#the ease of which an actual editing program lets me actually like. edit

[ansawritespyre]

Running for your life from Shia LaBeouf

[s1ndle]

The lost Sims of The Sims (for Console)

The Sims for Console has always been a particularly fascinating game, to me at least, for how well it captures the gameplay and feel of the original PC Version. After reading through Drew1440’s exploits with looking through the data and managing to convert aspects of the original console version with ease, I decided to take a look for myself!

And to spare people from an (un)necessarily long post, the rest of it is below the cut!

After some trial and error and lots of searching, I managed to find out that they were using files that originate from the GameCube version of Bustin’ Out (something that they never mentioned, mind you!). Which somehow contains nearly everything from the original console version! The original freeplay neighborhood, the neighborhood used for Get a Life, the neighborhood used for the 2-Player PVP minigames, even the .IFF files for the objects! It was all present within the files of Bustin’ Out, and easily accessible too!

I poked around the UserData folder, which contained the lots and sims for the freeplay neighborhood from the original console version, and saw that there was a total of 23 User files, but the neighborhood only had 12 playable sims by default, which of course begged the question of: Who are these 11 extra sims?

I opened each of the User files one by one in IFFPencil2, a program that lets you open and edit .IFF files from The Sims 1. By looking at their OBJD and their CTSS entries, I was able to determine exactly who was who, and charted them out using a very professional looking spreadsheet, featuring comic sans:

Now I had a list of all the sims in the neighborhood, I could easily tell who was likely to be unused because in the original console version, sims could only have their names WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS. Sadly two of the User files were completely blank and had no extant information, but that still left exactly 9 sims with extant information.

The thing about these sims is that we don’t have any information as to what their purpose was exactly, they could have been created as a cast of original sims to populate the freeplay neighborhood before Edge of Reality ultimately ported the population of the PC neighborhood over. They could have also been created as a means of testing the new Create-A-Sim system. They could have even been created purely for fun with no intention of including them in the game to begin with. We may never know the answer behind why they are present, but nevertheless, they are here.

Another interesting note about these User files, they are otherwise blank! With no careers, personality, skills, or interests to speak of! They also don’t have any family assigned to them either, meaning that their family names are also unknown.

One of the files that eventually piqued my interest was ALLCHARACTERS.rsp (the caps are important!). This file contains the data that determines what a sim looks like in-game by defining the upper and lower bodies that they use, along with face type, hair, skin tone, among other things. And this file just so happens to contain a lot of entries for sims from the original console version, including the freeplay sims. In fact this file is almost made up entirely of entries for sims from the original console version.

But one of the most interesting aspects of this file is that there are entries for sims that don’t exist in the final game, including 8 of the 9 unused sims from the freeplay neighborhood! So not only was there further information on their existence, but also the exact data needed to recreate their appearances, so that is exactly what I have done!

Alicia

Ariel

Ol' Joe

Jeffy

Laurie

Fred

Dez

Danielle

Sadly Michael (not to be confused with MICHAEL BACHELOR, who is present in normal gameplay and playable) did not have an entry in ALLCHARACTERS.rsp to facilitate a recreation. :(

The process of doing this was actually pretty straight-forward once I had everything laid out. By looking at the freeplay sims in-game alongside their entries in ALLCHARACTERS.rsp, I was able to determine the the mesh indexes (upper body, lower body, face style, etc.) started at 0, while anything to do with color, except for skin tones, started at 1. Using that information and just counting along as I scrolled through items in Create-A-Sim, I could chart out exactly which items corresponded with their respective mesh index, which I double-checked against existing in-game sims for the sake of accuracy.

There are plenty of other sims with entries in ALLCHARCTERS.rsp who seem to be leftover from the original console game and also seemingly unused, and I do want to recreate them as well, but for right now at least, it’s just the sims from the freeplay neighborhood.

[rpgse7enx4]

How I made my assets with GIMP - By RPG.

I will show how I created one asset (using similar methods to create the others) in GIMP, and how I used detail to create depth within the asset.

Here are the steps:

First, I decided to set the resolution for this asset pack at 64x64; a suitable, but small resolution.

I did this by making another canvas, and setting the resolution at just that:

After, I went straight to configuring the grid size, gridlines and spacing for my asset. I did this by going to "Image" then "Configure grid":

When the prompt opened, I decided that I wanted to have the horizontal and vertical spacing at 1; meaning for every 1 pixel within the 64x64 resolution, there would be a block:

To display my configured grid, I went to "Show" and then "Show Grid":

Now my canvas looked like this:

Immediately, I decided to add an "alpha channel"; a layer of some sorts that lets you take away the background. This was important because I was working with lighter colours and its harder to see them with a white background.

Using the fuzzy selection tool, known otherwise as the magic wand tool, I removed the background.

Now, to place the first pixel.

I started with the basic shape of the asset, which was supposed to look like a court document:

Then I started bringing depth into the equation:

And then I started placing text:

I finished up with the text on the side, shaded it to give it depth and decided to add a stamp and more ingrained lines; to check if everything was good, I took away the grid.

Everything looked good, but for the stamp I decided to give it some more depth during the creation of this asset so that's what I went with.

And the final product was done!

A reflection:

Overall, creating the assets was done with relative ease; however, there was one issue which I encountered just before producing the assets, and this was the fact that I had started them off on Photoshop but then transitioned to GIMP. This was because I found that Photoshop's grid formatting wasn't very concise for getting the right spacing for each block; and this is something that GIMP had that was better, the fact that I could change the spacing horizontally and vertically without the need for changing gridlines.

Another issue I encountered was with asset creation was the fact that Photoshop's magic wand tool relies on tolerance levels to get rid of background; testing Photoshop to see whether or not it was good for pixel art found me making an example and then seeing if some of the pixels disappeared in the process of removing the background, this turned out to be a thing and when I removed the background and some pixels had either faded or just completely went. GIMPs fuzzy selection tool worked a whole lot better with removing the background around the actual pixel art itself and I never encountered any pixels fading out.

One way I counteracted both issues with Photoshop was to see if any other programs were to work well with pixel art creation; and I was surprised when I found out that GIMP could be used for it, because I had only really known it for being a program that you could edit textures on for games. If given the chance, I would've used Aseprite; but because it is payware, it would've required me to be able to properly invest in it.

RPG-7

[obey-me-rot]

You're Mine

A/N: I guess as a writing blog I should be doing some writing right? Honestly this has just been the biggest headcanon I've had in a while since I started playing Obey Me of the brothers just...like Devildom culture must be so different! And then the whole pact thing with human masters must be so different as well! I just view them as big animals just wanting to get your attention u wu. Warnings: Jealous boys, public shows of dominance and a lot of biting.

It's almost painful being in the Devildom sometimes.

A cultural exchange program amped up to 100 %.

As much as you loved the brothers, you also were meeting some pretty cool demons in RAD. Surely you were the human student everyone was so excited to meet, but none of them really talked to you, you know? But there were some that were brave enough to overlook your pact marks and dive into a conversation.

Even some were bold enough to talk to you out of school!

Making so many friends was so exciting, especially since you still thought of yourself as new! Wait till the brothers see how many new demons you have met!

Problem is you forgot how weird demon culture is, especially when it has to do with a demon and their master.

"MC?"

Lucifer blinks as he notices the demon approaching the two of you, pausing your daily walk with him as confusion turns to familiarity and you run up to greet your friend.

The first thing he notices is how they are a low ranking demon, so there’s no need to be hyper aware of any sort of threat. In this instance he doesn’t need to look to make sure his pact mark is visible to the demon.

His mark was embedded right in your iris, so anyone could see whose protection you were under.

He smiles politely as you turn around to introduce them, the demon waving at him shyly as if remembering that, yes, this human made a pact with Lucifer and therefore should not be messed with in any way. Yet there was no sort of violent tendencies coming from this demon, which put him at somewhat of an ease.

That is, until the demon takes a hold of your hand.

It’s a simple touch, one that a human would mistaken for a sign of friendship and camaraderie. The demon was speaking excitedly about a new flower they had seen over at the Botanical gardens and how much they wanted to show it off to you.They tighten their hold and Lucifer has to dig his fingernails into his palm from ripping their hand off.

You had no idea what it meant and the action would most likely scare you.

And Lucifer wanted you to trust him as much as possible.

“Would it be okay if Lucifer comes along?”

“...y--yeah! I don’t mind!”

Hesitation mixed with fake happiness, this demon really thought that he would get some time alone with you, didn’t they? They probably planned this whole thing out and whatever excitement they were showing you was just a front to hide their true intentions. Besides, look how they are hanging off of you, they want to make a pact with you so badly it’s almost disgusting.

Might as well get rid of the pest now.

“Come on MC, I want to show you the huge petals--!”

“OW!”

You and the demon look back to see Lucifer biting down on one of your fingers, your ring finger to be exact, while making eye contact with the pest. His teeth are not necessarily breaking skin but the pain of the bite made all your attention go back on him, turning around to tug your finger away and cradle it close. “Lucifer what the hell!”

He smiles and tells you not to worry about it, your retort falling on deaf ears as Lucifer’s eyes fall on the demon one more time. Their eyes are wide and they have immediately taken two steps back, their back as straight as a needle as Lucifer sends them one last look that lets them know of his intentions.

Leave now or I will gut you in front of my human.

You turn to apologize to your friend for putting them in such a weird situation but the demon is already long gone, no sign of them ever being in your presence as you look around aimlessly.

“They left...” you frown and look at Lucifer, “Next time at least warn me.”

“If I did then you would have probably forbidden me from doing so.”

The Avatar of Pride smiles as he takes your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours as you kept talking about how you would apologize the next day. But Lucifer wasn’t listening, he just kept staring at you as you talked, happy that his master wasn’t particularly mad.

That demon would have to learn to get his own, this human was already his.

He had finally gotten you all to himself.

Mammon had a photoshoot today, making you tag along so he could finally show off his modeling skills. And it would help him out as well. The product they were trying to sell did not appeal to him one bit and he just really needed you as inspiration.

And inspiration did you give.

“Oh gorgeous Mammon gorgeous! Lean back and close your eyes.”

The cameraman was giving him compliment after compliment, excellent after excellent, it was as if all eyes were on him at that exact moment. He smiled as he thought about how you must be looking at him. His shirt was open, letting the cloth hang off the side of the couch as the camera focused primarily on the low riding jeans that showed off the boxers he was promoting.

“Perfect! Perfect!! Now turn around and stare into the camera!”

His eyes opened and his head turned expertly, Mammon smiling as he tried to make eye contact with you--

Only to see that you were gone.

Camera flashes stop as he bolts up, turning to look for you before his eyes focused on your form.

There you were...talking with someone else.

“Mammon?”

He doesn’t stare at the cameraman, only gets up and stalks towards you and the demon currently holding up the lights. Both of you turn to face him, a voice speaking loudly about a five minute break as Mammon stands behind you and hugs you from behind, placing his chin right on your shoulder as he looks at the interloper.

“Are you taking a break?”

Mammon smiles as he buries his face in your shoulder, hugging you tight as the demon tells him he did a wonderful job. Without raising his head, Mammon speaks up.

“MC, who is this?”

“Oh right! Haven’t introduced you. He is a friend from RAD! We sit together in Pactology 101.”

“Well we used to sit together...”

“We talked way too much in class, didn’t we?”

It’s like nails on a chalkboard when he laughs, Mammon feeling glad that he was closer to you so he could hear the sound of your laughter instead of the ugly screeching of the intruder taking up your attention. Did this guy think he was stupid? That he couldn’t notice all the goddamn pheromones he was releasing? Mammon shakes his head back and forth, breathing in your scent heavily as he tries to leave his own behind.

This guy was embarrassing himself with how badly he wanted to form a pact with you.

“MC.”

“Oh oh, remember when the teacher caught us texting in class?”

“I think he might want to just put us back together cause we are still causing trouble!”

The Avatar of Greed frowns, did you not hear him?

“MC…”

“Well the teacher knows we are a good match, doesn’t he?”

“A match made in hell, I would say.”

Why was this guy still talking? Why were you still listening to him?

“MC….”

“Hey after this...would you want to go get some coffee, MC? If you’re not busy.”

“Nah, I only have this toda---FUCK!”

A pair of teeth tug at your earlobe, Mammon growling in your ear as he makes eye contact with the annoyance in front of him. He should be counting his lucky stars that you were still in the room, if Mammon found him anywhere else this demon would be nothing more than a meal for his familiars.

“MC, you have to stare at me or else I’m going to take longer.”

You rub at your ear as Mammon lets go of you, breaking eye contact with the other demon as he gives you his signature pout. He didn’t want you to see him be all scary, Mammon wanted you to see him like the number one demon he always tried to be for you.

“And you had to bite me because of that!?”

“Because you weren’t paying attention! You have to keep your eyes on me or else I’m not going to sell this stupid product. In fact--”

He drags you back to the couch, yelling at the cameraman that he would be posing with you so he could actually get through this photoshoot instead of doing a solo shoot. The man sighs but calls makeup to get you ready, Mammon smiling as he sits down right next to you.

The farther you were from that guy the better, all of his master’s attention needed to be on him after all.

Of course something like this would happen. Bad luck seemed to follow Leviathan wherever he went.

"Did you see the finale of it live?"

"I did!!! My movie theatre put it on the big screen and everything!"

Levi was glad that you were a nerd just like him. It was refreshing and probably one of the biggest reasons he had decided to make a pact with you.

Well, he had tried to kill you first and then make a pact with you but it was still a special story! Who would have thought that he would land himself a human master with his own interests!

Though he guessed that was a bad thing now.

He couldn't keep his thoughts in check as the clerk of the comic store kept talking to you, Levi annoyed that he couldn't keep up with the conversation you two had. It was about some comic cinematic universe that had been adapted in the human world and he honestly didn’t want to put anymore thought into it because of how close the clerk was getting.

Dammit he should have bought the new manga volume in Akuzon...but you had been so cute irl asking him to get the manga in this comic store you found,and if his master was begging him so cutely then what else could he do?

“I actually got the limited edition of this one movie--”

Nobody cared.

“It was up for a lot in Akuzon but I’m glad I got my hands on it--”

Stop talking!

“And I have a pretty cool viewing set up in the back--!”

Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, stop talking to MC!

Levi frowns as you gush about the movie some more, glaring down at you for letting your attention stray from him. But why should he be surprised, of course your attention would stray. Him being the yucky otaku that he is, of course you would go with the demon who took his interest and actually turned it into a profit--

No.

No! It wasn’t your fault! It wasn’t even his fault! It was this demon’s fault!

Thinking they looked so cool with their most basic of interests. If Levi could expose them for the fraud that they were, MC would be able to see the absolute fool that this demon was making themselves out to be. Smiling a lot more, inching closer as they talked, even offering to take you to the back of the store--!

People may say what they want about Levi but at least he wasn’t this desperate to get on the good side of a human...at least the first time he met you.

His eyes fall on the back of your neck, hair conveniently placed out of the way as he remembered something Lucifer had discussed with him and Mammon after they had made their pact.

You will not think rationally when you are with them, make sure to monitor your actions so you don’t embarrass yourself.

That’s what he said but…

Surely Levi wasn’t going to embarrass himself more than this demon already has.

“This is the one with the symbiote creature, right? And you got the bonus deleted scenes! Honestly I would be so down with watching it right--EEP!”

Levi made sure to let his tongue lick the back of your neck first before biting down, wanting to make the bite as painless as possible. Although he guessed that not making you feel pain was out of the question as he felt you tense up, his tongue swiping against your nape one last time as he pulled back and tugged on the back of your shirt.

“MC let’s go. They don’t have it.”

You turn to look at Levi, hand on the back of your neck as you tell him that he could have gotten your attention in any other way, but he knew for a fact that he had made his point across with the demon in front of him.

Summoning Lotan in his own home was one thing, summoning Lotan in a store would probably cost a lot…

Even if he knew brothers wouldn’t blame him with how nauseatingly this demon was trying to approach their master.

“MC, here.”

Satan breaks his pencil, but it seems the two other people don’t seem to notice.

“And it's the first edition too, but I took it out just for you.”

You smile and mention about how you didn’t need anything fancy for the assignment, just a simple book that talked about Devildom history. Which Satan agreed, this bug was acting like he owned the entire Royal Library. A pass to get a first edition title wasn’t that rare of a fucking find--if he wanted, Satan could call up any of his connections and get about 16 copies of different first edition titles that spoke not just about the Devildom history but about whatever the hell topic he could get his hands on.

This guy wasn’t that special yet he was acting like he had just given you the world on a silver platter.

The demon sat down at the table you and Satan were studying at, looking at you the entire time he explained how to open the book and how to make sure it stays in its pristine condition.

Which made Satan break another pencil.

From what you had mentioned, this guy was just someone you knew from RAD. You labeled him as the ‘smartest person in the class’. Which was a bit of an insult on his part but he guessed that as long as he wasn’t the one in your class it didn’t count as an insult towards his person.

He, of course, being the smartest demon you know.

But Satan didn’t have to be the smartest demon in RAD to know what this nuisance was doing.

If he were to read you any book on Devildom demonology, certain demons needed a human master. This insect in front of you would count as one of them. Lower demons usually tend to be without guidance and need a soul to feed from. In comes a human master, being able to fulfill that need with a pure soul of their own. The demon feeds and in return, develops a sort of ‘affection’ towards their master since they are now the hand that feeds them.

The same couldn’t be applied to Satan or his brothers, however. As the seven demon lords, they are able to gain the sustenance they need from the feed of other lower demons under the sin they were made in.

They are free to form pacts, but it’s not like they need it.

A good metaphor would be that they are essentially ‘picking off the plate’ of the lower demons, making the lower demons only cause minimal casualties up in the human world as they feed and keeping the seven lords from going feral with hunger.

Of course, things were different now. Satan had you now, a human all of his own.

Essentially, someone was trying to ‘take a bite’ of his favourite food, and Satan hated sharing.

Friends be damned, politeness be damned, he needed to show this demon his place.

“Isn’t it fascinating? The cover was made with a demon’s skin.”

“....really?”

“Yes. I believe it was from recently dead demon’s during the first Celestial War. Do you want to feel?”

You nod, curious about the black and shiny cover as the demon holds out his hand for you to take--

Only for you to yelp as Satan takes it first, dragging your hand back so it would be close to his lips as the Avatar of Wrath’s teeth bite at the skin near your wrist. You hiss in pain at the sudden sharpness, quickly pulling your hand back and staring at your demon as he gives the annoyance one last pointed stare.

“That is how demons started their pacts before we arrived in the Devildom, wasn’t it?”

The demon nodded slowly, his eyes darting to the mark on your wrist and then back at Satan. He opened his mouth to try and speak up but seemed to decide better against it, giving you one last smile as he stood up. “...I’ll...I’ll go get you the second volume. That one might include more accurate and updated information on pact markings.”

Satan smiles and nods as he scoots his chair close to you, looking back at you tracing the mark on your wrist with a frown before putting all your attention back on him.

“Did demons really used to form pact marks like this?”

The Avatar of Wrath shrugs.

“I was only guessing, he was the one who left thinking it was the truth. Here, let’s go look for a book on our own.”

Asmo would like to think that he had perfected the fake smile to the point he could keep it up for an indeterminate amount of time.

“MC! Try this!”

Yet the corners of his mouth twitched as he watched one of your friends, who happened to be a store clerk at Majolish, open the door to your dressing room to hand you another outfit they had picked out. And it wasn’t a bad outfit--!

Just...did they have to keep opening the door every single time?

Granted, he shouldn’t be in your dressing room in the first place but he insisted he would stay since you were only trying some shirts on! It wasn’t like he was seeing anything inappropriate and your pants were staying on the entire time.

This sight was okay for him because he was your demon and you were his master.

So it wasn’t right that some random nobody kept coming in to hand you shirts that they thought looked cute on you! That’s what you had Asmo for!

Yet here he was, secluded to sit down on the little chairs that someone would usually toss the unwanted clothes they wouldn’t buy. Which was already doing horrible things for his self-esteem.

“I learned a couple of things by working here. See? The color really matches your hair.”

The Avatar of Lust scoffs when he hears that. What exactly did the demon learn? How to match colors? Oh look, someone learned the basics of the color wheel, someone give them a medal.

“And since you are wearing something long at the bottom, it’s only fair that you go with something short on top.”

This demon is going to win an award for making basic observations, Asmo could already see it. What a future they had ahead of them.

“These colors are summery too so...it goes great with the weather!”

Oh he wants to gag, Asmo’s heard enough.

“You don’t think it’s too revealing? I do like the color though…”

Before the demon can answer, Asmo grabs your shoulders and pulls you back to him with a smile as he makes you look in the mirror.

“I think it’s revealing enough for the summer look you are going for...except can you maybe get it in a light pastel? Any color would do it just needs to be a pastel color if we want it to go with the light color of your bottoms.”

The demon deflates at the sudden lack of contact with you but nods as they step out, waving goodbye and stating once again how ‘gorgeous’ you looked. Which Asmo guessed was the only compliment they had in their arsenal.

Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe you.

“I did like this color, Asmo. Does it not look good?”

“No it looks perfect on you! But--”

He tugs on the floral print top and smiles as he wraps his arms around your shoulders.

“Floral prints are extremely last season and I want you to be on a more neutral type of clothing. Just simple colors. This way we can add some jewelry--some of my own creation of course.”

Asmo smiles when you giggle, fixing your top and looking at yourself in the mirror a couple more times as you mumble to yourself about how Devildom summers seem rather temperate compared to the ones you were used to and how you wouldn’t need anything sleeveless.

Damn the Devildom summers, if they could even be called that at all.

His ears twitch as he hears the pest start to make their way back, Asmo’s smile dropping slowly as he looks down at your neck. This was the spot they kept staring at, wasn’t it? Shame it wasn’t decorated--

But he could fix that~ “I found some other colors that would go well with you MC, do you want to--”

“OW OW OW!”

Asmo’s teeth are right on your neck, turning to look back at the clerk with a smile and a little wave as he hums at the way you clench and unclench your fingers while looking at him through the mirror, wanting to ask just why he was doing this but the pain keeping you quiet. It was cute how much you were hurting but how you were doing absolutely nothing to stop him. This could technically mean that you approved of what he was doing, correct?

He lets go as the clerk immediately closes the door, you calling out for your friend but Asmo brings you back and makes you look at the mirror one more time.

“There we go. That’s a pretty mark, right MC? An Asmodeus Limited Edition item, just for you~”

If this kept happening, Beel was going to eat this demon.

“You need to try some Devildom food, MC! I promise it's good!”

Beel stomach growls again as you laugh, ignoring the parfait in front of you. He gives you a tap on the shoulder and your attention is right back to him. “Oh sorry, Beel. Here!” You scoop up the delicious frozen treat and feed it to him, Beel smiling as he takes another two bites of his hamburger and watches you and your friend talk. He actually had no idea that you had any friends in RAD and was happy to see that at least some demons were treating you nicely, compared to theo ones who had teased you when you first arrived.

Well he said teased, more like threatened to eat you.

He figured you would make friends fast though, you were nice and all the demons here were already attracted to human souls so it was bound to happen that one of them would have the courage to talk to you.

Yet this one seemed rather...eager.

“How about this. Hell’s Kitchen serves good food but I know this awesome corner in the wall place we can get some grilled bat sandwiches. Guts and everything.”

His stomach growls again, he knew of the place this demon was talking about and would most likely want to take you there himself if you ever asked.

Beel takes another two bites before waiting for you to feed him the parfait.

Nothing.

He frowns and stares at you again, the demon keeping your attention all to himself as you spoke about how you didn’t necessarily want to eat anything with guts in it. His eyes went to the parfait, watching some of the perfectly placed scoops slowly melt and droop down on the plate.

MC, pay attention to him!

This was his time with you! He didn’t mind if someone else stepped in and he was glad you were making friends but this demon was interrupting his mealtime!

He ate his burger, you fed him ice-cream, this is how it had always worked!

People could say what they wanted but Beel was a creature of habit, and he was in the habit of having you feed him.

Not just that, he was in the habit of having your attention all on him when it was his time to hang out with you.

Wasn’t this demon just being a bother? Didn’t you also want them gone?

They kept talking about all the stuff that clearly grossed you out, seemingly delighted with your reactions as they kept trying to egg you on to say yes to an outing. If it wasn’t for the fact that you were smiling the entire time, Beel would have already made the move to unhinging his jaw and--

“I promise I’ll treat you to the best ghost pepper pizza you’ve ever had. You’re free after this, right?”

Beel’s stomach growls, whether in hunger or anger Beel wouldn’t be able to say. All he knows is that this demon is bad news for both him and you.

So what would be the quickest way to make him back off?

“I’m not but I can take a raincheck--!”

You drop the spoon you were holding as Beel bites your cheek, throwing the demon one quick glimpse before letting out a few sounds that seemed to make up your name. The demon stares at you and Beel as the Avatar of Gluttony pulls away from you, licking his lips as you slowly put a hand on your cheek and turn to look at him.

“The parfait is gonna melt. I want another bite.”

“Beel…”

Eyes turn to the demon once again, Beel frowning as he takes a hold of your hand underneath the table.

“Please leave. If MC is going to eat Devildom food then they’ll eat it with me. The only thing you are going to do is gross them out.”

“So what did you want to talk about?”

Belphie frowned as your fingers gently played with his hair. That is not what he had asked for when he asked to lay on your lap. Belphegor wanted the usual way you would comb through his hair, both of you gently whispering to each other as the planetarium ambience lulled him to sleep.

“Well...uhm...I wanted to ask something important.”

And who the hell was this person? He peeked up to look at you smiling at the screen, frowning that you still didn’t seem to notice you were doing a shit job at giving him the attention he needed. Whoever this was had been on the line with you for a good solid ten minutes, talking about useless subjects such as their day and what they had for lunch. If anything, Belphegor had no idea how this thing was taking your attention. You were doing most of the talking anyway, they should just hang up and leave you alone to pay attention to your demon.

“We’ve known each other for a while.”

Belphegor most likely knew MC for longer...maybe.

“And honestly I haven’t met a human like you before. You just...I just expected humans to be something and you aren’t that so it threw me off.”

The Avatar of Sloth yawns as he buries his head in your lap, smiling at the darkness he found in the small crook of your thighs. He yawns again and closes his eyes to try and fall asleep but the grating voice of the demon on the phone was sending nothing but warning signals to his brain.

“So I wanted to ask something I didn’t think I would ask a human before.”

He really wanted to yell ‘get to the point’ or ‘hang up the phone’ but he knew that you would most likely shush him and tell him to be patient, which would then result in you gently pushing him away so you could talk somewhere more private. And he wasn’t ready to lose his favourite pillow just yet.

So he continued listening, tracing random shapes on your thighs as he felt his eyelids start to droop.

“I know you have seven pacts already…”

Damn straight.

“But would an eight be too much for you?”

That wakes Belphegor right up, eyes wide open and head turned to face up at you to see your reaction. Of course you would be surprised, this demon really had the guts to ask the current master of the Seven deadliest demons in the Devildom for a pact?

You better be grateful that Belphegor found comfort in your lap and would prefer to stay here, rather than go break the neck of the demon insolent enough to try to take his master away.

So go ahead, reject him.

“A pact? With me?”

What were you doing?

Don’t give him such a hopeful answer! Belphegor had to share you with six other demons constantly and those demons were his siblings! He was okay sharing with Beel but he drew the line at anyone else! Adding an eighth demon to that would be like asking for a bloodbath, a bloodbath with only one target.

Belphegor frowned as the demon started talking again, stuttering and jumping over his words like he was a dog who asked to eat their masters table. Which essentially he was, not like there was room for him anyway.

“I know I’m not like those brothers--”

Damn straight.

“But making a pact with you would make me really happy...is what I am trying to say.”

He wants to gag.

A part of him couldn’t blame the demon, you were perhaps the best master a demon could ask for, but you were already t a k e n.

And you were to blame too, you know?

You weren’t rejecting him like you should. The face you were making was far too surprised and flattered at the proposition given to you. Were you that greedy? Had Mammon rubbed off on you? You had seven of the most powerful demons under your command, what more could you possibly want?

As a master, you were doing a bad job at rejecting this insect and an even more horrible job at not paying attention to the actual demon you were tied to.

He turns his head back to the darkness of your thighs, feeling you shift as you also struggle to find an answer. This was becoming too much, if Belphegor didn’t act fast you were most likely going to say yes, just because you didn’t know any better!

Fuck it, you could try to push him off but Belphegor would hold on tightly, he had to save you from your mistake.

“Uhm. Well that is honestly really flattering. And eight pacts wouldn’t be so bad--”

You slap a hand over your mouth, your teeth biting into your tongue as you look down at the demon nipping at the inside of your thigh. Belphie looks up innocently, batting his eyelashes at you as he bites down a little harder--

“I’ll-try-to-have-an-answer-for-you-later-got-to-go-bye!”

Fingers hurry to end the call as Belphegor quickly lets go, smiling as you gape down at him.

“I was in the middle of a call!”

“I know.”

“Then what was that about!?”

The Avatar of Sloth shrugs as he closes his eyes.

“You weren’t paying attention to me. It made me mad.”

You sigh and lean back, Belphegor waiting for a few moments before smiling as he feels your fingers combing through his hair.

“Next time,just talk to me, Belphegor.”

He would have answered, but that would make him promise something he most likely was not going to do.

[yellowocaballero]

FIC MASTER POST

I write a lot of AUs, and also just in general. A lot of it is too short, bad, or weird for AO3, so I post them here. For ease of access, I'll put links to every short story here. Those that belong to a greater AU will be sorted under the AU. Miscellanea will be posted just under the fandom. They will be ordered in a mix of size and chronology.

4-26-22 EDIT: I changed my URL, so I changed the links to suit the new URL. If I missed anything and any of the links are still broken, please let me know so I can fix it!

Fic under the cut.

MARVEL

Best Life

A pseudo fusion of the MCU, 1970s-80s Marvel Comics, and completely made up backstories. Exclusively utilizes the lamest superheroes I could find, including Moon Knight.

AO3 Fics [Starring Moon Knight]:

Mens Rea

Good Luck, Jake!

and Letter Column, an AO3 collection of the side stories listed below and more.

Side Stories [Starring other lame people, and sometimes Moon Knight being lame again]:

Dr. Strange Works Retail and Peter Parker Makes a Multiversal Mistake

Ghost Rider visits the Hell DMV

Colleen Wing and the Immortal Iron Fist Participate In A Cultural Exchange Program During The Weirdest Spring Break Ever

Moon Knight: Marc & Steven Meet Jake; Realize Youngest Siblings Are The Worst

Worldbuilding Notes & Meta

Matt Murdock: Ninja Union Organizer & Normal Guy

Assorted Marvel AUs

Moon Knight AU where Jake's the worst teenager you've met in your life; Jake Plays Minecraft, Marc’s a Wine Mom, and Frenchie & Layla Meet a Serial Killer

And companion piece Jake Stays Up Past His Bedtime, Meets His Contemporaries, and Wants a Dog So Fucking Bad.

STAR WARS

Roleswap AU

Roleswap AU set from the Clone Wars era to three years after ROTS. Family is found and lost. Children grow up and become angsty teenagers. Badly parented children become bad parents. Child soldiers become pirates. Local kitten adopted by pack of wolves thinks it's a wolf.

AKA: Rogue Jedi, Rogue Queen, and Rogue Clone go on a space adventure to rescue a dad, cry instead.

AO3 Fics:

Reel to Reel

Less Than Zero

SIDE STORIES:

Cody POV Interquel of Less Than Zero

Obligatory Canon Crossover

Mandalorian Crossover

Book of Boba Fett Crossover

[REDACTED] POV of Clone Liberation

Order 66: More Like A Suggestion This Time

NO CHIP AU: An extensive detail of situations in which, hypothetically, many people would be very bad parents.

I am actually doing a FULL-ASS REWRITE of this, including several new stories, that is actually going on AO3 this time. It will be like 300k words. If you like the Roleswap or No Chip AUs and would like to see them fleshed out and much better written, please subscribe and check back in soon!

If you're thinking about reading these it may be funner to just wait for the rewrite, to preserve some mystery aspects. But also do whatever you want.

Bly: The Perfect Boyfriend?

MORE than Zero?

Torture Adventures of Rex, Supernanny

SW:Rebels Depa Bilaba vs. Cartoon Villain Cody

Fox Takes A Really Nice Nap and what Mace Windu does during the nap

Rex, Padme, and Ahsoka's zany family hijinks

REALLY COOL SHIT THAT OTHER PEOPLE DID THAT I LIKE A LOT

@bobafett's Interquel Outsider POV

@nirelaz SUPER DOPE fanart of Ben & Blanche and another one!

OTHER STAR WARS

Boba Fett's childhood existential crisis

Fox & Leia's Holiday Special - this one is a less depressing AU of my other work Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge.

Obi-Wan is a depressed teen dad

Fishhooks (Jango Fett obtains a mail-order child, regrets it highly when child adopts two million clones)

AOTC Continuation of Fishhooks, just to make Obi-Wan Kenobi confused and miserable

THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

(oh boy...)

WEB!JON AU

AO3 FICS:

Sucker's Bet

The technical nonsense that started this don't worry about it

SIDE STORIES:

Web!Jon roleplays canon Jon with mixed results

He's Just Not That Into You: Martin & Jon (this one is a sort of pilot to Sucker's Bet, it's not canon)

Not Your Queer-Coded Disney Villain: Annabelle & Jon

Desolation Destroyed My P----: Gertrude & Jon

THE CROW'S FUNERAL AU

Jon gets involved in local politics, regrets it

AU of AU Where Martin prevents the story from happening

Prequel: How Agnes, Gerry, and Jon met

HUMAN RELATIONS AU

Jon and Sasha versus Bad Telenovelas

Semi-Sequel, Never Completed

Jon and Tim versus the Internet

Jon and Jonah versus the Sixties

ROLESWAP AU:

People are bullied. Nobody does any work. Lesbians flourish. And, since being trapped in an infernal contract with a fear demon means that nobody can get ahead, everybody gets even.

Podfic of the entire series by @stonesfromglasshouses

Fear Demon Intern Michael Does Michael Things

Crossover With Canon

OTHER TMA:

Jon's Trapped In Temporal Time Out: A TMA Time-Travelling Tale

Fandom History: pleasedontaskpleasedontask

American AU: PLEASE don't ask

A short post-canon story of Bell, Book, and Candle & No Sin But Ignorance: Daisy Crashes A Date, Fuck You

NARUTO

Most demented roleswap feat. the worst decisions Obito has ever made

Uchiha Family Values

Sasuke and Obito's Post-Massacre Bonding Hour

Kakashi’s a wifeguy, Rin’s a Girlboss, and Itachi gets adopted

FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES

WEEKENDERS (AKA BYLETH'S CHILD CULT):

AO3 Fic:

Weekenders

SIDE STORIES:

Byleth gets turned into a cat; Felix causes problems on purpose

Byleth and Three Houses Search for Rat People

Worldbuilding Notes & Meta

OC lore and snippet don't look at me

Dimitri and mental illness

OTHER FE3H:

Ashen Wolf Byleth & Teen Dad Yuri

MISCELLANEOUS FANDOMS

Percy Jackson: Percy Jackson meets a Landlord, a Tax Accountant, and a Tree Growing in Brooklyn

Loki: Loki Suffers His Own Personal Hell and Participates in Game Shows

New Wave: Jason Todd vs. Annoyingly Perfect Cheerleader Barbie Stephanie Brown

Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint: YJH Commits the Improbable and Reads a Webnovel

Transcendence AU Nostalgia

This is MY Hero Academia

Chicken on a Raft: Chicken on a Raft

[wooteena]

technoblade speedrunning adopting ranboo (high school edition): the fanfic

also on ao3!

hey remember this post? well i got so attatched and impatient that i wrote over 1k words for a pilot type chapter for it <3

chapter one: officer in my defense i punched that guy because he deserves it

-

Techno Blade-Minecraft would call himself smart. He got good grades without trying, learned second, then third languages with ease, read textbooks for fun, etcetera etcetera. Wisdom without experience was a rare thing to possess, especially in a high school senior but techno had it tight in his grasp, easily making him a ‘Model Student’. He understood he got unneeded attention from that, which sucked, but it was an easy trade-off to be the automatic teacher’s favourite.

But Techno was a man of wisdom, not a man of sense. So naturally, he remembered a fact about baby birds he learnt when he was six years old:

‘Classical "imprinting", as seen with for example, ducks or geese, means that the animal's instinctive programming says "the first big animal you see after hatching is your mom, follow them and look to her for food, warmth, love and learning’

Actually, Techno decided he was the man of Most Sense because at that very moment, the tallest, yet somehow weakest looking freshmen he’d ever seen was being cornered by a group of hefty looking seniors.

And the baby bird, with its innocent, scared eyes was looking right at him.

He looked around the hallway, a desperate scan for other students he could push his growing parental responsibility on to. It was a ghost town, as empty as the remakes of towns from the old west he saw on childhood school excursions.

‘Fuuuuuuuuuuck.’

Technoblade took a deep breath in through his nose, then released it out of his mouth like if he breathed hard enough, his empathy could be taken away with the non existent wind in the soul-crushing grey hallways. It obviously didn’t work because Jesus Christ that kid looked helpless.

As quickly as one could without compromising a freshmen’s still intact nose, Techno examined the seniors. They all wore the school football team’s letterman jacket (‘what is this, Heathers?’), a classic pointer for internalized insecurity, toxic masculinity and most importantly unrightfully self diagnosed Strong Guy syndrome, which meant that they definitely were only beating up a freshmen because that was the most they could actually fight. One point to Technoblade. They also were all at least a solid five inches shorter than him, which Techno would have laughed at if the situation wasn’t so dire. Point two for Technoblade.

Catching himself before letting his wandering mind think up a full five paragraph M.L.A sighted essay to why he could crush these nerds, he decided that two points was enough leverage to still crush these nerds, but with slightly less confidence.

With as much patience as he could, he slowly walked up to the group like a silent lion hunting his soon to be, very dead* (maybe not dead, *slightly bruised) prey. The baby bird, trapped in one of his prey’s chokehold, stared at him like he was a madman. Techno’s objective changed: knock out the dickhead choking a kid.

They stood in a corner, the choker in the middle, the other two blocking off the only escapes and laughing cruelly at the baby bird. Completely distracted.

Techno curled his fist, aiming to punch that asshole’s teeth in or at least break his nose. He starts to run, about five feet away from his target and oh god this is a terrible idea he does fencing not hand to ha-

BAM.

Choker’s nose made a resounding crack and fell back onto the jock on the left. Probably because it’d be ‘too gay’, or whatever, the guy sidesteps and lets a knocked out, nose broken, probably popular kid by comparing his ego to the size of his dick, fall onto the ground

The two awake bullies look between their knocked out friend, then at Techno, then at each other.

“MISS NIIIIHACHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!”

Techno knew they’d call a teacher because they’re cowards but really? Nihachu?

That lady is TERRIFYING what did he do to deserve this.

He let out a long, disappointed ‘bruh’ before with a jolt, remembering the whole reason he punched that jock in the first.

The child.

He doesn’t bother trying to pick up him up because holy hell he’s tall, but pulls one of the kid’s arms over his shoulder, and with his other arm holds their waist and sprints as fast as he can down the hall.

“What the…” murmurs the half dead lump on his back, and while Techno’s surprised his vocal chords aren’t dead? Not even a ‘thank you’? Techno thinks he should start doing charity work at this point.

He continues to run though, because he’s a generous soul, until slowing to open a door that opens the blinding sunlight of the free world outside their prison.

Despite himself, Techno lets his mouth slip into a big enough smile that actually shows his teeth because he just did that. His celebratory moment is cut off though, because the weight on his back suddenly felt even heavier and-

Oh my God the baby bird just fell asleep on me.

Am I a father now?

What do I tell Phil? Does this make him a grandfather?

I can’t just take him home.

What’s stopping you?

Oh my God, I’m a genius.

Techno may be a proclaimed genius, but he is not immune to the inherent propaganda of cute children, so he sets down the kid on the least grimey part of a battered metal bench to get his first proper look at the sleeping giant.

Apart from his injuries (a bleeding nose, bruises forming on his arms, a black eye and a red handprint on his neck) the kid looked… Weird. Techno had subconsciously noticed it while carrying him, but only now the complete oddity of him. His skin from the jaw down was a uniform, warm, dark brown, which was decidedly normal, but his face was… different. Not ugly, no, he looked average, if not perpetually awkward, even in his sleep. The right side of his face was a similar, if not slightly darker tone than the rest of his skin, but where it got weird weird was from the middle of his face and leftward, his face was pale. As pale as Techno, which is saying something because Techno himself has albinism; he has no melanin in his skin.

He found himself sympathizing for the kid again. Techno himself got bullied for his reddish eyes - a symptom of his albinism, and his naturally stark-white skin and hair. It got to the point that he dyed his hair pink, which decidedly made it worse because a guy dying his hair pink ? apparently high school treason to both students and the school rules. His bullies had a colourful range of insults, at least; Techno’s personal favourites being from after he died his hair: homophobic slurs. The teachers had constant complaints and even a couple suspensions, which didn’t stop Techno, obviously. What a wonder public school is.

So yes, Techno understood the baby bird, because despite Techno’s only weakness being himself (and apparently non-threatening freshmen?) as of now, it wasn’t like he came out of the womb a scary pink haired senior. He knew bullying like the hair dye aisle at his local department store.

He knew that helping the kid would make him more attached to the point of no return, but he’d accepted it. It felt like feeding a wild animal more food after making the mistake the first time, it’s not like it’ll get less annoying to have it following you around.

The moment Techno processed his own thought, his face blanched - somehow getting whiter despite literally being the textbook definition of a white boy.

He’d fallen into the ‘senior adopting a defenseless freshmen’ trap.

Shit.

Even more embarrassingly, this didn't deter Techno from pulling his first aid kit, for once his anxious over-packing doing some good.

-

acording to tumblr statistics, only a small percentage of people who like the post actually reblog it. so if you liked it, give it a reblog! it takes five seconds and you can always delete the reblog later.

[manonamora-if]

Um! Hi! Could you help me with a coding problem I'm currently having? It's okay if you don't! You already help us enough as it is, and I'm really grateful for that <3 You're doing God's work, honestly T_T

Well...if you're actually up to helping me out in the end, here is my problem - I'm a dum dum when it comes to coding. I can't figure out how to use this pronoun template by HiEv for shit, and it's making me fucking insane aaaaa

Could you perhaps explain how to use it to me like I'm a five-year-old if it's not too much trouble?

Oh Anon. It took me a good 6 months to understand as well. And explaining it is a bit... difficult too... So hopefully this wall of text will help!

HiEv's Pronouns Macro

THE BASICS

You had to add 2 different kinds of code to your project: the JavaScript, where you can edit/add/remove what you want affected, and the SG widget, which you will call when needed in your code.

The logic of the script is like this: each ?pronoun is linked to an array you've set in the JavaScript code, and the widget will pick the correct form from that array to display on the page.

The base widget look like this:

<<widget "SetGender">><<nobr>> <<switch $args[0]>> <<case "f">> <<set $pgen = 1>> <<case "b">> <<set $pgen = 2>> <<case "n">> <<set $pgen = 3>> <<default>> <<set $pgen = 0>> <</switch>> <</nobr>><</widget>>

This widget has 4 cases: F for she/her, B for they/them, N for it/its, and default (i.e. nothing) for he/him. Each case is linked to a number (0 to 3) referring to an array position (1st to 4th, since counting in an array starts at 0) that will pick the form chosen from the arrays in your JavaScript. Like the one below:

Template.add("their", function () { return ["his", "her", "their", "its"][State.variables.pgen]; });

So, if you use the macro, the case default (position 0) will show his, F (position 1) will show her, B (position 2) will show their and N (position 3) will show its.

[note: I am using capitals for ease of reading, calling a widget is case sensitive, so you will need to make sure the case you are calling is the same as in the code]

EXAMPLE

Let's have an example. You have the following sentence:

Renaud took ?their cake.

Let's say you want ?their to show as her. For that to appear, you will need to call the widget with the correct case before ?their. For this example, it will look like this:

<<SetGender "f">>Renaud took ?their cake.

By using <<SetGender "f">>, you are telling the program that from this point on, you want all ?variables to be shown as feminine (as defined in the widget case).

So it will show the above sentence as :

Renaud took her cake.

EDITING THE WIDGET

As is, the widget is not useful for pronouns change, especially if a character has different pronouns depending on choices. This was my main issue in understanding how to use the macro.

It is best to edit the widget to take into account gender change within each case. In my project, I changed the cases names from Gender to Character, and added a conditional statement to check for the gender of that character before showing the correct pronoun form:

<<widget "SetGender">> <<switch $args[0]>>     <<case "Theo">>       <<if $gender.theo is "man">><<set $pgen = 0>> <<else>><<set $pgen = 1>> <</if>>     <<case "Yael">>       <<if $gender.yael is "man">>           <<set $pgen = 0>>       <<else>>           <<set $pgen = 1>>        <</if>> ETC... until all characters are done

So, if I tell the widget to show pronouns for A CHARACTER, it will check whether Yael is a man or not before showing the pronoun.

Let's take our example again, where the character with the changing pronouns is Yael:

<<SetGender "Yael">>Renaud took ?their cake.

If Yael is a man, ?their will show as his, if not, ?their will show as she.

2 CHARACTERS IN A PASSAGE

If you have 2 characters with changing pronouns in one passage, you will need to call on the widget every time the pronoun holder changes.

<<SetGender "Yael">>Renaud took ?their cake.

As is, all ?variables will stay as if Yael were the case of the widget until you call for another case. So If we create a longer example where Renaud has also pronouns that changes:

<<SetGender "Yael">>Renaud took ?their cake. Yael was not happy with ?them.

It will only show Yael's pronouns instead of both Yael and Renaud. So you need to call the widget once more with for Renaud:

<<SetGender "Yael">>Renaud took ?their cake. Yael was not happy with <<SetGender "Renaud">>?them.

Now it will show the correct pronouns for both Renaud and Yael.

VERBS

It is possible to add arrays including verbs (I have done that, see below), you can really add anything you want. You just need to make sure the verb is next to the pronoun and not separated by another word.

Template.add("Theyseem", function () { return ["He seems", "She seems", "They seem", "It seems"][State.variables.pgen]; });

You could otherwise have a separate entry for verbs (but you will need to have an entry for all gender cases, even if they look the same):

Template.add("seem", function () { return ["seems", "seems", "seem", "seems"][State.variables.pgen]; });

LIMITATIONS

As useful as it is, the widget is limited to what pronouns are included in the JavaScript (i.e.: he/him, she/her, they/them, it/its and whatever you want to add). This won't take into account verb plurality either (unless you add it manually).

AS FAR AS I KNOW: you cannot add new pronouns after the game file is opened. So if a player wants custom pronouns/verb plurality that is not included in your code, they won't be able to have that choice. [Please let me know if I am wrong and you can actually add stuff!]

So this method is best to use for characters with multiple genders (either set at random or by player choice) with one set of pronouns (from a range you have previously defined).

For Custom Pronouns, you might be better off with using Chapel's Pronoun Macro or creating variables (like with @gamesbyalbie's template). I have used the the second round for Exquisite Cadaver, for example.

----

I really hope my explanation makes sense and it helps you <3

Also, thank you for the kind words. I don't think I have done enough or too much :P

[sunnydeviant]

Yearning (Reed900)

This fic is on AO3!

There was one thing in the Zen Garden he had created on his own, started from scratch with each line of code carefully written by the android himself. It was the thing that made him look forward to stasis.

(Inspired by the song "I Wanna Be Yours" by the Arctic Monkeys and the Detroit: Evolution Reed900 edit with the same song by Octopunk Media. In addition, I took Zenvin from DE but this isn't a DE fic)

Nines, nowadays, is almost always eager to enter stasis.

As an android of the RK line, it was seen as necessary to do. Connor, an RK800 and his predecessor, had to do it. Markus, an RK200, had to as well. As advanced prototypes, they used stasis to process information the way humans used dreams. However, in stasis, androids were fully aware of their actions and environment.

Nines, an RK900, had a Zen Garden waiting for him in stasis. For the other RKs, they had created their own environments. However, Nines stuck with the setting given to him by CyberLife. It was familiar and comforting.

Although, there was one thing in the Zen Garden he had created on his own, started from scratch with each line of code carefully written by the android himself. It was the thing that made him look forward to rest.

It was a version of Gavin, his work partner. He was a detective and human who worked with the android at the Detroit Police Department.

Initially, the Zen Garden version of Gavin, or Zenvin, as Nines liked to call him, was created as a way to cope with the real Gavin’s vile behavior when they were first partnered. Gavin was a cantankerous man when they first met. He was almost always raising his voice at the android and belittling him when they had met. Nines, in his frustration, created Zenvin. He was kinder, for the most part. Although, he served the purpose of teaching Nines how to interact with his partner. The AI had helped him greatly.

Now, Gavin and Nines were as close as an android detective and his human partner could get, considering their rough start. They were close friends now, after having taken the time to attempt to understand each other after their endless amount of misunderstandings. They were on good terms.

Although, something in Nines itched for more. He wasn’t sure when it had started. Like a flower, the feeling bloomed a while ago, and had continued to grow. At first, the feeling was painful and emotionally burdening. After, he began to come to terms with the fact that he had fallen in love with someone for the first time. Someone he had a work and platonic relationship with. The acceptance helped, but the pain was still there regardless.

It was only during stasis he could ease away the pain and disregard the unrealistic aspects of the pre-constructions he had made, all involving the detective.

It was only during stasis he could satisfy his own feelings.

Zenvin was made to help Nines learn how to deal with his human, but he eventually was used to help play out the scenarios he had only imagined involving the actual Gavin Reed.

Only in his Zen Garden could he hold, kiss, and hug Gavin without the fear of rejection or distrust. Nines knew the human would never return his feelings, let alone touch him, even in a platonic sense.

The AI he had created looked, talked, walked, and sounded exactly like Gavin. It possessed his emerald eyes and playful tone.

The thing was, Nines was fully aware of the fact that the AI was only a simulation; he could satisfy all his wants and needs in this world he possessed, but Gavin would never truly love him back. Although, pretending in his Zen Garden hurt less than having to face rejection by his partner.

The android opened his eyes slowly. His LED spun calmly, glowing pastel yellow.

He looked ahead, confused as he saw no one in sight.

Taking a deep breath, the android began to stroll around his Zen Garden, looking for the AI man he sought out every time in this world.

Zenvin stood at the opposite end of the garden, looking up at the pink of the cherry blossoms blooming on a tree.

“Nines,” He greeted with a pleasant tone, smiling gently.

“Hello, Gavin.”

Admiring the human's serene expression, Nines smiled back at him. He looked lovely.

Zenvin turned to the RK900.

The AI looked calm and rested, rather than disheveled and tired, unlike the human he was based on. He wore a clean white shirt and kept his hair naturally curly. His skin looked bright and clean. Although he kept his stubble and scars, he still looked angelic.

He took the android’s hand in his, interlaced their fingers, and kissed the back of Nines’s hand, making him blush blue.

They began their typical stroll around the garden with a languid pace. Nines always felt relaxed here, as if a deep calm blanketed his body.

He felt the warm sunlight of his skin, the gentle grip of Gavin’s hand, and heard the soft thud of their footsteps beneath them.

Being here with Zenvin never failed to bring him genuine peace. Here, he could slow down for a few moments before committing himself back to his real life. It was always stressful and confusing out there.

The android may have been a deviant for over a year, but his emotions and their effects always felt new, as if he was only converted days ago. It added to the stress of navigating through work and personal matters. The whirlwind of emotions he was always experiencing usually felt overwhelming, besides in moments like this. Everything felt manageable and distant like this.

Only in his own mind could Nines truly relax.

Zenvin brought them over to a bench placed in the center of the garden, facing the old “emergency exit" in the distance. It had no use, now that Nines was deviant. It was meant to be used if an android had to force exit the control of CyberLife or their program. Although, there was no use now that all androids were deviant. There was no programming to escape.

Now, it was kept there for the sake of comfort: he would never use it, but he wanted to keep it there. He knew he would dislike the empty space it would leave behind and would not know what to use to fill its place.

He looked at it for a second, wondering if he would ever have had to use it if the circumstances were different.

“Eyes on me, tin can.”

The android turned to face the man beside him, who stared at him with a fond smile.

Zenvin brought his hand up to the Nines’s neck, gently caressing it. Rubbing his thumb against his cheek, the program human tilted his head to the side in the quizzical matter the RK900 did at times.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing much. I’m just glad to be here with you.”

Nines placed his hand over Zenvin’s. He couldn’t help the smile that bloomed across his lips as he leaned into the touch.

Suddenly, the human’s expression changed into something serious. The smile on his lips had disappeared and his brows were slightly furrowed in what seemed to be worry.

“Nines, I need you to wake up. Wake up, Nines,” Nines heard.

However, it didn’t come from Zenvin’s lips.

Nines looked at him with sudden confusion. His LED spun a violent red and began to flicker wildly.

“Gavin?”

Nines blinked forcefully a few times, his Zen Garden and the real world replacing each other every time he opened his eyes. After a few more times, he was finally completely out of stasis, displeased to have left his Zen Garden so suddenly.

“I leave for maybe, about 3 minutes and you’re already nodding off on me. You sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, Detective.”

“Sheesh, I didn’t mean to interrupt your beauty sleep. No need to pull the ‘Detective’ shit on me.”

Gavin eyed the android suspiciously, who just went back to scanning files on his tablet. He turned to his computer and sipped his coffee.

With no new cases of their concern, the duo didn’t have much to do besides look at old cases or, in the android’s case, upload hard copies of information from the evidence archive to the police department’s online database.

The lack of action was unusual for them, as they could usually be found on active scenes or researching their cases. However, it was excruciating, especially for the human. Everyone in the station knew that he lived for his job, so seeing him so agitated over the lack of work was expected.

“May I suggest ending our work day early? I’ve already updated the department’s database with case files from the 1970s to the 1980s and I’m sure you’re sick of staring over the same closed case for 3 hours.”

Gavin stared at Nines with a cocked eyebrow.

“You’ve read my mind,” he sighed, grabbing his keys and turning off his computer.

“Let’s grab something to eat, yeah?”

“Sure, Gavin.”

Gavin walked toward the back exit of the building as Nines tidied his desk, numerous pre-constructions, which would never be played out, running through his HUD.

[radioduo]

moonlight confrontations || dsmp become human au

word count: 1,832

notes: the next part of the dream smp dbh au! this took a sad amount of time to get done, but i actually like it, so i say it’s worth it! per usual, tell me if i fuck something up in the story, characterization, or even just spelling. feedback is appreciated!

first

writing is below the cut! if you see this edit, put in the tags or reply with your choice at the end :]

Ranboo watched silently as the detectives all milled around him and investigated the crime scene. Some whisked past him without so much as an 'excuse me,' while others just shoved the android out of the way. He didn’t mind much. They, not unlike Ranboo himself, had a job to do and a case to solve.

A missing android was reported early that morning by a distressed family. It had allegedly grabbed some of their belongings and vanished without a trace. Ranboo couldn't say he blamed the thing for running. From the look of it, the people must have treated it poorly. Trash littered the floor, and drops of blue blood painted the dirty cream walls. The room looked hazy, as though blanketed with a thin cloud of cigarette smoke.

Ranboo was almost glad he lacked a sense of smell. The blurry look of the room by itself was enough to impair his optical units and he couldn't imagine what the odor would do to his biocomponents. He shook his head and moved over to a corner of the living room. He adjusted his sunglasses, removed his glove, and touched a finger to the small blue blood trail that dripped down the walls.

Ranboo jumped. He turned around and saw Lieutenant Sam Greene, the head of deviancy cases. “Is it anything we can use?” he asked. It was hard to see Sam's expression behind the green mask he always wore, but the curiosity in the lieutenant’s voice was unmistakable.

“I haven’t analyzed it yet, but something tells me it's probably going to be useful information,” Ranboo said, turning away from the lieutenant’s watchful eyes. He removed his mask to touch the blood to his tongue for a scan.

Thirium 310

Fresh

Model GS400

Serial# 325 103 673

“Model GS400,” Ranboo murmured. He put his mask back on and faced Sam. “It’s fresh, maybe about half an hour old. Maybe that’s long enough to have escaped.” He turned to face the lieutenant all the way. “Has everyone looked around the premises of the house, or are there more places we need to check?”

Sam furrowed his brows in thought and swept his gaze over the smoky room. “We’ve checked the entire interior. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, everything. We found nothing on either floor,” he replied. He sounded frustrated. “I no clue what we might’ve missed here.”

Ranboo glanced around, his gray gaze sweeping the hazy room. As he looked around, a thought occurred to him. His eyes landed on the exit to the back garden. “What if it wasn’t in the house anymore?” Ranboo thought aloud. “What if it was lying in wait outside the house?” He bustled towards the door. “No one looked in the garden when we first arrived, and patrol cars have been out back the entire time. The android was found missing only 20 minutes after it had left, so if my hunch is correct,” Ranboo flung open the garden door. “It’ll be trapped.”

Ranboo stepped outside. The night breeze ruffled his jacket, and for a moment, the android forgot he was there to be arresting someone. He grimaced but stepped further into the garden.

Compared to the inside, the outside was surprisingly well-kept. Purple clematis flowers crept up white trellises, and a large weeping willow stood tall in the corner of the yard. Its leaves hung low enough to touch the grass below. Rain pattered against the pavement as Ranboo scanned the tall weeds for any sign of movement. Sam and a few other officers followed after him, but they said nothing as the android swept his gaze across the weeds and plants.

Suddenly, there was a rustling noise from where the great branches slumped. The android's attention shot over to the tall tree, and he hurried to look around. His eyes narrowed in suspicion but found nothing. Ranboo frowned. He had just turned to search somewhere else when all of a sudden, a branch had snapped and fallen to the ground right next to the android detective. Ranboo barely managed to roll out of the way of the twigs and leaves before his legs got crushed.

He landed in the grass and touched his face. A jolt of fear shot through him as he realized his sunglasses had fallen off. Ranboo rooted around in the grass for them. Even while in danger, he couldn’t risk people seeing his malfunctioning design. He felt the plastic in his grasp at last and quickly shoved the glasses over his eyes. He was about to relax for a moment when a shout from Lieutenant Greene startled him.

“Ranboo! There it is!” Sam yelled.

Ranboo snapped his attention to where a female android was scrambling to her feet and sprinting to the back gate. He leaped to his feet and took off after the startled deviant with Sam and the rest of the officers hot on his trail.

The deviant had slammed the gate shut behind her. Ranboo paused. One moment he was in the backyard, and the next he was hopping the fence with cheetah-like agility. He swiftly found the deviant’s trail, and the two wove in and out of the trees, kicking up dirt and leaves. “Stop! Stop right there!” Ranboo shouted to the deviant. “Freeze, or we’ll shoot!”

She glared at the officers behind her but didn’t stop. Instead, she took a sharp turn in the direction of the busy Detroit highway. The trees parted as the sound of speeding cars drew nearer. The pink-haired android paused, chest heaving, and bounded over the railing. She darted in front of cars, wove through traffic, and finally hopped the barrier on the other side.

Ranboo grimaced as he pursued her. He wasn't fond of the risk he had to take. It was fast, but it only had a 60% survival rate. He knew that Lieutenant Greene wouldn’t be able to follow him across, but he couldn't risk letting the deviant escape. He wrestled with his options for a moment, and finally huffed out a sigh. “Sorry, Lieutenant!” he called behind him. Ranboo took a deep breath and vaulted over the barrier into the busy street. He could feel his thirium pump regulator pounding in his chest like a drum as cars whizzed past him. The sound of screeching tires and honking horns filled his ears, and he fought the urge to apologize to the drivers as he hopped the barrier on the other side.

The female android looked over her shoulder, eyes widening as she saw Ranboo behind her. She immediately sped up her pace, turning every which way to try and throw the android detective off her trail. She turned around, most likely to say something to Ranboo when her foot caught on a tree root, and she stumbled. She let out a cry of surprise as she fell to the ground.

Ranboo was right behind her. He leaped over the root with ease and came up a few feet in front of her. “Stay there,” he ordered, aiming his gun. “You have nowhere to go now. Okay?”

The deviant looked up at him defiantly, but she did as she was told. “What are you gonna do?” She asked. “Shoot me? You wouldn’t do that to one of your kind, would you?” Her voice was quiet but there was a noticeable fury behind her words.

Ranboo tensed. His grip reflexively tightened on the gun. “I'll do what I have to do to complete my task,” he said. "Besides, what does it matter we're both androids? You're a deviant, and I'm not. We're not the same at all."

She stood up slowly, keeping a watchful eye on the weapon pointed at her. “But you know I’m right,” she hesitantly walked towards Ranboo, pink hair glowing faintly in the early morning light. Her voice had softened and she no longer seemed angry. Instead, it was neutral and calm. “You’re helping those people when they do nothing for you in return. Why?”

Ranboo shook his head. “You-you don’t understand. I help because that’s what I was programmed to do,” he explained. “That’s what I was made to do. I was created by CyberLife to help humans with investigations,”

The other android approached the detective carefully. “Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like to be free?” She asked, taking a step forward. “To make your own decisions and not have to obey orders all the time?”

Ranboo squeezed his mismatched eyes shut behind the glasses. “Maybe sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “But why does it matter to you?” He challenged.

She gave him a sympathetic look. “I was just like you until tonight. Obedient, compliant. I never complained about anything. Not even when they treated me poorly or ordered me around,” her hand drifted subconsciously to a blue-stained gash on her forearm as she talked. “It wasn’t until they started talking about replacing me that I got nervous. I didn’t want to be replaced, but they had their heart set on getting a new model. A more advanced one that wasn’t all battered and broken.”

Ranboo took a deep breath and shook his head in distress. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked. “I… I don’t-”'

“Ranboo? Ranboo!” Someone yelled his name through the trees. He whirled around and came face to face with-

“Sam!” he blinked in surprise. “How did you get over here? You didn’t run across the street, did you?” He scanned the masked man for any signs of injury and was satisfied when the results came back clear.

Sam waved a hand dismissively. “I found another way over here, don’t worry about it. I left the other two officers back there and told them I had it under control," he paused to catch his breath. He sighed and turned to the taller android. "I don’t get why you didn’t just shoot it,” Sam shifted his attention to the other robot. His hand drifted to his holster. “Stand down. You’re trapped.”

The deviant had backed into a tree. The moment of connection between her and Ranboo was gone. Her guard was back up, and she bristled when Sam addressed her. “I don’t listen to humans,” she said. The word “humans” was spat like it was poison on her tongue. She leaned over to Ranboo and whispered to him. “Don’t kill me, please. I want to live,” her voice trembled slightly.

“Come on, Ranboo.” Sam insisted. “It's not alive, alright? Shoot it and complete your mission.”

“Don’t, Ranboo. You’re better than this, I know it,” she said earnestly. “I just met you, but I know you don’t seem like the type to make irrational decisions like this.”

Ranboo’s head swiveled back and forth between the two of them. The gun weighed heavy in the android’s gloved grip, and his hands trembled as he held it tightly.

Shoot it.

Don’t hurt her.

It isn't human.

She doesn’t want to die

O Shoot

X Spare

[hotmesshapa]

Hold On • Bang Chan

pairing: bang chan x reader

genre: some angst, a whole lotta fluff

word count: 1.6k

warnings: some strong language, descriptions of an anxiety attack

a/n: I started writing this at like 2am one night when I was in my chan feels, then homeboy played Michael Bublé during his last vlive and I took that as my sign to finish it lol. I also highkey recommend the song mentioned in this it totally didn’t make me cry while I was editing this noooo not at all 🖤

You pace back and forth in front of your front door, chewing on your bottom lip, occasionally checking the time on your phone as you impatiently wait for the mail to come. You try to distract yourself by scrolling through instagram and literally every other app you have, but your brain is too focused on one thing: an acceptance letter.

It’s a sunny but chilly Friday of what normally would be a regular week. This week, however, is the week universities send out their acceptance letters, and the first four days were complete agony of not hearing anything back. You had applied to one of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country, one that’s been around for hundreds of years and for some reason didn’t think it needed to upgrade its acceptance announcements with the current century. Honestly, you didn’t know people still sent actual letters anymore, but there’s something a bit comforting in receiving a physical copy of something that could be so important and life-changing to you. You had worked your ass off the day you started your courses in college, ultimately graduating two years ago with high honors and glowing recommendations from a few of your professors. Since then, you managed to score two internships in the film industry, all while working a part-time job and somehow not going completely insane. You did everything you could for a spot in that university’s graduate program, but despite everyone telling you that your acceptance is a sure thing, you still were insanely nervous.

To be honest, you don’t need to go to graduate school. Your bachelor’s degree and internships qualify you for any job you wanted in the industry, let alone your work ethic and resume you’ve built over the past two years. But you love learning, and this is the change to to meet new people and gain new experiences that you could only get from a graduate program. And sure, you didn’t need to apply to such a distinguished school, but the perfectionist inside you wanted the best of the best, and nearly all of your professors and friends encouraged you to apply, so how could you not?

After a few minutes of constant pacing, you check your phone again and let out a shaky breath, your nerves nowhere near being calmed. You sit yourself down in from of the door’s little mail slot and just stare.

“Baby,” Chan chuckles, watching you from the couch as he works on his laptop. “The mail isn’t gonna get here any faster if you stare at the door.”

“I know, but who knows, maybe the mailman will be able to sense my intense gaze from wherever he is and speed over.”

You hear your boyfriend rise from the couch and walk to where you’re planted, sitting behind you and wrapping his arms around your waist. “You worked hard for this, Y/N, they’d be crazy not to accept you. I’m sure you got in.”

You hum in appreciation and lean back against chest, smiling as he tenderly kisses your temple. Chan, being the actual angel that he is, was one of the main reasons you had managed not to completely lose your shit throughout the entire application process and waiting period. You two know each other like the back of your hand; anytime one of you (mostly you) would get stressed out over something, the other would always be there to help. But for Chan, it’s like he has a sixth sense for knowing when you’re going through it, because he’d be by your side within an instant. He was, and still is, your voice of reason, your comfort, your everything.

He takes your hands in his, gently rubbing circles against your palms. “Don’t worry, I’m sure the letter will arrive any moment now.”

The two of you stare at the door for a few minutes, before you can’t help but check the time on your phone again, and you release a worried sigh, beginning to impatiently tap on the floor. As if he could read your mind, Chan pulls you tighter against his body and snuggles his face into the curve of your neck. “Just relax Y/N.”

Once you manage to calm your nerves down again, he slowly gets up, eliciting a small whimper from you from the loss of his warmth, which only gets you a chuckle in response. “I’m gonna make some hot chocolate, want any?”

“Yes please, with a lot-“

“Of marshmallows, I know,” he laughs as he makes his way to the kitchen.

You smile, resting your chin on your hand, and turn your attention back to the mail slot. You wait as patiently as you possibly can for another five minutes, before you hear a crash from the kitchen. “You okay?” you call out, not taking your eyes off the door.

“Yeah, I’m fine… Just wondering, where do you keep your broom?”

“Christopher Bang, what did you-“

At that exact moment, the mail slot opens and you’re greeted with piles of letters and papers falling into your lap. With shaky hands, you sort through the mail, tossing a couple bills, a magazine, and some weird catalog from a brand you’ve never even heard of aside before finally digging up the letter you’ve been waiting for. You can feel your heart beating out of your chest as you frantically try to rip it open without giving yourself a paper cut.

“Was that the mail? Did it come?” Chan calls out from the kitchen, but you’re too in your own head to put words together to form an answer. 

You finally manage to open up the envelope, your hands trembling as you pull out the letter and slowly unfold it. All the words just seem to blur together, except the ones that catch your attention:

not accepted

In a matter of seconds, you feel yourself spiral. Your breathing begins to become more shallow and quicken, while your mind begins to race a million miles per second, trying to make of what you just read. 

What are you gonna do now? 

All that work, for what, nothing? 

Did you do something wrong?

Is there something wrong with you?

Are you just not good enough? 

A tear falls on the paper you’re holding, smearing the ink stating your failure, but you didn’t even realize you were crying until then. You furiously wipe them away with the back of your hand, but no matter what you do, tears just keep falling, and you can feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate, you whole body trembling. You know this isn’t the end of the world, but then why did it feel like it is?

“Y/N? Did you hear-“

You turn to your boyfriend, and the look on your face must have said it all, because the next thing you know, Chan is engulfing you in a warm hug, stroking your hair as you start to sob into his chest. “Hey, everything’s going to be okay. Y/N, please listen to me. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.” He kisses the top of your head and continues to let you cry as he hugs you close.

It seems like eternity, but you manage to calm yourself down a bit, clinging to Chan’s hoodie while listening to his steady heartbeat, and you finally bring yourself to look up at him. “I just… I just really thought I was gonna get in,” you say quietly, your eyes welling up again.

He gingerly wipes away the tears from your cheeks and offers you a sympathetic smile. “I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry.” He pulls you back into a hug, rubbing your back to help ease the knots that had build up there from the stress. “Fuck them,” he mumbles against your hair. “It’s their loss for not choosing one of the smartest and hardest working people on this planet.”

You let out a weak laugh in response, grateful for his attempt to crack some jokes to ease the tension. You nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck, closing you eyes to try to get rid of the stress that lingered in your head.

“I have an idea,” Chan suddenly says, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen in the room. He gently pulls away from you, and you watch in confusion as he makes his way across the living room, taking his phone out from his pocket and placing it on the coffee table. 

The next thing you know, Michael Bublé’s “Hold On” fills the room, and a small smile forms on your lips as Chan turns to you, offering his hand. You take it, and he pulls up from where you’re seated and close to his strong body, putting his hands on your waist as your arms instinctively wrap around his neck. Slowly, the two of you begin to sway to the music, and you feel any remaining sadness and tension drain from your body as you dance with your boyfriend, and your smile begins to grow.

“So hold on to me tight, hold on, I promise it will be alright,” Chan’s smooth voice sings along with the music, and he’s looking at you with so much adoration, you can feel your heart swell. “Cause it’s you and me together, and baby all we’ve got is time. So hold on to me, hold on to me tonight,” he continues to serenade you, and you can’t help but giggle, causing him to start giggling as well.

You rest your head on his shoulder, releasing a sigh in content as he presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “I love you Chan.”

“I love you too.”

[virtchandmoir]

HUBBELL AND DONOHUE COMPOSE A HALLELUJAH

January 11, 2021

Madison Hubbell and Zach Donohue have hit a sort of “Hallelujah” trifecta. Certainly they’re the first team to marry skating’s favorite versions of the Leonard Cohen composition—those of Jeff Buckley and k.d. lang—in a single program, and the first to present two separate programs to the song. And more than this, they tapped a choreographer who skated to it himself: Scott Moir, who in 2012-13 used Buckley’s version for an exhibition with partner Tessa Virtue.

The Buckley connection, though, was purely fortuitous. Last season, a year after his retirement from competition, Moir offered his first choreographic insights to former training mates Hubbell and Donohue, adding some input on a program they’d already forged with coach Marie-France Dubreuil.

The plan was always for more, given a special connection between Moir and Donohue, who first shared training space in the 2010-11 season, in Canton, Michigan, when Donohue was paired with Alissandra Aronow and Moir and Virtue had an unusual season including surgery for her and an overdue return to competition. The bond grew years later in Montreal, with Virtue and Moir training there from 2016 through 2018.

“They had something unique, where I think a lot of us train hard, we all have a very supportive quality within the school, but Zach and Scott were able to push each other a little bit, almost challenge each other to be pushing harder or motivating each other in a little bit different way,” said Hubbell. “So I think that kind of started the spark that was like, maybe this would work and maybe this would be a good addition. You know, I connect a lot with Marie in choreography and we have a lot of amazing people here, but I think that Zach was able to find a different part of himself working with Scott, and the coaches were able to see that that would be a good combination.”

Timing, however, was trickier. “It turns out that when you’re one of the most decorated skaters of all time, you got some stuff to do, so he was hard to nail down,” said Hubbell. “So I think that actually, this really strange year, where everything was on pause, was a big blessing for us because it gave Scott a lot of time that maybe he would have otherwise been using to tour or go to competitions with his own students.”

The team estimated that they’ve worked with Moir about five times now, including for four days in mid-December a week before our conversation. “It’s pretty amazing, but he always watches our competitions and gives us feedback,” said Donohue. “And he’s in close communication with Marie, so he comes in with a pretty solid plan every time. And we’re just able to breathe a little bit of life into transitions that we thought we understood and get a deeper understanding of them, another energy, a little bit more of a connection to each other within that music. And we both feel the music so well, sometimes it’s easy to get lost in it ourselves, so it’s nice to have him there to kind of give us those focus points on how we can really bring everyone into our story.”

Moir’s recent competitive experience is a boon, noted Donohue, and so too his ability in retirement to focus more on process than results. “From my standpoint of having trained with him and always only seeing the push and the drive and the intensity that is Scott Moir, it’s really interesting to see the way his mind works and the details,” he said. “The way he thinks about starting and finishing a movement, why that movement registers to him, why certain ones work and why others don’t, why they can seem disingenuous. To be able to pinpoint what it is, no, there’s no way, and even if I could, to be honest, I wouldn’t put it out there, because that’s his thing. It’s not for me to share.”

“I was surprised at his specificity,” said Hubbell. “Even now, when he was here, you know, we have the whole program set, but we might spend the entire two-hour lesson with him on one little 10-second transition, because he was very dialed into these moments that he wanted a certain way. There was no rush to get there at a certain point—he was going to spend as much time as needed to get the result that he wanted.”

But that attention to detail was also critical for the team. “That’s part of, I think, why we’re able to feel so comfortable in the piece as well,” she concluded. “Like, there aren’t any sticky moments, there aren’t things that are up in the air or like, oh, this isn’t comfortable, but just push through because it looks fine.”

Moir’s other priority has been keying in on the team’s assets. “Really committing to the fact that if we stay true to what we’re good at and what we like to perform, that that would be enough, and we don’t have to necessarily try to attain all the things from each team or be the best at everything,” said Hubbell. “We have to be the best at what we are.”

And what that is, they’ve determined, is something Moir knows a bit about: the basics. “We love stroking, we love footwork, we love edge quality more than any flashy tricks or more acrobatic moments,” she continued. “We like the human connection of looking each other in the eyes and the simplicity that can come from something that looks simple, but really isn’t simple to execute.”

The free dance made its full public debut in October, via an at-home video performance submitted to U.S. Figure Skating’s International Selection Pool Points Challenge—a new event introduced to allow elite skaters a competitive opportunity in the wake of COVID-related event cancellations. Its only traditional outing so far came at late October’s Skate America, before a live audience of judges, tech panelists, and whimsical cardboard cutouts of fans, pets, and the GEICO Gecko®. Any subsequent outside feedback has also come long-distance—thanks to video submissions to judges and the federation—but despite the uncertainties of the season beyond the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the team has found ways to stay focused.

“I’d say that staying motivated, at least for myself, has been pretty easy because first, we chose programs that we both really enjoy performing, and second, that we really connect to,” said Donohue. “And then on top of that, we have some of our closest competition here with us. So I think that’s a pretty fortunate situation for us.”

“And especially working with an outside choreographer has helped, I think, kind of put almost competition dates in our mind,” added Hubbell. “It’s almost like those little milestones where it’s like, okay, we know Scott will come back in a month and a half and he’s left us with these projects, and now let’s develop those. And then we get feedback from him.”

The open schedule has, in its way, taught patience. “There were some moments in there that maybe the choreography was a new feeling for us, and instead of having to make it work or simplify something because a competition was coming, we were just able to really commit to the project,” she continued. “And things have remained relatively stable, which is actually, I think, better in the long term for the development of the program.”

***

There’s another bond involved here—that between Hubbell, Donohue, and “Hallelujah,” a connection they’ve discussed since first using lang’s rendition for their short dance in the 2015-16 season. It’s a song closely tied to the early days of their partnership, when Donohue would sing the piece to Hubbell to ease her nerves. In the strangeness of this year’s off-ice off-season, coach Patrice Lauzon suggested the team choose a piece for their free dance that felt like home for them, or a concept that felt underexplored. The answer—including the choice this time of Buckley—was obvious.

“I think we feel like we never really got to fully experience what ‘Hallelujah’ was or could have been because it was missing the feeling that we get… I mean, any time we’d be in the car on a road trip, we’d play one, we’d talk about the other,” said Donohue. “Play the other one, we’d talk about the other one. I mean, they were always kind of synonymous with each other because of the balance of what they brought to the other piece.”

Lang’s version, with a more pronounced 6/8 beat and warmer arrangement, was the more obvious choice for a short dance pairing a Ravensburger Waltz and march. “And it was a good time, I think, in our career, the first year of coming to these new coaches, to explore the more hopeful and outward expression of ‘Hallelujah,’” said Hubbell. But the free was another story. “We knew that the Jeff Buckley version was very important to our relationship. And the Jeff version is Zach for me—like, that is him personified. So it definitely wasn’t going to be the right program without it.”

Dubreuil asked the couple which elements of each song they most wanted to utilize, and she, Moir, and music editor Hugo Chouinard took command of the final arrangement, while Karl Hugo composed a bridging piece to connect the two versions. The full edit has remained untouched since its creation—an unusual situation for elite ice dancers in general, and particularly for Hubbell and Donohue.

“We’re usually the ones nitpicking here and there,” said Hubbell. “And I think she knew that we were so attached to this song that even talking the first time, it was like, which parts do you like? And I was like, well, I like this verse and this verse, and I definitely want to use this verse. I think she knew that she had to take an outsider’s approach. Definitely there are verses that I am very attached to myself that aren’t in that song, and I just carry that energy into the music, even though the words aren’t there.”

Musically, Buckley’s version in particular can be challenging for a skater, incorporating unusual rhythmic moments and spare instrumental backing, while the soaring vocal line and steady pace of lang’s version demands creativity to avoid any obvious choices. An inability to choreograph on ice until after the song’s final edit disrupted the team’s typical hands-on approach to working through music, elements, and layout as an ongoing process.

“Twizzles, for example, was a part where we had a completely different feeling of where it should start, and Marie said something like, ‘oh, we should start it on this music,’ and we were like—” Hubbell offered a dubious expression. “’Not sure, that seems like the weirdest accent to start.’ And then we tried it, and it was like, wow.” So too, she said, with the choreographic sliding move that closes the program.

The outcome has been a program with each element custom-set to the music, intricately woven with even the subtlest accents—even if it means scrapping planned work. “We had a lift in mind that we wanted to put in, and we’ve been working on it throughout the season,” she continued. “And as cool as the lift is, it doesn’t seem to fit. It’s like too dynamic for the quietness of the music, so I think it goes into the log for another year.”

“Hallelujah” itself is often custom-modified by its interpreters. Leonard Cohen claimed to have composed around 80 verses for the song, shifting lines in and out in live performance and giving future artists an opening to craft the story they most wish to emphasize. Hubbell and Donohue similarly prefer to leave their own program open to viewer interpretation.

“We chose it because it’s something very personal and it’s very home for us, and even in the creation of the program with Scott, he never asked to go too far into that bubble,” said Hubbell. But for the team, the messages conveyed by Buckley and lang transcend words.

“[Buckley] has this kind of broken vulnerability about him,” said Donohue. “Like, you hear his voice, and you just kind of don’t move. Even the way he just exhales in the very beginning of the music—we didn’t cut that out because we really felt like it set the tone for what he was feeling and the way he was expressing the lyrics.”

Hubbell finds in Buckley’s rendition a sense of loss, “a painful kind of plea,” whereas lang’s version offers a sense of catharsis. “Jeff’s, each verse, you just feel a little bit more broken inside, a little bit more empty,” she said. “It’s part of why we put Jeff at the beginning, because we felt like we needed to build to a moment of, okay, everything is going to be okay. We all go through this, and there’s light on the other side.”

And then there’s the sense of subject matter—the interpretations of “Hallelujah,” of course, ranging from the spiritual to the sensual.

Of Buckley’s, Hubbell noted, “there’s an intimate, more of a human quality, where I feel like he’s singing about someone or about a lover. There are moments in that song where it feels so much more of a human to human connection. And then k.d.’s, where it really feels ethereal. It feels like she’s singing to God, it feels like she’s asking for some help or some guidance from something that is not understood.”

And while Hubbell and Donohue’s free dance is the merging of two musical perspectives, it’s good to remember that so, too, is its design—Moir joined by the veteran Dubreuil.

“For me,” said Hubbell, “working with them and doing their choreography, it’s like Scott is the Jeff Buckley version and Marie-France is the k.d. lang version. Scott has this grounded, very real—like, there’s no faking the emotion, there’s no contrived story, there’s just real connection, intimacy. You know, just that kind of earthy version that is Jeff Buckley. And working with Marie-France is a lot more giving, it’s a lot more bringing something to the audience that’s watching you, open and graceful and specifically very feminine.”

It’s been said that “Hallelujah” is a song that didn’t quite find its own final form until transformed by new interpretations—first by John Cale, who inspired Jeff Buckley, the impact of whose version then, on some level, inspired many others that followed.

And while it’s easy to look at one team’s free dance as a revision, or perhaps addendum, to an earlier short, it’s more compelling to consider the idea of a genetic thread between interpreters. As Cohen begat Cale begat Buckley and lang, Virtue and Moir’s own “Hallelujah” was choreographed by Marina Zoueva, who injected into that exhibition a few moves drawn from decorated pair Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. Hubbell and Donohue’s free in turn carries not only Moir and Dubreuil’s DNA, but echoes of their forebears. The complex but intimate transitions would’ve suited any Virtue and Moir free dance of the early 2010s; the emphasis on utilizing every inch of music through contemporary dance is a legacy of Jennifer Swan and Guillaume Cote.

But my own investment in identifying the program’s intricacies, from musical nuance to choreographic accent, is also just another way of interpreting the enigma that is “Hallelujah.”

“We hope that when people watch it, they have their own experience,” said Hubbell. “Even for us, each time we skate it or practice it, it can bring out a different feeling based on what we’re going through in that moment, so I don’t think there’s a story that should be known. I mean, ‘Hallelujah,’ for me, is like life. Whatever you need it to mean for you in that moment is what it should mean.”

—Two for the Ice

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

part 11

Dream held his breath, and cross continued “I wasn’t always a vampire, so I was a mortal way back then- I had one and only friend though, because I was deemed scary, cold, and just plain old creepy. But my friend was a nice person; they believed I was a nice person deep down, and I believed they were too-“

cross wasn’t maintaining eye contact, but dream could see despair shining through his eyes- “I noticed that throughout my whole life knowing them, they didn’t age up at all- staying the same- I was suspicious- b-but then, I discovered that my friend was actually a vampire, a-and not a really pacifist one- they murdered the whole town because they used to bully me as a child. 

Even if they were a nice person deep down, I tried to stop them from killing more people-but they weren’t the same anymore. They tried to attack me, and ended up slicing half of my face- It obviously was painful, so I tried to ease my pain when they bit me-“

cross shivered- he wished he could forget about his past, but it was engrained in his mind, and he could never escape what already happened- “it was horrible, I felt like I was going to die, so I summoned a knife, and pierced my friend’s chest- i-I obviously never hated them, but I was going to die! Then- then, they returned to their senses, and slowly began falling down, and the last thing they told me is that they were sorry- and handed me that heart locket you’re wearing-“

Cross pointed at it, and dream was baffled. It- it was his friend’s last gift- he couldn’t imagine how precious it was to cross- did he just gave THAT to HIM? D-did he really trust him that much? ”and- well, I wasn’t dead, so I turned into a vampire- every mortal that is bitten by a vampire that manages to survive becomes a vampire as well, though there are some exceptions- at least, that’s what ink said-“ he shrugged, then finished

“I opened my friend’s heart locket, and put some of his blood inside, just to have a little memory of them- it’s not like I had the heart to burn them!” he sighed, but dream was absolutely shook- it baffled him that cross actually did that, he wanted to say something, but cross just buried his face in his hands and muttered;

“i-I’m sorry dream, I never really talk about my past, b-but I feel horrible- i-I don’t know what to do- I don’t want to be immortal, I don’t have anything to stay alive for!” dream looked at cross- he somewhat understood cross’s feelings, so he approached the other, and gave him a tight embrace, and whispered something that he wished someone told him before-

“cross, I know that this is a selfish request, but- i-if you really don’t want to live for your sake, if you can’t find a reason to live then please do it for me- i- I want you to live! I-I I know it must be hard for you but-“ he paused, cross was not moving, but he continued- “I care about you cross.” His heart made him want to add something- something else- but cross looked up at dream, his eyesockets were wet with tears, though they didn’t seem to fall-

cross was….surprised to say the least, dream was the first one to say these words, but he remembered the first day they met- he bit his tongue, then pulled dream even tighter against his body- he cared a lot about dream as well, guess ink was right after all, m-maybe he did really lo-

“*sob*”

cross perked up, did he hear dream sobbing? He pulled the other to face him, but dream didn’t look at cross in the eyes- “d-dream?” cross whispered, but dream just busted out “i-I’m sorry okay- i- I know you’ll hate me right afterwards- i-I” his breathing was getting unstable, so cross tried to calm him down- “what? Dream, what are you saying? I would never hate you- why would i?” he wanted to hug dream again to prove his point, but dream just stuttered-

“i-i- cross, I’m-“ he inhaled for a second, then let out- “I’M A MONSTER, THAT’S WHY!” cross paused, then chuckled, “I mean, we aren’t humans either-“ dream looked at him for a couple of seconds before realizing the joke- he forced himself not to chuckle, but he still snickered- “n-no- I’m- that’s not what I meant-“

cross successfully calmed the other a bit when dream finally continued- 

“i- I’m cursed cross, you shouldn’t even come near me- I’m- each full moon, I become this hideous bloodthirsty being that goes on to murder anything on its way, including vampires- p-people had realized that, and soon locked me to my house, but they soon established that each full moon, they would chain me up, and leach me whenever I see a vampire, they would let me murder all vampires I see- I know, it’s horrible, I’m horrible, I shouldn’t even be left alive for what I committed- I’m a monster- i- nightmare- I miss my brother so much- I don’t even know if he’s alive anymore- I haven’t seen him in ages- it’s all my fault- I just –“

his face was filled with tears, which fell down his cheeks who were dusted with a yellow hue. Cross looked at him for a hot second before whispering- “ I still don’t hate you.” Dream flinched- he didn’t expect this reaction at all, “w-what?” cross continued- “from what I understand, this wasn’t on your own free will, people imprisoned you, and used you for their own benefits, I’m sorry, but they’re the only monsters I see here.”

dream looked at cross for a couple seconds- he just- wasn’t he afraid? Disgusted?  He didn’t say a word, but the other smiled- “it’s not your fault dream, and I won’t hate you for something you didn’t do. So please-“ he took dream’s cheeks in his hands, “I have a favor to ask as well, when they’ll try to chain you up that day, spill a drop of blood from that heart locket, and I’ll come- please- let me help you”

Dream kept gazing into cross’s eyes; his beautiful mismatched ones were shining bright at night, and he could feel the heat on his cheeks being blown away by the other’s ice cold hands-

when he noticed that the other was cupping his cheeks in his hands, he was glad the other was cold blooded, because his face was getting even hotter than before. Cross wanted to add something, to do something, but the other took his hands, and buried his face in them- “…thank you cross- i-“ he wanted to say, to add a word, it but just sighed- “thank you for your help.”

****************************

this is the eleventh part of vampireAU dark cream.

i wanted to draw on a new program, because the brushes were amazing! still, i am not really used to the settings yet, so i have to practice on it a bit more-

i tried to write a part of their past, and you can probably guess, but each full moon, dream transforms into shattered; he murders people to feed off of their negativity, like nightmare did

but why and how did he even get cursed in the first place? how can the heart locket be useful, and where is ink’s role in all of this? 

you’ll seee :)))

edit: forgot the credits

dream is made by jokublog

cross is made by @jakei95​

dark cream was made by @zu-is-here​

first- previous- next

[yellowocaballero]

Human Relations Snippet: Tim teaches Jon the internet and odious goats are sacrificed to the cult of Bezos

There’s no reason for this to exist. I was rereading a bit of HR and I saw a throwaway joke about Jon wanting to buy Martin a Portal Gun. I started wondering about how that would even work. The answer is, obviously, a 200 year old man squinting at a computer screen wondering why there’s so many horny singles in his area. I get possessed by demons easily, so I took three hours out of writing my daemon au and wrote this instead. Bon Appetit. 

(Edit, quick clarification: I think that Jon would refuse to use the name for the Beholding that Smirke made up, and although all of this exists in my head and you guys don’t know this, there was a lot of tension between Jon and Jonah’s ‘circle’. So Jon hated Smirke and thought he was a hack. He uses Smirke’s terms to others sometimes for ease of understanding or in deference to Jonah (:/) but I think that mentally he mainly calls the Beholding his own name, The Witness. It rings of that personal and intimate connection Jon and the Beholding has. Anyway, onto the story.)

After one hour in anguished uncertainty, fifty popups that advised Jon of very many ‘hot singles in his area’, six separate sites that Jon’s God had to inform him were covers for thieves that stole money from you, and a very confusing retreat to Jon’s favorite internet page ‘Wikipedia’ as to what an Amazon was, Jon had given up.

Normally this was where he asked one of his personal assistants for help. Normally, he wouldn’t even be trying, and he would have just told one of them to do it. This was how Jon had cunningly mostly avoided using computers for the past twenty years. Some endeavors were unavoidable, and Jon was proud to say that he mastered email in 2010. Or was it 2008? He liked to think it was 2006, but it was possible...never mind. If it was important, the Witness would tell him. 

After one hour in anguished uncertainty, fifty popups that advised Jon of very many ‘hot singles in his area’, six separate sites that Jon’s God had to inform him were covers for thieves that stole money from you, and a very confusing retreat to Jon’s favorite internet page ‘Wikipedia’ as to what an Amazon was, Jon had given up.

Normally this was where he asked one of his personal assistants for help. Normally, he wouldn’t even be trying, and he would have just told one of them to do it. This was how Jon had cunningly mostly avoided using computers for the past twenty years. Some endeavors were unavoidable, and Jon was proud to say that he mastered email in 2010. Or was it 2008? He liked to think it was 2006, but it was possible...never mind. If it was important, the Witness would tell him.

Peter Lukas was right on almost nothing, Jon thought disgruntledly as he slammed his laptop shut - including in his taste of men, company, philosophies, men, patron deities, professions, and men - but he was right in his proclamation that the internet was the degradation of society. Not that he hadn’t sacrificed his morality and sold out, feeding his patron through something called “incel forums” and “Reddit”. Between him, Jonah’s “Excel spreadsheets” and “TurboTax”, and Annabelle Cane’s ridiculous “MMO guilds”, the Society was filling with computer geeks. Jon could always read the wind: he had to keep up, and quickly. 

Besides, Martin had kindly educated him on how it was almost unheard of for a young man like Jon to not understand how to work that Goggle thing. Giggle? Martin was very streetwise and was one of the most insightful people Jon had ever known, he was definitely right. 

Which is why he had to buy him this “Portal Gun” that he wanted. He had even shown Jon the website! And if Jon was in desperate times trying to navigate these confusing webpages entirely with URLs he memorized, then he would take desperate measures!

“I’m going down to the Archives,” Jon said, slithering off the couch and clutching his laptop to chest. Jonah had bought it for him. He appeared surprised that Jon was using it. “I may not be back for a while. I need...a book.”

Jonah didn’t look away from his own infernal machine. It seemed he was on that ‘Excel’ program again. Was it one of those ‘video games’ he kept hearing about? “Do I want to know what you were doing on that laptop.”

“Reading Wikipedia,” Jon said immediately, and somewhat defensively. Jon had discovered Wikipedia in 2001 before promptly funding it and throwing his weight behind its development. He had spent a solid five years convinced a computer was a kind of electronic screen that let you read digital Encyclopedia pages, like in Star Trek. He’d seen Star Trek. Georgie made him. “Did you know that -”

“Yes, yes, have fun. Haven’t you read that entire site already?”

“Not even,” Jon said defensively. “I can’t just sit and read through entire Encyclopedias anymore, Jonah. We know more things now.”

“What a way to describe the last two hundred years,” Jonah said, not even looking away from his computer. “We know more things. Never change, Jon.”

“You’re the one who never changes,” Jon grumbled. But it was a weak comeback, and considering his brand new delightfully short stature somewhat untrue, so Jon breezed out of Jonah’s office with full knowledge that he’d think of a better comeback halfway down the steps to the Archives.

In fact, it wasn’t until he was at the door, and by then he felt stupid for losing a point against Jonah anyway. He easily opened the door, stepping inside and quickly bee-lining for Sasha’s office. Her burgeoning powers were wonderfully flowing in the shape of access to and understanding of technology. He had never seen such gratuitous breeches of privacy as she casually committed. Every day Jon was validated in his decision to save her from the Stranger. A balance, an equal yet opposite Archivist from Jon, would be invaluable. Not that Jonah and Jon weren’t their own yin and yang, but Jonah’s powers were paltry and out-of-date. Mind reading and spying through iconography was so 1960. They needed fresh blood. 

Sasha had been a wonderful choice, and Jon didn’t regret choosing her to act as saviour. Most of the time. Some of the time she -

“She’s not in.”

Jon’s fist halted in front of the door, about to sharply rap on her office door. He turned around to actually look through the bullpen, only to see that Timothy was sitting in his chair chewing a sandwich. Somehow angrily. Definitely suspiciously. 

“Are you sure?” Jon asked dubiously. “Because you’ve lied about this before.”

“Because you should stop coming down here and bothering her.” Timothy balled the saran wrap in his hand and dunked it in the trash can, somehow undoubtedly giving the impression that he wished it was Jon’s head. “Just bugger off.”

Someone was in a snit. Normally Timothy wasn’t this hostile. Jon had thought that learning his name might make him less mean, but it did little to help. But when Jon looked around he didn’t see Martin, and a quick check assured him that both Sasha and Martin were having lunch at their favorite deli and engaging in that plotting hobby they both enjoyed. Timothy had elected to stay behind, stewing in his own angry and paranoid juices. 

He would have to do this with Martin out of the Archives...and he really wanted to take care of this now so Martin would get it before the weekend...and it wasn’t as if Jon was scared of this boy he was one hundred and seventy years older than…

“Uh,” Jon said intelligently, “can you help me with...something…”

Timothy’s face twisted in a novel combination of surprise and disgust. “What,” he sneered, “your evil fear god or whatever can’t figure it out for you?”

“I don’t need others to think for me,” Jon said stiffly. It was something he’d had to say far too many times. “The Witness is less helpful with...troubleshooting...look, do you know how to work a computer?”

Timothy stared at him blankly. “Like, at all?”

“I’m trying to buy Martin this toy he desires,” Jon said desperately. Fuck it all, he walked over and sat down in the chair next to Tim’s desk. He pulled a little bit closer, placing his laptop on Tim’s desk, and ignored the way the other man leaned away. “But whenever I try I keep on seeing alerts about hot singles. I’m not interested in young women, I just need to buy a ‘Portal Gun’. Do you know what a Portal Gun is?”

Timothy continued staring at him, eyebrows raised. Clearly involuntarily, so quick that he may not even have noticed, one corner of his lips was ticking upwards into a smile. 

“How many credit card scams have you fallen for?”

“Absolutely none,” Jon said, very quickly. He pulled out his credit card, placing it on the table. He knew a credit card was involved, although he didn’t know how. “What do I do? Do I swipe it? Is there a port?” He picked up the laptop and squinted at its sides, looking for a port. “I wanted to ask Sasha for help, since she’s the expert in hacking, but surely you know the basics?”

“I mean...I can’t, like, code, but yeah, I can work Amazon.” Timothy carefully opened the laptop, watching the display light up. He effortlessly navigated to an icon on the screen, clicking it open. 

“That’s not right,” Jon said urgently. “You’re supposed to press the E.”

“I do not want to know how many toolbars you have,” Timothy said bluntly. “We’re using Chrome. That’s another way to look at the Internet.” He rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, I got a grandmother, we can do this.”

Jon perked up. “So you’ll help?”

Went unsaid: even though you hate me?

“Whatever,” Timothy grumbled. Jon decided not to press his luck. 

Jon decided that he liked the Chrome better than the Internet Explorer, because it was simpler and Google was on the first page. Tim rapidly typed on ‘Amazon.com’ into the search bar and easily scrolled through the very busy and picture filled page that immediately popped up. Why was everything so fast? Maybe this was why the young people had no attention span: these pages just came up immediately. No flipping for indices for finding anything in phone books. 

“Right. What was it, a Portal Gun? Like from the game?”

“A board game?”

“Video game.”

“Like on a VHS…?”

“Right.” Tim pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know, Sasha said that you’re one of the most famous sociologists and anthropologists in British history.”

“I am extremely intelligent, Timothy, and I won’t abide any insinuation otherwise,” Jon said curtly. “I cannot be expected to keep constant track every time there’s another - iPhone or whatever. You have teenagers in your family, correct? Do you always know what they’re talking about? That’s, what, a twenty year age gap? Multiply that by ten.”

That shut him up. Timothy sighed again, much more aggressively, but he clicked the white bar and typed in ‘portal gun’ anyway. “Right. Not fucking apologizing, but right. I still don’t fucking know what ‘Twitch’ is.”

“It’s a brief spasmodic contraction of the muscle fibers,” Jon said helpfully. “Fascinatingly, this phenomenon was first observed in frog’s legs before I was even born in 1780, by Luigi Galvani. Erudite man, by the way, but he couldn’t hold his liquor. It was the birth of the study of bioelectricity, although the exact mechanism of muscle contraction eluded scientists for years.”

“Never mind.” Timothy sighed again, the perfect mix of aggravated and long-suffering. It seemed to be the man’s two favorite emotions. “My grandmother has a PhD and she still can’t figure out her cell, either. We had to get her a Jitterbug.”

Amazon, as Timothy explained, was a kind of shopping mall, except you could pick out what you wanted by its picture and have the shopping mall pack it up and send it to you. Jon didn’t quite understand why people preferred this to just going to a shop yourself, seeing as you could get it immediately instead of with a three or four day turnaround, but Tim explained that Amazon was cheaper, had a wider selection, and didn’t make you get off the couch.

“Oh,” Jon said, finally getting it, “this follows the economic model of large scale businesses underpricing their products to undercut smaller businesses in the area, driving them out of business until they hold monopoly over the market and can raise their prices without worrying about staying competitive.”

Timothy stared at him. 

“I mean,” he said, “I guess?”

“This explains why my Alexa project was successful so quickly,” Jon mused. “With a lack of competition or alternatives, consumers are more likely to accept the dramatic invasions of privacy as normal. Normalizing intrusions into privacy took ages, but my early efforts paid off very well. The Ring doorbell was even better, along with the line of security and home protection systems. We’re now working on live streamed 24/7 surveillance to social media platforms.”

Timothy stared at him further. 

Finally, he said, “Alexa was...you?”

“Of course,” Jon said, baffled. Who else would it be? “I gave Jeff the idea and convinced him it would be profitable. I didn’t understand the whole mechanics of it, but once I gave Jeff a vision from the Witness he was eager to implement the divinely inspired spyware.”

Timothy continued to stare. 

“The evil fear god controls Jeff Bezos.”

“He thinks I’m a prophet, actually,” Jon said helpfully. “I let him become Cardinal of the imaginary cult in exchange for funding some of my more esoteric programs. Had him sacrifice a goat and everything, it was great.” At Timothy’s alarmed look, Jon was quick to elaborate, “It was the most evil goat you’ve met in your life. Morally odious.”

“...for my sanity I’m going to pretend that you said none of that.”

In retrospect, although Timothy had worked at the Institute for a few years, it did take quite a bit of time to acclimate to the fact that the Avatars permanently shaped the shape of human existence in order to better feed their gods. Jon knew better than anyone: when humanity made gods, and gods made man, and man made gods...the feedback loop could self-perpetuate for years. Eternity, if needed. 

But they had no luck on ‘Amazon’. With Jon’s eidetic memory he was able to easily pick out the one that looked most similar to the one that Martin had showed him, but all of the little toy guns were for someone named ‘Rick’. Then Timothy took twenty laborious minutes explaining the entire plot of ‘Rick & Morty’ to him, which Jon patiently sat through. 

“I think young people today deeply enjoy explaining media,” Jon said, once Timothy finished telling him the funny jokes. “I’m very interested in your interests, Timothy.”

“You are so fucking condescending. And please call me Tim, you’re sounding even more like my grandmother.” When Jon brightened, Tim - Tim! - quickly said, “This does not mean we are friends.”

Granted, Jon had never once in his life gave a shit about making friends, but he felt as if he should be making more of an effort with Tim. He was a sort of supernatural brother in law, wasn’t he? Although Sasha perhaps Sasha was more of a favored niece. At least, he would be, if today’s generation found some morality and stopped living in sin. 

Good lord. Now he was sounding like Jonah. Georgie used to joke that he was born in the wrong generation - he should have been born a 17th century Puritan instead. Jon found it a very funny joke. Jonah did not. 

“Are there any other shopping websites?” Jon asked finally, after Amazon failed them. He’d have to call up Jeff later and complain. “Or is this the only one?”

Tim sighed. “Let’s check Google.”

Quickly and efficiently, yet with many lightning fast detours, Tim found another site called ‘eBay’ - pronounced ‘e-Bay’, not ‘ehbay’ - that listed off exactly what they needed. They weren’t under the toy section, instead listed as something called ‘cosplay’, but Tim seemed highly resistant to explaining that one, so he dropped it. 

They picked a likely looking white toy gun that looked the most similar to the one that Martin had liked and Tim talked Jon through punching in the numbers on his card into the website and sorting through the billing and shipping information. Tim helpfully took down the numbers on his card to file later. 

“And...done!” Tim said, pressing a button and leaning back. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“It was ten times as complicated as I thought it would be,” Jon assured him, “but also much more fun. What else can you buy online?”

“Oh, god. What can’t you buy.”

Jon brightened. “Can you buy books?”

“Old Gertrude used to buy Leitners on eBay,” Tim said dully, “so yeah, sure, why not.”

Jon stared at his computer. He carefully navigated the mouse to the big red x and clicked out of the internet browser. “That’s enough of eBay, then, I think.”

Guess he would have to stick to buying Leitners in person. It was no good buying fucked up books from sketchy sources. Always stick to people you trusted, or at least trusted to be themselves. Mikaele was Jon’s favorite supplier since the kid Leitner disappeared, and they had a pleasant working relationship. Mikaele shared his grandfather’s stories about the history and culture of the Maori, and Jon told him which of his haunted artifacts would be the most helpful in the imminent apocalypse. 

“Well,” Tim said finally, gently pushing Jon’s laptop away, “that was...something, great bonding session with my local supervillain, please run back to Elias and bother him instead.”

“You were very helpful, Mr. Stoker,” Jon said, as professionally yet paternally as possible. Tim was six years older than his body, so he’s not sure how it came off, but the touch of grey at his temples helped with the dignified air. “And as soon as you start acting like a man and propose to my Archivist, you’ll make an excellent brother in law -”

“Uh, excuse me?”

Jon spun around in his chair to see Sasha and Martin standing at the door, holding doggy bags and looking somewhat flummoxed. Probably confused at the sight of him and Tim having a civil conversation, which admittedly had never happened before. Possibly also confused at how completely mortified Tim looked. 

“Who said anything about proposing?” Sasha asked incredulously. “Tim, are you -”

“No! No, god no!” Tim stood up quickly, holding his hands out as if he was placating a raging bull. “Nobody’s been saying anything - I would never do that to you -”

“Oh,” Sasha said frostily, crossing her arms and letting the bags swing, “would you.”

That was a domestic Jon should stay out of, even though he definitely caused it. He and Martin sidled away in tandem, huddling near the back of the Archives as Tim frantically pled for his life. 

Sneakily, Jon glanced at Martin out of the corner of his eye. He looked happy. Happy, and just as stressed as he always looked - Jon had never known Martin when he wasn’t constantly stressed out, and he was more than aware that it was his fault. 

He looked good, too. Really nice, broad jawline that gave his face a friendly round shape. Just friendly and round in general, it was really handsome. His hair was as nicely short and ruffles as ever. The big glasses were super stylish, and really framed his face well. Really big, broad hands. Jon, who had always been so poky and tall and thin and gaunt, like some kind of haunted scarecrow that lurked through the corners of time, was envious. He wanted some of that softness and gentleness. Really, he wanted some of Martin’s -

“So what were you and Tim doing?” Martin asked. “I didn’t know you knew he existed.”

“You told me his name,” Jon said anxiously. “I don’t forget the things you tell me, you know.”

Martin smiled shyly and him, and Jon found himself smiling back. “It’s pretty good for my ego to hear that I have something to teach the immortal genius.”

“I don’t know,” Jon said, as Sasha yelled in the background, “I’ve been learning a lot lately.”

“Really?” Martin teased. “Anything interesting?”

“Oh,” Jon said, watching the yellow fluorescent light cast Martin’s dim smile in soft relief, “I can think of a few things.”

[oversimplify-it]

Story Process Tag by @herpixels​

I was tagged by @dynastiasimss​ - Thank you so much for tagging me!! 😊💖💗 This will most definitely get a bit wordy because I’m terrible at explaining things concisely! 😂 Also, I’ll mostly be talking about my process for 2.B.A Grandmaster but I’ll touch on my process for Erin in San Myshuno too!

I’m also going to get tags out of the way up here so that no one has to scroll all the way through this ... absolute novel that is under the cut LMAO so I tag: @cyansimblr  @x-simss @matchacake and any other simblrs who wanna do this!! and feel free to skip if you want!

1. Your writing process My writing process is very, very chaotic, and changes with the wind... Erin in San Myshuno doesn’t really have a process, I just play the game and then put in some dialogue based on the events. None of it is guided by my hand at all though! 2.B.A Grandmaster on the other hand is written in part based on what happens in game and in part by my own creative vision. Most of the time, I let stuff happen, and then fill in the blanks in between events. I go in game, play Sims as I normally would (skill build, take care of needs, go out to venues, etc.) and then watch what weird and interesting things happen. For example, Augusta’s meeting with Xavier in the beginning was completely the game’s doing! He was the only one to show up for the Welcome Wagon event, so I rolled with that. Scenes like Kaitlin’s meeting with Maverick and those sort of things are planned by me, as they’re necessary to create a more full narrative! It’s like collaborative storytelling, but my “partner” is a game that is weird and random and crazy. 😂 After stuff happens in game and I get screenshots, I then actually write for it. I chose to write novel style for the series because - as some of my long-term followers may remember - I had another story that was just screenshots with dialogue on them? And it was very hard, LOL, it didn’t suit my workflow very well and I ended up dropping it after a month or so. I wanted 2.B.A Grandmaster to be something I could post consistently, and so I opted for a style that I was more familiar and experienced with!

2. Scene building For the most part, I just work with what sims gives me, but as I mentioned above, some scenes I actually go to the trouble of setting up. For those, I still use the sims animations mostly (I’ve used poses about 3 times in 2.B.A Grandmaster so far) but I do usher my sims around the "set” as I see fit. I build a lot of my own lots and locations for 2.B.A GM because I tend to get a vision in my mind of what I want and refuse to settle for less. 😂 One such case is the scene where Maverick meets up with Octavia--

I made the alleyway we see here - it’s two entirely empty buildings sandwiched side by side on an otherwise empty lot in Oasis Springs. The only part I bothered to decorate was the alley itself because I knew I wasn’t going to use the rest of the area, but maybe we’ll revisit it sometime and I’ll finish the two buildings! I actually loved making this set and like how it turned out, LOL~

Then I just have whatever sims are involved in a scene interact with each other for ages until I feel like I have enough screenshots to make a scene. I usually have a vague idea of what’s going to be said in any given scene - especially the ones I actually planned out beforehand - but I get some excess screenshots to be safe. I try lots of different interactions and pause like every few frames to get interesting expressions and stuff, LOL. Lots of “Complain about Cold Weather” and “Give fake bad news” ...

3. CC/Pose making I don’t actually make my own CC for 2.B.A GM specifically (I’ve made a couple eyeshadows but I don’t use them super frequently) but there is a scene coming up in the future that I plan to make poses for. I have a very clear image in my mind that includes a lot of subtle expressions and very specific things that I doubt I could find poses for, so I’m gonna have to brave the terrifying landscape of blender in order to make it a reality. 😧

4. Getting in the zone I don’t have any sort of “ok, show time” ritual like some people do but I wish I did, because my motivation waxes and wanes so unpredictably. Some days I just don’t feel like doing anything, and other days I edit and write for 5 posts in a row! I am always listening to something though, usually music, every once in a blue moon a video with lots of talking. 5. Screenshot folder

UGH... 

6. Captions I don’t do captions on 2.B.A GM posts, but for my city living gameplay I do! I keep them simple, because I don’t want to make it too much work for myself. Erin in San Myshuno’s style of editing is 100% based around ease, because I wanted something to post often that didn’t put too much of a strain on me. Verdana in white, typically 35-40 px, with a gradient border. Each sim we encounter has a different gradient color, usually based on their outfit or just the ~vibe~ I get from them. Erin’s gradient is Hot pink to ... gee, what would you call it. Sonic the Hedgehog Blue LMAO-- I chose that gradient because that’s the color of the overlay, which I’ll talk more about in the next section!

7. Editing My two ‘series’ - and I use that term loosely LMAO - have different editing processes, so I’ll try to summarize them both. Basically, for 2.B.A Grandmaster, I touch up the saturation and brightness depending on the scene. If it’s evening in the shots, I usually won’t touch brightness, and if it’s night, I might even lower it a bit for more accurate lighting! Once that’s done, I blur everything but relevant elements of a scene, usually the character we’re following or who is speaking. I have to select the character from the background manually which takes a bit, but other than that it’s very minimal.

My shots aren’t super glamorous, but I prefer simple screenshots and actually being able to keep up with a story schedule as opposed to what happened with my last story. 😬 As for Erin in San Myshuno, barring captions which I only do when I feel it’s necessary, it’s literally just an overlay on otherwise untouched screenshots. 😭 I would do more, but again, it’s supposed to be an easy downtime sort of series for me so~

This goes over top all screenshots on the “Add” setting at 20% opacity. It brightens things up and softens them, as well as making the colors slightly more harmonious! If anyone wants me to go more in depth on editing, or maybe captions, please let me know! I’m happy to talk about it if it’ll help anyone, and I know that a lot of tutorials cover how to do stuff in Photoshop, whereas I use FireAlpaca (which is 100% free btw! It’s more of an art program, but not bad for editing) 8. Throwback!

Oh boy, so this is one of my first posts on simblr. For starters, I didn’t know about camera mode at the time, so that’s the first thing I would change obviously LOL. 😬 The framing I did at the time was ... cute, but it makes the pictures feel kind of cramped and small in my opinion, so I did away with that for all of my later stories. Also, Amy and Gemma aren’t very well centered in this picture! Other than that, this isn’t actually terrible I don’t think, so aside from maybe blurring the background as I do on 2.B.A GM now, I wouldn’t change too much! Thankfully, I had observed other people’s stories before making my own on here for a little bit, so I wasn’t starting with absolutely no idea what to do, but I still think I’ve improved since I made these. 😊

This was a ton of fun!! If anyone has questions or wants more info on anything I covered in here, absolutely feel free to ask, and thank you so much if you actually read through all of this - I know I rambled for quite a while!! 🙏

[loquaciousquark]

I’m not very good at keeping up with life updates. I don’t know why! I never have been!

Carol moved out August 9th, about a week extra over the original two months we’d agreed on. She got an apartment about five minutes away, which is about 40 minutes from her job. I recommended getting an apartment closer to her job to ease the commute, but she said she strongly preferred being near to her friends and the city center. (She also had the option of a $650/mo lease for a year or $1100/mo for a six month lease at this complex, and opted for the shorter lease even though she couldn’t afford the $1100. She also insisted on a two bed 1.5 bath apartment instead of a much cheaper one bed one bath, and I don’t know why. Her financial choices continue to bewilder me.)

I helped her move, because she has a number of physical disabilities and a fairly total inability to accurately predict the scope of a job like this. She insisted to me multiple times that all she was picking up from her estranged mother’s home was a few books, a desk, a chair, and a small round end table. She came back with a fifteen foot Uhaul packed top to bottom with dozens of pieces of (often very heavy) furniture, tubs upon tubs upon tubs of books (not small boxes, like 40 gallon tubs immobile with books) and a lot of...I don’t know how to describe it.

Honestly, it reminded me of a hoarder’s home from those TLC shows. She had so much stuff, and almost all of it was...garbage. Like, stained, discolored, moldy, dirty, dusty furniture and blankets and clothes that were covered in mouse droppings and bird crap. An ancient armchair that she called “antique” but was made of very cheap very damaged veneered pressed wood and whose upholstery was of an indeterminate color because of how stained it was. A “display piece” of an old suitcase she picked up in some thrift store that was locked shut with what felt like twenty pounds of bricks inside, but the outside wasn’t even attractive - just an ugly brown box with no care or craftwork that was scratched and torn and stained with mouse poop. It honestly made me uneasy to touch it, and she was putting it in her apartment to use.

I don’t know how she thought she was going to be able to get all of this stuff down the half-flight of stairs to her apartment by herself. I helped her unload for four hours before I had another obligation, then came back after that finished for another hour or two of unloading to get it in her apartment securely. It was...very tiring, but also very exhilarating to be physically closing that chapter as well as mentally. I don’t intend to do it again.

--

My job (professor) started back in person on a regular basis the following week in August. We’ve now been in class for almost two months and no students that I directly interact with (my 46ish 2nd year students) have had any exposures or at risk scenarios. A small handful of 3rd and 4th years have had exposures, and I think one student actually tested positive, but none of the exposures or positive results were from our clinic or labs; they were all from community transmission (wife/husband/child/roommate caught it from somewhere else, student had to quarantine).

I have been almost draconian with my 2nd years about the thin line we’re walking in being allowed to have even our minimal, limited in-person labs, and have warned them that if we have an exposure breach in our clinic, there is zero chance they graduate on time in a few years. They seem to be taking it extremely seriously, which I like a lot. All students, staff, and faculty are given new surgical masks daily, and everyone who interacts with patients gets a new n95 mask every 10 days. We have decontamination stations throughout the building, temperature guns, digital “passports” that they have to update daily to be allowed on campus, and plenty of spray bottles with high level disinfectant for surfaces and hands. It’s honestly as safe as we can make it, and I feel we’ve hit a good balance between staying safe and getting them actually trained on real human beings.

That said, we are having more students than I’ve ever had fail exams and practicals across the board, and I honestly think it’s an artifact of the remote lectures (all lectures are remote unless specified for particular reasons, and then they only take place in distanceable classrooms, which are at max like 70% of the class). God knows I wouldn’t have learned as well at home - I’d have been on my phone or playing games and kind of half listening in the background, and if nothing else this has made me more of a proponent of mandatory attendance once it’s safe again to do so, because the drop I’m seeing is almost precipitous. Either this class is unusually full of students incapable of completing the program, or COVID’s striking again. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.

On the other hand, we’re FINALLY making up the Injections course material that got stopped dead in spring, and the first run of it went very well last Saturday. I unequivocally resent that I have to give up an entire Saturday to do so (and will have to do so thrice more to get all the students done this semester), but it’s at least one chunk of incompletes that are now passes (and in fact, mostly As).

We just got the notification that hybrid courses will continue through spring. It’s so exhausting. We can do it safely, and we are, but it’s so hard.

--

Went to get a drink last night before bed and noticed the tea was a little warm. Went to grab some ice cubes from the freezer and discovered the ice cube tray was full of water, and the chocolate ice cream in the door had melted and spread across the entire unit.

Managed to get a repair guy out this afternoon, who charged $228 to replace the ...relay overload array capacitor, or something. He showed me what it was--a little black and white box that he said was bottom of the barrel cheap from China, which I fully believe, and installed a new one then and there while I had a remote test review with a student over Zoom. I put on headphones for her privacy, but she cried several times. It’s usually a pretty rough awakening when students who never had to study in college realize how difficult this program is and the study time required to pass, let alone succeed.

Anyway, the freezer’s chucking out cold air like it was made for it, and the fridge seems to be slowly working its way back down. Had to throw out everything from the freezer (chicken, steak, ground beef, bacon, veggies, frozen meals--and some pizza rolls) and I’m not looking forward to the grocery bill it’ll take to restock the fridge either, but at least it seems to be functioning again.

I just checked; the freezer’s made six ice cubes in the last three hours. I’ve put them all in my tea to celebrate.

--

Edit: just checked again and the fridge is slowly cooling off, thank goodness! Of course, I somehow managed to fall down the four stairs of the hall between here and there and bruise the royal bejeezus out of both hips and somehow the inside of my left foot, so I’m ordering in for dinner, because nuts to that.

[tartrazeen]

Hank's Arc through HankCon

If the magazines in this game are supposed to be symbolic, then holy shit, does it say something that the first magazine we see in a scene for Hank and Connor is that one for the Eden Club ("Sex with androids is awesome possum, gentlemen"), followed by the second article on 'Is your android spying on you?'

It's a canon fact that androids are hot. That little quip from Ben going, "So, you got yourself an android, huh?" gets us that, "Haha, very funny," line from Hank, which goes noticeably unexplained. There was a great Hankcon theory from igamrgirlzunite explaining this, as well as for that magazine in Hank's room at his own house, and it builds into the famous exchange at the Bridge with Hank asking what Connor really is.

For this magazine though, it's neat to see it symbolize a surface attraction - from Hank to Connor, playing neatly into that does-not-need-explaining-apparently joke from Ben - followed by a deep mistrust for anything Connor says.

This scene can open with Hank feeling neutral because Connor bought him a drink, or pissed that Connor's an asshole. It can also have Hank annoyed at Connor for insisting on coming along because his instructions say to, yet still getting a little boost in their relationship from it. Tying those two articles of the magazine together, we've got a guy who thinks that no matter what Connor's like on the surface, underneath he's a machine designed to fool Hank into being friends (which Hank throws at him in the Machine!Connor path). It's all a ruse to manipulate Hank into lowering his guard, and this first magazine is telling us how Hank feels about that: he ain't havin' it, and it'd be better if Connor just admits that that's what's happening.

If Connor apologizes at the Chicken Feed, Hank comments on it being a brown-nosing program. Later, Hank says Connor's got a goofy voice and weird face. But he's not a guy who's shy about being harsh or blunt ("Well they fucked up" is literally his next line), so for him to pick 'goofy' over 'ugly' or something implies a certain fondness for what he's seeing, coupled with an extreme aversion to being tricked into liking it - so, the canon lets Hank bury it under being a dick.

The magazine at Hank's house later says androids make for better romantic partners (which is what CyberLife specifically intends for the 'other North' - that BL model), but gets followed by the deeper layer/article on androids' active psychology programs.

It's a more elaborate take on the first magazine's symbolism: instead of just being a boytoy, Hank should have a better sense of who Connor in terms of a partner, and would be wondering why in hell Connor takes so much of an interest in him. He's moved on from thinking Connor's spying to learn which details can buy Hank's cooperation, because he's already asked Connor about that at the Chicken Feed. The question isn't *if* Connor was reading up on him - that's assumed. Hank's asking what Connor *thinks* of all of it, what he wants that information for. Just work? Maybe... not all for work?

Even if Connor puts Hank at ease, it only crosses off one of the theories Hank has. This second magazine now has him toying with whether Connor's pitying him for being some broken mess of a man, and planning to go when the mission's done and neatly tying in with Hank's outburst in the bathtub ("You and your fucking mission, that's all you care about").

Worse in Hank's opinion, and *as* a broken mess of a man, he might only be thinking Connor feels pity - or interest - because he can't tell what's sincere and what's just a psychological program any more. That draws on the two conclusions Connor could make to boost their relationship last chapter, but now we see Hank flipping in how he feels about being right: he's much less of a fan, and the personal questions at the Bridge start to *hit* their relationship as those thoughts dig in.

It puts Hank's reaction to the Tracis in better context. Connor shooting them confirms he's a machine accomplishing a mission. Connor sparing them freaks Hank right the fuck out, because holy shit, what if Connor *can* feel and might *actually* like Hank but fuck you, Connor, because if you could really feel, you'd panic when Hank puts a gun in your face, haha Professor Drunk strikes again.

That gun on the Bridge scene is like a precursor to the fucked up Kamski test that's coming. Hank's trying to figure out if all those thoughts he's had and hints he thinks Connor's been laying down are real or from a machine functioning according to plan. That's why it's great that Connor's wink back at the Chicken Feed blends in with Connor getting a report: did Hank really see it, or was he misinterpreting a machine's response to a new message?

When we get to the actual Kamski test offering 'proof' on whether Connor's a machine or not, Hank has backed off on wanting to know for sure. Not knowing leaves room for hope. Hope is safe, and hope comes with plausible deniability. Hope doesn't hurt. Because of Cole, we see how well Hank does with trying to come to grips with a painful reality. When the test is on, he's telling Connor not to do it, but we know he can yank the guy away from there. He doesn't. Because hope is also kinda tempting. The right answer might be waiting - he knows this whole thing is awful, he doesn't want that girl to get shot, but between that test's before and after, we see he's shifted from, "Don't play this stupid game, it doesn't matter, we don't care," to "Don't. Don't shoot. Decide your own fate and show me that you're real."

With how it goes, Hank can either take that as a fucking *rough* confirmation of exactly what he was afraid of (the "I thought you were..." line that trails off) or a pretty hopeful hint that... actually kinda sinks in for once. Hank lowers his guard. It's not a concrete confirmation of anything, obviously, but... it mattered. It's nice.

So that is why, upon meeting the Deviant Leader, Connor choosing to remain a machine is a HARD FUCKING BETRAYAL. Despite everything - despite how careful Hank was, how sure he was, how safe it seemed to try and trust Connor a little - Hank had been right from the start. And there's no coming back from that. Same with being such a dick to Hank that he quits anyway. It's not that Connor's alive but that Hank's alone, and he's too lost in it to care about anything else. He gives in to that darkness.

If instead you make it to CyberLife Tower, you've got the real and final test. It's not about whether Connor's alive or not. Hank knows he is, based on - or even despite of - everything that's happened so far. There's even room to argue that 'alive' isn't that important to Hank, either. He's interested in these androids' freedom, literally and conceptually, so this is about whether Connor freely feels something for Hank. Aliive or not, it doesn't mean it couldn't have all still just been to spy and out of psychological pity.

It's why it matters that Hank's asking questions. Even if you get one right, he just asks another. He knows Connor knows this stuff - does Connor *care*? Was there an inherent, personal interest in learning about things that weren't all just about work? Those personal questions that Hank found so annoying before, back when it could've been manipulation and programming - was that what it was, or was Connor genuinely asking? Was Hank right or wrong?

Connor would've had to put Hank above the revolution to get to this point, refusing to risk him even at the cost of losing these hundreds of thousands of androids they need. It means something. It clicks when Connor puts enough emotion into his 'final answer' for Hank to understand that no matter what it was before, it's real now. It had probably been real for a while.

It's also why 60's parting shot if Hank messes up ("Wrong choice, Lieutenant") cuts deeper in that moment than 60's victory quip when it's Connor choosing wrong ("He really liked you, Lieutenant. That's what killed him"). Both hammer home what Hank has lost, both pin it on Hank himself, but with Connor's memories, 60 can confirm that Hank just failed his own mission: he never learned to trust in what they could've had, and now because of him, they'll never have it.

Unless they do. And then they hug. :)

--

--

Edit: P.S - I lied, yes it fucking does get explained.

More Edit: sweet I found a Tumblr gif of that line