repeated identity-switching illustrates how Hilbert doesn't really have a life outside Goddard.

When trying to find out about Hilbert's past in Ep25, Eiffel asks him for his real name, like he thinks this might tell him who Hilbert really is.

After learning Hilbert's original name, Eiffel agrees to the continuation of the Decima experiments, although he says "I still don't trust you, Dmitri Volodin." I think this is the only time we hear Hilbert being called by his original name on the Hephaestus. Even at the funeral, Eiffel calls him Alexander Hilbert. The name that sticks is just the one he happened to die whilst wearing.

Lovelace sometimes calls Hilbert Selberg (e.g. "I've seen Selberg's dark side")- this seems to indicate when she's feeling most mistrustful of him.

Although the aliases are a practical measure, they also create a degree of separation between Hilbert and his previous selves. I think the most notable example is when he yells "Selberg not here today" at Lovelace in Ep26. When Hilbert is trying to save Eiffel from dying of Decima, he does not want to be called by the name of a man who killed two people using that same virus.

Like Hilbert, Cutter has gone by many names (William Carter, Marcus Cutter etc). He sheds identities to suit his purposes.

Andrea Nash /Rachel Young also took on a new name when she joined Goddard.

In her logs from the first Hephaestus mission, Lovelace says about Lambert, "I wish you were here Sam, I wish you were here to ask me not to call you that"

In her first meeting with Hilbert, Lovelace insists on being called Isabel.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the only people who call Lovelace "Isabel" at any point are Cutter and Hilbert. Cutter calls her it because he does first names with everyone, but Hilbert asks "Isabel... are you listening to yourself?" in Ep38 after she's given an any-means-necessary revenge rant. And he calls her Isabel again in Ep44 when they are inspecting the mind-reading chair thing before the mutiny. In a twisted way, it's an acknowledgement of their shared history. Hilbert thinks he knows Lovelace better than the rest of the crew do, so he feels entitled to call her by her first name.

For Hera, her name (as opposed to her designation of Unit 214, which places her as just one among many, rather than an individual) is an assertion of personhood. Pryce insists on calling her Unit 214 and chides Cutter for calling AI by their names, because she doesn't see AIs as people.

The crew call Hera Unit 214 when they are being mind-controlled and Eiffel gives away his non-brainwashed state by automatically calling her Hera, indicating his inability to see her as a mere machine.

In Hera's first meeting with Minkowski, Minkowski initially calls her Unit 214 because she had heard that AIs prefer to go by their serial numbers (incidentally, the fact that Minkowski looked into this is wonderful. I wonder whether its true that most AI like to be called by their serial numbers or whether this information is put out by Pryce to deprive AIs of identity.) Hera responds "Oh, no, no. Hera. Definitely Hera."

In Hera's backstory ep, it is revealed that Goddard doesn't name their AIs until after they've been assigned to a posting. This really illustrates Goddard's attitude of "we won't consider treating you like a person unless you're useful to us".

Hera doesn't always have control over how she addresses the crew. She is forced to call Hilbert Commander during his Christmas mutiny. After Kepler's arrival, she starts calling Minkowski 'Lieutenant' rather than 'Commander' without even noticing. This is a symbol of her lack of autonomy over who to respect/ obey.

When Eiffel's freaked out about Lovelace being an alien, he keeps calling her "Cap" and she picks up on this as a sign of something being up.

Minkowski's surname and its correct pronunciation as a representation of her Polish heritage, which Eiffel disrespects by mispronouncing it. He says he initially tried to get it right, but stopped trying after they started fighting. After she tells him how much his mispronounciation bothers her in Ep51, we do hear him start to try to correct himself.

Eiffel insisting on calling Minkowski "Commander" even when she isn't officially the Commander - at times, it almost feels like a nickname or a term of affection. Even when she's voluntarily given up command to Lovelace, he still asks "Do I really have to call you Lieutenant?" It's an indication that, even though he doesn't always show it, he does see her as the one in charge.

I remember seeing a post which suggested that Eiffel calls Minkowski "Commander" when he is showing full respect for her and "Minkowski" (pronounced wrong) when he isn't, and I think there's definitely some truth to that.

He calls her Commander in his last words before being stranded in deep space (Ep28), before launching himself into the star (Ep52) and before the mind-wipe (Ep61).

I'm pretty sure that the first time Eiffel calls Minkowski 'Renée' is when he is begging her not to send him off back to Earth in the Sol. This is followed by Minkowski saying "Goodbye, Doug."

Minkowski does call Eiffel Doug several times in the early episodes but I think this is more because the writers hadn't fixed on the significance of names at this point. I think I remember seeing the writers saying that they wish they'd held back on her calling him Doug so that it would have more power later on.

During Eiffel & Minkowski's first meeting, she cuts herself off from asking him to call her Renée, and says Minkowski instead (perhaps because she's trying to be more formal/authoritative). After he butchers her surname a few times, she tells him to call her Commander.

Minkowski reintroducing herself to Eiffel after the mindwipe. Eiffel pronounces Minkowski's name correctly first time. This time she does ask him to "call me Renée".

This might be a stretch but arguably it's significant that she reintroduces herself with "my name is Renée Minkowski. I'm the Commander of this space station" rather than "I'm Commander Renée Minkowski"- she isn't defining herself by her military position.

The si-5 have a similar thing going on where they don't often call each other by their first names, so when they do, it gives those moments extra emotional significance.

Kepler calls Maxwell Alana in Ep39 when telling her not to get sentimental about Hera.

Maxwell first-names Jacobi twice in Ep42 (the Outside Jacobi Incident), once to tell him that if its a joke, it isn't funny and once to say a firm No to the idea of leaving Outside Jacobi to die.

When Maxwell is calling out for an answer from Outside Jacobi, our Jacobi says "Alana... I didn't go anywhere."

In Ep43, when Maxwell is about to lay into Jacobi for losing his cool over the Outside Jacobi Incident, she begins with "Daniel? Look at me." He eventually responds with "Alana, you're... You're absolutely right."

You could even argue that the classic introduction of 'This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel' draws attention to names as a key motif.

[robinofgothamcity]

scenario: you start seeing Jon which leads to the two of you having to hide it from your family and especially Damian.

pairing: jon kent ( superboy ) x fem! reader

note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / can you tell my kent family hyperfixation hasn't left yet? i swear it's becoming an issue lmaooo but this might actually be the longest fic i've written for this blog.

you talked with your friends who you had snuck into the gala with. Rachel had begrudgingly agreed to come to meanwhile Cass and Steph were the only other ones who agreed to come on their own accord.

"Damian, your only friend is here," Dick said, earning a kick from his younger brother before getting up and leaving you and Raven alone. you knew it was a rare occasion that she even decided to show up so you didn't want to leave her alone. "we probably won't see my brother for the rest of the night. whenever his friend comes, it's like everyone becomes a background character. for him being my adopted 'twin' brother, I have yet to meet this friend."

Raven laughed as you saw the wine that the couple on the dance left on your table drunkenly. the bottle was little more than half-filled and you gave one quick look to Raven before pouring the wine into both of your glasses and discarding it right away.

"to not having fun for the rest of the night," you giggled as the two of you chugged the wine down in a mere few seconds, "drier than I thought it would be but it beats having to pay for it," Raven muttered as you agreed to sneak another bottle from the bartender so you wouldn't have to pay for it. even with your dad paying for all your necessities, the drinks at his galas were far too expensive for you to even willingly pay for them yourself. the only reason why he even paid for all your expenses was because you agreed to skip out on college to help run some parts of Wayne Enterprises with your brother.

another reason why you couldn't exactly go and pay for it yourself was because Bruce was not one to exactly be chippy at the idea of you getting plastered drunk at one of his public galas. "I got one of two ideas. one: I'll go flirt with the bartender and you can sneak behind him and get the other bottle or two: I can flirt with the bartender for enough time to see if he'll just willingly give it to us," you told Raven as she nodded with option two.

the bartender happened to be in his younger 50s. you recognized him from previous WE events and although he was familiar with your family, you doubted that he would say anything to your dad about you flirting him with. all you had to do was push the top of the dress down a bit and hike up the bottom to get his attention.

"hey Martin," you said, leaning up against the bar table and smiling, "enjoying the night?" you asked as you saw him flinch back in surprise. he nodded, trying to divert his eyes from looking at you in anyway you could have felt to be disrespectful.

"I was thinking, how much does the bottle of Lafite Rothschild go for?" you asked, giving him a pouty face. he gulped nervously, "almost ten grand ma'am," he replied, grabbing it from the wine stand, "even for me? I mean, my dad must've paid for it so does it even go for that much considering I am his child?" he asked.

you could tell that you had caught him in a predicament, "I would assume not, I assume you're twenty one, right?" he murmured, handing you the precious bottle. you smiled (a fake one that anyone could see through) and nodded before giving the old man a light kiss on the cheek, "thanks Martin, I appreciate it," you said, giving him a wave before leaving.

Raven perked up seeing the bottle in your hand, "snagged a ten thousand dollar bottle," you said excitedly as you waved it in your hand. Raven stared at you in shock, "you got a ten thousand dollar bottle in less than five minutes?" she exclaimed.

you giggled before whispering in her ear, "the benefits of being a child of Bruce Wayne is that you can practically get away with anything. especially when you're the daughter." you popped open the bottle as you handed her the wine glass and poured the drink with care. you gave her a slight cheers before taking a small sip and being pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as dry for a wine with a huge amount of alcohol percentage.

as the night progressed, you and Raven got actively more drunk. you hadn't realized how hard the wine had hit you until Raven was drunkenly getting pulled home by Gar as you sat at the table with a little less than the bottle still full. you hadn't seen your dad or brother all night and you figured they must've been pulled into doing Batfamily work at some point and left you alone with Steph or Cass. hell, maybe even Dick if he was still around.

you weren't actively apart of the vigilante work all of your siblings did but you did help them out with the technical parts of it when Tim wasn't available. you didn't really like fighting or risking your life so after you graduated, you interned at Wayne Enterprises under Tim's orders while Damian worked under your dad.

at the age of twenty-one, you still hadn't met most of the league for the exception of Wonder Woman and The Flash. the rest were strangers in your head and much to Damian's luck, he wanted to keep it that way. at least in his case with Jon.

"ow, I am so sorry," you slurred as you managed to hit someone on the shoulder. he chuckled seeing as how you were not attempting to get up, "you okay there ma'am?" the man with a southern accent asked. you giggled as you attempted to get up, "I'm ( your name ) and you are?" you asked.

"Jon Kent, pleasure to meet you," he said, kissing your hand. you blushed as you heard one of your favorite songs come through the speakers, "would you like to dance?" you asked, not even caring that you had met this just a few mere seconds ago. he nodded, figuring that since Damian left him stranded at the gala, he had nothing to lose.

the song 'telepatia' by Kali Uchis played throughout the ballroom. Jon immediately took the reigns as the lead as the lights got dimmer and you danced against Jon sensually. "what got you dragged here?" you asked Jon. "my best friend invited me as his plus one. you?" he whispered in your ear, "I work for the company so I kind of had to attend," you managed to say before turning around and facing him.

you looked at Jon with drunken yet loving eyes, "you're handsome, you know that?" you said with no hesitation in your face. Jon laughed, placing his hand on your cheek, "right back at ya, darlin'," he replied as the song switched to another one of your favorite songs.

side to side by ariana grande started.

you shrugged, feeling as though you had nothing to lose and got up on your toes gave Jon a kiss on his lips. he was slightly taken back but played it off by returning it. the two of you remained kissing through the entirety of the song until Jon felt a familiar tap on his shoulder.

"I gotta go but if you're up for it, I'd love for ya to give me your number," you nodded excitedly as you practically snatched his phone from his hand and typed it in as quickly as possible with your name having a hundred emoji's next to it, "text me in the morning!" you screamed.

Jon laughed before following Damian from behind, "you suck, you know that!" Jon exclaimed, "I meet one girl I actually like and you drag me away!" Damian rolled his eyes, "please, you act like there isn't more girls out there to hit on." this time, it was Jon's turn to roll his eyes, "I got her number so I guess that's a plus."

you woke up the next morning with a pounding headache but to a few messages on your phone. you smiled realizing that it was the boy you had met the night before.

"good morning...or actually good afternoon!"

Jon laughed from his side of the phone.

"good afternoon darlin'. I hope you had a good sleep."

you were texting your way down the stairs, greeting Alfred and Bruce before grabbing a plate of lunch and sitting down on the bar top. "what time you'd make it home?" Bruce asked, sensing the hangover you had. "a bit past midnight. drank a bottle of Lafite with Raven before dancing with a boy you invited," you said honestly.

Bruce felt himself go stiff at the admittance of you drinking the Lafite bottle but remained silent as Alfred placed Advil and one of your Gatorades next to you. "yeah, whoever must've danced with you last night must've been drunk too because you'd want to dance with you?" Damian said coming down the stairs.

you threw him a fork, Damian dodging it with ease, "I'd shut up if I were you. I'm actually getting coffee with the guy in like an hour," you replied, chugging down the rest of the food before getting up and going to your room, "yeah and I pray for the man who now has to deal with you," Damian screamed loud enough for you to hear.

you pulled on a skirt and tights before slipping on a sweater and fixing your hair and quickly doing your makeup. you grabbed the keys from your bag and took the back entrance to get to your car. one of the benefits of getting paid so much was that you were able to afford cars that were out of price range for a lot of people your age.

the coffee shop you decided to meet Jon at was a few blocks into the heart of central Gotham. you got a table farthest from the crowd as you didn't want any attention on you and your potential boyfriend. you saw Jon approaching at the front of the coffee shop and pulled on your sunglasses so no one outside could see who you were.

"nice to meet you, this time with me not being drunk," you told Jon, giving him a friendly kiss on the cheek, "pleasure is all mine sweetheart," he replied, putting his arm around your shoulder. you got up to the front of cashier and scanned the menu.

"I'd like a venti mocha with oatmilk, what about you?" you asked Jon as he scanned the menu nervously before muttering that he hardly orders coffee. you smiled, "and an order of a grande peppermint hot chocolate," you added on as you took your card out, Jon's eyes widening at the black American Express card.

"wow, Wayne Enterprises must pay you really well," he exasperated, "yeah, I guess you could say that," you said as hesitantly as possible. after the two of you got the coffees, you got back to the table as you took off your sunglasses in a sigh of relief.

"do you really wear sunglasses everywhere you go?" Jon asked. you debated on telling him the actual reason but decided on a vague answer, "eh, it's more for secrecy. I guess if I get another date, I might tell you the real reason," you winked, making Jon blush.

+

through the weeks, you decided to keep the biggest part of your life a semi secret to Jon still. he knew vaguely of a few things but one mistake on your end managed to throw all of that away in more ways than one.

you were walking downtown with Jon, his hand grasping yours as the two of you roamed an area of town that you knew didn't have major significance to WE. you were holding a coffee in one hand as you walked about a few things that happened to you that week to Jon. it wasn't until you walked towards a busy street that your heart fell to your stomach.

a huge billboard, like signs you would see on highways, of you and Damian representing Wayne Enterprises stood in the middle of an intersection. you stared at the ground, your one secret given away as Jon stared down at you, a look of shock in his eyes.

"wait, you work with Damian Wayne?" he asked as he could tell that you did not want to look at him. you sighed, a bit scared, "work partners might be a little too far from what we are," you gulped, finally realizing that you had to admit to your family ties.

Jon looked at you, now more confused than shocked.

what you didn't know was that at the same time that you were about to confess everything to Jon, a paparazzi had taken dozens of photos of you and Jon that were immediately uploaded to various Twitter accounts and gossip magazines.

"Damian Wayne is my adopted brother. Bruce Wayne is my adopted dad. that's why I have a lot more money than any regular Wayne Enterprise worker."

Jon immediately stumbled to the ground, not expecting that answer coming from you. you immediately felt tears hitting your eyes as you figured that maybe Jon didn't want to be with someone so rich and famous. someone's whose family was always in the spotlight.

"DAMIAN WAYNE IS YOUR BROTHER?" Jon screamed, catching you off guard as this was the first time Jon had ever screamed at you. you nodded, trying not to look at him in the eyes, "he's going to kill me. your entire family is going to plot my murder. I'm a dead man. Clark is going to find me in a ditch," Jon started talking to himself.

it was now your turn to look at Jon confused, "wait, what?" you asked, wiping your tears. "YOUR BROTHER IS MY BEST FRIEND. Damian Wayne is Robin and I'm Superboy!" he whispered the last part, "I've been dating my best friends sister this entire time without realizing it!" he screamed.

you finally connected the dots. every time Damian said he was going on patrol with Superboy meant that he was going to hang out with Jon and every time Damian said that Jon turned down a patrol session usually meant that you were going on a date with him. both of you stared at each other, not knowing what to say.

"small world, eh?" you asked, trying to defuse the tension, "guess we better figure out a way to tell them, huh?" Jon replied as you both heard your phone going off with texts and calls. you opened it to see that Dick, Bruce, Tim, and even Jason and Alfred were frantically calling you.

"hello, what happened?" you asked, picking up Dick's call. "GET HOME NOW!" he yelled through the phone as you heard Damian's screeching voice from the other side, "why? what happened?" you asked, staring at Jon now in fear.

"SHE'S DATING JON? I'M GOING TO KILL HIM BEFORE I KILL HER!" you heard Damian scream before something broke, "pictures of you kissing Jon came to the public on Twitter and he saw them," Jason said, half annoyed.

both of your hearts fell to your stomach as you realized it was now or never. everyone knew of your relationship and it wasn't even something both of you tried to do intentionally. you grabbed Jon's hand, yours shaking in fear as you got into the passenger side of his beat up red truck. he could tell you were beyond scared to go home and he now knew it was time. he had to man up before it got worse and you attempted to break up with him.

once you arrived to Wayne Manor, you sat still, not moving an inch. "it'll be okay darlin', I promise it won't be too bad," he murmured as he opened your door. you nodded as you hopped off and started walking towards the door.

you could hear Damian's yells still going on from the other side door as you opened it. you grasped Jon's hand and walked into the living space, Damian's eyes immediately looking at you before charging to Jon with every ounce of strength he had. Jason quickly grabbed you as Jon dodged him and Damian went straight to attack him again. you couldn't bare to look at the sight and felt tears spring to your eyes as you hid your face into Jason's side.

"hey, you okay?" Jason asked. he could see the tears in your eyes which instantly made him a bit upset. "enough," Jason screamed, catching everyone's attention. Jon and Damian saw the hurt look on your face and as soon as Jon realized you were upset at the fight he was having, he kicked Damian off of him and walked towards you.

he grabbed your hand and whispered an apology into your ear as he stroked your cheek lovingly, "I'm sorry dear but I wasn't expecting Damian to do this," Jon said as Damian watched the way Jon was treating you. a part of him knew that Jon would treat you right. Jon wasn't like your typical average boy but the fact that neither of you told him is what set him off and seeing you being so lovingly with Jon set him off again.

Damian ran towards Jon again but this time, you shielded him which made him stop immediately, "Damian, stop, please," you croaked. Bruce saw you trying to neutralize the situation and stood next to Damian, hinting at him to quit it, "I'm sorry we never told you but the reason why we never did was because we had no idea who the other was. I didn't know Jon was your best friend and clearly didn't know that he was Superboy and he had no idea I was even related to you nevertheless your sister. please, if it's anyone's fault, it's mine," you explained.

Dick, Jason, and Tim stared at Jon who grabbed your hand and pulled you to the side, "and I would have never made the move if I knew she was your sister but we fell in love and it was like a soulmate connection. we were meant for each other and I want her to be in my life. she's it for me," Dick sighed mesmerized as Tim and Jason gagged at the cheesy confession.

Damian growled, "if you even think of hurting her, Clark will be down one son and I mean it. that's my sister and no man will ever be good enough for her. you are my best friend and she might be a pain in my ass, she means the world to me. I will not hesitate to dig your grave and bury you alive if I see one tear of sadness coming down her face," Damian stated before hitting Jon on the shoulder purposely before walking away.

you smiled, your heart swelling at Damian's speech. he never once said anything like that about you and in his Damian way of being, you knew this was his way of accepting your relationship with Jon. you smiled at Jon before giving him a huge kiss on the lips, making your dad and all of your brothers gag at the sight.

"okay, save that shit for privacy, no one needs to see that," Jason said as he walked away. Bruce gave you one look before turning to Jon, "your father knows in case you were wondering but feel free to stay for dinner if you'd like," Bruce said before walking away with Tim and Dick walking away with him.

"I love you," you whispered to Jon as he let out a laugh against your lips, "I love you too and I'm all of this was cleared out." you nodded in agreement as you grasped his hand, "wanna come up to my room? I figured we should catch some sleep before Alfred calls everyone for dinner and Damian starts another fight," Jon agreed, giving you a kiss on your head as the two of you walked up the stairs.

[shootingstarwritings]

Hans Off the Computer!

The human mind, when boiled down to its most fundamental building blocks, was simply a system of ON and OFF switches. In that sense, it is functionally identical to that of a computer’s mainframe. When putting both of those thoughts together, the idea that the human brain can be completely digitized and transferred through networks isn’t too far-fetched an idea.

At the very least, that was the thought of Hans Hopper, a freelance software engineer. Currently, he was working at a computer repair shop to get some extra money and to kill time between projects—including his own.

“It could be possible,” he voiced his dreams to his boss, Carl, as they took a look at some guy’s gaming PC. The components were state of the art, some not even out in the market yet. Just the graphic card and motherboard made Hans drool at the sight. Streamers get all the luck, he thought. The owner, some small-name star with a big ego, took poor care of his machine, leading to landing on Carl's shop.

“Y’know, Hopper,” Carl began as he cleaned some dust off of the PC’s parts, “I think if you put that head of yours outta the clouds and into reality with the rest o’ us, you’d really take off. Least you wouldn’t be stuck in this freelancing business and get a real job like some o’ your peers.”

“And be like those corporate suck-ups?” Hans snorted. “As if. I’m not gonna be another cog in the machine. Now being in a machine." He grinned, already fantasizing about the things he'd do if he could ditch his flawed, physical form for a future full of infinite potential inside of a network. "That's what I'm after."

“Least those corporate suck-ups can afford their own places,” Carl sighed. “You’re still living with roommates at, what, 30?”

“...27, actually.”

Grinning, Carl said, “And there’s my point. At your age, Hans, I--” he paused as his phone began to ring with an irritatingly catchy tune. “Aw, shit. Lost track of time.” Before Carl ducked to the back of the store and towards the hall that led to his home, he glanced back and said, “Can you wrap up here and close the store, Hans?”

“You got it, boss," Hans said, waving him off. "Take care." Carl left without an answer, and Hans found himself alone with a PC he could only dream of. "Well well," he said, digging into his pocket and pulling out a flash drive. "Looks like it's just you and me from now on. Let's see if what's under the hood's enough to get my program running."

While Carl had a point that Hans' dream was beyond the capacity of current human technology, the world of sci-fi and fantasy lacked such rules. "Just like that ol' title," he muttered to himself as he inserted the flash drive into a USB drive. "A machine can't act like a human mind, but it can calculate runes with no trouble. Sometimes when we can’t use tech to get somewhere, we gotta use shortcuts.”

This PC was his best chance to experiment on his little program to see if it worked. After checking to make sure the drives were all up to date and the whole thing was running smoothly, Hans executed his program. A few keystrokes later, a magic circle formed on the screen. “Let’s gooo—WOAH!”

Although Hans should have figured that the ritual wouldn’t be painless, having his physical form ripped apart and turned into data was nothing short of excruciating. Reforming himself later wouldn’t be any less unpleasant, but he could never turn down the chance to become data and revolutionize the field of… magic? Science? Magitek?

He witnessed his fingers slowly fade as if turning into dust and flow like a stream of water into the screen. As the entirety of his arms completely disappeared, sprites that resembled arms appeared on the screen. "L-Least it works?" Hans nervously said as more and more of his body faded away.

Eventually, Hans' ability to feel, taste, hear, and see waned as his body fully waxed into the computer. The sensation… was nothing. There were no nerves or sensors to feel with, but he could understand the data that his mind had access to. Overwhelming, yet the sensation felt like precious wine on his lips.

The network… Though small, Hans was amazed at how he could travel through the network of the shop—including Carl’s personal PC.

“No, no,” Hans realized he could hear. He saw Carl through the uncovered camera and heard him through a microphone that remained plugged in. For a tech-savvy guy, Carl was real lenient in terms of privacy. "C'mon, Elise, be reasonable here. We got a meeting with the divorce lawyer tomorrow. Can’t you have your little wine party another day?” Carl rolled his eyes as he pocketed his phone. “Fuckin’ bitch. Can’t give me a break.”

And now, as Carl sat down to work on his computer, Hans realized he could attempt the other upside of the ritual. With his mind now data, he could reach out and override the "data" that was another's consciousness.

“What the hell am I supposed to—MMGPHF!”

It wasn’t the most graceful exit, but Hans couldn’t deny the results. Black tendrils—an unnatural amalgamation of data and flesh flew from the screen and landed on Carl’s face, causing him to fly back a few inches. His body twitched and convulsed, back forming a C,  as Hans’ essence flowed into each of Carl’s orifices. Carl’s feet kicked at the ground, fingers gripping his chair’s armrests, as Hans’ essence attacked and invaded his brain.

“A-Ah, ahhh.” Carl helplessly moaned as Hans override any freedom and control over his body. After a few painful seconds with his back arched and his toes curling as the sensation of being overtaken overwhelmed him, Hans awoke in his boss’ body.

“Well, well,” said Hans, feeling his new arms. “Not exactly my first choice for a body, but not a bad test drive.” He stretched in the comfortable office chair, a gift from another customer. “Man, Carl, for an old guy you don’t feel half-bad.” Now realizing that he was alone, a mischievous thought crossed Hans’ mind. “Well, got some time to keep doing some more research on my little program. Maybe I can find a way to hack into other networks." Grinning to himself, he stood up and slowly stripped out of Carl's clothes. First, the shirt came off as the nipples hardened in the cool air, then the shoes were chucked to the side to allow his feet to breathe. The pants came off next, and finally, the underwear flew across the room as Hans embraced his newfound potential—and his borrowed pole.

“Who knew old farts like you still had crazy stamina like this!” Hans cried out, furiously and desperately thrusting into his grip as he jacked off his boss’ body. “F-Fuck! Fuuuuuck!” Hans let out a roar as he came all over his boss’ keyboard. “W-Woah. Gonna have to clean that up later. Dunno where he keeps his tissues, but...” Hans paused and grinned once more. This wasn’t his body, so what the hell? He bent down and began to lick the keys clean, making sure to savor his boss’ taste with each slurp.

The next day, he sat in his boss' room, giving another client's laptop a check-up. It was a Sunday and so the shop was closed, but Hans' mind was far too wired to relax by simply lying around the place. No, tinkering around and keeping his hands busy was how he would wind down.

Although, Hans remained without any clothes. The feeling of the chair against his naked skin was intoxicating. Never in his life had Hans worked in the nude, but he might have to start doing it more often as he tried on new skins. For now, though, might as well enjoy Carl’s life for a few more hours before trying on someone new.

Hans’ roommates were certainly appealing prospects.

[eunnieboo]

XP-PEN Artist 12 Pro Review!

hello! XP-PEN was kind enough to send me their Artist 12 Pro: LINE FRIENDS Edition for an honest review. i currently use a Wacom Cintiq 13HD, but i’m always interested in affordable alternatives, so i wanted to check it out!

in this review, i will be comparing the Artist 12 Pro to the tablet that i have - keep in mind it is an older version of the Cintiq 13HD, so i’m not sure what they’ve changed recently. but because Wacom is pretty consistent in terms of tablet quality, i believe this is a fair comparison.

so right out of the box, there’s a lot of fun, cute accessories that come with this particular collab. part of this tablet’s selling point is its portability, and i can definitely see why! it feels very light and slim (note: this is a display tablet, like the Cintiq 13HD, so it must be connected to a computer). i was also pleasantly surprised to see all the different adapters it came with!

the pen comes with eight additional nib replacements - my Cintiq originally came with five. i personally have a very light touch, so i’ve never had to replace my nibs before, but i think having extra is helpful for those who have a heavy hand. the portable stand also has one level compared to the Cintiq’s three, but i found the angle just fine.

this might be a personal preference, but i really appreciate how the cable plugs into the Artist 12 Pro. it’s something i wish i could change about my Cintiq - one wrong nudge will send my tablet screen flickering to black before booting up again.

i also love the 3-in-1 cable that the Artist Pro has, because it cuts down on the multiple cords i have running under my desk.

this tablet comes with eight buttons and a scroll wheel on the side. some people prefer using their keyboard, but i like using express keys because i don’t have to move my hand from the tablet at all. so this was a point in its favor for me! these are my shortcuts, for those who are curious:

the driver set-up and installation also went smoothly. i first tested the tablet on a MacBook Air before switching over to a desktop PC, so i got to experience the set-up on both MacOS and Windows. in my opinion, it's easier on a Windows device. it feels a lot more straightforward. while i was also able to successfully install the tablet driver on MacOS, it required a little more tinkering and some additional steps. i wouldn’t consider this enough to dissuade Mac users, i just personally enjoyed my experience on the PC more!

(full disclosure: i had some screen troubles when the tablet was connected to my MacBook, but this was because i had to hook it up via an adapter of my own. i didn’t want to pay $70 for the official Apple product so i got a cheaper one, which ended up being a clown move LOL :’) once i removed the adapter and connected the tablet to a PC, i no longer had any of these problems. just something to look out for if you’re considering using any usb-c adapters!)

now for the most important part: drawing on the tablet! first off, the laminated screen feels very nice. i personally dislike drawing on slippery glass screens (this is part of the reason why i struggle to draw on iPads without a textured screen protector), so the matte, non-glare finish is really satisfying. the active draw space is slightly smaller than my Cintiq (10.09″ x 5.67″ vs 11.75″ x 6.75″), but i personally like small to medium screens so that didn’t bother me.

i do believe the Cintiq 13HD is more precise when it comes to pen sensitivity and responsiveness - however, i feel like the Artist 12 Pro holds its own very well. i’ve been using my Cintiq for years, so i’m very used to how it feels. despite working on an unfamiliar tablet, i was able to sketch, ink, and color quite comfortably on the Artist Pro. while i noticed slight differences in pen precision, it simply resulted in me redoing some lines now and then, and that ended up being my only complaint. the colors looked just as vivid as they did on my Cintiq, and i was able to adjust the pressure settings in order to compensate for my light pen strokes.

in terms of cost effectiveness, my Cintiq 13HD was $700, while the Artist 12 Pro is $300. although the Cintiq moderately outperforms the Artist Pro in pen sensitivity, whether or not that warrants its price tag is up for debate. ultimately, it’s up to the individual to decide what’s more important to them: performance or value. you could go for a tablet that’s affordable, but has some room for improvement, or a tablet that performs slightly better, but is considerably more pricey.

though the Cintiq is twice as expensive, i wouldn’t consider it twice as good. but again, it really comes down to what’s most important for your workflow, and what guarantees you get your money’s worth. i’ve found that huge ranges of pen sensitivity or pen tilt are totally unnecessary for my art, but for some, that may be a deal breaker. personally, i was able to use both tablets well, and neither impeded my ability to draw.

my final verdict: if you are a hobbyist, looking to upgrade to a screen tablet, or trying to get into digital art, the Artist 12 Pro is definitely an option to consider! i think it’s a really solid display tablet, especially for its price point. though i can only speak for myself, my experience with the Artist Pro has been a positive one! XP-PEN seems to be a strong competitor for Wacom and its products, and i’m very eager to see how they grow from here.

⭐️ XP-PEN Official Website ⭐️ 🌱 Artist 12 Pro LINE FRIENDS Edition 🌱

[starkiller1701-a]

Spock’s Calculator Project #1

Stardate: 2112.28

So I had this idea ever since I rewatched “That Which Survives” (TOS S3 E17): In the episode Spock is in command of the Enterprise and for a great part of the episode he is carrying around an interesting device

Now I’ve looked it up and prop reference sites identify it as “Spock’s calculator.”

I found it interesting because throughout the episode you can see the commander just fiddling with the device, but as it does not have any visible character read out I thought it was curious that they referred to it as a calculator. So I think it would be interesting if it was in fact not a calculating device at all but rather a sensory toy like the ones that are so popular now adays, and essentially that is what my project will be, recreating that prop as a sensory toy. 

My idea is to have the keys in the center of the device be actual mechanical keyboard keys, that way you would get the most out of the touchy-fiddly satisfaction of a sensory toy, and there’s no better way to stimulate that than through click-y keyboard keys. There are three knobs on top, my vision is to have each one do a different mechanical motion so as to expand the selection of sensations, as well as with the white button on the side. For that button I envision something like a pen button, having it click into place and clicked again to release. So the end product would be a similar looking prop that also has the sensory functionality with it. 

I first looked around the interwebs to see if this had been done, granted I have a specific vision in mind, but why reinvent the wheel. I did find a person that sells 3D printed replicas, but as far as I can tell it is a solid piece and the keys don’t move, although I am not entirely sure, so I did ask the seller, and as of now I am waiting for a response. 

This is that model. It looks to me as though maybe the side button might be actionable, but we shall see. I will include links to everything I mention so as to catalogue everything, as a reference for me to look up later on, but also incase anyone is curious or wants to follow along. (Ebay) Besides the this replica probably not working as envisioned, the knobs on top are not screen accurate, which I admit is a nitpick, as I myself will be changing a couple things since the keys don’t look like keyboard caps, but funny enough I was able to find someone that sells the screen accurate silver knob so I think at the very least I should try to stick to that if I can. 

Now, I mention screen accurateness because I found some reference photos of the prop. (YourProps)

I will definitely be referencing these when building my model. An interesting fact about this device though is that it is not the first time it has been used, in fact it was one of the very first Star Trek props out there. The device itself is based on the body of the communicator seen in The Cage (First Pilot).

Clearly visible is the same general shape and the same knobs on the top, the only thing missing are the other buttons. But on that note I am obliged to mention the other use this prop saw in the series, which happens to be in the almost worst episode, Spock’s Brain (TOS S3 E1).

(YourProps)

This version of the prop is missing the side button, but we do get a better look at the shape of the footprint which will surely come in handy later on. 

As I mentioned earlier I managed to find the silver knob in the middle, so at least that part is covered. (eBay)

The black side knobs seem very familiar, common enough but I will have put a name to the face and get some for this project. (If anyone knows what they are actually called and where I could find them that would be an amazing help.) 

As for the other components, I was able to find just want I needed in terms of keyboard switch testers: a 2 by 5 keycap switch tester module. (Amazon)

This part I wasn’t to worried about but having this will make things easier. I plan on basically building the rest of the device around this, and because of that the dimensions will depend on the size if this module. I don’t think it will deviate much from the apparent size of the original prop, although to be honest I don’t actually have the full specs on the original prop, that is definitely something I hope to find as I work more on this.  Custom solid colour keycaps should be easy enough to come by. So far I found a site that makes them, although I am sure I can find a better source (again, any suggestions are welcomed). (WasdKeyboards) One cool thing about this toy will be that it will effectively double as a switch testing module for when I launch myself fully into the keyboard hobby. That leaves the white side button, which I will look into further later on. 

My main Idea is to create a 3D model of the main body of the prop and then have it 3D printed. This will help me get familiar with blender, and I am confident that I will be able to find someone that can help me make that happen. Apart from all of that it’s basically a matter of gathering all of these parts and putting then together, which should not be too challenging. I expect that the 3D printed component(s) will add to the cost, but I am interested in seeing how much this will be overall, because if it’s a reasonable investment I think it would be cool to be able to make others for people that are interested. I don’t expect the demand to be terribly high for such an obscure prop, but you never know, plus I do think the functionality that I will build into it makes it that much more valuable.  Again if you happen to get to this point, any input at all would be appreciated. I’ve never done anything like this but I think it will be a fun challenge to accomplish hopefully within the next year! 

(Since this post is massive enough already I will add further updates on to #SpocksCalculator to make it easier to find; I don’t expect there to be many posts under that tag lol) 

[realcube]

haikyuu!! boys’ reactions to you speaking 💗 uwu💗

characters: tsukishima, ushijima, yaku, kenma & iwazumi

thank you anon for this cute request 💕 idk what i just wrote but i had fun 👍

IWAIZUMI & KENMA’S ARE AGED UP! MUTURE THEMES - MINORS DNI

tw// fluff, swearing, uwu language, cwinge

kenma’s hcs tw// sexual themes, implied switch!reader, phone sex(?), mentions of a blowjob, mentions of punishment

iwaizumi’s hcs tw// breeding kink, fem!reader, orgasm denial

Kei Tsukishima

you realised he didn’t like it so you did it just to annoy him LMFAO

he was scrolling through tiktok and a girl popped up on his fyp talking like that, so he snarled and immediately flicked it away, muttering something along the lines of ‘why do people speak like that? do they think it’s cute? ‘cause it’s really not; it’s just embarrassing.’

so you wasted no time in responding, ‘sowwy? what was that?’

HELL 👏 FIRE

his blood literally ran cold, he was aware that you liked taking the piss but he didn’t expect you to do it to this extent

 ‘what did you just say?’ he murmured, silently praying that he had just misheard you

you rolled your eyes before scoffing ‘nothing.’ you deepened your voice, just playing around at this point tbh

tsukishima hummed in agreement, deciding not to inquire further as he figured that he must’ve heard the echo of the girl’s voice in his head rather than yours

so he was just about go back to scrolling until he heard you coo in a high-pitched from behind him, ‘tsukishima is a lil’ bitch.’

‘(Y/N), FUCKING STOP!’ he let a throaty scream at you

‘you’re so boring, tsukki-’ you spoke, quickly cutting yourself off so you could switch to your uwu voice, ‘or should I say; bowing.’

you said, hopeful that your voice would make it clearing that you meant ‘boring’ rather than the act of playing an instrument with a bow

‘go to hell.’ he grumbled, trying his best to tune you out by pulling his headphones over his ears 

‘babe~’ you purred, shuffling over to him and peppering kisses along the nape of his neck as you were feeling extra evil today, ‘wuv you~’

‘jail.’  tsukishima simply stated as he switched over to Spotify so he could blare some Mother Mother to drown out the sound of your voice

the worst part was that he couldn’t even tell if he liked it or not PFFT

like it was cute but the fact you weaponised it against him annoyed him

but you were also giving him kithes so he couldn’t exactly complain 💞

Morisuke Yaku 

ok don’t even lie yaku does a variant of the uwu voice whenever he’s trying to insult kuroo IUGBEIGVA

it’s something like ‘aww, kuwoo, does your lil’ undewdeveloped bwain not undewstand algebwa?’ but in a mocking way yk?

so when a he watches a lil’ tabby cat approach you on the street, then you busted out the uwu voice that he had never heard before- he was taken aback

at first he was like ‘woah why are you making fun of that cat?’ bc he always associated that voice with ridicule LMFAO

but when he processed all the nice things you were saying he realised that you were being nice lol

so then he was like ‘awwww 🥺 (y/n) + cat = SO FKN CUTE!! 💕💗💖’ *click click* and he just starts taking photos

he probably puts them on his private story with the caption ‘their an angel 😍’

(then kuroo probably replies with ‘they’re*’) (don’t ask why yaku put him on his private story ✋)

anyway, he’s probably so fond of the voice too like ofc he thinks it’s cute

bc it’s a lil’ kitten and you’re talking to it in a high-pitched voice as if it can understand you SO FKN CUTE

he’s not too effected by it tho- it’s mostly how well you get on with the cat that he really admires

then he couched down beside you to talk to the cat too and y’all had a whole conversation with it in uwu

‘aww, look! are you hungwy, baby?’ you asked the cat as it licked the back of it’s paw

‘i think, it is!’ yaku continued, aware that if anybody from school caught him doing this, he’d pass away on the spot but what can he say? he’s soft for you (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

 ‘i have some blueberries in my bag, you can have some if you say please.’ he told the cat

you were both met by the cat’s blank - but adorable - stare, accompanied by silence until the kitten let out a faint, ‘mew’

‘AWWWWWW!!! 💞💕💖🥺👏 ’ you both squealed in unison, impressed by the kitten’s response 

‘it understands us!’ you gasped while applauding the cat for it’s excellent communication skills

‘the voice must work!’ yaku concluded as he scrambled to throw his bag off his back and rummage through it in search of the tub of blueberries

you nodded, watching in awe as yaku pulled out the tub to carefully pick out the plumpest berries and feed them to the cat

yaku noticed your expression out of the corner of his eye and chuckled, ‘what?’

‘you’re so cute.’ you snickered, lighting bopping his nose with your index finger as he continued to allow the cat to feed out of the palm of his hand

a furious blush immediately covered his cheeks as he hastily turned his head away to hide it - in a typical anime fashion, ‘be quiet.’

Kenma Kuzome

it’s a sex thing-- it’s 100% a sex thing

a kink perhaps?

ngl he loves it when you do the voice in bed 

like don’t ask why it turns him on so much

he’s weak for you whenever you do the voice tbh

BUT it’s only hot when you do it 

when any other person does it - especially if it’s over text - he literally gags 🤢🤢🤢

when a streamer he watches does the voice, he’s just thinks ‘ew ✋ that isn’t cute. pls stop.’

but when you do it- boner alert pfft

especially when you moan in that voice yES HE LOVES THAT

you just execute it in a way these other bitches just can’t, okay? 💅 IUERBGFERIBG

he doesn’t mind putting the voice on sometimes if you like it when he does it but he’s really embarrassed by it 🙈

he’ll try to say something in the voice while you’re rearranging his guts for a change and you’re praising him like 👏👏👏 ‘awh, precious kenma bb.i love that voice on you, i might just let you cum early--’

and he’s fucking groaning from pain, pleasure and humiliation 

‘never again.’ was the single coherent thought he could form

you’re only giving like 20% of the time but if you happen to giving on a day that you’re feeling especially evil, you might make him do the voice in exchange for orgasm privileges

but he gets you back for it though 

you’d call him, whining and pleading for him to help you with the throbbing between your legs or at the very least, give you permission to touch yourself

but considering that the day prior, you had tortured his ass to the point were he was now struggling to sit down, ofc he was just like ‘no ❤’ when you ask for his assistance 

even after your continuous begging, he didn’t budge 

‘don’t you dare put your hands on yourself until i get home. i’m leaving right now so i should be back in half an hour but if you keep pestering me like a little bitch, then i’ll be sure to go extra slow on the highway.’

although, for kenma ‘extra slow’ is probably the speed limit lmao

(istg he drives like he’s in mario kart)

however, half an hour was just too long 😩 i mean, you had probably been on call with him for 5 minutes already and it took you 20 minutes to get him to pick up the phone so by now, you were clearly on the brink of madness

‘kitten~’ you whined, desperately trying to think of a way to convince kenma to aid you 

then you remembered; his weak spot

‘pwease, baby?’ you softened and raised the pitch of your voice

kenma perked up as he realised what you were trying to do, the tips of his ears burning, ‘don’t bother to try that with me, (y/--’

‘i’ll suck you off when you come back.’ you promised, keeping the voice on, the aching getting worse and worse by the second

kenma was now partially able to relate to your circumstance as he began to feel a straining of his own, between his legs at your cutesy tone along with the image of the last time you blew him tormenting his mind

‘whatever. but only use your hands. i can tell when you use a toy so don’t even try; or else i’ll dick you down ‘til the sun rises- okay bye.’

atm the moment, that hardly sounded like a punishment but then you reflected back on how you’d be crying for a mercy after the fourth round with kenma so- yeah

anyway, moral of the story, if you perform the voice well enough, it’s basically kenma’s weakness so use it wisely 

Hajime Iwaizumi

you first did the voice in front of him while you had a friend’s baby in your arms and you were trying to communicate with it 

it kinda looked like 

you: hewwo babyy~ who’s the most precious thing? you are! 

the baby: 🤠

the parent: 🙂

iwa: 😶

iwa ON THE INSIDE: breeding kink go brrrr 😩 i want to put a baby in her so bad- she’ll scream my name in that fucking voice tonight

and he was right

cut to him pounding you while demanding that you say his name in ✨the voice✨ or else you won’t be allowed to cum

ofc you had too much pride for that so you just let him dick you down and cum whether he likes it or not but he could tell that was the plan you had in mind so he suddenly pulled out just as you were about to reach your high

he looked at you with a mean scowl, ‘fucking say it or i’ll stop right now.’

if he were to stop, it would kinda be a punishment for him too but he didn’t care- anything to see his lovely gf suffer tbh 😇

also he could get off to you fingering yourself, struggling to orgasm- he’s done it before and he’ll gladly do it again if you don’t say his damn name 

‘iwa..’ you groaned, gripping at the sheets as you anticipated him sliding his cock back into you 

‘in the voice.’ iwaizumi reiterated, delivering a hard smack to the side of your thigh out of annoyance

you hissed at the sharp impact , gulping to lubricate your dry throat before choking out in your best imitation of the voice he desired, ‘iwa~’

he was only half-satisfied with what you uttered but i mean, it got the job done

his dick was throbbing, practically begging for the comfort of your warm cunt once again so he hastily slipped back in, letting out a low groan as he did so

so he’d continue hammer you from behind, probably muttering incoherent things about your babies and your voice while doing so but you chose to pay little attention to it as you couldn’t help but focus on your own intense pleasure

once he finally climaxed, he did it inside you which you wasn’t surprising as y’all had already established that you love being being filled up and he loves filling you up 💕

but then he insisted that y’all go for another few rounds to increase the chance of pregnancy 

like- sir-

you didn’t have the heart to tell him that you were on birth control 

bc surely......he would’ve known

but he didn’t

you eventually told him that you had no interest in coming off birth control and he wasn’t mad LMAO he didn’t even want a baby tbh he was just caught up in the moment 

yeah no but if you do the voice again, the cycle will continue

Wakatoshi Ushijima

you were both hanging out in your bedroom, doing your own things, and you were sending your friend a (video) snap so you ironically used the uwu voice

ofc this caught his attention so he shifted his gaze off of his revision sheets and onto you, shooting you a weird look

you couldn’t help but snicker, turning to him and continuing with your little impression, ‘can i hewp you?’ you tried to ask in all seriousness but you couldn’t suppress the smile that was tugging on the corners of your lip

were you a little high? yes

ushijima just blinked rapidly, wondering why you sound like a cuter version of mickey mouse all of a sudden

was it a trend?

or maybe it was for one of those ‘tiktoks’?

either way, ushijima couldn’t help what he said next

‘no. i’m fiwne.’

IUERSBGTOHAROHSGBGFRO

HE SAID IT LIKE ‘fi - whine’ THO

you passed away 💀⚰

‘TOSHI!!!’ you screamed, feeling your soul leave your body

ushijima gasped, thinking that you had just been possessed or sumn, ‘hm?’

once he realised that you were in fact sane, he figured that your reaction must have something to do with his response 

‘did i say something wrong?’ his lips curling into the tiniest of smiles, simply because you looked so joyous so ofc he was he was happy seeing you happy

‘nope! please say it again, toshi! i’m beggin’ ya’

‘no.’

although he loved hearing you laugh more than anything, the man had his limits

ngl he doesn’t mind when you do it - it just doesn’t especially effect him, that’s all

you could just randomly start talking like that during a conversation and he’ll just go from 😐 to 😐

but he gets butterflies when you call him ‘baby’ which is something you usually pickup whenever you put on the voice lol <3

pls call him ‘baby’ or ‘babe’ more he just wants to feel cared for and loved for a change instead of always having to constantly put on a front of ‘big, stoic man with no feeling that you can push around to your hearts content’  around literally everyone. sometimes he just wants to come home and feel like he can actually express himself and be soft without getting ridiculed  

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2005): For Whom the Bell Tolls

Welcome to the Silver League of WADs, where we will be taking a look at the WADs that were awarded as the runners-up of Cacowards.

Now let’s see the first WAD who earned this title in Cacowards 2005.

S1: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Main author(s): Didy

Release date: November 20th, 2005

Version played: ???

Required port compatibility: Vanilla

Levels: 2

For Whom the Bell Tolls is the second map created by the person under the alias Didy (their first map was Blofeld X judging by the release dates of both WADs in the database). It was supposed to originally be one map but looks like it became so big that it turned into a two-map WAD.

With that out of the way, let’s find out how good is the WAD named after the song used in the Zombieland intro.

The plot: You get a distress signal from your buddies who work in one of the UAC chucklefucks’ Martian bases. As you arrive, you realize that they aren’t in their ship and you end up teleported into the base, now infested with demons and possessed.

This WAD looks really good when you think about it. It might have a dark palette for like 50% but considering how most of the areas are detailed and the fact that it doesn’t require source ports to be played, it’s really astonishing. I especially like some of the stuff in the background.

While the first map is almost entirely taking place in the base mentioned earlier, the second level takes you through the canyons and caves back to the ship where it all started. It also shows you some more demonic influence (kind of).

For Whom the Bell Tolls might be annoying the first time you play it. You will be mostly walking through some tight areas of the first map looking for switches that are just behind you and yet you can’t find them. After the first rough playthrough though, it’s not as bad as I thought but it still has a chance to be annoying.

There is one interesting thing in the first map related to the blue key. You see, the place where the key resides is monitored by a camera. In another area where you unlock access to the key, there is a projector that shows you a copy of this place, telling you that you can finally grab the key.

To not leave the second map hanging, I’ll say that turning the ship back online was the most interesting part of this level, alongside finding the nearby corpses of the people you were looking for.

I don’t really think this WAD is hard. On Hurt Me Plenty it’s kind of obnoxious, especially in the first map due to the aforementioned tight areas and hitscanners popping out in the horrible places; not to mention fighting an Arch-vile in the ship (although, you can open its gate to run away just in case), but honestly, I feel like I’ve encountered worse cases where similar things happen.

For the author’s second WAD, For Whom the Bell Tolls is good. I don’t really want to rip it to pieces for this reason, and there are some really good moments in there. I guess you can take a look at it; mostly for how it looks, but I think there are better WADs that have two to seven maps.

Oh, and by the way, tomorrow is April 13th.

giggles

Do me a favor.

Run.

You run into a bunker.

[sciencespies]

What Happens When Scientists Become Allergic to Their Research

https://sciencespies.com/nature/what-happens-when-scientists-become-allergic-to-their-research/

What Happens When Scientists Become Allergic to Their Research

Bryan Fry’s heart was pounding as he stepped back from the snake enclosure and examined the bite marks on his hand. He had just been bitten by a death adder, one of Australia’s most venomous snakes. Its neurotoxin-laced bite could cause vomiting, paralysis and — as the name suggests — death.

Fry, at the time a graduate student, had kept snakes for years. Oddly, the neurotoxins weren’t his biggest worry; the nearby hospital would have the antivenom he needed, and, although data is limited, people who receive treatment generally survive. Anaphylactic shock, on the other hand, might kill him within minutes.

“Anaphylactic shock is the single worst feeling you can possibly imagine,” recalled Fry, now a biologist at the University of Queensland in Australia. “It is just insane. Every cell in your body is screaming out in mortal terror.”

Fry, who had spent his life admiring and eventually studying venomous snakes, had become deathly allergic to them.

Bryan Fry observes a cobra on a trip to Pakistan. He is now deathly allergic to snake venom.

(Courtesy of Bryan Fry)

While most cases are not so extreme, anecdotal reports and expert analysis suggest that it is far from rare for scientists, students, and laboratory technicians to develop allergies to the organisms they study. Perversely, some allergy researchers say, it is the researchers’ passion for their subjects — the close observation, the long hours of work each day, and the years of commitment to a research project — that puts them at such high risk.

“It is true that some things cause allergies more often than others, but the biggest factor is the frequency of the interaction with the study organism,” said John Carlson, a physician and researcher at Tulane University who specializes in insect and dust mite allergies. “You probably have about a 30 percent chance of developing an allergy to whatever it is that you study.” While data is limited, that estimate is in line with research on occupational allergies, which studies suggest occur in as many as 44 percent of people who work with laboratory rodents, around 40 percent of veterinarians, and 25 to 60 percent of people who work with insects.

Federal guidelines suggest that laboratories have “well-designed air-handling systems” and that workers don appropriate personal protective equipment, or PPE, in order to reduce the risk of developing an allergy. However, interviews with researchers and experts suggest that there may be little awareness of — or adherence to — guidelines like these. For scientists working with less-common species and those engaged in fieldwork, information on what exactly constitutes appropriate PPE may be very limited.

Many researchers, perhaps especially those who do fieldwork, are used to being uncomfortable in service of their work, Carlson points out. “I think that a lot of researchers are so interested in the process of the research,” he said, “that they aren’t really considering the long-term effects that it could have on them.”

In general, allergies develop when the immune system overreacts to a substance that is usually harmless, or relatively harmless. The immune system monitors the body for potentially dangerous invaders like bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Sometimes, for reasons that are not well understood, the immune system identifies something benign, like pollen or animal dander, as dangerous. To help mark the intruder, a person who has become sensitized in this way produces antibodies, or types of proteins, to identify it.

When that person comes into contact with the substance again, the antibodies flag it as an invader. As part of the response, immune cells release compounds like histamine, which irritate and inflame the surrounding tissues, resulting in allergy symptoms.

Although some risk factors have been identified, researchers who study allergies are often unable to determine exactly why this overreaction occurs in some people but not others. But it’s clear that, for some substances, repeated exposures can increase the likelihood of an allergic response.

While anecdotes of allergic scientists abound, research into the issue is scant. The best documented are allergies to rodents, which are ubiquitous in biomedical research. But some scientists report allergies that are almost completely unstudied, potentially because relatively few people — at least in wealthy nations in which many allergy studies are conducted — regularly come into contact with the organisms that cause them.

For example, while most people avoid regular contact with leeches, University of Toronto doctoral student Danielle de Carle goes out looking for them. De Carle studies leech genetics in order to figure out how different species are related to one another and to understand how blood feeding evolved. To study the leeches, she first has to catch them, and like other researchers in her field, she uses her own body as bait.

“We wade into swamps and stuff, and we let them attach to us and feed from us,” she said. For most people, leech bites are relatively painless. When de Carle needed to keep the leeches alive in the lab, she would let them feed on her then as well.

Doctoral student Danielle de Carle now uses sausage casings filled with pig blood to nourish the leeches she studies.

(Courtesy of Danielle de Carle)

After about a year and a half of this, she started to notice symptoms. At first, the bites became itchy, but the more she was exposed, the worse it got. “The last time I fed a leech — which I try not to do anymore — my entire hand swelled up so much that I could hardly make a fist,” she said. “It itched like crazy.” De Carle said that, when she’s out hunting leeches now, she can avoid an allergic reaction if she removes the leech after it attaches itself to her, but before it starts to feed. For the leeches she keeps in the lab, she’s switched to feeding them pig’s blood from a butcher shop instead of letting them feed on her.

Nia Walker, a Ph.D. student in biology at Stanford University, has also begun reacting to her research organism. Walker studies how genetics influence coral bleaching resistance and recovery. She began to notice rashes on her hands during her third trip to conduct fieldwork on corals in Palau, an island nation in the South Pacific. “And then each subsequent trip after that, it got more and more extreme,” she said. “It got to the point where my face would bloat and I’d get welts on my hands from touching them.”

While her symptoms are especially intense, Walker said she’s not the only member of her lab who has developed a sensitivity. By now, she said, everyone in the lab has “developed a slight irritation to corals.” Walker has been able to manage her allergy by using protective equipment and over-the-counter antihistamines. “It’s sad,” she said, “but it’s also pretty funny.”

Sometimes, allergies that scientists have picked up during lab work can spill over into daily life. More than a decade ago, evolutionary biologist Karl Grieshop worked in a fruit fly lab in which bananas were a key part of the flies’ diet. Ever since, he said, his throat gets itchy every time he eats a banana. Jon Giddens, a doctoral student in plant biology at the University of Oklahoma, said that he didn’t have any allergies before he started studying Eastern redcedar, a small evergreen tree that is widespread in some regions of the country. But now, even though it’s been more than a year since he last worked with the species in the field, he has year-round nasal allergy symptoms, he thinks from the redcedar pollen in the air.

Likewise, Brechann McGoey, who received her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Toronto, said she didn’t experience hay fever before she started her graduate work. But after repeated exposure to ragweed pollen during experiments, she developed symptoms like post-nasal drip and persistent cough. Even though she no longer works with the species, she still gets hay fever every fall during ragweed season. “It’s a souvenir from my Ph.D.,” she joked.

Reflecting previous research on occupational allergies in veterinarians, most of the researchers who spoke with Undark did not seek medical attention or get a formal diagnosis for their allergies.

Biologist Nia Walker attaches an ID tag to the base of a tabletop coral on the northern fore reef in Palau. Everyone in the lab she works in has “developed a slight irritation to corals,” Walker says.

(Dan Griffin / GG Films)

In many cases, scientists report that their allergies are annoying but manageable. But sometimes, the allergies force researchers to make major changes.

Entomologist Chip Taylor began his career studying sulphur butterflies as a Ph.D. student at the University of Connecticut. When he started his own lab at the University of Kansas in 1969, he had every intention of continuing to work with the species. But, he said, “by the time it rolled around to 1973, I realized I was so allergic to these butterflies.” Taylor began to experience asthma-like symptoms whenever he worked with them.

In the summer of that year, during a research trip to central Arizona, Taylor and a colleague rented a trailer to use as a workstation to process butterfly wing samples. “I could not go in the trailer,” he recalled. “I slept outside with my back up against a tree so my sinuses and my throat could drain.” To manage his symptoms, he was regularly taking prednisone, a powerful anti-inflammatory drug that can have serious side effects. “I decided that I had to get out of working with those butterflies,” Taylor said. “I had to readjust my career to work on something else.”

Taylor spent the next few decades studying killer bees. He returned to butterfly research in 1992, when he started the monarch butterfly conservation program Monarch Watch. Taylor said he’s never experienced any symptoms while working with monarchs — maybe, he guesses, because the two species produce different types of pigments.

Fry, the biologist who became allergic to snake venom, also said his allergy has shaped his career. The venoms of different snake species share similar components, Fry said, so someone who is allergic to one type of snake is likely allergic to many types. Because of this allergy, Fry also has to be extremely careful even around venomous snakes that are usually not dangerous to humans.

“Whenever I work with these animals now, I look like I’m going into the Hurt Locker,” he said, referencing the Oscar-winning movie about U.S. Army specialists who defused bombs in Iraq. “So, of course, in the tropical sun I’m absolutely melting.” Those limitations, he said, have made working with snakes less enjoyable. “I can’t just blithely interact with these animals that I find so absolutely fascinating, knowing that death is just around the corner at any given moment, even from a snake that normally wouldn’t be a medical problem.”

Fry survived his encounter with the death adder thanks to a snakebite kit containing injectable adrenaline and antihistamines, as well as a quick-thinking friend who raced him to the hospital. The allergy, he said, has caused him to redirect much of his research to studying venoms in other animals, including Komodo dragons, slow lorises (the world’s only venomous primates), funnel-web spiders, and box jellyfish. “I’ve managed to turn it into a good thing,” he said, “but it’s been nevertheless very frustrating.”

Allergy experts say that reducing exposure is the key to preventing allergy development. Exactly how much the exposure needs to be reduced is less clear, and increasing protection may be costly for institutions and inconvenient for researchers.

Some laboratories that use mice and rats have equipment and policies designed to reduce exposure to allergens. These labs install ventilation systems for the cages, use a robotic system to clean them out, house fewer animals per room, and provide an area for workers to change out of allergen-contaminated clothing. PPE such as masks, gloves, and gowns can also help researchers reduce their exposure.

But actually applying those preventative measures can be challenging, said Johanna Feary, who studies occupational lung disease as a senior clinical research fellow at Imperial College London.

In 2019, Feary and several colleagues published a study of seven research institutions in the United Kingdom that performed research on mice. They found that facilities that used individually ventilated cages, instead of open cages, had dramatically lower airborne allergen levels. But even that was not sufficient to prevent technicians from becoming sensitized to mouse allergens. The facilities with the lowest levels of sensitization were those where workers also wore properly fitted masks. The research, she said, demonstrated that, at least in the U.K., the development of allergies to lab animals “is probably preventable in almost all cases.”

But Feary said that lab animal allergies continue to be a problem for many people. “We should be getting better at it,” she said. “I’m not sure we are getting better at it.” The main reason, according to Feary, is that it can be costly to install equipment that reduces allergen exposure, such as those robotic cage cleaners, especially if it requires renovating older facilities.

It’s also hard to accurately assess the magnitude of the problem, she said, especially given that conditions and practices differ widely around the world. While well-run facilities will monitor workers’ exposure and health, “at the other end of the scale, you have filthy places with poor health and safety,” she said, where recordkeeping is patchy and people who develop allergies may simply feel compelled to seek work elsewhere. “So, it may look like everything’s fine, and nobody’s got any symptoms, but actually all the sick people have left,” Feary said.

It may also be the case that only the best-run facilities will report their data, she said, while the rest will simply not engage. Indeed, several years ago, when a group of Duke University researchers attempted a nationwide survey of the incidence of anaphylaxis associated with lab-animal bites in the U.S., only 16 percent of facilities even responded.

And with less well-studied allergies, there’s simply little information available regarding prevalence and what sorts of protections are sufficient to prevent their development. Several scientists living with allergies, though, said they think that more information and awareness could help increase the number of scientists taking precautions in their research.

Fry said there is more awareness of snake venom allergy than there was when he started formally studying snakes in the late 1990s. But, he added, “it’s still not as well-known as it should be.” Researchers in the field, he wrote in a follow-up email, can be reticent to talk about venom allergies. But, he said, “I’m quite candid about it because, you know, this is life-saving information.”

Walker, the coral biologist, said more research on allergies among researchers would be helpful. “A lot of these things can be addressed if you knew to look out for it,” she said.

Early-career scientists generally receive thorough training on proper handling of biohazards and harmful chemicals. Institutions often provide extensive safety plans for fieldwork to help researchers prepare for the various risks involved, from dehydration to hypothermia to bear attacks. But scientists may learn little about the potential for developing allergies to seemingly harmless organisms.

“I feel like maybe there’s a bit too much of a casual attitude about protective gear,” said McGoey, who developed an allergy after doing research on ragweed. “Maybe especially if you’re working with a plant or animal, where it’s like a natural thing, and you’re not in the lab with a chemical, maybe people are just not careful enough.”

“As silly as it sounds, just maybe having more emphasis on using PPE and the consequences of not doing it would be kind of nice,” said de Carle, the leech researcher. “It can be really easy to just think, like, ‘Oh, I don’t really need to wear gloves; I’m just touching flowers or whatever.’”

Carlson, the allergist, said that even well-informed researchers can get caught up in their enthusiasm for the work and rationalize not taking the proper precautions.

In 2009, Carlson worked on a project that involved collecting data on house dust mites, microscopic arthropods which cause nasal and respiratory issues in millions of people worldwide. Despite his expertise, he neglected PPE. “I know all this,” he said. “I know I should be wearing a mask, but it’s hot, and it’s sweaty, and I don’t have a boss telling me what to do.” As he worked, he developed a runny nose and itchy eyes — the first steps toward a full-fledged allergy. “I pushed through and I ended up hyper-sensitizing myself,” Carlson said, to the point that even getting down on the ground to play with his then-young children made him “absolutely miserable.”

Carlson is saddened thinking about those scientists who have to give up the work they love due to allergies. “I really do feel for these folks doing their work and developing an allergy,” he said. “The more we get the word out there, the better.”

Hannah Thomasy is a freelance science writer splitting time between Toronto and Seattle. Her work has appeared in Hakai Magazine, OneZero, and NPR.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

#Nature

[doctorbunny]

MILGRAM theory time: Haruka!

This isn't going to go super in depth (famous last words) but there's a few heavily debated parts of Haruka's MV I want to share my findings/thoughts on because I think this is my new special interest and during my quest to get best boy's song to 1 million views I have been looking over his first MV with a fine tooth comb so to speak.

Disclaimer: As the Jackalope said in the "This is the MILGRAM" trailer, we don't necessarily know everyone's crime from just the first video, its possible that a lot of things will be re-contextualized in the second MV, however I am not psychic or bilingual and thus will only be working with content released before August 20th 2021 and translated into English (which could cause some language/cultural details to be lost on me as translation is not a 1 to 1 process).

TW for discussions of ableism, child abuse, murder and animal death. Also this is really long so sorry to all the people that follow me for non-MILGRAM stuff

Firstly, I want to start on the topic of Haruka as a person. He is disabled. He does not have 'the mind of a child' (although he is 17, making him legally a minor in both North America and Japan). He is not just 'child-like'. And he is not mentally ill (well he might be, in the sense that many disabilities like Haruka's have strong comorbidities [where a person has two or more conditions but neither directly causes the other] with anxiety, depression and PTSD, but usually when I see people talk about him 'struggling with mental illness' they go on to refer to aspects of his disability). Sometimes on tumblr, people like myself, will see canonical traits written into a character and identify them as being traits associated with our disabilities/mental illness and headcanon them as such. Sometimes this even involves saying things like "It's basically canon!" Although we understand that these characters were probably not the result of a writer intending to write a disabled person. When I say that Haruka is being written as a person with a neurodevelopmental disability, I mean the writer intended to write a disabled character and wrote them in a way that they wanted the audience to pick up on. As an autistic person (which is one of many neurodevelopmental disorders and also something I probably didn't have to specify because who else would be writing an essay about a series they got into a few days ago at 11 o'clock at night) I really like how Haruka has been written so far. There's definitely some parts of him that have been exaggerated so abled normies can pick up on his disability (namely how his MV 's main motif is really child-like drawings) but the writers also included a lot of smaller details I appreciate like how it is noted he avoids eye contact when talking to other people and is depicted as nervously pulling at his sleeves in official artwork, or how he says he finds his prison uniform (which has tight straps) 'relaxing' and when he gets nervous/tense, he will dig his fingernails into the palm of his hands. (These last two potential being examples of 'self stimulation' [aka stimming] where a person seeks out specific sensory stimuli in order to help regulate their nervous system/emotions, in this case the tight uniform creates a comforting, secure feeling [you may have heard about some people preferring to sleep under weighted blankets for this reason] and digging nails into his palms sounds uncomfortable/painful but is done in an attempt to deal with a greater sensory discomfort caused by the situation/environment) I also appreciate the depth he is written with, he struggles to communicate verbally but in his MV and interactions with other inmates is shown to have insecurities, opinions and a consistent thought process (this is all basic character stuff but unfortunately not always present in disabled characters)

Also I want to add that (in terms of what we've been shown so far) Haruka did not kill anyone because of his disability/mental illness. Disabled people are not inherently more innocent than abled people. But there is no disability/mental illness where a symptom is that you kill people and real people have to live with the stigma when you speak carelessly and suggest things like "Haruka is the kind of mentally ill person who kills people as a cry for help" 🧂 (or at the very least real people have to read BS like that and cringe). TL;DR Haruka is less child-like and more onion-like (as in, he has layers) 🧅🧅🧅

Now is the actual theory stuff, oops:

Every prisoner in MILGRAM is supposed to have committed murder in some way, obviously considering Yuno just had an abortion (which i personally do not consider an act of murder) whilst Mu literally stabbed someone to death, this definition is stretched a bit. But it is not agreed upon yet who Haruka killed/how many people he killed or why he killed.

In his MV he is shown to have chased after his dog into a forest, seen something off-screen, then beaten something into a messy pulp with a rock. Some people think the dog is a red herring and that Haruka actually killed his mother/the girl from the fireworks show/his brother. I do not agree.

First: I believe Haruka when he says he doesn't have a brother. The MV literally starts by Haruka looking in the mirror and then switching between the him now

and a really similar looking younger child who just so happened to be a key feature of his memories (I don't have the vocabulary to explain it but its like cinematic parallels that establish this is the same person at different points of their life)

Its not impossible that this is Haruka's secret younger brother, but i think its unlikely. I saw someone saying they had to be different people because Haruka looks less happy than the child but like, most 17 year olds are less visibly happy than when they were 7 (or however old the child is meant to be). Life happens.

So when Haruka is shown pushing the child around and eventually strangling him, this isn't meant to be literal (homicide or suicide), but a representation of how conflicted Haruka feels about his younger self, who may have committed the murder (if you've ever been kept awake cringing at memories of something you said in the past and wishing you could go slap some sense into your former self, this is like that but 10 times more self loathing). The lyric "I am always repeating yesterday," implies he might think about this specific past event a lot.

Moving on, its pretty well accepted that Haruka's parents were abusive in some way and Haruka internalised a lot of it: he constantly apologises, he says in his interrogation questions that his one wish come true is that "[he] want[s] to be loved" and describes in his MV how when he couldn't find the words he was looking for ("you're unfair") one of his parents "would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”". He seems to know its unfair but also still says he 'loves' his family, possibly mistakenly believing it is his fault, but also showing an awareness of his situation (and how his parents might behave).

Now, the MV is stylised in a way that makes certain details unclear, but there is one clear detail showing that Haruka's dog was killed

This is the first close up of Haruka and the dog. Haruka's mother is just out of frame supervising, but they look pretty happy. Notice how the puppy has a silvery chain for a collar. Somehow, this dog gets out of the house but only Haruka is shown chasing after it (whether his mother was searching elsewhere or didn't bother following her disabled son into the forest is unclear). Either way, young Haruka is now in the forest, unsupervised.

By the time he finds the dog, there is already blood, suggesting it was initally attacked by something else.

is this a sigh of relief from a boy whose finally found his beloved pet or a jealous weakling glad that nature took its course and he is finally free of that meddling mutt stealing all his mummy's attention? /j

I think this shock at the discovery that 'there is blood on his hands' could imply that rather than literally getting the blood from his dog, Haruka has seen his already injured dog and realises that if the dog got out because of him (he is previously shown to be aware his parents seem to blame him for everything) then he is the reason his dog is injured/dying and will be blamed for it. (this scene plays over the lyrics "It’s fine, though it’s really not It’s really fine, though I don’t really think so When I tried to understand it, You’ll make that disappointed face again" suggesting he is trying to avoid making his parents disappointed and letting the family pet escape into danger is something that could make them very disappointed)

now we get into rock murder (this is present-day Haruka implying that this is either: not how the scene really played out; the writers really wanting the audience to know that this was Haruka's doing and not someone else's; or this turns into a separate incident that happened much later [although note that the red sky and blue moon is the same as when young Haruka first appears at the start])

b the corpse is beyond mangled now, but its clearly the dog because the silver chain collar is still there, to the right of the body. (circled in red for your convenience :3)

My hypothesis is: Haruka didn't set out to kill his dog, but upon finding it injured (we don't know the severity aside from bleeding and also it not being able to run away from Haruka kneeling down above it w/ a big rock so it could range from treatable with a lot of vet help to already on death's door, TBH I don't think Haruka would know the difference) He knew he'd be blamed for this; made into a villain who let the poor puppy come to harm. He panicked and killed the dog out of some idea that it would make him the victim here (since he'd be found crying over a dog corpse, which might make a parent go comfort him rather than getting angry about what could've happened to the dog). This is over the lyrics: "I cried, I screamed I wanted to be a pitied and loved weakling I was in denial, I was in denial I just had to make sure I’ve become a victim, I’ve become a victim" (there's another theory that he was also jealous of the dog, which could work here too, since this is not some calculated plot; rather its a rash decision) This ties in with his Japanese song title (translated as Weakness) which is a play on a phrase sort of like "The strong eat, the weak do not" to become "The weak are eaten by society" or "The weak eat each other to survive" [once again I am reminding everyone this is based on second hand information from the youtube comments section (from users mitchki and Alphaistic) because I do not speak Japanese] This second meaning (The weak eat each other to survive) makes sense under the reading that Haruka killed his dog in order to 'survive' making his parents disappointed for the dog escaping.

Miscellaneous points:

We don't know where Haruka's necklace came from yet, it must be a gift since the most expensive thing he's ever bought was cotton candy. The younger child in the video isn't wearing it and neither is his mother or the girl in the purple dress.

Haruka's home seems quite big, at the start we can see a large flower garden outside the window and there's a forest in walking distance. This might suggest his family is quite wealthy

Haruka probably did go to school at some point as homeschooling is not a legally accepted as an alternative to public schools in Japan. (However it is estimated that up to 5000 families homeschool, this is uncommon) A lot (about 62%) of Japanese schools apparently have a 'special needs' classes and there are about 505 schools focused on educating intellectually disabled students (although I do not know which sort Haruka would've needed as whilst intellectual and development disabilities can be comorbid they aren't the same). Now, if children aged 7-14 don't go to school, their parents receive a fine, but its possible that if Haruka's parents are wealthy, they just paid it to avoid sending him to school. (This might imply they wanted to hide him or were generally ashamed of him in some way) However high school education (for students over 14) is not legally required and its likely that even if Haruka went to elementary/middle school, he hasn't been around people his own age in at least 3 years. As he seems quite lonely and glad that the other prisoners give him attention.

I don't think Haruka's parents are divorced and if they are, its not his father who left. Haruka mentions in the 30 questions that he thinks he disappointed his father. But still includes him as part of his family ("My father and mother and me"). A theory I've seen is that his father was disappointed by his son being disabled and left. but developmental disabilities (especially in non verbal and semi verbal children like Haruka) can be diagnosed before the age of 3, so I feel it is unlikely that Haruka would bring up his father if he left that early in Haruka's life

All MILGRAM prisoners have covered one of DECO*27's older vocaloid songs (DECO*27 is a well known producer who composes the music for MILGRAM) Haruka covered 'Two Breaths Walking' (https://youtu.be/puXLfVWrz2Q) which is about a boy's first relationship and how his mother's jealousy set him up for failure as the relationship becomes toxic (specifically it has some very funny out of context lines like "Whose breasts are you sucking on now?") so yeah, mommy issues: the song (Also: some people say in the song, the boy kills the girl at the end, but this isn't literal, TBW is the first of a trilogy of songs about the same relationship, it is followed by Android girl then Two Breaths Walking: Reloaded and the story resolves with the couple reuniting as adults and getting in the relationship again, although its not necessarily as abusive as before, its still implied to be codependant ending on the line 'We should live like oxygen tanks, sucking breathe from the words each of us exhale, until our last breathe')

In all seriousness, the scene where younger Haruka is walking through the city with his mother but it keeps repeating until older Haruka pulls the younger one away might indicate an attempt to focus the happier memories of his parents (since this is also over the lyrics "Why is it breaking? Tell me why? Please don’t change If I tried and couldn’t say it, You would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”" which depict a worse scene) I think both his parents are still physically present but have become far more emotionally distant, not giving him as much attention, which exacerbates his loneliness from not having any friends his own age to talk to

And if one of his parents did leave? I think its likely his mother since she is shown disappearing out of his reach after the dog-incident (inferring she got angry/disappointed in Haruka anyway) This could also be where he got his necklace from: Its something his mother used to wear (although this is 100% a guess) and that's why its shown to be important to him

This one is just me, but i didn't realise until a rewatch that when Haruka is watching the younger him and the girl running together, the background has fireworks. Haruka mentions fireworks being a key memory to him so I wonder if this was one of the first/last times he got to make a friend...

On three separate occasions in the interrogation, Haruka mentions not liking animals. Despite this, he is depicted as sleeping with a rabbit plush and on his birthday art (I'd include that too but tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post, so here's a link) he is standing next to a giant blueberry and strawberry cake with two bunny themed biscuits at the side. Through my experiences of seeing Japanese fandom art on pixiv, sometimes rabbits are used to insinuate a character is cute and timid in fanart.

Meaningless details: Haruka sleeps with his necklace on; he sleeps on a bed and not a futon; at first I thought he woke up holding his plush's hand but his hand is merely next to the toy; and considering the state of the pillow and blanket, I wonder if he moves a lot in his sleep or if the is just because in this case he seems to be waking up from a nightmare about the dog incident...

Final note: I've spent so many hours writing this I don't remember if i was building up to any big finale or not but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Feel free to add on in the comments/reblogs.

[glowinggator]

Boundaries

Request: Hi!! I was wondering if i could get some headcanons for the boys with a s/o who like,,, is trying to stay no contact with an abusive/toxic parent,,, and thinking about going back to them? Just generally doubting whatever they went through/that they have a right to feel the way they do? Ive been struggling a lot and rly need some comfort :( but if its not something you’re comfy with or anything, thats cool too!!!

[A/N: To the person who requested this... I love you! You're doing great, and I hope you know that you are Loved. It's incredible that you were able to cut them out of your life: that takes a lot of courage and strength! I've been dealing with something similar on my end, so I certainly know how you feel. Much love, anon. You don't need them: don't let them drag you back in. You’re perfect without them: there’s no need to feel guilty over what THEY did. Muah!] 

Pairing: Raphael/Reader (Established), Leonardo/Reader (Established), Donatello/Reader (Established), Michelangelo/Reader (Established) (ALL SEPARATE - NONPOLY) 

Content Warnings: Mentions of abusive parents, although nothing is graphically described. Comfort headcanons, for the most part.

Word Count: 1546

Raphael

He notices that you aren’t feeling well super quickly. He’s a great listener, and he’ll let you vent for as long as you need; however, he’s not going to let you overthink the situation too much. If you’re really genuinely doubting how abusive they were to begin with, he’ll probably cut you off in the kindest way possible. It’s good to talk about your feelings, but you can’t let yourself drown in them, you know? 

You did so, so good setting your boundaries last time! And he’s really proud of you for that. But unfortunately, toxic people will always try and weasel their way back in. You have to stay strong. He’ll be there for you every step of the way, too. They hurt you deeply, and you don’t need to apologize for their actions.

If they’re starting to harass you, he’ll offer to respond in your place if you don’t feel like you’re able to at the moment. There’s no shame in blocking their number or email, either. 

He’ll offer to take you out somewhere to get your mind off of the situation for a little while. When he’s feeling stressed he likes to work out, but that might not be for everyone. But if you wanna kick the shit out of a punching bag… I’m just saying, it’s very stress relieving. He’s also down to get some pizza too. Anything to take your mind off of it! 

Oxymoronic. If you had to describe how you feel right now, inside your body, that would be the perfect word to describe the sensation. You feel weightless, almost outside of your body; yet, that sinking pit in your stomach tethers you to the earth. You feel like you’re going to vomit, replaying the words from your parent’s most recent voicemail in your head. It’s been… a while, hasn’t it? You glance nervously as your phone, checking the time before switching it on. You stare at your lock screen for a moment, trying to find the courage to unlock it, before setting it down with a gentle thud against the hardwood table. You don’t know what to do anymore. 

“Hey,” Raph whispers. You jump, startled by the sudden noise before forcing a smile. 

“Are you okay?” he asks. You nod. 

“Are you sure? It looks like something’s really bothering you.” 

“Yeah,” you mutter, “I’m okay. Just life, you know?” 

“Yeah, I get that,” he sits down next to you slowly, smiling gently, “But life is hard sometimes. Do you wanna talk about it?” 

You smile gently, if not a little sadly, and shake your head a little. He always knows what to say. “Well, it’s just…” you pause, “I don’t know. It’s my parents again. They’re trying to get back in contact with me again, and I just… it’s hard. Like, what if they changed, you know? I thought I set my boundary really well, so if they’re trying to talk to me, it kind of makes me think that they changed. Or maybe I overreacted, or-”

“Honey, I love you, but I’m gonna have to stop you right there,” he interjects, “You were super clear that you didn’t want contact anymore the first time, so the fact that they’re still trying to weasel their way back in? It shows that they haven’t changed… at all. They’re abusive now, and they were back then too. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t have cut them off in the first place, right?” 

You hum and lean into his side. He pulls you towards him gently, cocooning you in his strong arms. You close your eyes and sigh. “Yeah,” you whisper, “that makes sense. I just… I don’t know why they keep doing this, I hate it. I don’t wanna have to deal with this anymore. It’s like every few months they pull this. I don’t know why they just can’t let go.” You wrap your arms as far as you can around his middle, leaning into his embrace as deeply as you can. 

“I know, hun. But you know what?” 

“Hm?”

“The fact that you don’t understand why they do what they do… it just shows that you’ll never be like them. You’re strong, you’re sweet, and you’re kind. You don’t want to hurt others, and you’ll go to any lengths to help people,” He runs his hand along your back soothingly before trailing up your arm and squeezing it gently,  “I wish that they weren’t doing this to you, because you deserve so, so much better than that. But I love you, okay? You’re gonna get through this.” 

Leonardo 

He’s super observant, and he picks up on your distress quickly. He’s a good listener, and he’ll let you talk for as long as you need. He’s more of the ‘get it all’ out type when it comes to venting. He’ll hold you close and let you cry, if that’s what you need. 

Setting boundaries is hard, and he’s really happy that you managed to cut them off in the first place! Assessing your own needs and coming to terms with the abuse that they put you through is really important, and he’s really impressed that you were able to do that. But people never talk about what comes after: keeping those people out of your life. If you’re ever doubting your decision, he’ll be right by your side to back you up. Toxic people will try their best to manipulate you, and he’s not gonna stand by idly and let them guilt you into a relationship with them. They’re the only ones who can control their actions. You have a right to feel the way you do! 

He’ll offer to respond to them via email or phone call, if you feel like you need to respond to them. He’ll also offer to beta read your emails if you need to restate your boundaries to them. Sometimes just reading them outloud helps you feel a little bit better, a little bit more secure in your choice. 

He definitely ups the self-care and fun outings in your daily life. Dealing with abusive parents is so stressful, and honestly? The LEAST you could do for yourself is kick back with some ice cream. 

Donatello 

He notices that you’re a little off, but he can’t quite figure out why. Headache? Didn’t sleep well? He’s the most likely to wait for you to bring it up. He’ll ask if you’re feeling okay, but for the most part, the ball is in your court. If your distress persists for more than a day or two, though, he’s not above cornering you and asking what’s up. 

He’s really ticked that they’re trying to get back into your life after you clearly cut them out. Like, seriously? You were so clear about it the first time, and this just goes to show that they haven’t changed at all. You’re in the right here: They don’t deserve you. He’ll 100% back you up regarding your experiences, and he’s not gonna let you feel guilty over what THEY put you through. He’s a great person to vent to, honestly. All feelings of doubt, that maybe things weren’t as bad as you thought, practically disappear when you talk to him. He’s so supportive of you and your recovery. 

Look it might not be the smartest choice, but if you wanna let him email them or something, he totally will. You think he’d make some incredible, eloquent, heartfelt speech that tricks them out of ever trying to talk to you again but… he doesn’t do that. He’s not above snapping at them. But he just loves you a lot, and he really fucking hates all of the shit that your parent put you through. You’re such a good person, and you’ve done such an incredible job recovering! He just wants you to be happy. 

It’s self care time. He takes more time out of the day to do little things for you. He knows that this isn’t an issue that can be solved in a day, so he just wants to do all that he can to make every day a little more bearable. If he can get you to smile, he’s succeeded. 

Michelangelo 

He’s observant, although not as much as Leo. Luckily, he’s not above just straight-up asking what’s bothering you. Communication is key, after all. He’s an awesome listener, and he’ll throw in his own comments here and there. Like yeah, no, babe they were really shitty to you, you totally have the right to feel the way that you do! 

He’s really proud of you for setting your boundaries the first time! Cutting toxic people out of your life is really, really difficult. But unfortunately, manipulators will always try and come back into your life. That’s what they do, and it hurts so much, but that’s just… what they do. You don’t have to take that laying down though! Every time they try and push you to let them back in… you have to push them away twice as hard. Like, you’re so strong! And you deserve the absolute best things that this world has to offer. 

Probably the only one who won’t offer to write to them for you. This is something that you have to do yourself, if you really want to be content with the situation. Although if they start harassing you, he’ll 100% call them/answer the phone to tell them to stop fucking calling. 

Ever try making Uum Ali? He hasn’t! Let’s try it! He’s gonna go all out with fun activities and sweet self care ideas. Anything to see that smile again.

[momentofmemory]

hello, i ADORE the way you use and pair fonts. i was just wondering if you had any tips for using more than one font in an edit? (Such as mixing cursive and non-cursive, etc.) if you've answered something like this before, my apologies!

nonnie!! literally never apologize for asking me to scream about fonts; they live in my mind rent free. 💜i’ve mentioned a vague collection of fonts i like here, but i’ve been meaning to do a post on how to combine them for awhile so thanks for giving me an opening to do so! so, without further ado, a few tips & tricks.

1.  FIGURE OUT THE VIBES OF YOUR SET FIRST.

Like colours, fonts have a certain feeling/energy to them and should match the emotion you want your set to communicate. Cursive fonts tend to suggest a more gentle, relaxed, or fragile emotion; brush fonts convey a sense of movement, excitement, or freeness; heavy-weighted fonts have a sense of power, abruptness, or impact; and so on, and so on. For example:

 Although they’re both using the same kind of alignment, the combo on the left is far less in-your-face as the option on the right would’ve been. Using a handwritten font for the accent feels a bit more contemplative or personal, like an awed whisper; whereas the all-caps bold font is more like it’s coming to kick your door down in celebration. Either option works well enough as a font combo, but in terms of working together towards the theme, the left one matched what I wanted. So—always prioritize emotion in font choice, even if another option looks just as cool.

2.  STYLE YOUR OTHER FONT(S) AROUND THE ACCENT FONT.

With “the accent font” being the “fancy” one, in this case. It’s going to be the centerpiece of your set, so you don’t want to have picked a supporting font first only to discover it doesn’t actually go with your main font. I usually type the text in a placeholder font (like Helvetica or let’s be real, my faves Gill Sans or Futura), then figure out my accent font for the Main words, then go back and find a supporting font & weight that I like.

You also, like me, might just stick to 3-4 “basic” fonts and never change them, because it’s much simpler that way and also Futura is such a pretty font y’know?? 

3.  COMBINING FONTS IS ABOUT CONTRAST.

For fonts to work together, they have to contrast in (at least) two ways—in weight, in style, in size, or in colour. Similar to picking out an outfit, if a font is too similar to its neighbor it’ll clash, but they do still need to be living in roughly the same neighborhood or it won’t fly. For example:

Only two fonts are used in each set (and only one in the last one—the contrast is made through negative space rather than font type), and contrast comes through 1) size (note how the accent font is always bigger—I usually aim for about double), 2) style (block, handwritten, brush, sans serif vs. serif), and in the case of the bottom left one, 3) tracking (“bumps the needle” is the same font [gill sans] as “my heart” is; the difference is the distance between letters is set at like 1500 vs about 75).

While there’s plenty of contrast in the examples above, there’s also harmony—in the top left example, the Accent font for “My God Does” is a thick, rounded font, so the supporting/plain font is also fairly rounded and a medium weight. Compare that to the middle bottom set, where since “Wolf” is in a tall, thin font, “Leading” is also in a tall and thin font.

Without harmony, the fonts start warring against each other. Taking that last set as an example:

On the left, we have the original—“Wolf”/”Leading” pairs Onyx/Acumin Variable Concept (Extra Condensed)—and on the right, Gill Sans has replaced Acumin Variable as the secondary font. Because Gill Sans is so much rounder and bigger (this is despite my taking the pt size down by about 6), it reads as thicker. That added horizontal weight takes away from the very concentrated vertical weight of the Accent font, and therefore doesn’t work as smoothly.

You can get away with pairing rounded/thin letters or heavy/light letters, and in fact you should try it! Just make sure there’s a significant contrast between them, not just a minute one.

4.  TYPOGRAPHY NEEDS AN ANCHOR.

Once you’ve picked your fonts, there’s another problem: placement. One of the difficulties of text in a gif is that it can go anywhere, and so sometimes we get carried away with the arrangement. That’s where anchoring the text—placing it in alignment with something else—comes in. Let’s zoom in on two of the examples above.

While the arrangement is playful in both, the text doesn’t feels lost because even when it’s unusual, it’s still directly aligned with some part of another word. In the left example, “The,” “Wolf,” and “Wolves” are all aligned with their first letter to the left, whereas the word “Leading” is aligned to the right with its last letter matching the “S” in wolves. Thus, while it breaks up the left-alignment of the rest of the set, it still feels like it belongs because it’s attached on the other side. It doesn’t “break the box,” so your brain doesn’t get confused.

With the set on the right, a similar thing is at play. First, the alternating pairs are aligned either to the left or the right so it still reads as a unified rectangle (don’t break the box!), and second, each time the text switches sides it’s placed directly on the line below the last word. So even though they’re not aligned on the left or right, they are aligned from top-to-bottom. The negative space is also key to breaking up the text in a pleasing manner, as seen in this comparison:

The original version on the left creates a smooth river or “S” shape, with each line break also making sense for the rhythm of the sentence. The one on the right, however, breaks the text up uncomfortably, the lines are jagged and bump up against each other unpleasantly, and “the scratching” stretches far out into the negative space, tripping up the flow. When and where you chop up a text matters not only for how you read it, but also how you feel about it.

5.  A QUICK WORD OF WARNING.

Obviously no rule is a complete absolute, but I think this one holds up under most circumstances so here it goes: do not put two different fonts of the same genre in the same gif. If you have Cursive Font A already, you very likely won’t be able to successfully implement Cursive B right next to it without causing confusion (see rule 3 about contrast). You might be able to get away with two accent fonts (e.g., a nice cursive font + a thick impact font), but it’s a lot harder for the reasons mentioned above about clashing/warring for attention. Basically, make sure you’re adding, not subtracting, to the overall statement.

6.  PRACTICE!!

The best way to figure out what style works best for you is to just go mad with it. I’ve been doing typography work of one kind or another for about a decade and yet even looking at some of my sets that are just a few months old I’m surprised by how much my style has grown & expanded! The more you use it, the more you’ll find certain fonts, styles, and tricks to your liking, and seeing what other people do with their sets is a great way to expand your repertoire, too.

Go forth and have fun. 💜

[nebulous-frog]

Rest Now

Relationships: JonMartin

Summary: Jon and Martin arrive at the safehouse 

Word Count: 1682

Link to AO3   Fics Masterlist

It was thunderstorming when they finally arrived, pulling up the near-forgotten path in a beat-up old car. On the drive, they hadn’t talked much- what was there to say? Since their last real conversation, neither had done anything that they particularly wanted to remember, and the inevitable discussion of what they’d just experienced was bound to be far too intense and emotional for their unexpected journey. Now, though, roughly twisting the key in the lock stuck from disuse, it was possible they’d have a chance for it to happen. For months- years, even- of emotions that should’ve been brought up ages ago.

Jon held back a grimace at the thought, awkwardly shuffling inside with his small bag and fumbling for a light switch. Part of him was desperate to get it over with, to finally air out all the dirty laundry and start afresh, to just be there for Martin in the ways he deserved. But another part, simultaneously logical and cowardly, was arguing that it was late, they’d had a long day, they were both exhausted. The conversation they needed to have was simply too much to cover while they were in such a state, he told himself.

“Jon?” Martin asked, voice quiet and tired.

Jon turned toward him expectantly, but he didn’t offer anything more, just gestured vaguely forward, and Jon realized he was still in the entryway.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Jon mumbled, stepping fully into the little cabin.

There were only a few rooms. The kitchen was tiny up against one side and shared the main open area with the living room and a small dining table. Directly across from the front door was a short hallway with a door on either side- presumably a bedroom and a bathroom.

Jon cleared his throat in time with a rumble of thunder.

“There’s some firewood over in that corner. I’ll get us a fire going,” he told Martin softly. “We should be able to get the radiator to start with a little work, but it’ll be easier tomorrow with more light.”

Martin nodded silently and walked slowly towards the hallway, slipping into the room on the left while Jon got busy with the firewood. He’d just coaxed some kindling into a flame when Martin came back in, hands wringing together. Jon recognized it as Martin’s anxious tell, which sent contradictory feelings through his system. On the one hand, Jon hated the thought that Martin was uncomfortable, but on the other he was just relieved that any feeling at all had pushed through the residual numbness of the Lonely.

“There’s, um, only the one bed,” Martin explained.

“Ah.” Jon glanced at the rickety loveseat sat in front of the fireplace, but Martin spoke again before he could make any suggestions.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch, Jon,” he said sternly, his protective caretaker instincts shining through. “I, uh,” he swallowed, already nervous again, “I was thinking we should share anyway, since it’ll be so cold and the bed actually is fairly big and- well- I just…” he trailed off for a moment, not looking at Jon, then seemed to steel himself even as he shrunk in on himself further and kept his eyes trained on the floor between them. “I don’t think I should really be alone right now.” The end of his sentence was almost a whisper, embarrassment and vulnerability clear in the blush high on his cheeks.

It’d been a long time since Jon had seen him blush. It was even prettier than he remembered, and he hoped he could see it a lot more in the coming days, ideally as the result of more positive emotions. Maybe Jon could even cause it himself… he chastised himself for the thought, trying to focus back on the present and caring for Martin now.

“Alright,” Jon agreed. He turned his head just enough to check that the fire was taking, then moved to stand from the floor. His legs were still stiff from the drive, so it took a bit more effort than he was expecting.

Martin appeared at his side immediately, offering an arm for stability. Jon gratefully took it until he could get his cane properly situated in his other hand. He reluctantly let go, briefly looking up at Martin’s face and catching a hint of an expression he didn’t know how to interpret before Martin’s face returned to a more neutral place- although the blush was still intense.

“I don’t know about you,” Jon started, “but sleep sounds wonderful right now.”

Martin nodded. “I put sheets on the bed already.”

Together, they walked back to the bedroom. Jon changed into his light pajamas in the bathroom while Martin took the bedroom. A few minutes later, they stood side by side facing the bed.

“Do you have a preference for which side...?” Jon asked. He was determinedly ignoring the part of his mind reminding him of his feelings for the man he was about to share a bed with.

It wasn’t that he worried his feelings were unrequited- he was quite certain that Martin felt the same, having Seen each other so completely in the Lonely. But they’d barely spoken in months, and so much had happened since then. So much had happened even in the last few days. It was a big step to now share a bed without even discussing their boundaries, and Jon didn’t want to be too much too fast.

“No preference,” Martin answered, pulling Jon from his thoughts.

“Boundaries,” he blurted. He felt his cheeks heat furiously, his discomfort and exhaustion sending him stumbling towards this conversation unprepared.

Martin blinked at him, obviously confused. “We… we only have two pillows? We can’t really make one between us-”

“No, no,” Jon continued, eyes darting from the bed to Martin to the floor and back as he fiddled with the black ring on his middle finger. He’d come this far, and it really was important to discuss anyway, so he pushed through his awkwardness. “I meant, well. Metaphorical boundaries for physical touch, in- in this situation. I, um. I don’t mind however close we end up.”

Martin’s own cheeks flushed to match how Jon’s felt. “Oh. I, uh. I don’t mind either?”

Jon nodded, now staring hard at the bed. “Right. We- we should probably have a more, er, detailed discussion. At some point. I think we’re on a, uh. Similar page, so to speak,” he glanced nervously up at Martin’s face, “but it would be good to- well, to clarify. Sooner than later. But I think we’re far too exhausted to be very coherent about it now.”

Martin’s cheeks were still a bright red as he squeaked out a “Yeah, that- that sounds good, Jon.”

Jon nodded once more. “Right.” He walked stiffly towards the bed, pulling back the covers and sliding in.

Martin cautiously joined him on the other side, and they both laid there for a minute, flat on their backs, staring at the ceiling in total silence. Both men were as close to the edge of the mattress as possible, leaving a canyon between them, bodies rigid.

After a few tense minutes of being afraid to even move, Jon huffed. “This is ridiculous,” he grumbled, more to himself than anything else, and he rolled over on his side to face Martin. They’d both just established that neither of them would mind being closer together, so he might as well get comfortable. He still gave Martin some space, but he’d at least crossed into their invisible barrier and hopefully broke some of the awkward tension.

In return, Martin turned just his head to look back at Jon. He swallowed thickly, eyes flitting across Jon’s face in the dark.

“You know,” Martin began in hushed tones, turning to look back at the ceiling, “the Lonely has a real talent for clinging to its victims.” He held up a hand as Jon started to interject. “It’s just. You could be surrounded by people and still feel alone, maybe even lonelier than when you’re actually alone.” He turned to Jon again, a heartbreakingly fond yet sad expression just visible to Jon in the darkness. He smiled sadly. “You can lie in bed with the man you love and still feel Lonely.”

A pained sound punched out of Jon. His firm, official declaration of his feelings needed to wait for the morning, as he insisted they take more space and grandeur for Martin than a moment like this, but he couldn’t leave that unanswered. He scooted even closer to Martin, minimizing the gap and resting a hand on Martin’s arm.

“The man I love,” he said, pulling Martin’s hand up to his lips and pressing a kiss, soft as can be, on his knuckles, “may sometimes feel lonely and discouraged,” he flipped Martin’s hand over and pressed another kiss to his palm, “but he must know,” one more kiss, now to the inside of Martin’s wrist, “he will never be alone again.” Jon stared directly into Martin’s eyes, kissing the back of his hand again and using his thumb to lightly rub over the spot.

Martin’s lips had parted slightly in a silent gasp, his eyebrows drawn together in a complicated combination of emotions that Jon couldn’t decipher. He took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Come here?” he whispered, raising his free arm in invitation.

Jon lifted himself slightly and settled half on top of Martin, his face buried in Martin’s neck. He wrapped his arms around Martin’s stomach and couldn’t help the content sigh he let out, relaxing fully as Martin’s arms came up around him. He revelled in the closeness and the softness of Martin under him and around him.

“Thank you,” Martin whispered. He pressed his lips to the top of Jon’s head. “Thank you.”

Jon shook his head and squeezed tighter. “Anything,” he whispered into Martin’s neck. “Anything.”

They held each other tightly, just breathing together, for a long moment, feeling as though finally something had gone right. They rested in the reassurance of each other’s presence, eventually drifting off into blissfully dreamless sleep.